2024 was the first calendar year more than 1.5C warmer than pre-industrial times. Copernicus says 2026 is virtually certain to be the second, but the Paris Agreement limit refers to a 20-year average, not single years.
The world is getting older because people are having fewer children and living longer. The UN projects that people aged 65 and over will outnumber children under 18 by the late 2070s, with Japan, Europe and China already feeling the effects.
No major city has completely run dry, but Tehran, Mexico City and Cape Town have come close. Drought is the trigger; the deeper cause is decades of over-pumping, which a UN report now calls "water bankruptcy".
Cocoa traded above $12,000 a tonne in 2024 and around $4,700 in November 2026. Chocolate prices have not followed, because manufacturers buy cocoa months in advance and are still working through beans bought near the peak.
Trials of a four-day week on full pay have consistently found less burnout and few signs of lost output, and most participating employers keep the model. The evidence is promising but comes mostly from organisations that chose to take part.
More large employers now require staff in the office three to five days a week, but working from home has not disappeared. In the US, about a quarter of paid workdays are still done from home, and office attendance peaks mid-week.
AI agents are assistants that carry out multi-step tasks, such as filling forms or booking travel, instead of only answering questions. They are now built into browsers and office tools, but security agencies warn their weaknesses cannot be fully fixed.
The EU AI Act's bans and general-purpose AI rules already apply, and transparency duties started in August 2026. A 2026 amendment pushed the main high-risk obligations back to December 2027 and August 2028.
A passkey is a sign-in credential made of two cryptographic keys, one kept on your device and one held by the website, so there is no password to steal or type. As of October 2026, the FIDO Alliance estimates 7 billion passkeys are in use.
Long-term memories last because the brain strengthens connections between neurons, then reorganises and reinforces them over days to years, much of it during sleep. Recent mouse studies have identified molecules and gene programmes that keep memories stable.
Lithium-ion batteries can be recycled by smelting, chemical leaching or newer direct methods, recovering metals such as lithium, cobalt and nickel. About a fifth of battery lithium is now recycled, and the EU requires 50% recovery by the end of 2027.
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile began its 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time on 30 June 2026. It photographs the whole southern sky every few nights, sending millions of public alerts about changes each night.
GLP-1 medicines such as semaglutide and tirzepatide are now approved in the US to cut heart, kidney and liver risks and to treat sleep apnoea. Not every hope has held up: a large Alzheimer's trial failed in 2025.
Most adults need at least seven hours of sleep a night, and the main expert ranges are seven to nine hours, or seven to eight after 65. A 2026 review of a decade of research left those ranges unchanged.
A heat pump moves heat from outside air or the ground into a home, delivering more heat than the electricity it uses. European sales rose 13% in 2025 after two years of decline, led by Germany.
The oceans absorb more than 91% of the extra heat trapped by greenhouse gases, and their heat content set a record for the ninth year running in 2025. In October 2026, sea surface temperatures hit another monthly record.
Library borrowing is at record levels, but mostly on phones: digital loans through the Libby app passed 820 million in 2025. In-person use has recovered since the pandemic, while in England staff numbers have nearly halved since 2010.
In the streaming era, intros vanished and the average charting song fell to about three minutes. Streaming pays per play, not per minute. Yet the top 10 hits of 2024 were the longest since 2017, a sign the shrinking may have peaked.
In the United States, vinyl records have outsold CDs every year since 2022, and vinyl revenue passed $1 billion in 2025. In the first half of 2026, however, CD sales grew much faster than vinyl, and in the UK the CD still sells more units.
Home fermentation is safe when you follow tested methods: the right amount of salt, vegetables kept under brine, steady temperatures and clean equipment. Official US guidance also says to discard anything mouldy, foul-smelling or in a bulging container.
Randomised trials link the Mediterranean diet to roughly 30% fewer heart attacks, strokes and cardiovascular deaths in high-risk people. Evidence on longevity and dementia is promising but mostly observational, and some headline effects shrink once lifestyle is accounted for.
Europe's sleeper network changed sharply in 2026. A cooperative operator revived Paris–Berlin and launched Brussels–Milan, while state-backed routes such as Paris–Vienna disappeared. Demand is strong; the cost of running night trains is the problem.
Europe received a record 793 million international tourists in 2025. Venice, Barcelona and Amsterdam now use entry fees, higher taxes and limits on holiday lets, and in November 2026 the EU adopted its first tourism strategy.
Nine months after the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, Milan's athletes' village houses students and the IOC calls the spread-out model a success. The costly Cortina sliding track, damaged after the Games, is the legacy still being tested.
Padel is expanding fast: courts, clubs and players have multiplied, and it made its Asian Games debut in 2026. But player estimates range from 19 million to 40 million, and no study proves it is the world's fastest-growing sport.
