By John Horgan, University of Massachusetts Lowell

“Feet first”. That’s how one terrorist leader told recruits was the only way out. It makes sense. Allowing members to just walk away wouldn’t be good for the group’s image.

By Tessa Evans, The Conversation

By Temitope Oluwafemi, University of Washington

By Amanda Bates, University of Southampton

We live in a time when our climate is warming more rapidly than ever before. Rising temperature and associated changes in weather are driving shifts in the distributions of species on Earth.

Some are thriving in these new climate conditions and have even moved into new regions that were historically inhospitable.

One concern for us humans is how harmful species – diseases or pests – are responding to a changing climate.

By Sue Thomas, Bournemouth University

Looking over the landscape I could see an old tree standing frozen and seemingly dead, its branches coated with icy rime. Around it, mossy grass and small rocks lay beneath a coating of snow and in the distance glistening waterfalls tumbled down the sides of whitened mountains.

It looked like the wilds of Ireland in wintertime, but the view existed only in my phone. My task, using a handheld biosensor called PIP, was to bring summer to this deeply cold outdoor scene by the powers of mental relaxation.

By Camilla Nelson, University of Notre Dame Australia

It’s official: men are better writers than women.

The news came as something of a shock to a hardened feminist such as myself, but a quick survey of prescribed and suggested texts set for senior English in most Australian states demonstrates this is a fact routinely taught to teenagers in school.