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Call for UK government ban of chemical in processed meat such as bacon and ham after mice tumours studyA leading scientist has urged ministers to ban the use of nitrites in food after research highlighted the “clear” risk of developing cancer from eating processed meat such as bacon and ham too often.The study by scientists from Queen’s University Belfast found that mice fed a diet of processed meat containing the chemicals, which are used to cure bacon and give it its distinctive pink colour, developed 75% more cancerous tumours than mice fed nitrite-free pork. Continue reading...

On a continent that has long attracted western expeditions, a wave of young people are now exploring sitesA late morning in Khartoum. Inside a low, dusty building in the centre of the Sudanese capital, there are crates of artefacts, a 7ft replica of a 2,000-year-old stone statue of a Nubian god, and students rushing through the corridors. Outside is noisy traffic, blinding sunlight and both branches of the Nile.Heading down one staircase are Sabrine Jamal, Nadia Musa, Athar Bela and Sabrine al-Sadiq, all studying archaeology at Khartoum University. Not one of them is older than 24 and they see themselves as pioneers, breaking new ground on a continent that has long attracted western expeditions, specialists and adventurers but whose own archaeologists have received less attention overseas. Continue reading...

From a fragment of skull in a washing machine to a finger bone found by a dog walker, the forensic anthropologist Prof Dame Sue Black has helped solve many strange and mysterious cases.This year, she will be giving the Royal Institution Christmas lectures, Britain’s most prestigious public science lectures. In them, she’ll be investigating the secret clues hidden in our bodies and how the scientific detective process can be used to identify the living and the dead. Nicola Davis sat down with Black to discuss the lectures, her most memorable cases, and why she didn’t want her daughters to get braces. Madeleine Finlay hears from them both in this Christmas special of Science Weekly Continue reading...

Constellation of 200 satellites set to improve flight safety and communication, including helping limit turbulence

The solutions to today’s puzzlesEarlier today I set you these three challenges by Argentina’s puzzle guru Rodolfo Kurchan. Here they are again with solutions.1. Messi maths Continue reading...

It feels great to give at Christmas. But does that pleasure detract from the good deed?“I really enjoy doing it: it makes me feel good about myself. It gives me a boost, mentally and physically.” If these were your reactions to an activity, you’d surely be inclined to do it as often as you could. After all, aren’t a lot of us looking for ways to find more meaning in life and to be happier and healthier? What, then, is the act that elicits such positive responses? The answer: being kind.A growing body of evidence from the fields of psychology and neuroscience demonstrates that performing kind acts increases mental wellbeing, enhances physical health and might even improve life expectancy. Kindness is not just beneficial for the recipient, but also for the giver. Continue reading...

Astronomer who explored how a white dwarf star and a normal one can interact to provide surges in brightness or a supernovaTom Marsh, the founding professor of the astronomy and astrophysics group at Warwick University, who has died aged 60, was a world-leading expert on compact binary star systems, two stars closely orbiting around each other. It is believed that the majority of stars are in fact in binary systems, with some close enough to produce complex interactions.As the two stars orbit each other, we see them alternately receding from us and coming towards us. When the light from the stars is spread out into a spectrum of wavelengths, we see the features in the stellar spectra moving backwards and forwards in wavelength as they are redshifted and blueshifted by the Doppler effect. Detailed observations allow astronomers to estimate the masses of the stars, and – if the stars happen to be lined up so that they eclipse each other – their radii, and the distance of the system. Continue reading...

With the success of Artemis, lunar travel is back on the agenda – and a way to produce water on moon is vital for human presenceIn 1970, Neil Armstrong predicted there would be people living in Antarctica-style lunar research bases “within our lifetime”. He was wrong: it’s been 50 years since the last Apollo crewed mission.Perhaps not so very wrong, however. Ten years after Armstrong’s death, lunar travel is back on the agenda, with teams of scientists around the world working to fulfil Nasa’s aspiration to have humans living on the moon within the decade. Continue reading...

For less than a tenner, do as I do: buy a hand lens, head outside and discover fungi and moulds lighting up the darknessThe profound therapeutic benefits of connecting with nature and spending time outside are well known. But in winter? When it’s cold, gloomy and everything looks dead? In fact, especially in the winter, when we are susceptible to fatigue, illness and seasonal low mood. And actually there is plenty of life, beauty and wonder right outside our doors, if we look closely.Come and take a short walk with me in my nearest wild patch – an urban cemetery, a common environment across the British Isles. Continue reading...

Puzzles to Messi with your mindUPDATE: solutions can be read hereTo celebrate Argentina’s World Cup victory eight days ago, today’s puzzles are set by Rodolfo Kurchan, an internationally renowned puzzle inventor and author from Buenos Aires.1. Messi maths Continue reading...

R range and growth rate, which during the height of the pandemic was published weekly in England, deemed ‘no longer necessary’The UK Health Security Agency will stop publishing modelling data on coronavirus in early January.The chief data scientist, Dr Nick Watkins, said the publication of this specific data is “no longer necessary” as the country is living with Covid thanks to vaccines and therapeutics. Continue reading...

To my surprise I don’t miss neurosurgery now I’ve retired, but still find joy in making things for my grandchildrenThe pictures on my iPhone photo roll for the past two years are mainly of my granddaughters and, more recently, of my newborn grandson, interspersed with destroyed and rusty Russian tanks in Ukraine, where I went this year, having regularly travelled to teach surgery therefor 30 years.But there are also a few pictures from the workshop at the bottom of my garden of the doll’s house I have been building for Lizzie, my youngest granddaughter. I started working on it during lockdown and hope to finish it by Christmas. I suppose in some ways it is a substitute for operative neurosurgery as I “hung up my gloves” – as surgeons call retiring – more than two years ago, although I continue to teach and lecture.Henry Marsh’s latest book, And Finally: Matters of Life and Death, is out nowDo 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...

Lack of approved therapies and need to work means people are turning to options such as ‘blood washing’People with long Covid are turning to unproven and expensive treatments because of a lack of approved therapies coupled with a need to return to paid work, experts have warned.According to figures from the Office for National Statistics, more than 2.1 million people in November were still living with Covid symptoms more than four weeks after the first confirmed or suspected infection – about 3.3% of the UK population. Continue reading...

UK firm links with up global drug firms to make synthetic antibodies capable of binding to targets such as tumour cellsInside a science park lab next to the University of York, two clusters of robots are busy moving clear plates with mechanical arms as they screen many millions of molecules. The machines need only 24 hours to complete work that would usually take teams of human scientists several days.The lab is run by Aptamer Group, a small biotech firm that has quietly carved out a leading position in the development of a highly sought after technology. Its scientists create aptamers – fragments of DNA, also known as synthetic antibodies, that are used to diagnose illnesses, or to deliver drugs to their target to fight a range of diseases including cancer. Continue reading...

The Biden administration is developing a controversial solar geoengineering research plan to the dismay of many expertsAs global heating escalates, the US government has set out a plan to further study the controversial and seemingly sci-fi notion of deflecting the sun’s rays before they hit Earth. But a growing group of scientists denounces any steps towards what is known as solar geoengineering.The White House has set into motion a five-year outline for research into “climate interventions”. Those include methods such as sending a phalanx of planes to spray reflective particles into the upper reaches of the atmosphere, in order to block incoming sunlight from adding to rising temperatures. Continue reading...

Archaeologists say cave complex must be preserved for ‘indisputable and cultural value’Dmytro Perov was at his day job, analysing planning applications for Kyiv city council, when he saw a familiar address – the derelict house in central Kyiv built by his family in the late 1800s that was confiscated by the Bolsheviks. The owners of the site now wanted to build on it and had made the unlikely claim that their office was based at the house, which Perov knew had no roof and collapsed walls.When he was a child, his grandmother said somewhere on the land around the former family home were rumoured to be ancient caves. He described it as a “small family legend”. Ukraine is home to a few cave complexes, most of which were built by monks, the most famous being Kyiv’s Pecherska Lavra – or Cave Monastery in English. Continue reading...

While oranges and cloves moved from medicine cabinet to kitchen, rosemary fell out of festive fashion in EnglandThe waft of pine trees and cinnamon biscuits may mean it is beginning to smell a lot like Christmas, but the odours that conjure up yuletide today may not always have had such joyful connotations, research has revealed.Experts studying records of smells described in texts dating as far back as the 16th century say they have discovered the scents we associate with Christmas have shifted over time. Continue reading...

Welburn, North Yorkshire: The moon is yet to appear, but the night is vivid with something larger than lifeThe sun has stalled. Solstice is from the Latin Sol and sistere, meaning to stand still. In December, the hiatus is around our star’s southernmost rising and setting points, and appears to last about two weeks to the naked-eye observer. In the northern hemisphere, it brings us the shortest of daylight hours. There weren’t enough today and we finished our afternoon walk in gathering dark to the sound of avian roosting rituals, and the nightly round of blackbird pseudo-alarm calls – the passerine equivalent of crying wolf to startle others into vacating favoured spots.By 10 o’clock, the cold is clean and sharp as a surgical blade, and frost dazzles like diamond dust by torchlight. Nothing stirs in branch, briar or bracken, and the moon is yet to appear, but the night is vivid with something larger than life. Continue reading...

When a virtual stranger helped my grandfather, it reminded me that for all the bad in the world, behind the scenes lie untold stories of extraordinary goodI heard some good news recently. My 91-year-old grandfather called me to test his new hearing aid. For the first time in a long time, he could hear my voice. It thrilled us both.He and my grandmother had been trying to replace his previous hearing aid for more than a month but confusing instructions, impatient explanations and faulty hardware meant they’d almost given up. Now they had me on speakerphone and were giving me an update in excited voices. This time their story didn’t evoke sympathy but joy. Continue reading...

Historic events and significant change have punctuated the year worldwide. Space tech company Maxar Technologies has kept an eye on developments from roughly 724km above Earth, capturing all the news from space Continue reading...

Dr Peter Hotez says Joe Biden was wrong to say pandemic is over and warns US risks another deadly coronavirus wave soonJoe Biden was wrong to declare the coronavirus pandemic over in the US, one of the country’s leading experts on the virus has told the Guardian.Dr Peter Hotez, co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s hospital and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, said that the US president’s statement in September, that “the pandemic is over”, was mistaken and a poor message to send to the American public. Continue reading...

Cause of puncture remains unclear as officials say damage continues to be assessedRussia is considering a “rescue” plan to send an empty spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) to bring home three stranded crew members after their Soyuz crew capsule sprang a leak while docked to the orbiting outpost.Roscosmos and Nasa officials said at a news conference on Thursday they were continuing to investigate how the coolant line of the capsule’s external radiator sustained a tiny puncture last week, just as two cosmonauts were preparing for a routine spacewalk. Continue reading...

There were 38,610 people diagnosed with Covid across the state this week, along with 78 deaths

Oxford University’s Panoramic trial suggests molnupiravir can speed up recovery in vaccinated but vulnerable patientsAn oral antiviral pill for Covid speeds up recovery among vaccinated yet vulnerable patients, but does not reduce their likelihood of needing hospital care or dying, research has suggested.The UK became the first country in the world in November 2021 to approve molnupiravir for Covid, with the pill – which can be taken twice a day at home – given to patients through the Panoramic (Platform Adaptive trial of NOvel antiviRals for eArly treatMent of Covid-19 In the Community) trial. Continue reading...

As Christmas approaches, many of us will have spent the last few weeks trying to pick out the perfect presents for friends, family and colleagues. For both giver and receiver, exchanging gifts can be filled with delight – or dread, as a smile slowly fades into a look of feigned enthusiasm. But what does science say about how to avoid unwanted gifts and unpleasant surprises?Ian Sample speaks to Julian Givi about his research unwrapping what we all actually want under the tree, and hears his top tips for choosing a winning present every time Continue reading...

Approval of growth hormone somatrogon fast-tracked by medicines watchdog, replacing need for daily jabsThousands of children who fail to grow normally because of a hormone deficiency have been given access to a weekly injection for the condition after new guidance from the medicines watchdog.Children with the disorder, known as growth disturbance, have previously required daily injections of the growth hormone somatropin to ensure their healthy development. But a fast-track assessment by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) means patients can now use a more convenient weekly injection called somatrogon. Continue reading...

Research into immune response sheds light on question of whether virus damages nose or brainMillions of people who lost their sense of smell after contracting Covid may have an ongoing, abnormal immune response that destroys cells in the nose, researchers say.Doctors analysed nasal tissue from Covid patients and found that those with long-term problems with their sense of smell had inflammation-driving immune cells inside the delicate nasal lining, which were potentially wiping out vital sensory nerve cells. Continue reading...

Coverage of climate crisis solutions is slim in textbooks, with many references moving to the back pagesUS college-level biology textbooks miss the mark on offering solutions to the climate crisis, according to a new analysis of books over the last 50 years.Fewer than three pages in a typical 1,000-page biology textbook from recent decades address climate change, according to the new study, despite experts warning it is humankind’s biggest problem. Continue reading...

With relatively low vaccination rates and a lack of reliable data, 60% of the population may soon be infectedThe Chinese government has changed its approach from “zero Covid” to “living with Covid”. This is largely because the virus has become too transmissible to contain: new variants have emerged that cause one person to infect an estimated 16 others. As part of this shift towards “living with Covid”, entire cities are no longer in lockdown, restrictions have been lifted on domestic travel and people who test positive can now isolate at home instead of at government facilities. Testing has become voluntary, and asymptomatic cases of Covid-19 are no longer being counted. Meanwhile, the government is urging vaccine uptake among elderly people and vulnerable groups.What is baffling global health experts is why China took so long to vaccinate these groups, and why the government didn’t accept western vaccines such as the mRNA vaccines, which proved to be the most effective at preventing severe illness. The US director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, said Xi Jinping seemed “unwilling to take a better vaccine from the west, and is instead relying on a vaccine in China that’s just not nearly as effective against Omicron”. China’s government insisted on trying to develop its own vaccine, which caused a costly and deadly time delay. While many other nations vaccinated their populations in 2021 and boosted in 2022, rates of vaccination in China are comparatively low: only about 50% of the population have received three shots.Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh Continue reading...

Go-ahead brings prospect of ‘historic’ space flight from UK a step closerThe prospect of a “historic” space flight taking off from Cornwall early in the new year has taken a major step forward after the UK Civil Aviation Authority issued a launch licence for the project.Virgin Orbit will begin final preparations for the first launch of satellites from UK soil, though no final date for lift-off has been set. Continue reading...

Scientists at Royal Botanic Gardens say naming new species is part of global effort to protect Earth’s biodiversityThe world’s largest giant waterlily from the wetlands of Bolivia, a spiny fungus named after the Queen and a herb threatened with extinction by pigeon droppings are among more than 100 plants and fungi recorded as being new to science in 2022 by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.Many of the discoveries, including a tall tree from Brazil’s Atlantic forest and a busy lizzie from Cameroon, are extremely rare, and one is already considered globally extinct. Two in five plants globally are estimated to be at the risk of extinction. Continue reading...

Paleontologists say they have identified foot of mouse-sized mammal in fossilised rib cage of predatory microraptorIt may have been a pressing fear for the fictional characters in the 1993 film Jurassic Park, but scientists believe they have uncovered the first known incident of a mammal being eaten by a dinosaur.However, the fossils from 120m years ago are not of a human ancestor, but instead the foot of an animal inside the ribcage of a small feathered dinosaur, known as a microraptor. Continue reading...

State media reports on increased efforts to boost health infrastructure, staffing and suppliesChinese authorities are rushing to boost the number of intensive care beds and health workers and increase medication supplies as Covid-19 surges through the country.Since the abrupt dismantling of the stringent zero-Covid regime, cases have skyrocketed in China. A full picture of the impact is difficult to gauge. Authorities have conceded it is “impossible” for the testing system to keep track, and the narrow parameters for attributing deaths to the virus mean the official count – fewer than 10 this week – is at odds with widespread anecdotal reports of fatalities and high traffic at funeral homes. Continue reading...

A historic deal has been struck at the UN’s biodiversity conference, Cop15, which will set a course for nature recovery from now until 2050, including a target to protect 30% of the planet for nature by the end of the decade. One of the key phrases guiding the summit across the two weeks of negotiations was ‘nature positive’.Madeleine Finlay hears from the biodiversity reporter Phoebe Weston about what ‘nature positive’ meant at Cop15, and what she’d like to see from countries now the final agreement has been made, and speaks to biodiversity professor EJ Milner-Gulland about how to stop the term ‘nature positive’ becoming another way for companies to greenwash their businesses. Continue reading...

Robot says it might be sending its last message from Mars as dust chokes out its power supplyNasa’s InSight lander has delivered what could be its final message from Mars, where it has been on a history-making mission to reveal the secrets of the Red Planet’s interior.In November the space agency warned the lander’s time may becoming to an end as dust continued to thicken and choke out the InSight’s power. Continue reading...

Dr Mark Diesendorf questions the claim that nuclear fusion is safe and clean, while Dr Chris Cragg suspects true fusion power is a long way off. Plus letters from Dick Willis and Martin O’DonovanYou report on the alleged “breakthrough” on nuclear fusion, in which US researchers claim that break-even has been achieved (Breakthrough in nuclear fusion could mean ‘near-limitless energy’, 12 December). To go from break-even, where energy output is greater than total energy input, to a commercial nuclear fusion reactor could take at least 25 years. By then, the whole world could be powered by safe and clean renewable energy, primarily solar and wind.The claim by the researchers that nuclear fusion is safe and clean is incorrect. Laser fusion, particularly as a component of a fission-fusion hybrid reactor, can produce neutrons that can be used to produce the nuclear explosives plutonium-239, uranium-235 and uranium-233. It could also produce tritium, a form of heavy hydrogen, which is used to boost the explosive power of a fission explosion, making fission bombs smaller and hence more suitable for use in missile warheads. This information is available in open research literature. Continue reading...

Bottlenose dolphin, a long-finned pilot whale and a third species found to have markers of the degenerative diseaseThree species of cetacean stranded off the coast of Scotland, including a bottlenose dolphin and a long-finned pilot whale, have been found to have the classic markers of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study.Although types of dementia have been fairly widely detected in other animals, Alzheimer’s disease has not been found to occur naturally in species other than humans. Continue reading...

Wasps seen piercing the mouth or other parts of tree frogs with their sharp weapon when being attackedKipling might well have believed that the female of the species is more deadly than the male, but when it comes to mason wasps, the latter have quite the weapon.Researchers in Japan have discovered that male mason wasps use sharp spines on their genitalia to resist being swallowed by predators. Continue reading...

The planets will potentially be visible this week after sunset, but it will require a clear horizon and keeping a sharp eye openThere’s a challenging but beautiful sight awaiting keen-eyed stargazers this week. Mercury and Venus have returned to the evening sky and are nestled together in the sunset twilight.The chart shows the view looking south-west from London at 16.30 GMT on 24 December. The planets are visible for about three-quarters of an hour after sunset, but a clear horizon is needed to see them. Continue reading...

Documents reveal that pathogenic agents, zoonotic bacteria and viruses, including one deemed bioterrorism risk, entered US but ‘no indication CDC has been transparent’Animal activists are calling for the US government to stop the importation of non-human primates for laboratory use after documents from the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reveal that deadly pathogenic agents, zoonotic bacteria and viruses – including one deemed to be a bioterrorism risk – entered the country with monkeys imported from Asia between 2018 and 2021.Documents obtained by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) and seen exclusively by the Guardian, along with a case report by the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science, reveal that there have been six cases of Burkholderia pseudomallei identified in primates imported from Cambodia to the US. Continue reading...

Family traditions are what you make them, Christmas means honouring the people dearest to youIt’s Christmas Eve. The tree lights are off, pine needles dropping on to presents crammed beneath. Cold air seeps in through the window panes and I pull the duvet up tighter around my ears. As I begin to drift off to sleep, I hear the soft click of the door handle, footsteps padding into the room. I freeze, hold my breath, squeeze my eyes shut. A rustle at the end of the bed and then the footsteps retreat. The next morning, I wake to find a stocking – well, not quite a stocking, it’s a pillow case – stuffed with treats. Among the little gifts is a bag of chocolate coins that I tear into, discarding gold and silver foil as I go. This was my first stocking. I was 19 years old.It was my mother-in-law who thought to creep into the room of a young adult on that first Christmas which I spent with my now husband and his family. Her name is Snezana, which means Snow White in Serbian. Her parents emigrated to the UK before she was born. She was there when my husband and I met at university two decades ago and still tells the story of how she saw a spark between us and was convinced that I would be her son’s wife. For her, Christmas represents honouring those you love, and it was important to her to knit me into the tapestry of her family as she sees each new family member as a gift. It is unsurprising, then, that she takes great joy in making this time of year as magical as possible. Continue reading...

My parents weren’t rich but they always made me feel I could have exactly what I dreamed ofI was three and Christmas 1969 was approaching. Neil Armstrong walked on the moon that summer and I wanted what millions of kids must have wanted for Christmas: the Apollo 11 rocket. I announced this and went off to listen yet again to my favourite record: Puff, the Magic Dragon.Our house on a nice new estate in Wrexham was full of craft furniture. My dad, who taught woodwork at the town’s grammar school, made our tables and chairs and the abstract copper-wire artworks on the walls. The space age was happening on television but our Wales was still in the days of oak. Continue reading...

An enthralling project to save the northern white rhino is raising challenging questions as scientists debate the ethics of de-extinctionWhen Dr Natalie Cooper, a scientist at the Natural History Museum, met Sudan, the last surviving northern white male rhino, in Kenya before he died aged 45, she understandably feared the subspecies’ extinction was certain – mostly due to poaching fuelled by human greed for the prized horn. “The sense of enormity when staring extinction right in the eye is difficult to comprehend,” she reflects on that 2013 encounter. “It was fairly obvious by that point that the breeding programme wasn’t going to work – the subspecies seemed doomed, it was just a matter of time.”But almost a decade later, the world’s rarest large mammal could be on the brink of an astonishing return from functional extinction. The growing efforts to save extant, but seriously threatened, species come alongside a controversial wider de-extinction movement that seeks to bring versions of lost animal breeds, such as woolly mammoths, back to life. Continue reading...

Experts monitoring the loss of Scythian artefacts have been shocked at scale of theft by Putin’s forcesThe people the Greeks called Scythians were formidable warriors and nomads who dominated the Eurasian steppe for more than 1,000 years from about 800BC – long before the creation of national borders.The fabulous gold weapons and ornaments they left behind ended up in museums across the region, many of them in Ukraine. Since Russian troops invaded Ukraine in February, however, much Scythian gold – along with millions of other priceless artefacts – has been looted or “evacuated”. Continue reading...

Last week’s experiment in the US is promising, but it’s not a magic bullet for our energy needsThe revelation that researchers had succeeded in creating a nuclear fusion reaction that generated more energy than it consumed made reassuring reading last week. For almost half a century, I have reported on scientific issues and no decade has been complete without two or three announcements by scientists claiming their work would soon allow science to recreate the processes that drive the sun. The end result would be the generation of clean, cheap nuclear fusion that would transform our lives.Such announcements have been rare recently, so it gave me a warm glow to realise that standards may be returning to normal. By deploying a set of 192 lasers to bombard pellets of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, researchers at the US National Ignition Facility (NIF) in Livermore, California, were able to generate temperatures only found in stars and thermonuclear bombs. The isotopes then fused into helium, releasing excess energy, they reported. Continue reading...

Sale of Maximus T rex at Sotheby’s reveals growing interest in palaeontological finds at auction housesSotheby’s New York Luxury Week auctions offered a surprising first earlier this month. This series of sales showcases “the best of the best” in opulent goods, from jewellery and cars to wine and handbags. So you’d expect rare Rolexes or a mint condition 911 Porsche Targa, but the rarest possession up for grabs this time was a skull.Named Maximus, it’s one of the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skulls ever discovered. The first of its kind to appear at public auction, it sold for $6,069,500 to one of a new breed of art collectors who view dinosaurs as collectibles. Continue reading...

A Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Vandenberg space force base, California, carrying the Swot satellite – short for surface water and ocean topography – into orbit. The international mission, jointly developed and operated by Nasa and the French space agency CNES, in partnership with the British and Canadian space agencies, aims to give scientists an unprecedented view of the bodies of water that cover about 70% of the Earth, and help researchers better understand climate breakdown

Analysis shows ‘earliest members of two main veggie dinosaur lineages were not exclusively herbivorous’With its huge feet, long neck and penchant for plants, the diplodocus may be one of history’s biggest vegetarians. But research has revealed the sauropod’s ancestors may have had a taste for flesh.Scientists studying the teeth of some of the earliest dinosaurs to roam the Earth say they have uncovered telltale clues as to what they ate. Continue reading...

The Japanese government held an emergency meeting and share prices crashed after a Pokémon broadcast. For years, its effects went unexplained – until researchers started digging …Twenty-five years ago, at precisely 6.51pm on 16 December 1997, hundreds of children across Japan experienced seizures. In total, 685 – 310 boys and 375 girls – were taken by ambulance to hospital. Within two days, 12,000 children had reported symptoms of illness. The common factor in this sudden mass outbreak was an unlikely culprit: an episode of the Pokémon cartoon series.The instalment in question, Dennō Senshi Porygon (Electric Soldier Porygon), was the 38thin the Pokémon anime’s first season – and initially, at least, it sparked a medical mystery. Twenty minutes into the cartoon, an explosion took place, illustrated by an animation technique known as paka paka, which broadcast alternating red and blue flashing lights at a rate of 12Hz for six seconds. Instantly, hundreds of children experienced photosensitive epileptic seizures – accounting for some, but far from all, of the hospitalisations. Continue reading...