News: December 2019

Boris Johnson is planning radical changes to the UK constitution – here are the ones you need to know about

With a very large majority in parliament, Boris Johnson is planning radical changes to the UK constitution. His party claims that far reaching reforms are needed because of a “destabilising and potentially extremely damaging rift between politicians and the people” under the last parliament. The issue at the centre of this “damaging rift”, however, is whether the proposals for constitutional change are a democratic necessity or a cynical attempt by the Conservative government to bolster its power.

This article by Stephen Clear, Lecturer in Constitutional and Administrative Law, and Public Procurement, at Bangor Law School is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Publication date: 19 December 2019

Popular Poet and blogger publishes

Poet Carol Rumens, Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at the School of Languages, Literatures & Linguistics closes 2019 with two well-received recently published books.

Publication date: 18 December 2019

The Holyhead Christmas Day Murder – 1909

On Boxing Day 1909 the residents of Holyhead awoke to shocking news. The previous night a 35 year old woman, Gwen Ellen Jones, had been brutally murdered. One newspaper graphically reported that her head had been nearly severed.  Her killer, 49 year old William Murphy, gave himself up and was committed for trial at Beaumaris Assizes on 26 January 1910.

William Murphy’s name has gained notoriety as the last man to be hanged at Caernarfon Gaol.  But what about the woman he killed? New research revealed by Bangor University’s Colclough Centre for the History and Culture of the Book, focusses on written evidence to reveal the life of the victim of this violent crime.

Publication date: 16 December 2019

Can African smallholders farm themselves out of poverty?

A great deal of research on agriculture in Africa is organised around the premise that intensification can take smallholder farmers out of poverty. The emphasis in programming often focuses on technologies that increase farm productivity and management practices that go along with them.

Yet the returns of such technologies are not often evaluated within a whole-farm context. And – critically – the returns for smallholders with very little available land have not received sufficient attention.

This article by David Harris, School of Natural Sciences; Jordan Chamberlin, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), and Kai Mausch, World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF)is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Publication date: 11 December 2019

Behind Eyes Wide Shut

A symposium, the only one of its kind to be held in the UK, will explore the legacy of Eyes Wide Shut, film director, Stanley Kubrick's final film. 

The event is a collaboration between the UAL Archives and Special Collections Centre and Bangor University. 

Publication date: 10 December 2019

Why some scientists want to rewrite the history of how we learned to walk

It’s not often that a fossil truly rewrites human evolution, but the recent discovery of an ancient extinct ape has some scientists very excited. According to its discoverers, Danuvius guggenmosi combines some human-like features with others that look like those of living chimpanzees. They suggest that it would have had an entirely distinct way of moving that combined upright walking with swinging from branches. And they claim that this probably makes it similar to the last shared ancestor of humans and chimps.

This article by Vivien Shaw of the School of Medical Sciences and Isabelle Catherine Winder, of the School of Natural Sciences, is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Publication date: 5 December 2019