Science | The Guardian

When I found out my father had been adopted, I was curious to know more about his side of the family. Nothing could have prepared me for what I would discover ...Above my grandma's bed hung a framed blackand-white photograph of my dad. As asmall child I quietly admired it; his luminous eyes, dark hair and gentle smile. He embodied a tender yet spirited early adulthood, staring into the future. Handsome and seeking.As I grew older, I would discover that it was not, in fact, a photograph of my dad but of a man called ElvisPresley. Apparently he was very famous. My grandma had been a lifelong fan. My parents laughed - an adorable mistake - but I felt a hot pulse of humiliation. Continue reading...

Early trials of the drug VIR-5500 showed it shrinking tumours in some patientsA new drug for advanced prostate cancer has shown promise in early trials experts have said, with the medication shrinking tumours in some patients.Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men in many countries, including the US and UK. About 1.5 million men are diagnosed worldwide each year. Continue reading...

Plans to return humans to the moon will come in later mission as agency grapples with delays and glitchesNasa announced on Friday radical changes to its delayed Artemis III mission to land humans back on the moon, as the US space agency grapples with technical glitches and criticism that it is trying to do too much too soon.The abrupt shift in strategy was laid out by the space agency's recently confirmed administrator, Jared Isaacman. Announcing the changes on Friday, he said that Nasa would introduce at least one new moon flight before attempting to put humans back on the lunar surface for the first time in more than half a century, in 2028. Continue reading...

The president's cuts have defunded and alienated thousands of American scientists. Europe can benefit, if it makes the right offerDonald Trump has spent much of his second term at war with science and scientists. He is cutting staff at institutions such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by a third, and has cancelled or frozen up to 8,000 federal research grants. This hasn't just hurt individual research programmes, it has damaged America's credibility as a reliable partner in the scientific community. It is not surprising that many researchers - one poll last year by the journal Nature gave the number of 75% - say they are considering leaving the US entirely.However, it is one thing to express dissatisfaction, and quite another to up sticks and leave. If the UK and EU want to attract elite scientific talent, their approach must be twofold: appealing directly to scientists concerned with political interference in their research, and offering stable, ringfenced money.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

It's hard to know what people can see in their own mind's eye. But for Maddie Thomas there was no doubt: she had especially vivid mental imagery

Study shows lower risk for multiple myeloma as well as pancreatic, prostate, breast and kidney cancersVegetarians have a substantially lower risk of five types of cancer, a landmark study on the role of diet has revealed.The research, using data from more than 1.8 million people who were tracked over many years, found that vegetarians had a 21% lower risk of pancreatic cancer, a 12% lower risk of prostate cancer and a 9% lower risk of breast cancer compared with meat eaters. Combined, these cancers account for around a fifth of cancer deaths in the UK. Continue reading...

Experimental therapy of applying stem cells during surgery could be major milestone' in treatment of birth defectsGiving stem cells to unborn babies diagnosed with spina bifida while they have in utero surgery could be a major milestone" in the treatment of birth defects, doctors say.A trial in the US found that applying stem cells from the mother's placenta to her baby's spine while it was being repaired was safe and improved the child's mobility and quality of life. Continue reading...

Largest ever image obtained by specialist telescope in Chile represents scientific and aesthetic breakthroughScientists have captured a beautiful image in unprecedented detail of the vast Milky Way galaxy, of which our own solar system is a part.The stunning image is the largest ever obtained by the specialist telescope in Chile called the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (Alma) radio telescope, according to the group behind the project. Continue reading...

Scientists say DNA evidence indicates male Neanderthals and human females interbred more often than oppositeTens of thousands of years ago, as modern humans migrated into northerly territories inhabited by our ancient cousins, the Neanderthals, the two species met - and sometimes mated.Now, genetic evidence has revealed a striking imbalance in these prehistoric trysts, suggesting that interbreeding was mostly between male Neanderthals and female humans. Continue reading...

Falling volcanic ash has for years been viewed as a nuisance. But a Sicilian project has discovered its agricultural potential and wants to spread the wordIn the Sicilian town of Giarre overlooking Mount Etna, Andrea Passanisi, a tropical and citrus fruits producer, uses an unusual fertiliser on his 100-hectare (247-acre) stretch of land: volcano ash.Like hundreds of farmers and citizens of rural towns perched on the slopes of Europe's highest and most active volcano, the 41-year-old's family has had to deal with the nuisance of falling volcanic ash for generations. But it is only in recent years that the quantity of ash has become so excessive that it required an alternative approach. Continue reading...

Orforglipron led to greater weight loss than semaglutide tablets and could offer more effective oral alternative to jabsA new daily pill could be a more effective GLP-1 tablet for weight loss, according to a clinical trial that may pave the way for an improved non-injection alternative to Wegovy and Mounjaro.The drug, called orforglipron and manufactured by Eli Lilly, is prescribed for type 2 diabetes and targets the same GLP-1 receptors as oral semaglutide. Like semaglutide, it lowers blood sugar levels, slows digestion and suppresses appetite. Unlike semaglutide tablets, it does not need to be taken on an empty stomach. Continue reading...

Sunrise is a majestic spectacle - but we should be grateful for the miles of vacuum between us and the starDawn on a still morning is a majestic spectacle, as sunlight spills silently across the landscape and the Earth gradually emerges from darkness. Sunrise has inspired countless pieces of music striving to express this soundless experience in audible form. But if we could actually hear the sun, it would be deafening.The sun is a giant nuclear fusion reactor, converting hydrogen into helium and releasing massive amounts of energy in the form of heat - and sound. Sound is essentially vibration and needs a medium to travel through. Continue reading...

Since the 1960s, global GDP has been rapidly rising and living standards have reached record highs. But something else has been rocketing up too - carbon emissions. For years, scientists and economists have been asking: is it possible to grow without heating and polluting the Earth? And as the climate becomes more unstable, the issue is only becoming more urgent. Madeleine Finlay hears from two economists arguing for a change in how we measure a country's success. Nick Stern is professor of economics and government at the London School of Economics and an advocate of green growth, an approach to growth that prioritises green industry. Jason Hickel is a political economist and professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona who advocates degrowth, shrinking parts of the economy that do not advance our social and ecological goals.Catch up with all the pieces in the Beyond Growth seriesSupport the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod Continue reading...

Changes threaten ecosystems as flowering falls out of sync with fruit-eating, seed-dispersing animals and pollinatorsTropical flowers are blooming months earlier or later than they used to because of climate breakdown, with potentially cascading impacts across ecosystems", according to a study of 8,000 plants dating back 200 years.Researchers looked at flowers from a range of countries, including Brazil, Ecuador, Ghana and Thailand, home to the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth, but also the most understudied. Continue reading...

Gene-altering chemicals found in humpback dolphins and finless porpoises, raising alarm they may end up in human food chainToxic e-waste chemicals from television, computer and smartphone screens have been found in the brains and bodies of endangered dolphins and porpoises in the South China Sea.Research published in Environmental Science & Technology detected significant levels of gene-altering liquid crystal monomers (LCMs) in Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins and finless porpoises. Continue reading...

Study finds participants saw reduction in depressive symptoms as researchers welcome promising' resultsA phase II clinical trial has found dimethyltryptamine (DMT), one of the psychoactive components traditionally used in the Amazonian psychedelic ritual ayahuasca, might be a promising therapy for depression.The psychedelic pharmaceutical company Small Pharma (now Cybin UK) sponsored and designed the trial, which was led by Dr David Erritzoe, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist at Imperial College London. The results were published in Nature this month. Continue reading...

It makes rejection, teasing or criticism feel unbearable, often prompting a strong physical reaction. Sufferers describe life with a condition that is only just starting to be understoodJenna Turnbull's chest is tightening. The 36-year-old civil servant, who lives in Cardiff, can picture herself as she speaks: an 11-year-old in her PE kit waiting with the other kids for her lesson to start. We were outside by the courts waiting to play netball," she says. Somebody commented that I had hairy arms, one of the boys." Her voice wobbles. The incident was clearly juvenile; rationally, she knows that. Yet 25 years on, her embarrassment is still visceral, with the power to cause instant physical discomfort.She searches for another example of her acute reaction to teasing and recalls a trip to the pub with her friends six years ago. Amid the loud conversation and laughter, a quip was made in the group about her being untidy at home. Or that's how she perceived it. About me not keeping on top of the house," she recalls. The person was having a laugh. It was just something that was said off the cuff." Yet while the memory and detail is hazy, the shame she feels about it is not. That comment still haunts me," she says. After that pub outing, she started cleaning her house obsessively - to such an extreme that it became one of the symptoms leading to her diagnosis of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). I've been known to spend four or five hours cleaning my bathroom," she says. Continue reading...

Researchers discover rare periods of a few thousands years when climate unexpectedly awoke from slumberDuring the "snowball Earth" period about 700m years ago, Earth's climate shut down. The planet was encased in ice and insulated from seasonal variations: spring, summer, autumn and winter all stopped. Or at least that was the theory.Recent examination of some ancient rocks from the west coast of Scotland has now overturned that thinking, suggesting there were periods during snowball Earth when the climate woke up. Continue reading...

Those with the condition share varying views of John Davidson's tic during Sunday's awards ceremonyIt was an incident that sparked a furore: during Sunday's Bafta ceremony Tourette syndrome (TS) activist John Davidson made several outbursts, including shouting the N-word as actors Delroy Lindo and Michael B Jordan were presenting a prize on stage.Among others to comment on the incident were actors including Oscar winner Jamie Foxx and Wendell Pierce, who starred alongside Jordan in The Wire. Continue reading...

Grace Bell says she is the happiest I've ever been in my life' after giving birth to baby Hugo in UK firstA baby boy named Hugo is the first child to be born in the UK to a mother with a womb transplant from a dead donor.Hugo Powell was delivered at Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea hospital in London weighing 3.09kg (6lb 13oz), after his mother, Grace Bell, received a transplanted womb from someone who had died. Continue reading...

Wold Newton, East Yorkshire: On a dreary day in a nondescript field, I visit the site where a 4.56 billion-year-old bit of space rock came to EarthOn a low rise, beyond a screen of trees, behind a small holiday park in the Yorkshire Wolds, a brick obelisk stands incongruously at the edge of an otherwise nondescript field. It bears a plaque inscribed as follows: Here, on this spot, Decr. 13th, 1795 / fell from the Atmosphere AN EXTRAORDINARY STONE / In breadth 28 inches / Inlength 36 inches..."The words are carved in a variety of enthusiastic fonts, with the opening Here" given particularly earnest flourish. The extraordinary,extraterrestrial stone in question is the Wold Cottage meteorite, the first from anywhere to be widely recognised as a rock from outer space. After a 4.56bn-year journey, it now rests in the Treasures Gallery of the NaturalHistory Museum. Continue reading...

For a long time fat was seen simply as an inert yellow substance wrapping around our bodies, but now that's changing. Scientists are beginning to understand that our fat is actually intricate and dynamic, constantly in conversation with the rest of the body. It's now even considered by some to be an organ in its own right. To find out more about the complex role fat plays in our health, Ian Sample hears from co-host Madeleine Finlay and from Declan O'Regan, professor of cardiovascular AI at Imperial College LondonSupport the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod Continue reading...

Vulnerable young people, partners of drug users and victims of sexual violence also among those afflicted in world's fastest growing HIV epidemicThe night her baby's heart stopped, Clare* blamed herself. Had she taken her out in the cold too much? Had she damaged her lungs by drinking iced water when she was pregnant? She fixated on Andi's tiny chest, willing it to suck in air, rushing her to hospital in Fiji for the second time in as many days.All through the early hours Andi* clung to life. Doctors performed CPR several times, puncturing the month-old baby's chest to insert a drain, removing fluid from around her lungs. She was really, really sick and they didn't know what was going on ... she was getting weaker and weaker," Clare says. She sat by her daughter's bedside. She prayed. Continue reading...

Scientists have discovered source of neigh's unique combination of high- and low-pitched soundsHorses whinny to find new friends, greet old ones and celebrate happy moments like feeding time.How exactly horses produce that distinctive sound - also called a neigh - has long eluded scientists. Continue reading...

Novo Nordisk's shares fall sharply after testing of CagriSema falls short of investors' expectations

Solar system's largest planet remains a brilliant, unwavering beacon, forming a striking trio with Castor and PolluxThroughout this month, Jupiter has remained in the constellation Gemini, providing a reliable reference point in the evening sky - and it will continue to do so into March. As the largest planet in the solar system, Jupiter shines brightly enough to cut through urban light pollution, making it easy to spot.Gemini is identified by its two principal stars, Castor and Pollux, which mark the twins' heads. During February, Jupiter sits between and slightly south of these stars, outshining both. Continue reading...

Hundreds of thousands of visitors expected for month-long display of 13th-century saint's remainsSaint Francis of Assisi's skeleton is going on full public display from Sunday for the first time, in a move that is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of visitors.Inside a nitrogen-filled case with the Latin inscription Corpus Sancti Francisci" (the body of Saint Francis), the remains are being shown in the Italian hillside town's Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi. Continue reading...

Following in the wake of the original Golden Records, a new deep-space delivery hopes to introduce a mostly harmless' humanity to alien life

Omar Yaghi's invention uses ambient thermal energy and can generate up to 1,000 litres of clean water every dayA Nobel laureate's environmentally friendly invention that provides clean water if central supplies are knocked out by a hurricane or drought could be a life saver for vulnerable islands, its founder says.The invention, by the chemist Prof Omar Yaghi, uses a type of science called reticular chemistry to create molecularly engineered materials, which can extract moisture from the air and harvest water even in arid and desert conditions. Continue reading...

Authorities suspect Carl Grillmair was shot by man arrested for carjacking, as friends mourn him as irreplaceable'A renowned California Institute of Technology (Caltech) scientist who studied distant planets and other areas of astronomy for decades was recently shot to death at his home in a rural community outside Los Angeles, authorities said.Carl Grillmair, 67, died from a bullet wound to the torso on Monday in Llano, an unincorporated community in the Antelope Valley, according to information from the LA county medical examiner's office. The county sheriff's department said it had arrested a suspect in Grillmair's slaying, identifying him as 29-year-old Freddy Snyder. Continue reading...

Recruitment of children for study delayed after MHRA warns that participants should be no younger than 14A clinical trial into puberty blockers for children has been paused after the medicines regulator warned it should have a minimum age limit of 14 because of the unquantified risk" of long-term biological harms".Discussions between the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and the trial sponsor, King's College London, will begin next week to discuss the wellbeing concerns, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said on Friday evening. Continue reading...

Administrator Jared Isaacman cites major progress' since earlier discovery of liquid hydrogen leaking from rocketNasa said on Friday it was planning to launch its delayed Artemis II moon mission on 6 March after successfully completing a fueling test that had caused it to stand down earlier this month.Jared Isaacman, the space agency's newly confirmed administrator, cited major progress" since the original so-called wet dress rehearsal in which engineers discovered liquid hydrogen leaking from the space launch system (SLS) rocket on its Florida launchpad at Cape Canaveral. Continue reading...

Research adds weight to theory Arrokoth's two lobes produced by gravitational collapse - and reveals processIt is the most distant and primitive object ever visited by a spacecraft from Earth: now researchers say they have fresh insights into how the ultra-red, 4bn-year-old body known as Arrokoth came to have its distinctive snowman-like shape.Arrokoth sits in the Kuiper belt, a vast, thick ring of icy objects that lies beyond the orbit of Neptune. This region of space is home to most of the known dwarf planets as well as comets and small, solid rubble heaps called planetesimals - the building blocks of planets. Continue reading...

As Trump slashes science funding, young researchers flee abroad. Without solid innovation, the US could cease to have the largest biomedical ecosystem in the worldIn April 2025, less than three months after Donald Trump returned to the White House, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) put out its latest public health alert on so-called superbugs", strains of bacteria resistant to antibiotics.These drug-resistant germs, the CDC warned, are responsible for more than 3m infections in the US each year, claiming the lives of up to 48,000 Americans. Continue reading...

Madeleine Finlay sits down with science editor Ian Sample and science correspondent Nicola Davis to discuss three eye-catching stories, including the impact of a powerful psychedelic on depression, answers on the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and an explanation to the mystery of why humans have chinsSingle dose of potent psychedelic drug could help treat depression, trial showsWas Navalny poisoning by frog toxin meant to send a message? Continue reading...

Scientists and philosophers studying the mind have discovered how little we know about our inner experiencesWhat was I thinking? This is not as easy or straightforward a question as I would have thought. As soon as you try to record and categorise the contents of your consciousness - the sense impressions, feelings, words, images, daydreams, mind-wanderings, ruminations, deliberations, observations, opinions, intuitions and occasional insights - you encounter far more questions than answers, and more than a few surprises. I'd always assumed that my stream of consciousness consisted mainly of an interior monologue, maybe sometimes a dialogue, but was surely composed of words; I'm a writer, after all. But it turns out that a lot of my so-called thoughts - a flattering term for these gossamer traces of mental activity - are preverbal, often showing up as images, sensations, or concepts, with words trailing behind as a kind of afterthought, belated attempts to translate these elusive wisps of meaning into something more substantial and shareable.I discovered this because I've been going around with a beeper wired to an earpiece that sends a sudden sharp note into my left ear at random times of the day. This is my cue to recall and jot down whatever was going on in my head immediately before I registered the beep. The idea is to capture a snapshot of the contents of consciousness at a specific moment in time by dipping a ladle into the onrushing stream. Continue reading...

Face transplant patient Robert Chelsea and writer Fay Bound Alberti talk through the promise - and darker side - of this pioneering surgeryIn 2019, Robert Chelsea made medical history, becoming the first black patient to ever have a full face transplant.He had previously suffered from a devastating car crash, leaving his face severely burnt. Once, he recalls to Annie Kelly, a little boy on the street shouted that he looked like a zombie'. Continue reading...

Hard disks and magnetic tape have a limited lifespan, but glass storage developed by Microsoft could last millenniaSome cultures used stone, others used parchment. Some even, for a time, used floppy disks. Now scientists have come up with a new way to keep archived data safe that, they say, could endure for millennia: laser-writing in glass.From personal photos that are kept for a lifetime to business documents, medical information, data for scientific research, national records and heritage data, there is no shortage of information that needs to be preserved for very long periods of time. Continue reading...

Prof Michael Wooldridge says scenario such as deadly self-driving car update or AI hack could destroy global interestThe race to get artificial intelligence to market has raised the risk of a Hindenburg-style disaster that shatters global confidence in the technology, a leading researcher has warned.Michael Wooldridge, a professor of AI at Oxford University, said the danger arose from the immense commercial pressures that technology firms were under to release new AI tools, with companies desperate to win customers before the products' capabilities and potential flaws are fully understood. Continue reading...

Testimonials about the beneficial health effects of magnesium supplements abound online, with influencers claiming that a daily pill can help with everything from anxiety to sleep and brain fog. But do any of these claims stack up?Ian Sample is joined by co-host Madeleine Finlay to find out where the science stands. They also hear from Katherine Tucker, the founder of the Center for Population Health at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. She explains what magnesium is doing in our bodies and the best approach we can take to ensure we are getting enoughSupport the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod Continue reading...

Barack Obama has caused a frenzy after saying he thinks aliens are real during a podcast interview. The former US president was forced to release a statement clarifying he had not seen any evidence of extraterrestrials. There is a long-running conspiracy theory claiming the US government is hiding extraterrestrials at Area 51, a highly classified air force site in Nevada.

The answer to today's peaky poserEarlier today I set you this logic puzzle. Here is is again with the solution.(If you found it too simple. Here's a harder version.) Continue reading...

Researchers find DMT - used in shamanic rituals - in tandem with psychotherapy has significant effectPeople with major depressive disorder can see a rapid and lasting improvement after a single dose of the psychedelic drug dimethyltryptamine (DMT) when it is combined with psychotherapy, doctors have said.A small clinical trial involving 34 people found that psychedelic-assisted therapy prompted a swift reduction in depressive symptoms that endured long after the drug had worn off, with some still feeling the benefits six months later. Continue reading...

A measles outbreak among unvaccinated children in London comes amid a global increase in infectionsA measles outbreak in London is affecting unvaccinated children under the age of 10, and comes amid an increase in infections globally.The UK was among six countries to lose the measles-free status granted by the World Health Organization (WHO) last month. Experts are calling on governments to urgently boost vaccination rates to stop measles infecting more children. Continue reading...

Moon was a distraction and Mars the goal for billionaire SpaceX chief - could Trump have influenced his U-turn?Barely a year ago, the moon was a distraction" to Elon Musk, the billionaire chief executive of SpaceX then fixated on his ludicrously ambitious project to build a self-sustaining city on Mars within 20 years.Why bother returning to the orbiting chunk of rock humanity conquered half a century ago, he reasoned, when the greater prize of the red planet lay tantalizingly in reach for his company's mighty Starship rockets? Continue reading...

If plans by the UK's science funding body go ahead, we won't be able to benefit from Britain's membership of Cern and other large international projectsAlarm bells are ringing in the UK research community. Physics departments may close and researchers leave the UK. What is happening and why?The alarm comes from changes in the way taxpayers' money is invested by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), which recently published its plan on how to disburse 38.6bn of public research and development funding over the next four years. Change is always unsettling, and as the UKRI's chief executive, Ian Chapman, says, there will always be those who lose out when change happens. Difficult choices must be made.Jon Butterworth is professor of physics at University College London, and a member of the ATLAS Collaboration at Cern Continue reading...

Logicians and their bonnetsUPDATE: Read the solution hereToday's puzzle is a new twist on a classic genre: the common knowledge" hat riddle in which logicians deduce facts about their hats based on what they know, and what they know others know.Head sums Continue reading...

Researchers say limited eating approaches such as 5:2 diet not a miracle solution' amid surge in their popularityIntermittent fasting is no better for shedding the pounds than conventional diets and is barely more effective than doing nothing, according to a major review of the scientific evidence.Researchers analysed data from 22 global studies and found people who are overweight or living with obesity lost as much weight by following traditional dietary advice as when they tried fasting regimes such as the 5:2 diet popularised by the late Michael Mosley. Continue reading...

Monogamy may be held up as an ideal, but evolution has other ideasMost of us know people in committed relationships, even lifelong marriages. And we also know stories about relationship transgressions, of partnerships tested or broken by infidelity.As an evolutionary biologist who studies sex and relationships, I'm fascinated by these two truths. We humans make romantic commitments to each other - and some also break those commitments by cheating. Continue reading...

Tablets could make treatment more mainstream, with sector predicted to be worth $200bn by end of the decadeI just felt slow: I want to be able to do anything my kids want to do and not have weight be a factor. Even a ride or a water park - things have weight limits," says Melody Ewert, 44, from Minnesota.Ewert has just switched from Eli Lilly's Zepbound weekly injection to Novo Nordisk's new daily Wegovy pill. Analysts believe the arrival of easy-to-take tablets could push weight-loss treatments further into the mainstream in a year that has been described as pivotal" for the booming anti-obesity market. The new pills, like the jabs, mimic the gut hormone GLP-1 that regulates appetite. Continue reading...