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Being in a relationship can mean having a lot of similarities with your partner. Whether that’s sharing the same hobbies and interests, eating the same meals or following a similar daily routine. After years together, you might even start to pick up the same mannerisms and turns of phrase.
But the similarities don’t stop there. It turns out that we can be similar to our soulmate on a microbial level — with research showing that partners share around 13-30% of the resident microbes living in their gut. Depending on what microbes you share with your partner, this could have many implications for health.
We also explore how the recent damage to Qatar’s gas infrastructure could not only push costs higher today, but also for years to come.
And finally, an expert looks at what the end of short prison sentences in the UK will mean for prison overcrowding.
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Heather Kroeker
Commissioning Editor, Health + Medicine
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Living with your partner can influence the microbiome.
PeopleImages/ Shutterstock
Conor Meehan, Nottingham Trent University; Janelle Mwerinde, Nottingham Trent University
Research also shows that couples share around 38% of the same microbes in their mouth.
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Qatar’s Ras Laffan “energy city” was hit by Iranian strikes.
PaPicasso/Shutterstock
Adi Imsirovic, University of Oxford
The plant is the largest of its kind in the world – and it suffered extensive damage.
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AnnaStills/Shutterstock
Jake Phillips, University of Cambridge
People sentenced for similar offences are more likely to offend after a short prison sentence than if they had been given a community sanction.
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World
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Trang Chu, University of Oxford; Tim Morris, University of Oxford
Rhetoric on both sides has gone from criticising the behaviour of their adversary to labeling its character as fundamentally ‘evil’.
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Tom Vaughan, University of Leeds; Sciences Po
The war in Iran has exposed fundamental problems within the nuclear ‘non-proliferation’ project.
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Politics + Society
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Christopher Saville, Bangor University
Former coal communities face higher death rates from suicide, drugs and alcohol revealing lasting effects of industrial decline.
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Arts + Culture
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Tom Hemingway, University of Warwick
Despite fears the US format would not work in the UK, SNL UK’s first episode went off without a hitch.
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Business + Economy
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Helen Yaffe, University of Glasgow
The US is determined to starve Cuba of the revenues it raises from exporting healthcare workers.
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Environment
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Jenny Hall, York St John University; Brendan Paddison, York St John University
Events where people sit down and watch the sun go down are becoming popular in the Netherlands.
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Health
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Mohammad Hossein Amirhosseini, University of East London
Your workplace wellbeing app may be doing more than tracking your mood. It could be analysing your voice, your words and your behaviour – and you may never have been told.
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Lyndsay Murray, University of Edinburgh
Scotland is now screening every newborn for a condition that can kill within two years. Here is what parents across the UK need to know.
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Jane Entwistle, Northumbria University, Newcastle
Exposure to lead remains one of the leading environmental risk factors for early death and poor health globally.
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Science + Technology
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Adnan Haq, University of South Wales
Could cooling the brain reduce the risk of altitude sickness? Scientists are beginning to explore the idea.
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Ed Macaulay, Queen Mary University of London
The film embraces the theories of relativity in a way that’s rare to see in science fiction cinema.
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2 March - 30 September 2026
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3 March - 15 May 2026
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Glasgow
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11 March - 11 April 2026
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20 - 27 March 2026
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Wivenhoe Park, Colchester
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