Rebecca Stephenson, University College Dublin
Have you ever wondered why the extra day of the leap year falls on February 29, an odd date in the middle of the year, and not at the end of the year on December 32? There is a simple answer, and a slightly more complex one.
Anaïs Walsdorf, University of Warwick
In November the Wellcome Collection closed their Medicine Man gallery. In a Twitter thread, they acknowledged that “the display still perpetuates a version of medical history that is based on racist, sexist and ableist theories and language.”
Parveen Akhtar, Aston University
Following his uncontested run at the top job, Rishi Sunak acquires the less-than-coveted title of second successive un-elected British prime minister to take office in 2022. However, coming from Punjabi heritage, he also takes on the more esteemed title of the nation’s first British Asian leader.
Victoria Honeyman, University of Leeds
When Rishi Sunak lost to Liz Truss in the first Conservative Party leadership race of 2022, few were surprised. Many of the people given the chance to choose between the two candidates blamed Sunak for Boris Johnson’s downfall. They also preferred Truss’s “optimistic” economic policies to Sunak’s sombre assessment of the fiscal outlook. Where she promised generous tax arrangements, he argued that economic circumstances would be hard and taxes could not be cut in the short term. Indeed, he warned, they might even have to rise.