A review of Anu Bradford, “Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology” (Oxford University Press, 2023) A European digital privacy activist lodges an appeal with the High Court of Ireland, arguing that the Irish Data Protection Commissioner’s refusal to prohibit transfer of his personal data to the U.S. by global technology giant Facebook (now...
My students tend to imagine the Middle Ages as something like the “Kingdom Come” or “Total War” video games: an age of utter political chaos, when swords and daggers ruled, and masculinity and physical strength mattered more than governance. As a historian of the Middle Ages, I believe this turbulent image has less to do...
Tanzania’s Serengeti ecosystem is like a time machine. As one of the world’s last remaining fully intact grazing ecosystems it provides a glimpse of what others in Australia, Eurasia and the Americas might have looked like when communities of large grazing mammals roamed freely across these continents. During the Late Pleistocene, which spanned from 129,000...
A shortage of cocoa beans has led to a near shutdown of processing plants in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, the two countries responsible for 60% of global production. With chocolate makers around the world reliant on west Africa for cocoa, there is significant concern about the impact on the prices of chocolate and the livelihood...
Captive chimpanzees are one of the most popular species kept in zoos because of their charismatic appeal and similarity to humans. They are the closest living relatives of humans because of the shared genes and behavioural and psychological similarities. Zoos are ethically bound to care for the animals they house. Many provide environments that care...
The cacao tree (Theobroma cacao), whose beans (cocoa) are used to make products including chocolate, liquor and cocoa butter, may have spread from the Amazon basin to the other regions of South and Central America at least 5,000 years ago via trade routes, suggests a paper published in Scientific Reports. These findings, based on residues in...
World hunger is growing at an alarming rate, with prolonged conflicts, climate change, and COVID-19 exacerbating the problem. In 2022, the World Food Programme helped a record 158 million people. On this trajectory, the United Nations’ goal to eradicate hunger by 2030 appears increasingly unattainable. New research at McGill University shines the spotlight on a...
Radio is thriving across Africa. Exact figures are difficult to come by because audience research differs across countries. But studies estimate radio listenership to be between 60% and 80% of the continent’s 1.4 billion population. In contrast to many western countries, where there has been a shift towards streaming and podcasts, traditional radio continues to...
In the context of the international search for energy transition alternatives, one of the most promising topics today is green hydrogen. And Brazil is one of the countries best placed to lead the production of this abundant, cheap and potentially efficient energy alternative. But after all, what is green hydrogen, and why does Brazil have...
The recently released film The Snow Society , by Spanish director JA Bayona, about the legendary plane crash of a Uruguayan rugby team in the Andes in 1972 has been a smash hit in cinemas and streaming platforms around the world. And a very striking aspect of this story is the issue of cannibalism practiced by the survivors in...
