Committee for the Defence of the Iranian People’s Rights general secretary GAWAIN LITTLE discusses the impact of the US-Israeli war on the Iranian people and economy
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Sugar rush: the sweet science of human genetic adaptation
ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT examine how new genetic research reveals the rapid pace of human evolution in response to agricultural development, offering insights Marx would have found fascinating
A 2600BC depiction of a king in Sumer, an early human civilisation in the fertile crescent where humans had adapted to eat starchy foods through farming
[Michel Wal/Creative Commons]
Capitalism has extracted itself from crisis before, argues PRABHAT PATNAIK – but through methods no longer available. So it is turning to authoritarianism, militarism and neocolonialism
The five young men killed in the A66 crash were responsible for a devastating tragedy — but the crash should force us to ask difficult questions about wider society, argues RENATA MEDEIROS MIRRA
Britain funds the policing of black culture 16 times better than the culture itself. The Diamond Jubilee is the moment to end that, argues CLAUDIA WEBBE
Despite Andy Burnham’s declaration defending the continued partition of the island, all major international and internal trends are converging to make Irish reunification inevitable
Humans are part of the ‘animal kingdom’ – and of nature in general – but also distinct from it and labour (work) is part of what makes us unique, declared Engels. His insights 150 years ago into how our species came to be and how we differ from the rest of nature, are as important today as they were then, says the MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY
THE taste of food is something that seems fundamental. In Marx’s view, expressed in A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859), a physical property like taste provides a measure of the use-value of a commodity as distinct from its exchange-value: “From the taste of wheat, it is not possible to tell who produced it, a Russian serf, a French peasant or an English capitalist.”
Today, humanity consumes nearly 800 million metric tons of wheat a year. Other foods such as potatoes, rice, and different cereal crops are essential to diets around the world.
All of these contain large amounts of carbohydrates in the form of starch molecules. These molecules were made by the plants as an energy store. When plants photosynthesise, they use sunlight to convert water and carbon dioxide into glucose molecules.
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Humans are part of the ‘animal kingdom’ – and of nature in general – but also distinct from it and labour (work) is part of what makes us unique, declared Engels. His insights 150 years ago into how our species came to be and how we differ from the rest of nature, are as important today as they were then, says the MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY
![Meat [Pic: Cindie Hansen / Creative Commons]](https://msd11.gn.apc.org/sites/default/files/styles/desktop/public/2026-07/cindie-hansen-8IQlsHB2OS8-unsplash.jpg.webp?itok=AgeMqKnO)
Innovation in biotechnology is changing how we conceive of meat, say ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT of SCIENCE AND SOCIETY
Nature as well as society works dialectically, asserts the Marx Memorial Library and Workers’ School
New research into mutations in sperm helps us better understand why they occur, while debunking a few myths in the process, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT