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Hedgehogs have been part of human culture for thousands of years. Across different societies, they’ve been symbols of fertility, protection and healing, as well as fear, superstition and suspicion.

Around 117,000 people living in England and Wales had a hip replacement in 2024. Although hip replacements are often thought of as a surgery that mainly older people need, reports from previous years show that around 43% of these operations are done in people aged 50 to 69 years old.

Belgian theatre director Ivo Van Hove is no stranger to American playwright Arthur Miller, directing acclaimed productions of A View From the Bridge at the Young Vic in 2014, with a transfer to London’s West End in 2015, and The Crucible on Broadway in 2016. Now he has another hit…

In 2005, psychologist Cliff Arnall coined the term “Blue Monday” as part of a marketing campaign for a British travel agency to encourage people to book a holiday during the winter. Using a pseudo-scientific formula, the third Monday in January was determined to be the “bluest” day of the year,…

Many businesses say they’re suffering from labour shortages, but what are their management practices and what measures could be put in place to retain experienced workers?

“Turn right after the first big tree; my house is the one with the yellow door.” In parts of South Africa, where settlements have grown without formal urban planning due to rapid urbanisation, that could well be a person’s “address”.

At the 2025 global climate summit, COP30, held in Belém, Brazil, one decision stood out with major consequences for Africa: countries agreed on a new set of progress indicators.

The Department of Homeland Security in September 2025 said that 2 million undocumented immigrants had been forced out of the United States since the start of Donald Trump’s second presidency.

Pete Hegseth, the current defense secretary, has stressed what he calls the “warrior ethos,” while other Americans seem to have embraced a renewed interest in “warrior culture.”

Health and medicine is more than just biological – societal forces can get under your skin and cause illness. Medical sociologists like me study these forces by treating society itself as our laboratory. Health and illness are our experiments in uncovering meaning, power and inequality, and how it affects all…

Much of the western U.S. has started 2026 in the midst of a snow drought. That might sound surprising, given the record precipitation from atmospheric rivers hitting the region in recent weeks, but those storms were actually part of the problem.