Product known as Adam implanted in sperm ducts could offer a reversible alternative to condoms and vasectomiesAn implantable, non-hormonal male contraceptive has been shown in trials to last for at least two years.The contraceptive, known as Adam, is a water-soluble hydrogel that is implanted in the sperm ducts, preventing sperm from mixing with semen. Continue reading...
Health secretary is planning wide-ranging monitoring of autistic people's health record and cuts to disability servicesAutism experts and autistic people are pushing back on Robert F Kennedy's terrible" approach to autism as the health secretary plans more expansive monitoring of autistic people's health records and proposes cuts to disability services.A huge study on autism proposed by Kennedy will draw upon private medical records from federal and commercial databases, and a new health registry will track autistic Americans, CBS News reported on Monday. Continue reading...
I need to stop dwelling on everything I get wrong, from sending my ball into the drink to squeezing the wrong bottomWhether you're into sport or not, there's wisdom to be mined from it. Once you've picked your way through the platitudes, banalities and cliche there's gold in there.Rory McIlroy's famous victory at the US Masters earlier this month yielded, for me anyway, a particularly good example. McIlroy's psychologist, Bob Rotella, has been credited with helping his man develop golf's key mental skill: putting your bad shots behind you and barely giving them a second thought. Continue reading...
by Presented by Madeleine Finlay with Ian Sample. Pro on (#6WTVV)
Madeleine Finlay and Ian Sample discuss three intriguing science stories from the week. From a hint at alien life on a distant planet to a clue in the search for answers over why colon cancer rates are rising in the under 50s, and news from scientists who claim to have found a colour no one has seen beforeAre we alone? New discovery raises hopes of finding alien life
by Hannah Devlin Science correspondent on (#6WTVW)
First clinical trial of its kind could be life changing' for those living in fear of severe peanut reactionAdults with severe peanut allergies can be desensitised by daily exposure, according to the first clinical trial of its kind.After being given steadily increasing doses of peanut flour over a period of months, two-thirds of the trial participants were able to eat the equivalent of five peanuts without reacting. Continue reading...
Stuart Semple is selling product for 10,000 (or 29.99 to fellow creatives) - but scientists say hue cannot be replicatedA British artist claims to have replicated in paint a colour that scientists say they discovered by having laser pulses fired into their eyes.Stuart Semple created his own version of the blue-green colour based on the US research published in Science Advances, which he is selling on his website for 10,000 per 150ml jar - or 29.99 if you state you are an artist. Continue reading...
Study offers rare insight into human-animal combat during Roman empireBite marks from a lion on a man's skeleton, excavated from a 1,800-year-old cemetery on the outskirts of York, provide the first physical evidence of human-animal combat in the Roman empire, new research claims.While clashes between combatants, big cats and bears are described and depicted in ancient texts and mosaics, there had previously been no convincing proof from human remains to confirm that these skirmishes formed part of Roman entertainment. Continue reading...
Is loads of muscle all you need for a long and healthy life? You'd think so, given the way everyone's fighting over the squat racksName: CardioAge: 64 Continue reading...
Researchers say mutations more often found in younger patients' tumours caused by toxin secreted by E coli strainsChildhood exposure to a toxin produced by bacteria in the bowel may be contributing to the rise of colorectal cancer in under-50s around the world, researchers say.Countries, including some in Europe and Oceania, have witnessed an increase in young adults with bowel cancer in recent decades, with some of the steepest increases reported in England, New Zealand, Puerto Rico and Chile. Continue reading...
The condition is more excruciating than childbirth or gunshot wounds, but little understood. An online community of clusterheads' are self-experimenting with psilocybin - with promising resultsPeter was working late, watching two roulette tables in play at a London casino, when he felt something stir behind his right eye. It was just a shadow of sensation, a horribly familiar tickle. But on that summer night in 2018, as chips hit the tables and gamblers' conversation swelled, panic set in. He knew he only had a few minutes.Peter found his boss, muttered that he had to leave, now, and ran outside. By then, the tickle had escalated; it felt like a red-hot poker was being shoved through his right pupil. Tears flowed from that eye, which was nearly swollen shut, and mucus from his right nostril. Half-blinded, gripping at his face, he stumbled along the street, eventually escaping into a company car that whisked him home, where he blacked out. Continue reading...
A bracingly hopeful call for high-flyers to ditch corporate drudgery in favour of something far more ambitiousThis is not a self-help book," the author tells us, firmly. Appearances might suggest otherwise: it is written and presented almost entirely in the familiar style of that genre, with largish print, short sentences, snappy maxims in italics and lots of lists and charts (six signs you may be on the wrong side of history"). Its proposals are delivered with all the annoyingly hectic bounciness ofthe genre.But it is worth taking Bregman (a thirtysomething historian and author labelled one of Europe's most prominent young thinkers" by the Ted network) at his word. He begins from the deep and corrosive anomie experienced by so many gifted young professionals who find themselves making substantial sums of money in exhausting and (at best) morally compromising jobs. The moral ambition" of the title is about recognising that serious financial, organisational, technological and analytical skills - the kind that in the US will get you through, say, law school with a secure ticket to prosperity - can be used to make tangible improvements in the lives of human and nonhuman neighbours. Continue reading...
by Kat Lay, Global health correspondent on (#6WT39)
As the UK Pandemic Sciences Network conference kicks off in Glasgow, virus expert Prof Emma Thomson says new technologies are boosting science's ability to fight novel strains of infectious diseasesProf Emma Thomson is someone who knows a thing or two about pandemics. As the recently appointed director of the Medical Research Council, University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research (CVR) and a World Heath Organization consultant, Thomson is one of the country's leading virus experts.We used to think that pandemics would occur maybe once in our lifetimes. Now, it's definitely within the next few years. It could even be tomorrow," she says. Continue reading...
Rock deposits provide first land-based evidence of Earth's largest flood, when water surged through strait of GibraltarThe event that refilled the Mediterranean basin 5m years ago is thought to have been the largest flood in Earth's history, with water surging through the present-day strait of Gibraltar 1,000 times faster than the Amazon River, filling the basin in just a couple of years. Now jumbled rock deposits on the top of hills in south-east Sicily provide the first land-based evidence for this flood.The megaflood theory emerged in 2009, when scientists discovered a massive eroded channel at the bottom of the strait of Gibraltar. Subsequent research has revealed scours on the sea floor, showing how the water forced its way through the shallow gap between Sicily and mainland Africa, to fill the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Continue reading...
Researchers surprised at impact that even small differences in sleep make to adolescents' cognitive abilitiesTeenagers who go to bed earlier and sleep for longer than their peers tend to have sharper mental skills and score better on cognitive tests, researchers have said.A study of more than 3,000 adolescents showed that those who turned in earliest, slept the longest, and had the lowest sleeping heart rates outperformed others on reading, vocabulary, problem solving and other mental tests. Continue reading...
by Tobi Thomas Health and inequalities correspondent on (#6WSG8)
Research into myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome also reveals diagnosis postcode lottery'More than 150,000 more people in England are living with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) than was previously estimated, according to a study that highlights the postcode lottery" of diagnosis.The research, published in the peer-reviewed journal BMC Public Health, involved researchers from the University of Edinburgh analysing NHS data from more than 62 million people in England to identify people who had been diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME)/chronic fatigue syndrome or post-viral fatigue syndrome. Continue reading...
by Damian Carrington Environment editor on (#6WSE8)
Blocking sunlight could temporarily slow the climate crisis but the technologies remain highly controversialUK scientists are to launch outdoor geoengineering experiments as part of a 50m government-funded programme.The experiments will be small-scale and rigorously assessed, according to Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria), the UK government agency backing the plan, and will provide critical" data needed to assess the potential of the technology. The programme, along with another 11m project, will make the UK one of the biggest funders of geoengineering research in the world. Continue reading...
Research into 717 people exposes the many roles canines play in their lives, from fur babies' to steadfast companionDogs are not simply fur babies" or best friend but a blend of both, researchers have found in a study they say highlights the special status of pets.The study suggests owners rate their relationship with their dogs as being as satisfying or more satisfying than their closest human relationships. However, the researchers did not find the owner-dog bond was stronger in people with weaker human relationships. Continue reading...
One day, life as a finance consultant stopped making sense for Peter Hahn, so he took to organic winegrowing in the Loire insteadOne Friday night 24 years ago, Peter Hahn was sitting in the back of a cab to Heathrow, sleepless after yet another 48-hour work bender.My computer's on my lap," the American-born organic winegrower from France recalls, the spring sun lighting up the deep pink walls of his study in his ancient manor house in the Loire Valley, his beloved vines outside, and I'm doing a spreadsheet. Continue reading...
Decades-long use of chalice at Worcester College highlights violent colonial history of looted human remains, says Prof Dan HicksOxford academics drank from a chalice made from a human skull for decades, a book that explores the violent colonial history of looted human remains has revealed.The skull-cup, fashioned from a sawn-off and polished braincase adorned with a silver rim and stand, was used regularly at formal dinners at Worcester College, Oxford, until 2015, according to Prof Dan Hicks, the curator of world archaeology at the university's Pitt Rivers Museum. Continue reading...
by Presented and produced by Madeleine Finlay with Ni on (#6WS6F)
The American biotech company Colossal Biosciences recently made headlines around the world with claims it had resurrected the dire wolf, an animal that went extinct at the end of the last ice age. But does what the company has done amount to de-extinction' or should we instead think of these pups as genetically modified versions of the grey wolves that exist today? Science correspondent Nicola Davis tells Madeleine Finlay about the process that created these wolves, how other companies are joining the effort to use genetic modification in conservation, and why some experts have serious ethical questions about bringing back species whose habitats no longer existSupport the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod Continue reading...
Lifestyle changes and medications found to reduce risk of cognitive disease by about 15%People given intensive help to reduce their high blood pressure such as medication and coaching have a lower risk of dementia, researchers have found.According to the World Health Organization, 57 million people around the world had dementia in 2021. Continue reading...
Footage of apes consuming fermented breadfruit leads researchers to ask if it may shed light on origins of human feastingHumans have gathered to feast and enjoy a tipple together for thousands of years, but research suggests chimpanzees may also bond over a boozy treat.Wild chimpanzees in west Africa have been observed sharing fruit containing alcohol - not in quantities to get roaring drunk but, possibly, enough for a fuzzy beer buzz feeling. Continue reading...
Burying our heads in the sand won't stop the climate crisis or pandemics. We're taking action to preserve government toolsUnited States science has propelled the country into its current position as a powerhouse of biomedical advancements, technological innovation and scientific research. The data US government agencies produce is a crown jewel - it helps us track how the climate is changing, visualize air pollution in our communities, identify challenges to our health and provide a panoply of other essential uses. Climate change, pandemics and novel risks are coming for all of us - whether we bury our heads in the sand or not - and government data is critical to our understanding of the risks these challenges bring and how to address them.Much of this data remains out of sight to those who don't use it, even though they benefit us all. Over the past few months, the Trump administration has brazenly attacked our scientific establishment through agency firings, censorship and funding cuts, and it has explicitly targeted data the American taxpayers have paid for. They're stealing from us and putting our health and wellbeing in danger - so now we must advocate for these federal resources. Continue reading...
Away from street lights, observers can expect to see about 15 to 20 bright and fast meteors an hourThe peak of the world's oldest known meteor showers will grace the skies this week. The Lyrid meteor shower is active from 16-25 April but is at its height on Monday night.The chart shows the view looking east from London at midnight as 21 April becomes 22 April. The radiant (the point on the sky from which the meteors appear to originate, and here labelled Lyrids), is found near the border of Lyra, the lyre, and Hercules, the hero. Conveniently, it is rather near to the bright star Vega. Continue reading...
Maura Healey says president targeting universities hurts US competitiveness' and affects research and hospitalsMassachusetts governor Maura Healey said on Sunday that Donald Trump's attacks on Harvard University and other schools are having detrimental ripple effects, with the shutdown of research labs and cuts to hospitals linked to colleges.During an interview on CBS's Face the Nation, the Democratic governor said that the effects on Harvard are damaging American competitiveness", since a number of researchers are leaving the US for opportunities in other countries. After decades of investment in science and innovation, she said: intellectual assets are being given away." Continue reading...
Readers critique the symbolism, substance and style of the recent all-female rocket tripFor those who have not already read Ursula K Le Guin's 1976 essay SpaceCrone, it is the perfect antidote to this weird Charlie's Angels-in-space exploit (So Katy Perry went to space. Wasn't there anyone else we could have sent?, 14 April).Le Guin rightly suggests that it is an apparently unremarkable postmenopausal woman who is the ideal candidate to represent humanity on a space mission. The crone" has a depth of experience of being human that no young, fit, looks-great-in-Lycra man or woman can match. Continue reading...
The scientist reflects on a speculative idea about human perception in a 2004 book he co-wrote and, two decades on, an experiment that has produced a colour no one has seen beforeHue new? Scientists claim to have found colour no one has seen before". Congratulations on a genuinely witty double pun in the online headline on your article, which was also in Saturday'spaper under a different heading.And - forgive a little self-congratulation - my co-author Yan Wong reminds me that in our book, The Ancestor's Tale (first published in 2004, with a second edition in 2016), we wrote: This raises an intriguing possibility. Imagine that a neurobiologist inserts a tiny probe into, say, a green cone and stimulates it electrically. The green cell will now report light' while all other cells are silent. Will the brain see' a super green' hue such as could not possibly be achieved by any real light? Real light, no matter how pure, would always stimulate all three classes ofconestodifferingextents." Continue reading...
Don Pettit became a septuagenarian as he landed back on Earth after a seven-month mission onboard the International Space Station. Pettit and Russian cosmonauts Alexei Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner touched down in a remote area south-east of Zhezkazgan in Kazakhstan at 6.20am on Sunday. The astronauts spent their time on the ISS researching areas such as water sanitisation technology, plant growth under various conditions and fire behaviour in microgravity, Nasa said
Don Pettit became septuagenarian hurtling towards Earth after seven-month mission at International Space StationCake, gifts and a low-key family celebration may be how many senior citizens celebrate their 70th birthday.But Nasa's oldest serving astronaut, Don Pettit, became a septuagenarian while hurtling towards Earth in a spacecraft to wrap up a seven-month mission onboard the International Space Station (ISS). Continue reading...
In terms of Earth, we are a dangerous speciesRobin McKie's account of his 40years as the Observer's science editor is as deeply absorbing as it is a warning to humanity (What I've learned after 40 years as the Observer's science editor", Focus). He takes us back nearly 50years to British glaciologist John Mercer's warning that continued use of fossil fuel could lead to a 2C temperature rise by the mid-21st century threatening, among other potential catastrophes, a 5m sea level rise.His warnings, since echoed by swelling numbers of scientists, point out that climate change threatens to displace hundreds of millions of people from their homelands". Tragically, McKie reports, large parts of society turn their heads and deliberately reject the truths that have been presented to them". Our increasingly busy roads and airports illustrate this. His article needs to be read by government ministers, reported widely in the press and studied in schools.
Extraterrestrial rocks, recently delivered by a space probe, could answer the big questions about alien lifeforms and human existenceSeveral billion years ago, at the dawn of the solar system, a wet, salty world circled our sun. Then it collided, catastrophically, with another object and shattered into pieces.One of these lumps became the asteroid Bennu whose minerals, recently returned to Earth by the US robot space probe OSIRIS-REx, have now been found to contain rich levels of complex chemicals that are critical for the existence of life. Continue reading...
The pressure's off when we're not staring at each other, we can relax and have a nice chatOn the day after Boxing Day last year, my dad and I went to buy some cabbage. My aunt and cousins were joining us for dinner that evening and we had a meal to prepare. The local supermarket was closed and the cabbage, sourced from an Italian deli around the corner, was obscenely overpriced. In a bind, we bought some anyway and headed back home to begin cooking. Standing around the kitchen island chopping and peeling vegetables, preparing a rib of beef and assembling a side dish of dauphinoise potatoes, we listened to music and chatted. The meal was a success and the cabbage - lightly browned and decorated with caraway seeds - tasty. But most important was that, for the time we had spent cooking, I felt closer to my dad.This kind of intimacy almost always occurs for me while I'm cooking with someone. When I was 14, I was paired with a classmate in food technology where we were tasked with making a meal from scratch. We decided on a menu of jerk chicken, rice and peas. For practice, we gathered a group of friends at my house and, after procuring our ingredients, got to work. The results of our efforts were average, but that joint experience of clumsily blitzing fiery scotch bonnet peppers, onions, garlic and various sauces into a clumpy and barely edible mess cemented our friendship. Continue reading...
Tentative evidence for life on a distant world is exciting, but unconfirmed. As new telescopes bring exoplanets into sharper focus, is the truth out there?Towards the end of his life, the cosmologist Stephen Hawking was asked about the odds of finding intelligent alien life in the next two decades. The probability is low," he declared in 2016, and took a lengthy pause before adding: Probably."This week, other scientists from the University of Cambridge reported tentative evidence for two compounds in the atmosphere of a planet, K2-18b, that sits in the constellation of Leo 124 light years away. Continue reading...
Contested discovery achieved by experiment firing laser pulses into eyes, stimulating retina cellsAfter walking the Earth for a few hundred thousand years, humans might think they have seen it all. But not according to a team of scientists who claim to have experienced a colour no one has seen before.The bold - and contested - assertion follows an experiment in which researchers in the US had laser pulses fired into their eyes. By stimulating individual cells in the retina, the laser pushed their perception beyond its natural limits, they say. Continue reading...
Analysis aims to solidify agreement on cannabis's potential as a cancer treatment, lead author of research saysThe largest ever study investigating medical cannabis as a treatment for cancer, published this week in Frontiers in Oncology, found overwhelming scientific support for cannabis's potential to treat cancer symptoms and potentially fight the course of the disease itself.The intention of the analysis was to solidify agreement on cannabis's potential as a cancer treatment, said Ryan Castle, research director at the Whole Health Oncology Institute and lead author of the study. Castle noted that it has been historically difficult to do so because marijuana is still federally considered an illegal Schedule I narcotic. Continue reading...
Department of Transportation employees who provide support for Starlink and SpaceX launches safe amid job cutsElon Musk's department of government efficiency" (Doge) and the Trump administration have spared the jobs of US Department of Transportation employees who provide support services for spacecraft launches by Musk's companies, SpaceX and Starlink - a revelation that raises a new round of conflict of interest questions around Doge.In its most recent buyout announcement, the transportation department did not note that the positions spared supported Musk's and others' space operations. Continue reading...
Scientists sound the alarm over substances such as arsenic and lead contaminating soils and entering food systemsAbout one sixth of global cropland is contaminated by toxic heavy metals, researchers have estimated, with as many as 1.4 billion people living in high-risk areas worldwide.Approximately 14 to 17% of cropland globally - roughly 242m hectares - is contaminated by at least one toxic metal such as arsenic, cadmium, cobalt, chromium, copper, nickel or lead, at levels that exceed agricultural and human health safety thresholds. Continue reading...
Orforglipron also reduced blood sugar levels in participants with type 2 diabetesA significant trial of a daily weight-loss pill has found that it helped people to shed the pounds and reduce their blood sugar levels, making it a contender to join the new wave of drugs that combat obesity and diabetes.People who took a 36mg pill of orforglipron lost an average of 7.3kg (16lbs) over nine months, according to results from a phase 3 clinical trial reported by the drug's manufacturer, Eli Lilly, on Thursday. Continue reading...
by Presented by Ian Sample with Jessica Glenza, produ on (#6WP6M)
As a measles outbreak expands across the US, comments by health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr have come under scrutiny. Kennedy has said that the best way to prevent measles is to get vaccinated - but he has also caused alarm among paediatricians, vaccine experts and lawmakers by promoting vitamin A and nutrition as treatments for measles and questioning the safety testing of the MMR vaccine. He also recently announced a US-led scientific effort to establish the cause of what he terms the autism epidemic', with some experts concerned that this study will support the widely discredited association between autism and vaccines. US health reporter Jessica Glenza tells Ian Sample, the Guardian's science editor, how these mixed messages are already impacting scientific research.RFK Jr says his response to measles outbreak should be model for the world'RFK Jr contradicts experts by linking autism rise to environmental toxins' Continue reading...
by Kat Lay, Global health correspondent on (#6WPAB)
Findings from Tanzania's Kilimanjaro region indicate traditional eating habits in rural Africa can boost the immune system and reduce inflammationPlantains, cassava and fermented banana drink should be added to global healthy eating guidelines alongside the olive oil, tomatoes and red wine of the Mediterranean diet, say researchers who found the traditional diet of people living in Tanzania's Kilimanjaro region had a positive impact on the body's immune system.Traditional foods enjoyed in rural villages also had a positive impact on markers of inflammation, the researchers found in a study published this month in the journal Nature Medicine. Continue reading...
by Hannah Devlin Science correspondent on (#6WP2V)
Astrophysics team say observation of chemical compounds may be tipping point' in search for extraterrestrial lifeA giant planet 124 light years from Earth has yielded the strongest evidence yet that extraterrestrial life may be thriving beyond our solar system, astronomers claim.Observations by the James Webb space telescope of a planet called K2-18 b appear to reveal the chemical fingerprints of two compounds that, on Earth, are only known to be produced by life. Continue reading...
US health secretary bucks expert opinion as research shows rise in diagnoses due to better tools and screeningThe US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, said in his first press conference that the significant and recent rise in autism diagnoses was evidence of an epidemic" caused by an environmental toxin", which would be rooted out by September.Autism advocates and health experts have repeatedly stated the rise in diagnoses is related to better recognition of the condition, changing diagnostic criteria and better access to screening. Many also reject the label of an epidemic", arguing that neurodivergence should be valued. Continue reading...
Readers respond to George Monbiot's piece on how economic inequality fosters resentment, exclusion and nostalgiaGeorge Monbiot (Rightwing populists will keep winning until we grasp this truth about human nature, 13 April) makes some very important points about the psychology of those who follow demagogues and rightwing populist leaders. But this knowledge is not new. After the horrors of the rise of the Nazis and the persecution by them of Jews and other minority groups before and during the second world war, psychologists, many of them Jewish, began to systematically study the origins of such hatred. One was Henri Tajfel, a Jew born in Poland whose family were murdered by the Nazis.Tajfel was primarily interested in group identity, and popularised the terms in-group and out-group. Most importantly for understanding our times, Tajfel's work helped to show that not only do we work for, and experience reward through, the in-group's success (familiar to supporters of any football club), but, more sinisterly, we will work for, and experience reward through,the detriment of the out-group, even if that also meansthein-group suffers, so longas it is to a lesser extent. Continue reading...
Science | The Guardian