The United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are strengthening their strategic ties by formalising two major agreements focused on energy collaboration and critical mineral supply chains.
The UK has unveiled the winners of its Quantum Testbed Competition; the seven companies will lead the development and delivery of quantum computing testbeds at the National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC) in South Oxfordshire by March 2025.
A staggering 51.6 million Americans live with pain daily; Ellen Smith from the U.S. Pain Foundation tells us about how medical cannabis supports her management of chronic pain.
A new model using microbial genetic information highlights how soil microbes efficiently store carbon from plant roots, which is crucial for climate change mitigation and informing sustainable agricultural strategies worldwide.
In December, the House of Lords called for an urgent overhaul of education, especially at the secondary level, arguing the current focus is now almost entirely academically focused, at the expense of a broader range of knowledge, skills and behaviours.
UK health research funding reached £5 billion in 2022, but is now plateauing, according to the UK Health Research Analysis 2022. The report, commissioned by the UK Clinical Research Collaboration (UKCRC), provides the most detailed overview yet of UK health research funding from 2004 to 2022 from all public sectors.
Scientists at the University of Virginia have used the power of machine learning to identify potential drugs that could significantly reduce harmful scarring following a heart attack or other injuries.
Peter Williams, CEO of SMS Tech (Smart Manufacturing Solutions Technology), walks us through NHS-driven evolution in healthcare management, an aspect of adapting excellence.
Laying the digital groundwork by connecting communities is a key responsibility of local authorities, and the right foundations can attract investment and drive inclusive growth.
In an announcement from the UK Government, over 2,000 homes and businesses could expect to be heated with sewer power as part of a new Green Heating Project backed by £11 million.
![Figure 1: Sketch of the evolution of the Universe over the last 13.77 billion years. It started with the Big Bang, followed by an extremely short period of rapid exponential expansion. The furthest we can see is the cosmic microwave background, when radiation decoupled from matter, approximately 380,000 years after the Big Bang. This is followed by the ‘dark ages,’ during which this radiation redshifted from the visible regime into infrared and sub-mm wavelengths. The occurrence of the first stars, about 400 million years after the Big Bang, ended this phase, spearheading the formation of galaxies as we see them today. [Credit: NASA/WMAP Science Team, public domain]](https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Fig-1_1200.jpg)
