After centuries of distrust and disdain, mushrooms are having their moment. From sci-fi smash hits to drug trials, an emerging league of mycophiles are bringing fungi out of the shadows

From elephants to tigers, study reveals scale of damage to wildlife caused by transformation of wildernesses and human activityThe total weight of Earth’s wild land mammals – from elephants to bisons and from deer to tigers – is now less than 10% of the combined tonnage of men, women and children living on the planet.A study by scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science, published this month, concludes that wild land mammals alive today have a total mass of 22m tonnes. By comparison, humanity now weighs in at a total of around 390m tonnes. Continue reading...

I have seen enough to know that it’s going to alter our lives. Just think what AI tools could do when used by creative people in fashion or architectureThe recent flurry, or rather blizzard, of announcements of new variants of generative AI have brought a storm of hype and fright. OpenAI’s ChatGPT already appeared to be a gamechanger, but now this week’s new version, GPT-4, is another leap ahead. GPT-4 can generate enough text to write a book, code in every computer language, and – most remarkably – “understand” images.If your mind is not boggled by the potential of this, then you haven’t been paying attention. I have spent the past five years researching how artificial intelligence has been changing journalism around the world. I’ve seen how it can supercharge news media to gather, create and distribute content in much more efficient and effective ways. It is already the “next wave” of technological change. Now generative AI has moved potential progress up a gear or two. Continue reading...

Analysis of gene sequences by international team finds Covid-positive samples rich in raccoon dog DNANewly released genetic data gathered from a live food market in Wuhan has linked Covid-19 with raccoon dogs, adding weight to the theory that infected animals sold at the site started the coronavirus pandemic, researchers involved in the work say.Swabs collected from stalls at the Huanan seafood market in the two months after it was shut down on 1 January 2020 were previously found to contain both Covid and human DNA. When the findings were published last year, Chinese researchers stated that the samples contained no animal DNA. Continue reading...

Researchers believe UK prevalence of peanut allergies could fall by 77% if eaten from four to six months of agePeanut products such as puffed snacks and peanut butter should be given to children from four to six months of age to reduce the risk of them developing a peanut allergy, experts have said.Studies suggest the prevalence of peanut allergy among children in western countries has doubled in a decade. About one in 50 children in the UK have the condition, with about 13,000 infants developing a peanut allergy each year. The condition can be life-threatening and create a constant worry for parents and children who have to avoid exposure. Continue reading...

Raised in Hertfordshire and encouraged to think big from an early age, Fox is only second woman to hold the postWomen should never be afraid to ask questions, says Nicola Fox, Nasa’s new science chief and only the second woman to hold this position in the agency’s history. In her view, being curious and having a ton of questions are the hallmarks of a successful scientist – even if asking them can feel intimidating.“Sometimes you feel if you’re the only woman in the room that you probably shouldn’t speak up, because everybody might think you’re stupid. But I’ve worked really hard on trying to tell people that there are no stupid questions – most of the time if you speak up, at least 30% of the people in the room will have the same question and weren’t brave enough to ask it.” Continue reading...

All the Spiranthes on the Japanese mainland were thought to be a single species, but in fact there are twoIn Japan, a country with a rich and ancient history of horticulture, it is nowadays extremely rare for a new plant species to be identified. But the latest one has been growing under their noses, and it is exceptionally beautiful.Spiranthes hachijoensis, whose rosy pink petals bear a striking resemblance to glasswork, can be found in common environments such as lawns and parks, and even in private gardens and on balconies, and yet until now it had not been named. That is because until now it was believed that all the Spiranthes on the Japanese mainland were a single species, when in fact there are two. Continue reading...

Exclusive: rare purple organism preys on trapdoor spider in behaviour reminiscent of its ‘zombie’ relatives that feature in apocalyptic TV show The Last of UsScientists believe they have discovered a new parasitic fungus which preys on trapdoor spiders in Brazil’s Atlantic rainforest.The rare organism, which is purple, belongs to a group of fungi that infect invertebrates and take over the host. A closeup image shows the fungus wrapped around the body of a trapdoor spider, poking out of the burrow from which the arachnid grabs insects. Continue reading...

No matter how bad I feel, I have to remind myself that the treatment is working to reduce my tumourNausea, diarrhoea, joint pain, fatigue, hair loss – the list of side-effects for most cancer drugs reads like symptoms of many illnesses in their own right. Before I had this disease, I would have considered making a GP appointment if I’d been suffering just some of the problems that I later came to just write off as simply the downside of being cured. The problem with all the side-effects the drugs have caused is that as they pile up, you can lose sight of why you are taking them.It’s not as if you’re not warned that chemotherapy has its downsides. Before I started my treatment for breast cancer, the oncologist went through a long list of the things that I could experience as side-effects. It covered most of an A4 sheet of paper, and she appeared to have ticked every suggested problem as possible from the one or several of the cocktail of drugs I was going to be on.Hilary Osborne is the Guardian’s money and consumer editor Continue reading...

Microreactor programme will develop technology to provide power for humans living and working on moonRolls-Royce has received funding from the UK Space Agency to develop a nuclear reactor for a moon base.The project will look into how nuclear power could be used to support a future base on the moon for astronauts. Continue reading...

Mutation likely to have come from a founder individual from the island who lived at least 250 years agoOne in a hundred people with Orkney heritage have a gene mutation that increases the risk of breast and ovarian cancer, according to a study.Researchers spotted the gene variant repeatedly in women from the archipelago off the north-eastern coast of Scotland who had the cancers, and clinical genealogy showed that patients with the variant had family roots tracing back to the island of Westray. Continue reading...

Public finally able to see 3D remains of plesiosaur discovered on Lyme Regis beach 16 years agoAt first when Raffle the dog began scratching at something on the beach at Lyme Regis, Tracey Barclay thought he had probably found a boring old stick or stone.But when she looked closer, Barclay realised Raffle had happened upon something much more interesting – the remains of a plesiosaur, a marine reptile that swam off modern day Dorset 200m years ago. Continue reading...

Satellite launch company hunts for funding lifeline following failed attempt from UK soilVirgin Orbit has paused its operations and furloughed its workforce as it hunts for a funding lifeline.The satellite launch company, based in California, will put all work on hold for at least a week with just a skeleton team remaining at work. Continue reading...

Ian Sample speaks to Guardian science correspondent Hannah Devlin about the latest developments and debates about gene editing to emerge from a summit at the Francis Crick Institute in London. The summit heard from the first person with sickle cell disease to be treated with a technique known as Crispr. He also hears from Prof Claire Booth about ensuring these cutting edge treatments are made available to everyone who needs themClips: Francis Crick Institute, BBC News Continue reading...

Outfits for planned lunar expedition more streamlined and flexible than Apollo suits, and a better fit for womenThe big, puffy white moonsuits worn by Neil Armstrong and his fellow Apollo astronauts a half-century ago are out of fashion. Lunar haute couture now calls for something more form-fitting and comfortable for men and women.Nasa on Wednesday unveiled the first prototype for a newly designed next-generation spacesuit specially tailored and accessorised for the first astronauts expected to venture back to the moon’s surface in the next few years. Continue reading...

Picture released of star in Sagitta constellation on the cusp of going supernova

Belgrade theatre, Coventry

Analysis of bones found in 1987 suggest Jurassic-era sauropod was animal with longest known neckA dinosaur that roamed east Asia more than 160m years ago has been named a contender for the animal with the longest neck ever known.A new analysis of bones from the beast’s neck and skull revealed that the dinosaur, known as Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum, sported a neck 15metres long, or one-and-a-half times the length of a doubledecker bus. Continue reading...

Global research teams who can improve AI and accelerate decoding could win $250,000 in prizesThe eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79 laid waste to Pompeii and nearby Herculaneum where the intense blast of hot gas carbonised hundreds of ancient scrolls in the library of an enormous luxury villa.Now, researchers are launching a global contest to read the charred papyri after demonstrating that an artificial intelligence programme can extract letters and symbols from high-resolution X-ray images of the fragile, unrolled documents. Continue reading...

Area in Kent has more threatened species than any other brownfield site in UK – but its future is at riskBrownfield sites are derelict industrial wastelands and hardly glamorous – but some have become outstanding natural havens.Swanscombe peninsula in the Thames estuary was used for quarrying chalk and aggregate, cement works, gas works and landfill. When the industry moved out, the poor soil left behind was colonised by rare plants that could not survive on fertile land elsewhere. Continue reading...

Indian state in crisis after adenovirus hits 12,000 people this year and families with sick children camp outside Kolkata hospitalNineteen children have died of acute respiratory infections in West Bengal this year, and thousands more are in hospital as India grapples with an adenovirus outbreak.More than 12,000 cases of adenovirus have been recorded in the state since January. More than 3,000 children have been admitted to hospital with severe flu-like symptoms. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Foreign Office rejected record number of academics in 2022 on national security grounds

Findings could lead to use of calorie-free caffeinated drinks to cut obesity and type 2 diabetes – but more research neededHaving high levels of caffeine in your blood may lower the amount of body fat you carry and reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, research suggests.The findings could lead to calorie-free caffeinated drinks being used to reduce obesity and type 2 diabetes, though further research is required, the researchers wrote in the BMJ Medicine journal. Continue reading...

Nobel prizewinning biochemist who was a pioneer in the field of genetic engineeringThe Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine against Covid-19 was built on the principle of stitching together DNA from two viruses, one to enable the vaccine to enter cells and the other to provoke an immune response.In 1972 Paul Berg, who has died aged 96, became the first person to combine the DNA of two organisms in this way. Recombinant DNA has become a fundamental tool of biomedical research and drug discovery, making it possible to grow drugs such as human insulin in bacteria as well as to develop tailor-made vaccines. Continue reading...

Pharmacists told to stop supplying 20 brands after review finds raised risk of rare anaphylaxis in people who later have general anaestheticHealth officials have withdrawn 20 brands of dry cough medicine amid concerns they can trigger sudden, life-threatening allergic reactions in people who go on to have a general anaesthetic before surgery up to a year later.Pharmacists have been ordered to stop supplying medicines that contain the cough suppressant pholcodine immediately and to quarantine all remaining stock before returning the products to the relevant supplier. Continue reading...

Study shows high ozone levels make males emit fewer pheromones to attract females, which may lead to population declineAir pollution is making it harder for fruit flies to mate because females cannot easily recognise a male’s scent, a study has found.Female fruit flies select their mates for reproduction through the scent of their pheromones, but ozone pollution can disrupt the male’s ability to emit their characteristic odour, researchers have found. This means contaminated air can pose a threat to how successfully fruit flies and other insects reproduce, and could lead to population decline. Continue reading...

Drugs targeting the ‘happy hormone’ are widely used for depression. But some question whether the condition is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brainDaniela da Silva is feeling good. Lying cocooned under fleece blankets inside a medical scanner, her eyes are closed and her mind is focused and remarkably unperturbed by negative thoughts. Three hours earlier, the 39-year-old yoga teacher and neuroscience student was given a dose of the stimulant drug dextroamphetamine, which is often used to treat ADHD. “I’m having a serotonin increase. Oh definitely,” she predicts before entering the PET scanner.Da Silva is a healthy volunteer in a trial using a pioneering brain imaging technique designed to measure serotonin changes in the brains of living people. Last year, scientists used the scan to obtain what they claimed to be the first direct evidence that serotonin release is blunted in the brains of people with depression. The findings added fuel to a fiercely fought debate over the role of the brain chemical – if any – in depression. Just months earlier, a high-profile scientific review caused a stir when it reached the opposite conclusion that “after a vast amount of research, conducted over several decades, there is no convincing evidence” for the idea that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. Continue reading...

Data from more than 60,000 Britons suggests plant-rich diet may help regardless of person’s genetic riskA Mediterranean diet of nuts, seafood, whole grains and vegetables could lower the risk of dementia by almost a quarter, according to promising early research that could pave the way for new preventive treatments.The data suggests eating lots of plant-based foods may have a “protective effect” against dementia, regardless of a person’s genetic risk, which the researchers said could form the basis for future public health strategies if further research confirms their findings. Continue reading...

Madeleine Finlay speaks to Guardian science correspondent Linda Geddes about the possibility of a fungal pandemic like the one depicted in apocalyptic thriller The Last of Us. They discuss the strange world of fungi, the risks of infections and treatment resistance, and what we can do to protect ourselves from future fungal threats Continue reading...

Effect of shorter sleep comparable to waning of Covid antibodies two months after vaccination, study findsSleeping for less than six hours per night reduces the immune response to vaccination, particularly in younger men, data suggests.The reduction is comparable to the waning of Covid-19 antibodies two months after vaccination. Continue reading...

Archaeologists hail ‘once in a lifetime’ discovery of Roman and Saxon site dating back 1,600 yearsSkeletal remains of a Roman aristocrat have been unearthed in a “truly extraordinary” hidden cemetery dating back 1,600 years.Bones belonging to the high-status woman were discovered in an ancient lead coffin during a dig in the town of Garforth, near Leeds. Continue reading...

The biological ‘brainwashing’ that happens while you are sleeping is crucial for filtering out toxins. Here’s how to optimise your overnight cycleTonight, and almost every night, something amazing will happen inside your brain. As you turn off the light switch and fall asleep, you will be switching on the neurological equivalent of a dishwasher deep-clean cycle. First, the activity of billions of brain cells will begin to synchronise, and oscillate between bursts of excitation and rest. Coupled with these “slow waves”, blood will begin to flow in and out of your brain, allowing pulses of the straw-coloured cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) that usually surrounds your brain to wash in and be pushed through the brain tissue, carrying the day’s molecular detritus away as it leaves.Most people recognise that if they don’t get enough sleep, their mood and memory will suffer the next day. But mounting evidence is implicating this “brainwashing” function of sleep in longer-term brain health. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Stack of factory-made modular labs due to open in May to serve growing demand for lab spaceA stack of factory-made modular labs, with a roof terrace and grass growing on top, has sprung up at Canada Water in south-east London and is due to open in late May.With growing demand for lab space, the company behind them, British Land, is also unveiling plans for a large new research building on Monday, part of a nascent life sciences cluster south of the Thames. Continue reading...

Vlad Beliavsky dreamed that his new psychology book would help end wars. He has now spent a year in uniform, trying to catch saboteurs and fend off Russian cyber attacksVlad Beliavsky hoped to bring some peace to the world with his first book, The Pyramid Mind. If we all trained our minds properly, he thought, we could live together in harmony. At best, he imagined his book might even stop wars.Today, he is in Kyiv, wearing military uniform and silhouetted against a neutral background. It is safer not to give details of where; he simply says he is in a military building. As his book is published, 13 years after it was conceived, Lieutenant Beliavsky is marking a year spent fighting for the future of Ukraine. Continue reading...

SEN success | Double your rubbish | Easy peeler | Mouse fathers | Wheely wild words | Concentric curlsAs recent WhatsApp messages showed our government’s contempt for teachers (Report, 2 March), I doubt if any past or present education secretary watched A Special School on BBC Two. It showed what can be achieved for SEN pupils with decent funding, outstanding leadership and dedicated teamwork. Not a dry eye on board.

‘Fueling vaccine hesitancy undermines effort’ to protect lives, warns letter to Dr Joseph Ladapo sent by FDA and CDCUS health agencies have sent a letter to the surgeon general of Florida, warning that his claims about Covid-19 vaccine risks are harmful to the public.The letter was sent to Joseph Ladapo on Friday by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It was a response to a letter Ladapo wrote to the agencies last month, expressing concerns about what he described as adverse effects from Covid vaccines. Continue reading...

The simple messaging favoured by media advisers doesn’t chime with a discipline that is messy and incompleteMatt Hancock’s views about the independent experts advising government, detailed in the Lockdown Files, are revealing. They were “totally unreliable” and “wacky” (Dame Kate Bingham); a “totally offside… loudmouth” (Sir Jeremy Farrar); and a “prize idiot” (Prof Jon Deeks); while Prof Sharon Peacock, the amazing scientist who set up Covid-19 Genomics UK Consortium (COG-UK), was deemed “a total outrage”, because she didn’t warn him months earlier that the Alpha variant was coming (revealing Hancock’s misunderstanding of the work of these genome sequencers). Nor was it just Hancock who seemed to view these pesky scientists as an inconvenience. When asked to deal with Farrar, one of Hancock’s special advisers replied: “What is your ask? Get rid or neutralise?”Now I’m not averse to a bit of ripe language myself and I am mindful that these messages were intended to be private. But they do reinforce my belief that science and politics are best when bathed in the clear blue waters of separation. We need scientific advice to government at times of crisis and I think Sage did that very well. But the rolling of science into politics through government communications is where things get problematic. Continue reading...

With the public facing an ever-increasing barrage of sums, calculations and data, here are some numerical tricks and ideas that can help people make better sense of the worldThese days, keeping up with the news can sometimes feel like a maths exam. We face a constant barrage of figures, whether through national budgets, coronavirus data, hospital waiting lists or football transfer fees. It can be very easy to switch off and ignore all this, but being able to put these numbers into context and understand what they really mean is vital to our role as informed citizens. Here are some mathematical tricks and ideas that can help you make better sense of the world. Continue reading...

Excessive use of phosphorus is depleting reserves vital to global food production, while also adding to the climate crisisOur planet faces “phosphogeddon”, scientists have warned. They fear our misuse of phosphorus could lead to deadly shortages of fertilisers that would disrupt global food production.At the same time, phosphate fertiliser washed from fields – together with sewage inputs into rivers, lakes and seas – is giving rise to widespread algal blooms and creating aquatic dead zones that threaten fish stocks. Continue reading...

A picture is emerging of a healthy lifestyle which is key to the condition’s prevention – exercise, being sociable, and looking after your earsThe idea was simple. Recruit hundreds of people in their 80s and 90s, equip them with fitness trackers, and monitor their physical activity. Then, when the participants died, collect their brains and examine the tissue. Is there evidence, lurking in the tissue, that exercise benefits the brain?The results, from a 2022 collaboration between the University of California in San Francisco and the University of British Columbia, were striking. Physical exercise, late in life, seemed to protect the ageing connections between brain cells – the synapses where memories are made. The work, if backed up by further studies, could see exercise, and potentially drugs that mimic biochemical aspects of activity – prescribed to help slow the onset of dementia. Continue reading...

Scathing open letter accuses big pharma of ‘exploiting’ publically funded vaccines and says humanity must come before commerceThe Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, former first lady of South Africa and Mozambique Graça Machel and former UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon are among nearly 200 signatories to a letter calling on governments to “never again” allow “profiteering and nationalism” to come before the needs of humanity, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.In a scathing open letter, published on 11 March, current and former presidents and ministers, Nobel laureates, faith leaders, heads of civil society organisations and health experts say Covid-19 vaccines and treatments had been developed with public funding but that pharmaceutical companies had exploited them to “fuel extraordinary profits”. Continue reading...

Asteroid known as 2023 DW is 50 metres wide and has a 1-in-607 chance of striking Earth – but not for two decades at leastSpace experts predict a large asteroid could hit Earth just in time to ruin Valentine’s Day – in 2046.The 50-metre wide asteroid, known as 2023 DW, is forecast to take more than two decades to reach us, perhaps almost three. Continue reading...

A report has been seized upon to argue that lockdown had little effect on mental health – but the truth is more nuancedImagine that your teenager was a star athlete, on track for a university athletics scholarship. But then they develop long Covid at the height of the pandemic, meaning they no longer had the lung capacity to run, let alone live independently. If that was your experience, you’re likely to think the government didn’t do enough to protect children from Covid-19, or vaccinate them fast enough.On the other hand, what if your child developed an eating disorder due to social isolation and depression? In that case, you might think that lockdown measures were disproportionate. If you lost a loved one to the disease, then you might blame government for doing too little. If your small business of 20 years shut down, you might blame government for doing too much.Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh Continue reading...

Those exposed to more light in hours before sleep appear more likely to develop gestational diabetes, researchers suggestWhile reading until the small hours or scrolling under the covers are common bedtime habits, pregnant women might want to switch off sooner to reduce their risk of developing gestational diabetes, researchers have suggested.According to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, gestational diabetes affects at least four to five in 100 women during pregnancy. If it is not well controlled it can lead to complications, including health problems for the baby. Continue reading...

My throat made strange gurgling noises, like a creaky floorboard. My body would get full of airWhen I was about four, I watched my two-year-old brother throw up into a basket of fries in a restaurant. He had a hypersensitive gag reflex, which meant vomiting was a common occurrence. I could never get that basket of fries out of my head.I developed a fear of vomiting called emetophobia, meaning I’d avoid throwing up at all costs. This phobia has had a much greater impact on my health than I ever could have thought. Continue reading...

Scientists call for collective effort to protect Earth’s orbit from dangers posed by space junkSatellite makers and operators must be held responsible for the growing hazard of space debris, according to experts who say a legally binding global treaty must be thrashed out to protect the orbital environment.With the number of satellites rising dramatically, the agreement would make manufacturers and users responsible for de-orbiting defunct hardware and cleaning up any debris created when orbiting objects slam into one another. Continue reading...

The Barbie modelled on me is a space scientist with her own telescope. Girls should be shown that anything is possible

Climate crisis to deliver ‘ongoing systemic shocks’ to production as hot conditions become more frequent, researchers sayClimate conditions that reduce coffee yield have become more frequent over the past four decades, with rising temperatures from global heating likely to lead to “ongoing systemic shocks” to coffee production globally, new research suggests.Researchers analysed the impacts of climate factors such as temperature, rainfall and humidity in the top 12 coffee-producing countries globally between 1980 and 2020. Continue reading...

The film Everything Everywhere All at Once has enjoyed critical acclaim and awards success. Ahead of the Oscars, where it’s tipped to sweep the board, Ian Sample speaks to theoretical physicist and philosopher Sean Carroll about why we seem to be drawn to the idea of multiple worlds, and what the science says about how the multiverse might actually workClips: Everything Everywhere All at Once (A24), Independent Spirit Awards, Critics’ Choice Awards Continue reading...

Pandemic resulted in ‘minimal’ changes in symptoms, according to review led by McGill University researchersCovid-19 may not have taken as great a toll on the mental health of most people as earlier research has indicated, a new study suggests.The pandemic resulted in “minimal” changes in mental health symptoms among the general population, according to a review of 137 studies from around the world led by researchers at McGill University in Canada, and published in the British Medical Journal. Continue reading...