The Beautiful Game is a film of second chances — where teams of homeless men and women from around the world find that all roads lead to Rome and everything’s to play for. Starring Bill Nighy as coach Mal, it follows the England team as they prepare for the Homelessness World Cup in Rome. At the last minute, Mal decides to bring with them a talented striker Vinny (Michael Ward), who could give them a chance at winning, but only if he’s ready to let go of his past and become part of the team. The Homelessness World Cup is a real football tournament and the film was made by the foundation respon ..read more

Some years ago, I found myself making my way up the narrow stairs of a Learjet on a sultry runway in a deserted airport near the South Africa-Mozambique border. The humidity was there to taste – the air thick with it. The weather radar was showing a fast-developing thundercloud. Our mission was to fly through the most active part of the storm, measure it, fly through again while dumping a bin load of dry ice, turn hard and fly through for a final measurement. The inside of the Learjet resembled a food blender, so severe was the turbulence. Thousands of meters below, a smaller plane would be th ..read more

OlegD/Shutterstock Every spring and summer, when the weather improves, the numbers of people trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe drastically increase, sometimes tripling. Distressing photos and headlines dominate front pages, and politicians stoke negative narratives about migration. People migrate for many reasons: safety, work, education, family or adventure. Even though politicians like to divide migrants into neat categories, such as refugees and economic migrants, the messy reality is that most people moving fit into several categories at once. This makes it all the harder for gov ..read more

Hateful graffiti and other imagery plague communities across the UK, spreading a toxic message of division. Such graffiti targets people based on race, religion, sexual orientation, disability and gender identity. And sprayed graffiti is only one part of the problem. Hateful imagery can range from stickers and QR codes to leaflets, posters and engravings. These types of symbols and text can be used by organised extremist groups for coded communication, recruitment and to highlight their presence in an area. Unfortunately, there is no comprehensive system for recording these types of images in ..read more

George Gershwin’s 1924 composition Rhapsody in Blue is so timeless that it seems scarcely possible that he composed it 100 years ago. Its centenary offers us a special opportunity to celebrate this iconic work that defies time and place. As the director of University of Plymouth’s Musica Viva concert series, I organised a special celebration concert on January 27, featuring the London Gershwin Players conducted by the wonderful Mark Forkgen. It was an all-Gershwin programme that also included the overture to the musical Girl Crazy, A Porgy and Bess Fantasy and An American in Paris. But rather ..read more

The world’s oldest conjoined twins, Lori and George Schappell, recently died, aged 62. Doctors predicted that the twins (who were joined at the skull and shared 30% of their brain) would not live past the age of 30. But the twins defied expectations and managed to live long and successful lives. The twins made headlines in 2007 when George came out as transgender. Conjoined twins are incredibly rare, accounting for about one or two in every 100,000 births. Sadly, about 60% of conjoined twin births are stillborn or die shortly after birth. Conjoined female twins are three times more likely to s ..read more

Exercise is actually very good for the joints. Fotokostic/ Shutterstock As someone who started marathon running in mid-life, I know how many aches and pains (and doubts) you can have if you take on the challenge to start running at an older age. But as an orthopaedic surgeon who has replaced thousands of worn-out hips and knees throughout my career, I also know just how much exercise actually helps the joints. Hobbling around my orthopaedic hospital after my first marathon actually led me to do research on runners. After conducting 1,000 MRI scans of the joints of mid-life exercisers (both run ..read more

D-Visions / Shutterstock A giant of particle physics, Peter Wade Higgs, passed away at his home in Edinburgh on April 8 2024, having lived to 94 years. His unparalleled legacy, epitomised by the discovery of the Higgs boson, continues to profoundly shape the future of particle physics like no other discovery before it. This is the story of his legacy. When Higgs was born in 1929, our understanding of matter was completely different. Physicists had developed a simple model of matter with three fundamental, or elementary, particles (those that can’t be broken down into smaller particles). These ..read more

The military standoff between two of the Middle East’s regional powers, Israel and Iran, risks escalating into a wider conflict that could plunge the entire region into a complete state of chaos. Following Iran’s barrage of drone and missile attacks on April 13, Israel has retaliated and conducted a strike attack near the city of Isfahan in southern Iran. Both sides have now matched each other in striking targets within each other’s national border. But the contrast in the two countries conventional capabilities is now becoming apparent. While Iran’s attack, involving more than 300 projectiles ..read more

Liz Truss’s 49 days as UK prime minister will probably be best remembered for her 2022 “mini budget”. Her plan for £45 billion of unfunded tax cuts led to economic panic, caused chaos on the financial markets, and she was forced to quit her job. But she still appears to be fairly resolute about her economic philosophy. Busy promoting her new memoir, she has dismissed anyone who blames her for crashing the UK economy as “stupid or malevolent”. She has also been fiercely critical of two independent institutions she blames for standing in her way – the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) and t ..read more