Science | The Guardian

Dogs’ tails play little or no role in acrobatic manoeuvres, and are more likely a communication tool, researchers sayAfter decades of research into man’s best friend, scientists have concluded that the tail cannot, in fact, wag the dog.An international team decided to investigate the purpose of the dog’s tail after studies showed that numerous animals from lizards to squirrels used their tails to pull off impressive manoeuvres, such as righting themselves mid-air when falling from trees. Continue reading...

Administrator Bill Nelson says Beijing could seek ‘own’ resource-rich areas and next two years could be key to US-China contestThe US is locked in a space race with China and the country needs to “watch out” that its rival does not gain a foothold and try to dominate lunar resources, Nasa’s top official has warned.The assessment came from the Nasa administrator, Bill Nelson, a former astronaut and Florida senator, who went on to warn that China could eventually claim to “own” the moon’s resource-rich areas. Continue reading...

We can’t change what’s happened – but we can learn to make better decisions in the futureNow is the time when we look back over the past year and wonder: how did I do? Did I make the right decisions? Could I have made better ones?Well, could you? A determinist who believes that the world unfolds in an inexorably preordained manner would say not. If, on the other hand, you believe in free will, you might feel sure that other decisions were available to you, other paths not taken. “I could have done otherwise” is sometimes taken as the very definition of free will. Continue reading...

New year conjunction takes place in constellation of TaurusThe moon and Mars are the heralds of this particular new year. On 3 January, they will pass each other in the night sky. The moon will be in its waxing gibbous phase, about 11 days old with 92% of its visible surface illuminated.The chart shows the view looking south-south-east from London at 21.00 GMT on 3 January. Continue reading...

It’s a well-established therapeutic tool for allowing couples to make sense of each other, but now social media has given the idea of ‘love languages’ a real boostRecently, my boyfriend and I had a check-in. He told me that he felt as if I’d grown complacent when it came to physical affection. I bristled at the accusation, but clamped my mouth shut, mostly because he was right. Truthfully, it’s not the first time I’ve been given this relationship feedback.When it comes to physical touch, my factory setting is “awkward”. But I am truly excellent at small, thoughtful gestures. Just two weeks ago I curated a care package for my partner, so that after a 10-hour flight for work he’d find a bag of liquorice, a pack of incense and a boujie bottled lemonade – all things he loves – waiting for him on the kitchen table. This tiny token of love wasn’t ballad-worthy, but it’s how I naturally show care. Continue reading...

Research indicates that low-level stress from moderate exercise or work can enhance our cognitive and physical abilities in later lifeFew words in the English language conjure up more negative emotions than stress. The mere mention of those six letters might elicit mental images of looming work deadlines, unpaid bills, the pressure of exams or tense family Christmases, to list just a few scenarios.But what if I told you that stress can also be positive? That just as it can harm us, it also plays a key role in strengthening our immune system, forging connections in our brain that improve mental performance and building the resilience we need to navigate our way through the vagaries of life. Continue reading...

On New Year’s Day, copyright in the US expires on a new clutch of artistic works. But shady legal shenanigans mean it’s a little overdue…Here’s a reason to be cheerful this morning: it’s Public Domain Day, ie the day on which a new batch of hitherto copyrighted works comes out of copyright and enters the US public domain – the zone that consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. For those readers who do not reside in the US, there is perhaps another reason for celebrating today, because copyright terms are longer in the US than they are in other parts of the world, including the EU and the UK. And therein lies a story about intellectual property laws and the power of political lobbying in a so-called liberal democracy.Among the works liberated for the delight of American citizens this morning are: Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse; the final Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle; Fritz Lang’s seminal science-fiction film Metropolis; Alfred Hitchcock’s first thriller; and compositions by Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller. The interesting thing is that these were originally supposed to enter the public domain in 2003, but as Jennifer Jenkins, director of Duke University’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain puts it, “before this could happen, Congress hit a 20-year pause button and extended their copyright term to 95 years”. Continue reading...

Scientists are to pick a location that sums up the current epoch when Homo sapiens made its markIn a few weeks, geologists will select a site that demonstrates most vividly how humans have changed the structure of our planet’s surface. They will choose a place they believe best illustrates when a new epoch – which they have dubbed the Anthropocene – was born and its predecessor, the Holocene, came to an end.The Holocene began at the conclusion of the last ice age 11,700 years ago as the great glaciers that had previously covered the Earth began to retreat. In their wake, modern humans spread inexorably across the planet. Continue reading...

Cabinet papers 2002: PM lifted ban despite opposition of conservatives and religious leaders, including then Archbishop Pell

Chris Stringer, who has just received a CBE for his work on human evolution, tells how his remarkable quest as a young researcher transformed understanding of our speciesAs with so many other careers, chance played a major role in my pursuit of science. After a childhood in which I displayed a disquieting interest in skulls and stories about Neanderthals, I was – after a challenging stint as a supply teacher in east London in 1966 – about to train as a doctor at London Hospital medical college when I discovered there was actually a university subject called “anthropology”.The course included archaeology as well as studies of fossils. My parents were unsure but in the end backed my switch away from medicine. I started a course – at University College London – that included behind-the-scenes visits to London’s Natural History Museum. Continue reading...

It was a great year for a slight lifting of the veil on the final frontier – from redirecting an asteroid to a glimpse into creationThe year has been a blast in space exploration, from Nasa’s big step in returning to moon missions, to glimpses at the origins of the universe and hope that humanity could survive the doomsday scenario of an asteroid hurtling towards Earth.These are the events that shaped 2022 in space advances: Continue reading...

It’s not easy being a ‘good’ person – what can we learn from the people who have thought about it the most?

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says WHO officials stressed to Beijing the importance of sharing data ahead of easing of travel restrictions on 8 JanuaryThe World Health Organisation again urged China’s health officials to regularly share specific, real-time information on the country’s Covid surge, as the UK joined other countries in bringing in travel restrictions, citing a lack of data as the reason.WHO Covid experts met Chinese officials on Friday and “again stressed the importance of transparency and regular sharing of data to formulate accurate risk assessments and to inform effective response”, said the WHO chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Continue reading...

Our approach to the pandemic has always been science-led, and that’s still the case with our new, more lenient guidelines

A trawl of terms used for the first time or with fresh significance reveals the annus horribilis that was 2022It has been an extraordinary year, so extraordinary, in fact, it required a new word to sum it up: “permacrisis”. This entered the Guardian’s lexicon for the first time in March, an apt word for the annus horribilis that was 2022.“Permacrisis” went on to become Collins Dictionary’s word of the year and was one of several that broke through, while others gained fresh significance. Continue reading...

It’s the potential of individuals to change the world which is at the heart of democratic liberalism – but their actions must be matched by global supportAs we farewell 2022, many of the world’s citizens will be hoping for a better new year. It is hard to look back on the past year – indeed couple of years – without a high degree of angst about the direction of our global community.We have been battered by a pandemic that, while past the peak for most nations, is still disrupting societies and economies. After two years of its hermit-like isolation, 1.4 billion Chinese citizens are now experiencing a nationwide Covid onslaught for the first time with ripples that will not only affect the lives of those in China but the rest of the world linked to the second largest economy. Continue reading...

New varieties of the insect include species that could be useful for controlling crop pestsEighty-five new species of wasp are among more than 350 new species identified in 2022 by the Natural History Museum, and scientists say there are many more to come.By combing through its collections, as well as sending scientists on research trips, curators and researchers have managed to describe a total of 351 new species. Continue reading...

Two years of barely being exposed to such bugs seems to have disrupted their usual patternsNew Year’s Eve gatherings, drinks with the neighbours: with zero restrictions on mixing, and almost three years of catching up to do, it’s perhaps no surprise that many of us have been struck down with a mysterious lurgy that causes fever, sore throat, headache and other decidedly Covid-like symptoms – perhaps more than once.But if you are consistently testing negative for Covid on a lateral flow test, what else could it be? And are we really more vulnerable to getting sick this winter, or have we just forgotten what life was like before Covid restrictions stopped the usual merry-go-round of seasonal infections? Continue reading...

Further studies under way as ‘remarkable’ results offer new hope in treating biliary tract cancerA man given a year to live after being diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer is now disease-free thanks to a UK trial of a personalised drug regime.Robert Glynn, 51, a welder from Worsley in Greater Manchester, said he “wouldn’t be here” if it were not for the remarkable results of the immunotherapy trial run by the Christie NHS foundation trust in Manchester. Continue reading...

The decision to stop reporting the Covid growth rate is the latest in a series of attempts to limit the available information about the current spread, writes Dr Brian Ramsden, while Susan Treagus has been keeping a Covid diaryWith a predictable adherence to the principle of burying bad news, the government’s UK Health Security Agency announced on the Friday before Christmas that it is now ceasing to publish the reproduction number – the R value – and the growth rate for Covid-19 in the UK (UK to stop publishing Covid modelling data, 25 December).This decision was taken at a time when the R value and the growth rate both show that the prevalence of Covid is increasing in the UK. This is just the latest in a series of attempts to minimise the availability of information about Covid. Data about tests is virtually nonexistent, because tests are no longer freely available; contact tracing has ceased; and daily reporting of infections stopped when people were told there was no longer a need to use masks or to self-isolate. Continue reading...

After long pursuing a strict zero-Covid regime, restrictions have been lifted in China as new variants emergeAfter long pursing a zero-Covid policy, China has relaxed many restrictions including quarantine rules for travellers. But some experts have raised concerns the U-turn may cause problems. We take a look at why.What has happened in China? Continue reading...

Friederike Otto, a member of the world’s only rapid reaction force of climate scientists, on looking into the apocalypse of extreme weatherCycling over London Bridge as the dry heat pushed the temperature above 40C and a hot wind gusted down the River Thames, Friederike Otto paused to look at the monument to the city’s great fire more than 350 years earlier.“The heat was intense, the humidity was so low and there were these winds. You could almost feel if there was one spark now, London will burn again,” she said. Continue reading...

Scientists setting up ‘post-detection hub’ in Scotland are concerned humans would react ‘like headless chickens’The moment has been imagined a thousand times. As astronomers comb the cosmos with their powerful telescopes, they spot something that makes them gasp. Amid the feeble rays from distant galaxies lies a weak but persistent signal: a message from an advanced civilisation.It would be a transformative event for humankind, one the world’s nations are surely prepared for. Or are they? “Look at the mess we made when Covid hit. We’d be like headless chickens,” says Dr John Elliott, a computational linguist at the University of St Andrews. “We cannot afford to be ill-prepared, scientifically, socially, and politically rudderless, for an event that could happen at any time and which we cannot afford to mismanage.” Continue reading...

Friendships won’t save the world. But they can sure save your sanity, shore up your health and make your life a lot betterHere is a much-needed resolution for many of us in the new year: make new friendships and shore up old ones.Americans are an increasingly lonely bunch, spending more time solo and on our devices than with others. A decade ago, the average American spent about six and a half hours a week with friends. In 2014, time with friends declined, while time alone shot up. By 2019 – before the pandemic – Americans were spending just four hours a week with friends, a number that tanked in 2021 to two hours and 45 minutes. And it’s not that those hours were going to other people – to kids, spouses or family. As time with friends decreased, time spent alone soared. Continue reading...

Back in November, researchers hailed the dawn of a new era of Alzheimer’s therapies. After decades of failure, a clinical trial finally confirmed that a drug, lecanemab, was able to slow cognitive decline in patients with early stages of the disease. The result may have been modest – a reduction in the decline in patients’ overall mental skills by 27% over 18 months – but it could not be more significant in the journey towards better understanding and treating the disease.Ian Sample speaks to Prof Nick Fox about the clinical trial results, if this could be the first of many new Alzheimer’s therapies, and whether we could one day see a cure. Continue reading...

In the northern hemisphere five planets can be seen by the naked eye, and Uranus and Neptune with a telescope or binocularsEvery planet in the solar system was visible in the night sky simultaneously on Wednesday, which is regarded by experts as a rare astronomical event.Venus, Mercury, Saturn, Jupiter and Mars could all be seen in that order in the northern hemisphere with the naked eye, starting from the south-western horizon and moving east. Continue reading...

There are 2.5m of these tiny creatures for each human and they play a big role as ecosystem engineers, as well as providing insights on everything from the climate to ageing

Study shows sea level rise on Amalfi coast over last 20 years is twice that on Costa del SolOver the last 20 years, there has been twice as much sea level rise on Italy’s Amalfi coast as on Spain’s Costa del Sol, a study shows.Researchers combined data from tide gauges and satellites with ice melt measurements to model sea level change across the Mediterranean basin since 1960. To their surprise, they found that sea level fell by about 9mm between 1960 and 1989, owing to increased atmospheric pressure over the basin. Continue reading...

Scientists say test could replace a costly brain scan or painful lumbar puncture and enable earlier detection of diseaseScientists have developed a blood test to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease without the need for expensive brain imaging or a painful lumbar puncture, where a sample of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is drawn from the lower back. If validated, the test could enable faster diagnosis of the disease, meaning therapies could be initiated earlier.Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia, but diagnosis remains challenging – particularly during the earlier stages of the disease. Continue reading...

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...