Science | The Guardian

Critics say it is a missed chance to recognise that the planet irrevocably left its natural state in the mid-20th centuryThe guardians of the world's official geological timescale have firmly rejected a proposal to declare an Anthropocene epoch, after an epic academic row.The proposal would have designated the period from 1952 as the Anthropocene to reflect the planet-changing impact of humanity. It would have ended the Holocene epoch, the 11,700 years of stable climate since the last ice age and during which human civilisation arose. Continue reading...

Research into children's body odours also found babies smell of flowers and soap, eliciting parental affectionPuberty makes teenagers' armpits smell of cheese, goat and even urine, scientists in Germany have discovered.The particular chemical compounds that make up pubescent body odour have been singled out, should anyone want to bottle eau du teenager". Continue reading...

We give things up when we believe we can change; we give up when we believe we can't. By Adam Phillips Continue reading...

Four in 10 UK patients do not find a match and those from non-white backgrounds find it more difficultPete McCleave first heard about stem cells during his sciences degree in the 1990s. I knew about them, I just didn't know what they could be used for," he says. It all sounded very pie in the sky." It wasn't until two decades later when McCleave was diagnosed with myeloma blood cancer that he came across stem cells again. This time, he needed them to save his life.I was told that really the only chance I have, the best chance I have in seeing beyond the seven years I was given [to live] was finding a stem cell donor match," he explains. His doctor reassured him that it would be easy to find a match because of his white-European background. But almost eight years later, he is still searching. Continue reading...

Kermitops gratus are thought to be among first true amphibians and a key step in transition of life from water to landAfter achieving worldwide fame through numerous hit films and TV shows, leading to a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, Kermit the Frog has another accolade: a 270m-year-old fossil named after him.Scientists have discovered a species of an ancient amphibian ancestor, which they have named Kermitops gratus because of its resemblance to the bright green star of The Muppet Show. Continue reading...

The mass deaths were puzzling scientists around the world - there were no signs of viruses or parasites. Then we looked closely at their skinIt was while we were sitting and talking in a hotel bar at the first global congress of herpetology that the world's amphibian experts realised there was a problem: frogs, toads, salamanders and newts were disappearing in their thousands around the world and nobody understood why.Not a single talk at the 1989 congress at the University of Kent had discussed the strange disappearance of the world's amphibians. But scientist after scientist had the same story: from Central America to Australia, they were vanishing. Continue reading...

In late 2016, US officials in Cuba's capital began experiencing a mysterious and often debilitating set of symptoms that came to be known as Havana syndrome. As two new studies into the condition are published, Ian Sample speaks to the Guardian's world affairs editor, Julian Borger, who has been following the story, and to the consultant neurologist Prof Jon Stone, about what could be behind the conditionFollow all of Julian Borger's reporting here Continue reading...

Trials in UK, France and the Netherlands indicate tool can predict if patient will experience problems from surgery and radiotherapyDoctors have developed an artificial intelligence tool that can predict which breast cancer patients are more at risk of side-effects after treatment.Worldwide, 2 million women are diagnosed every year with the disease, which is the most common cancer in females in most countries. Continue reading...

Fossil of giant river dolphin found in Peru, whose closest living relation is in South Asia, gives clues to future extinction threatsScientists have discovered the fossilised skull of a giant river dolphin, from a species thought to have fled the ocean and sought refuge in Peru's Amazonian rivers 16m years ago. The extinct species would have measured up to 3.5 metres long, making it the largest river dolphin ever found.The discovery of this new species, Pebanista yacuruna, highlights the looming risks to the world's remaining river dolphins, all of which face similar extinction threats in the next 20 to 40 years, according to the lead author of new research published in Science Advances today. Aldo Benites-Palomino said it belonged to the Platanistoidea family of dolphins commonly found in oceans between 24m and 16m years ago. Continue reading...

Incredibly tough plants can tolerate intense cold and prolonged darkness, but temperature has also been risingMosses are the plant superheroes of Antarctica, steadily colonising parts of the continent, building up into plump green cushions or even deep banks on bare ground, some of it newly exposed by melting ice and snow.These are incredibly tough plants that only grow slowly in the harsh Antarctic climate, tolerating intense cold, prolonged dryness, powerful ultraviolet light and prolonged winter darkness. They often survive for nine to 10 months dormant under winter snow, using their own antifreeze to prevent their cells icing up. In their brief growing season, the mosses thaw out, soak up water like sponges and spring back to life. They can even withstand being buried under glaciers for centuries. One moss was found to be 1,530 years old; trapped in ice, it resurrected itself after thawing out. Continue reading...

Settlement on stilts dropped into River Nene after a fire nearly 3,000 years ago and was preserved in siltA bronze age settlement built on stilts that dropped like a coffee plunger" into a river after a catastrophic fire has provided a window on our past lives, according to the archaeologist that led the investigation of the Cambridgeshire site.Must Farm, nicknamed the Pompeii of the Fens, offers exceptional clarity" because of a combination of charring and waterlogging, said Mark Knight, of Cambridge University's archaeological unit. Continue reading...

Pembrolizumab is used to treat triple-negative form of disease but researchers say it could be used more widelyThousands more women with breast cancer could benefit from a blockbuster immunotherapy drug than previously thought, research suggests.Pembrolizumab, sold under the brand name Keytruda, targets and blocks a specific protein on the surface of certain immune cells that then seek out and destroy the cancerous cells. Continue reading...

People with excessive flexibility 30% more likely to say they had not fully recovered from Covid, research findsPeople with excessively flexible joints may be at heightened risk of long Covid and persistent fatigue, research suggests.Hypermobility is where some or all of a person's joints have an unusually large range of movement due to differences in the structure of their connective tissues that support, protect and give structure to organs, joints and other tissues. Continue reading...

Engineers need to be sensitive to how exclusion occurs or they risk making health inequity worse, say Prof Steven Johnson and Prof Jonathan EnsorThe independent review on equity in medical devices once again highlights the multiple ways in which medical technology development can lead to solutions whereby the benefits are distributed inequitably across society, or can further exacerbate health inequalities (UK report reveals bias within medical tools and devices, 11 March). While the report is welcome, the challenge facing scientists and engineers is how to innovate medical devices differently to respond to longstanding societal biases and inequalities.This means doing two things. First, it is essential to move beyond a superficial engagement with patients. As the report emphasises, technology development cannot be based only on the expertise of engineers or the knowledge of healthcare professionals. It needs to respond to the different social, cultural and health experiences of diverse groups of people. To be effective, this means recognising differences and actively supporting marginalised groups to represent themselves. Continue reading...

Britain's biggest drugmaker's latest acquisition will help it to develop new radiotherapy treatments

A growing movement of ecologists, lawyers and artists is arguing that nature should have legal rights. By recognising the rights of ecosystems and other species, advocates hope that they can gain better protection. Madeleine Finlay speaks to the Guardian's global environment editor, Jonathan Watts, about where this movement has come from and why the UK government has dismissed the concept, and hears from Cesar Rodriguez-Garavito of NYU School of Law about how he is finding creative ways to give rights to natureCould 2024 be the year nature rights enter the political mainstream?UK government can never accept idea nature has rights delegate tells UN Continue reading...

UN chief Antonio Guterres says risk of nuclear war has escalated and that humanity cannot survive a sequel to Oppenheimer'The US and Japan are sponsoring a UN security council resolution calling on all nations not to deploy or develop nuclear weapons in space, the US ambassador has announced.Linda Thomas-Greenfield told a UN security council meeting that any placement of nuclear weapons into orbit around the Earth would be unprecedented, dangerous, and unacceptable." Continue reading...

The answers to today's puzzlesEarlier today I set these puzzles by Lewis Carroll, who as well as writing books like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, was also a prolific puzzle setter.1. The Chelsea Pensioners Continue reading...

Researchers are running trials on how hormone therapies affect trans people that will also benefit healthcare for the wider populationWhen Cameron Whitley was diagnosed with kidney failure seven years ago, the news came as a shock. But the situation was about to get worse. His doctor decided the diagnosis meant Whitley's hormone therapy had to stop.As a transgender man, now 42, who had taken testosterone for 10 years, the impact was brutal. Continue reading...

Some participants in Liverpool University survey said the travel mementoes were more important to them than photographsWhether holding up shopping lists or hastily scrawled messages, fridge magnets are highly functional holiday souvenirs. And a new study suggests these trinkets may also provide an important means of accessing happy - and not so happy - memories of past trips.Pervasive as souvenirs are, surprisingly little research has investigated what happens to them after people's holidays have ended, and even less has focused on fridge magnets, even though we interact with them almost every day. Continue reading...

Group employed by government divided for first time over best date for new year ritualsSri Lanka's government-backed traditional astrologers have failed to unanimously agree on the best date for new year rituals, with squabbling seers warning of disaster" and accusing rivals of misinterpreting the position of stars.Astrologers are hugely influential figures consulted by the island's Buddhist and Hindu communities, and their advice for auspicious dates guides everything from marriages to business deals - and even national elections. Continue reading...

The San Jose, sunk in 1708, has been at the center of a dispute over who has rights to the wreck, including $17bn in bootySince the Colombian navy discovered the final resting place of the Spanish galleon San Jose in 2015, its location has remained a state secret, the wreck - and its precious cargo - left deep under the waters of the Caribbean.Efforts to conserve the ship and recover its precious cargo have been caught up in a complicated string of international legal disputes, with Colombia, Spain, Bolivian Indigenous groups and a US salvage company laying claim to the wreck, and the gold, silver and emeralds onboard thought to be worth as much as $17bn. Continue reading...

It's not all about AliceUPDATE: Read the answers hereTodays puzzles are all penned by Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and appear in a delightful miscellany of his non-Alice scribblings, Lewis Carroll's Guide for Insomniacs, curated by LC superfan Gyles Brandreth. They may be oldies, but they are goodies!1. The Chelsea Pensioners Continue reading...

Length of day and night roughly equal as longer summer days draw nearThe sun crosses the celestial equator this week, meaning that the March equinox is upon us.The celestial equator is the projection of the Earth's equator up into the sky. Because Earth rotates on a tilted axis, which always points in the same direction, our orientation to the sun changes throughout the year. When we are in the hemisphere tilted towards the sun, our parent star appears higher in the sky than the celestial equator and we experience summer with its longer days. Likewise, when the axis is pointed away, the sun never rises as high as the celestial equator and we experience winter with shorter days. Continue reading...

Researchers at Nottingham Trent University hope device used at home will improve tracking of tumoursScientists are developing a device that fits inside a bra and could monitor whether a breast cancer tumour is growing.Researchers hope the device will provide a new non-invasive method of detecting tumour growth that patients can use in the comfort of their own homes". Continue reading...

PET scans can examine entire bowel before and during treatment, avoiding risks associated with taking tissue samplesResearchers in Glasgow have identified a new means of diagnosing and treating bowel cancer with imaging technology, avoiding the need for biopsies.Biopsies require an invasive procedure with a number of health risks, such as infection, and are limited in what they can capture within a patient's bowel. Continue reading...

Mini missions are being launched amid the spires - a haven for dust particles that may contain clues about the cosmos and the early EarthOn the roof of Canterbury Cathedral, two planetary scientists are searching for cosmic dust. While the red brick parapet hides the streets, buildings and trees far below, only wispy clouds block the deep blue sky that extends into outer space.The roaring of a vacuum cleaner breaks the silence and researcher Dr Penny Wozniakiewicz, dressed in hazmat suit with a bulky vacuum backpack, carefully traces a gutter with the tube of the suction machine. Continue reading...

Along the way Corey Keyes developed concepts of languishing and flourishing which others have found helpfulWhen he was 16, Corey Keyes was finally doing well after a brutal childhood. He got high grades at school, played quarterback on the football team, and was living with his loving grandmother in Wisconsin, USA.But, the sociologist and professor emeritus of Emory University writes in his new book, Languishing: How To Feel Alive Again in a World That Wears Us Down, he was living on autopilot, throwing himself into every activity going. Whenever he slowed down, everything felt drained of colour". A feeling of restless emptiness" gnawed at his insides. Terrified this feeling might haunt him all his life, he determined to become a sociologist to find out if other people had this same sense of running on empty", eventually coining the terms languishing" and its antidote flourishing", or good mental health. Continue reading...

Fears over the effect of rapid weight loss on physical and mental wellbeing of young people said to be unjustifiedShort-term, very low-calorie diets for obese teenagers are safe as long as they are closely monitored by an experienced dietitian, according to researchers in Australia whose work will be presented at the European Congress on Obesity in Venice this spring..The study, by scientists based at Sydney University, also revealed that many adolescents involved in the investigation thought the diets were an acceptable way to lose weight - despite experiencing side-effects that included fatigue, headache, irritability, constipation and nausea. Continue reading...

Cancer scientist decides to study the tumour that once afflicted his small daughter - and now her work is adding to his project's successElana Simon was 10 years old when she started to experience severe pains in her abdomen. For two years, puzzled doctors put forward diagnoses including lactose intolerance, Crohn's disease and stress. It was not until 2008 that they pinpointed the real cause. Elana was suffering from fibrolamellar carcinoma (FLC), a rare, usually lethal, form of liver cancer.In a way, it was comforting to have a word for what was wrong with me after so much confusion about my condition," Elana told the Observer. Pre-diagnosis, my life was a mixture of discomfort and fear. Now I had something to focus on." Continue reading...

The Sky at Night presenter on science, school and Star TrekBorn in London in 1968 toNigerian parents, Maggie Aderin-Pocock isa scientist and presenter of The Sky at Night. She trained as aphysicist - graduating from Imperial College London with a PhD in 1994, and working for the Ministry of Defence on landmine detection and missile warning systems. She has since designed a host of space instruments, become the first Black woman to win a gold medal in the Physics News Award and in 2013 took over from Patrick Moore as a co-host of the BBC's long-running astronomy show. Aderin-Pocock is one of the panellists for the National Trust's Time + Space Award, anew initiative to give 16- to 25-year-olds the resources to explore ideas.This was my Nigerian passport photo. I was quite excited to have my picture taken and my sister was, too. We were wearing Ladybird dresses from Woolworths. Mine was green with acollar and hers was red. I remember Iwas quite envious of hers. Continue reading...

Some believe global anomalies are in line with predictions but others are more concerned by speed of changeRecord temperatures in 2024 on land and at sea have prompted scientists to question whether these anomalies are in line with predicted global heating patterns or if they represent a concerning acceleration of climate breakdown.Heat above the oceans remains persistently, freakishly high, despite a weakening of El Nino, which has been one of the major drivers of record global temperatures over the past year. Continue reading...

We all deserve better from healthcare providers who sell false promise to some, while shutting down options for othersYou can't have missed the conversations about the rise of freezing eggs for non-medical or social" reasons in recent years, which forms part of an explosion in the use of fertility treatments, all with the promise of giving more options to prospective parents. The starting point is often the question of whether someone, almost always a wealthy, straight, white woman, should freeze her eggs as insurance against her biological clock", career development and/or the risk of not finding a partner in time with whom to start a family.Having noticed the trend, I began to see that the same detail was missing from piece after piece: the statistical likelihood of these frozen eggs leading to live births. With notable exceptions, the focus is on affordability and the social factors that are causing so many more people to opt for this treatment, rather than discussion of what happens when someone actually uses the eggs to try to conceive. Frozen eggs are being marketed and spoken about as fertility nest eggs" - even as more and more evidence about low success rates have emerged. Continue reading...

Should you blame yourself for your bad habits? (1m53s); author and teacher, Michael Donkor, on the dilemma of whether to come out to his pupils (7m50s); and missed connections: four extraordinary stories of couples who found love via small ads (26m05s) Continue reading...

Readers respond to George Monbiot's article on the treatment and attitude of the medical profession to the debilitating conditionI am writing to express my appreciation of George Monbiot's perceptive article (You don't want to get better': the outdated treatment of ME/CFS patients is a national scandal, 12 March). I have lived with severe fatigue for more than three years, following a mild Covid infection. It is difficult to describe what it is like and it is not surprising that it is not well understood. My experience is that it is necessary to overcome my instincts to push myself, since running out of energy results in even more limited stamina over weeks or months.It must appear to others that I am neither constantly exhausted nor pushing myself. But if I give in to the instinct to do more, I push myself back into a state of self-perpetuating exhaustion, where my expectation of what I can manage lags behind my declining stamina. Continue reading...

Racism in politics | A propulsion problem | Joy in education | Salford's rugby winGary Younge's article on the universal hypocrisy in relation to racism being expressed by both of our main political parties is the most honest and ruthlessly coruscating essay I've read since James Baldwin (In Britain's degraded politics, fighting racism has become a cynical game, 15 March). It should be framed on the walls of every office used by journalists andpoliticians in the land.

Specimens collected on Voyage of the Beagle have been unearthed at Cambridge University archivePlant specimens collected by Charles Darwin on the voyage of the Beagle have been unearthed in an archive at Cambridge University.The rare specimens, which have been stored in the archives of the Cambridge University herbarium for nearly 200 years, were given by Darwin to his teacher and friend Prof John Stevens Henslow, the founder of Cambridge University Botanic Garden. Continue reading...

CDC data shows nearly 18m people could be living with long Covid even as health agency relaxes isolation recommendationsSome 6.8% of American adults are currently experiencing long Covid symptoms, according to a new survey from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), revealing an alarming" increase in recent months even as the health agency relaxes Covid isolation recommendations, experts say.That means an estimated 17.6 million Americans could now be living with long Covid. Continue reading...

Mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia bacteria that inhibit spread of disease to be introduced in six cities after successful pilot schemeA dengue-fighting strategy that involves releasing bacteria-infected mosquitoes will be rolled out to six Brazilian cities in the coming months as the country battles a severe outbreak of dengue fever, a viral disease transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito.Factors such as hotter and wetter weather caused by the climate crisis and the circulation of previously absent subtypes of the virus are fuelling an explosion of dengue in Brazil, which has recorded 1.6m probable cases since January - the same number reported for all of last year - and 491 deaths, with a further 889 deaths under investigation, as of 14 March. Continue reading...

Numbers living with or dying from disorders such as stroke rises dramatically to 3.4bn people - 43% of global populationNeurological conditions ranging from migraine to stroke, Parkinson's disease and dementia, are now the leading cause of ill-health worldwide, causing 11.1 million deaths in 2021, research has revealed.The number of people living with or dying from disorders of the nervous system has risen dramatically over the past three decades, with 43% of the world's population - 3.4 billion people - affected in 2021, according to a study published in the Lancet. Continue reading...

Spacecraft's cruise vessel flew around globe for first time, but lost contact in final stages before planned splashdownSpaceX's Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, was destroyed during its return to Earth after nearly completing its third test flight.The 120-metre system, which weighs about 5,000 tonnes when fully fuelled, took off from SpaceX's spaceport, named Starbase, on the Gulf of Mexico in Boca Chica, Texas. SpaceX aims to use the spacecraft to one day carry astronauts to the moon and Mars. Continue reading...

SpaceX launched the third test flight of its Starship spacecraft, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, which aims to carry astronauts to the moon and, eventually, to Mars. It took off from SpaceX's spaceport, named Starbase, on the Gulf of Mexico in Boca Chica, Texas, entering space several minutes later. After 50 minutes, it lost contact with the spacecraft and the live feed cut to the control room. SpaceX were never intending to recover the parts after take-off. Two previous attempts ended in the explosion of the spacecraft's engine booster and the cruise vessel, which is designed to eventually carry up to 100 astronauts. The first attempt lasted four minutes and the second lasted eight.The company says frequent flight testing will provide valuable data that will help it design and develop a more robust rocket

Location, extent and strength of recent freshwater events suggest an unusually warm and dry summer over southern Europe this yearLong-range weather predictions are notoriously difficult, but a new paper in the journal Weather and Climate Dynamics suggests that the melt rate of the Greenland ice sheet can predict the next summer's weather in Europe.The chain of events is complex and other factors may interfere. But according to Dr Marilena Oltmanns of the UK National Oceanography Centre, lead author of the study, it goes roughly as follows: Continue reading...

Ian Sample and science correspondent Hannah Devlin discuss some of the science stories that have made headlines this week, from a new theory challenging the existence of dark matter to an alarming study about the possible impact of microplastics on our health and a glimpse of a waterworld with a boiling ocean' deep in space Continue reading...

Arthur Schubarth, 80, pleads guilty to trafficking in audacious' and unlawful scheme to cross-breed sheep for lucrative saleA Montana rancher illegally used tissue and testicles from wild sheep killed by hunters in central Asia and the US to breed giant" hybrid sheep for sale to private hunting preserves in Texas, according to court documents and federal prosecutors.Arthur Jack" Schubarth, 80, of Vaughn, Montana, pleaded guilty to felony charges of wildlife trafficking and conspiracy to traffic wildlife during an appearance Tuesday before a federal judge in Great Falls. Continue reading...

Improved screening and treatment means fewer middle-aged people dying of disease despite rise in casesMore middle-aged people are getting cancer but fewer of them are dying from it thanks to improved detection and better treatment, research has found.The findings are positive and reassuring" for those aged 35 to 69, according to cancer experts quoted in the British Medical Journal, which published the paper. Continue reading...

DNA My Dog received human genetic sample and identified it as a malamute, shar-pei and labrador, according to news stationA pet company has twice sent back dog breed results for human swab samples, prompting doubts surrounding the accuracy of dog breed tests.On Wednesday, WBZ News reported its investigations team receiving dog breed results from the company DNA My Dog after one of its reporters sent in a swab sample - from her own cheek. Continue reading...

Adrenaline release thought to dampen inflammation, but experts say method not without risks'Whether plunging themselves into ice baths or deliberately hyperventilating and then holding their breath, devotees of The Iceman" Wim Hof are evangelical about the physical and mental benefits these practices bring. A new study suggests they may indeed reduce levels of inflammation in the body. However, experts stress that practising the Wim Hof method is not without risk.Hof is a Dutch athlete, best known for record-breaking feats such as swimming under ice and running barefoot on ice and snow. More recently, he has built a business empire on the techniques he uses - which focus on a commitment to mastering conscious breathing and cold exposure - with courses available around the world. Continue reading...

Parasitic larvae discovered after unexplained weekly migraines failed to respond to medicationParasitic tapeworm larvae have been found in a man's brain following weeks of worsening migraines, which researchers believe were caused by his consumption of undercooked bacon.In a report released last week, the American Journal of Case Reports documented an unidentified 52-year-old American man who was experiencing weekly migraines that were unresponsive to medication. Continue reading...

Coral larvae more likely to settle on degraded reefs bathed in marine soundscapes, Caribbean study showsUnderwater speakers that broadcast the hustle and bustle of thriving coral could bring life back to more damaged and degraded reefs that are in danger of becoming ocean graveyards, researchers say.Scientists working off the US Virgin Islands in the Caribbean found that coral larvae were up to seven times more likely to settle at a struggling reef where they played recordings of the snaps, groans, grunts and scratches that form the symphony of a healthy ecosystem. Continue reading...