+ Ski sickness hits the slopes
| | | | Joint defence spending will again be on the agenda in Brussels today, where Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky will brief EU leaders on his 'fruitful' phone call with US president Donald Trump yesterday. While talk is warm, however, it's clear that the terms on offer from Moscow for a limited cessation of bombing campaigns against Ukrainian energy infrastructure are very far from a 'ceasefire', regardless of how Trump describes the situation. Europe's 'coalition of the willing' will be moving forward with its own plans. Like many experts, Francesco Grillo, of Bocconi University in Milan, welcomes the fresh energy going into Europe's shared defence endeavours. But he fears that meetings like the one happening today tend to get bogged down in circular conversations about what percentage of GDP member states should be spending. This is blocking more important technical conversations about how the money should be spent. Are old-fashioned fighter jets worth our euros in a world increasingly defined by combat-by-drone? And how can we ensure any public money funneled into military technology ends up benefitting European taxpayers further down the line? These are the technical considerations that are suddenly highly political. Alarming new figures from the World Health Organization show that Europe has had its worst outbreak of measles since 1997. Cases soared to 127,350 in 2024 and health experts are clear that misinformation about vaccines is to blame. This is one of the terrible consequences of COVID trauma that we continue to feel today. The way in which political leaders allowed vaccines to become a polarising culture war was one of Europe's biggest failings five years ago, according to microbiologist Ignacio López-Goñi. His assessment of what we have and have not learned from the pandemic is a mixed bag. And while we can say that we now know more about SARS-CoV-2 than any other pathogen, we're still no better prepared for a pandemic than we were in 2020. Archaeologists in Spain have unearthed a million-year-old bone fragment which they have now identified as the face of the first known western European. It's a thrilling find for a team that has already been responsible for two record-breaking digs. They've named their human Pink, for very sweet reasons. Here, a member of the team that dated Pink's face explains how they worked out that they'd blown previous fossil records out of the water. Foggy conditions in the Alps had holidaymakers feeling queasy on the slopes recently, drawing attention to a little known condition. You've heard of car sickness and sea sickness — but how about ski sickness? When the ground is dazzling white and so is the sky, it's easy to become disoriented, just as you might on a boat. You may end up seeing your raclette again as a result. A bit of a first-world problem for sure, but one worth knowing about before you book a chalet. |  | Laura Hood Senior Politics Editor, London | |  Francesco Grillo, Bocconi University European nations are caught in a conversation about spending as a percentage of GDP instead of focusing on what to do with the money. | | |  Michele Testoni, IE University Military recruitment and the nuclear deterrent are key to the ReArm programme. | |  Christo Atanasov Kostov, IE University Trump's appeasement of Putin is alienating its allies and encouraging its enemies – including China. |  Michael Head, University of Southampton Measles resurgence in Europe highlights need for higher vaccination rates. | |  María Martinón-Torres, Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH) The bone fragments belong to an extinct species of human who lived 1.4 million years ago. | | | | |  William Emond, Université de Technologie de Belfort-Montbéliard Have you ever heard of ski sickness? This little-known condition is akin to motion sickness and seasickness. Here's what we know. | | | -
Ignacio López-Goñi, Universidad de Navarra We have learned some lessons, but five years on, our healthcare and information services are still vulnerable. -
Armin Steinbach, HEC Paris Business School Trade policy must evolve to prioritise economic security and resilience -
Brad Harris, HEC Paris Business School Research shows that "deviant" workplace behaviour is more widespread than some may think. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
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