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How to avoid breaking New Year’s Resolutions – don’t make them in first place?

17 January 2017

Research has shown that the majority of British adults will break their New Year’s resolution by the second week of January. What is it about the time of year that makes us more susceptible to breaking those promises to ourselves? Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Dr Meg-John Barker, explores why we set ourselves these goals, and […]

How old is our moon

12 January 2017

Most scientists agree that the Earth has pretty much always had its moon. Details of the moon’s composition (in particular the “isotopic mixture” of heavier and lighter versions of various elements) are too similar to the Earth’s for it to have been captured from somewhere remote. However, some compositional details differ enough to rule out […]

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Why the solution to ‘fake news’ is education, not technology

11 January 2017

This opinion article has been published by Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at The Open University, Philip Seargeant Since the Trump victory, and the Brexit result before that, the issue of ‘fake news’ has barely been out of the real news. Social media companies, such as Facebook, have been criticised for their role in […]

Obama’s Iran legacy is noble, complicated – and endangered

11 January 2017

When Barack Obama became US president, his principal foreign policy was clear: to maintain the US’s global leadership role while simultaneously scaling back on the interventionist excesses of George W. Bush. And few issues pulled those priorities together as neatly as did the dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme. Iranian-Western relations had nosedived during the younger […]

NHS under the microscope in new OU/BBC documentary

10 January 2017

From A&E overcrowding, to cancelled operations and morally complex medical ethics, Hospital is the story of the NHS in exceptional times. The six-part series provides an insight into the ever-increasing demands on the NHS service with unique access to one of the UK’s biggest and busiest NHS Trusts, Imperial College Healthcare, London. The first episode […]

Radio show tribute to Asa Briggs: The Last Victorian Improver

4 January 2017

In a special ‘Archive on 4’ programme Tristram Hunt MP explores the exhaustingly energetic life of one of his heroes – the historian Asa Briggs, who was instrumental in the founding of the University of Sussex and The Open University. The programme airs on BBC Radio 4 this Saturday 7th January at 8pm. From a […]

UK House Price Outlook: The long rise stutters, but not because of policy

30 December 2016

Lecturer in Economics, Alan Shipman, discusses the delicate balancing act the government has to perform and why a new social divide may be emerging. After another rise of more than 8% in 2016, UK house prices set for flatter – and bumpier – terrain in 2017-20. The likely levelling is mainly caused not by government […]

5 fitness trends for 2017

29 December 2016

Simon Rea, OU Lecturer in Sport and Fitness, takes a look back at sport in 2016 and examines the big trends in fitness for 2017… More people are getting involved in sport As 2016 comes to an end Sport England released a very positive report saying that the number of women playing sport has reached […]

Brontë blockbuster tells story of remarkable sisters

28 December 2016

They came from obscurity to produce some of the greatest novels in the English Language. The story of the Brontë sisters, authors of Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre and the Tenant of Wildfell Hall, is told with a new one-off drama on BBC One, To Walk Invisible, which airs on Thursday 29 December at 9pm and is […]

Festive feast over? There is always room for another course.

26 December 2016

It’s Boxing Day and you have munched enough chocolate, pudding, and turkey to sustain you for another twelve months; however, there is always room for another course. If you are bored on Boxing Day and there isn’t anything of interest on TV – even though you have 846 channels – then dine on the OpenLearn […]

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