Vehicle no longer needed for collecting tubes on red planet being put through its paces in English cityA planetary rover potentially destined for missions on the moon or Mars has been put through its paces at a quarry in Milton Keynes.The Sample Fetch Rover (SFR), known as Anon, was intended to collect sample tubes left on the surface of Mars by Perseverance. Continue reading...
by Presented by Ian Sample, produced by Madeleine Fin on (#64BGX)
As the UK heads into autumn, Covid-19 appears to be surging again. According to official data, 40,650 people tested positive in England in the seven days up to and including 24 September. This was an increase of 42% on the week before. But as we brace for another wave, experts are also concerned about a potential rise in influenza. Ian Sample speaks to Prof Peter Openshaw about the Omicron variant, why we’re at risk of a ‘twindemic’ this year and whether it’s time we all start taking more preventive measuresArchive: 60 Minutes, Sky News, Continue reading...
The remains of Māori people taken by an Austrian taxidermist in 1877 and displayed in a Vienna museum have finally been returnedOn the shorelines of Wellington, the sound of weeping poured out into the thick mist of the city harbour. A procession moved in slow, measured steps. Their heads were bowed and crowned with ferns. At the centre of the group walked 64 people, each cradling a beige cardboard box.Inside those boxes are the remains of their ancestors, stolen in secret from their graves and kept for more than a century in a Viennese museum. The battle for their return has taken 77 years of negotiations, entreaties and diplomacy. At the ceremony on Sunday, each ancestor was carried inside, placed at the entrance to the marae (meeting house) and gently covered by woven blankets and feathered cloaks. The crowd sang, cried and laughed. Continue reading...
The solution to your coffee woes, and other problemsEarlier today I set these puzzles, suggested by the Department of Physics at Oxford University.1. Cuppa conundrum1) Add milk right away, then wait a few minutes before drinking.2) Wait a few minutes, then add milk just before drinking.1) it goes up2) it goes down Continue reading...
Calls for more support after England research shows those diagnosed under 65 also at greater riskPeople who have recently been diagnosed with dementia, or who are diagnosed with the condition at a younger age, are among those at increased risk of suicide, researchers have found. The findings have prompted calls for greater support for those experiencing such cognitive decline.While previous research has explored a potential link between dementia diagnosis and suicide risk, the results have been inconclusive, with some suggesting a raised risk and others a reduced risk.•In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 800-273-8255 or chat for support. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org Continue reading...
Svante Pääbo receives 2022 award in physiology or medicine for genome discoveries including NeanderthalsA Swedish geneticist has been awarded the 2022 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine.Svante Pääbo won the 10m Swedish kronor (£802,000) prize announced on Monday by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. Continue reading...
Every human brain is different – it’s time to embrace the diversity of our experiencesImagine you and I are walking together along Brighton seafront on a day bathed in sunshine, and we both stop to gaze up at the deep blue sky. It’s a beautiful sight, but are we having the same experience? Do you see the same blue that I see?It’s easy to assume that we do. After all, we both use the word “blue”, and the colour seems to be a property of the sky, not of our minds. But the science of perception – of how the brain interprets sensory information to bring forth objects, people and places – suggests otherwise. Just as we all differ on the outside, it’s likely that our inner experiences differ too. Continue reading...
Poultry farmers from Arctic to Portugal reported 2,500 outbreaks in past year, with migrating birds taking avian flu to North AmericaThe UK and continental Europe have been hit by an “unprecedented” number of cases of avian flu this summer, with 47.7m birds having been culled since last autumn, according to new figures.Poultry producers from as far north as Norway’s Svalbard islands to southern Portugal have together reported almost 2,500 outbreaks of the disease since last year. Continue reading...
How to cool your coffee and other crucial questionsUPDATE: The solutions can be read hereToday’s puzzles have been suggested by he Department of Physics at Oxford university, for reasons that will become clear below.They kick off with a question that could change your life, that is, if you are always burning your mouth on hot coffee.1) Add milk right away, then wait a few minutes before drinking.2) Wait a few minutes, then add milk just before drinking.1) it goes up2) it goes down Continue reading...
Planet is shining brightly and travelling westward – a backward motion that will be reversed on 23 NovemberThe moon draws close to the shining planet of Jupiter this week, making a pretty pairing in the evening sky.The chart shows the view looking south-southeast from London at 2300 BST on 8 October, although the conjunction should be visible from sunset onwards. The moon will be almost full, with 98.7% of its visible surface illuminated. Officially the full moon takes place on 9 October, but to the eye it is going to look almost full until 12 October, when the illuminated percentage falls below 95. Continue reading...
This remote part of Scotland, so central to my beginnings, works like a time machine on meWest of Sligachan, the Black Cuillins rise – icebound in the winter and shrouded in cloud. I begin my walk beneath their sentry, Sgùrr nan Gillean, the peak that heralds the start of the dark serrated ridge that coils around the most mysterious of all Scotland’s lochs – Loch Coruisk, whose name means “cauldron of the waters”.This is the Isle of Skye, where you will find all seasons in a single day – blinding snow, pelting rain, snatching wind and sudden, inexplicable sun. And it’s here I like to come to forget myself and to remember who I am. Continue reading...
A new understanding of the fundamental connection between mind and body explains phenomena such as phantom limbs, and has surprising implicationsIn 2018, billionaire Silicon Valley entrepreneur Sam Altman paid a startup called Nectome $10,000 to preserve his brain after he dies and, when the technology to do so becomes available, to upload his memories and consciousness to the cloud.This prospect, which was recently popularised in Amazon Prime’s sci-fi comedy series Upload, has long been entertained by transhumanists. Although theoretically possible, it is rooted in the flawed idea that the brain is separate from the body, and can function without it. Continue reading...
If the Russian president has finally started listening to his military chief, you can bet he’ll soon target all those poorly protected internet cables at the bottom of the sea“Once is happenstance,” wrote James Bond’s creator. “Twice is coincidence. Three times, it’s enemy action.” As European politicians and security agencies ponder the three explosions that caused leaks in the two Nord Stream gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea on Monday, they may find this adage of Ian Fleming’s helpful in resolving their doubts about who was responsible.The strange thing about Putin’s assault on Ukraine was that he clearly hadn’t consulted Valery Gerasimov, the guy who in 2013 had radically reconfigured Russian military doctrine at his behest (and is now chief of the Russian armed forces). Gerasimov’s big idea was that warfare in a networked age should combine the traditional kinetic stuff with political, economic, informational, humanitarian and other non-military activities. This would mean, for example, that before firing a shot, you should first use social media and other network tools to misinform, confuse, polarise and demoralise the population of your adversary. In that way, democratic regimes would find it more difficult to motivate their citizens for combat. Continue reading...
Health leaders urge vaccination and return to mask-wearing as hospitalisations rise by 37 per cent in a weekEvery hospital in the UK is under significant pressure and a new Covid surge is “a very heavy straw on the camel’s back”, health leaders have warned.At least eight hospitals declared a critical incident, cancelled operations or asked people not to come to A&E unless they were seriously ill last week. One of Britain’s most senior emergency doctor said there were links between incidents like these and the rapid rise in hospitalisations for Covid, up nearly 37% in a week to 7,024. While the Office for National Statistics said it was too early to say if an autumn Covid wave had begun, health leaders said ministers need to urgently address staffing shortages. Continue reading...
For too long we’ve dismissed Indigenous knowledge of the natural world. At Sydney’s botanic garden, signage is starting to reflect Aboriginal namesLike all botanic gardens, the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney is a classic artefact of the activities that took place during the colonisation of Australia in the 18th and 19th century.It was established to create a patch of landscape that mirrored those found in the United Kingdom, with the aim of “discovering” and documenting the floral biodiversity of New South Wales (in itself a name reflecting the perspective of those holding power). Continue reading...
Readers respond to an article that argued that the field of physics is too obsessed with discovering new particlesSabine Hossenfelder (No one in physics dares say so, but the race to invent new particles is pointless, 26 September) has missed the point of a big part of particle physics, and indeed fundamental research as a whole. While we’d all like to revolutionise our respective fields by discovering a new particle or otherwise, in reality, winnowing out the impossible – the particles that don’t exist – is an equally important, if painstaking, function of science. Nature has an infinite capacity to surprise, and our scientific forebears learned long ago to take nothing for granted. Every impossibility proved gets us closer to a deeper understanding of the real universe; it’s just as important to know that faster-than-light travel is impossible as it is to understand that light is made up of photons, for instance.It would of course be tremendously tedious to rule out every last outlandish possibility (Hossenfelder’s octopuses on Mars, for example), and so we need a set of principles to guide us on where to look. There is general disagreement about what works best, but many of the hypothetical particles mentioned in the article have been designed with useful functions in mind – breaking cherished principles of the standard model for instance, or adding new features to it. What we’re testing are the principles themselves, not the particles; while some of them might really exist, others are simply straw men to help us formulate useful tests.
Rules will require operators to more quickly dispose of defunct satellites that are endangering spacecraft on active missionsThe US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has voted to adopt new rules to address the growing risks of orbital debris – commonly known as space junk – posing a hazard to extraterrestrial exploration.The government body will give US operators much tighter deadlines to get rid of defunct satellites whizzing uselessly around the planet and getting in the way of spacecraft on active missions. Continue reading...
Sphagnum moss found to drastically slow down rainwater runoff in Peak District ‘outdoor laboratory’ studyA “superhero” moss can significantly reduce the risk and severity of flooding for communities living in downstream areas, researchers have found.Scientists from the conservation group Moors for the Future Partnership who conducted a six-year study into sphagnum moss found that planting it in upland areas could dramatically slow the rate at which water runs off the hillsides, preventing river catchments being inundated with water downstream. Continue reading...
by Michael E Mann and Susan Joy Hassol on (#647SP)
Ian is one of the five worst hurricanes in America’s recorded history. That’s not a fluke – it’s a tragic taste of things to comeClimate change once seemed a distant threat. No more. We now know its face, and all too well. We see it in every hurricane, torrential rainstorm, flood, heatwave, wildfire and drought. It’s even detectable in our daily weather. Climate disruption has changed the background conditions in which all weather occurs: the oceans and air are warmer, there’s more water vapor in the atmosphere and sea levels are higher. Hurricane Ian is the latest example.Ian made landfall as one of the five most powerful hurricanes in recorded history to strike the US, and with its 150 mile per hour winds at landfall, it tied with 2004’s Hurricane Charley as the strongest to ever hit the west coast of Florida. In isolation, that might seem like something we could dismiss as an anomaly or fluke. But it’s not – it’s part of a larger pattern of stronger hurricanes, typhoons and superstorms that have emerged as the oceans continue to set record levels of warmth.Michael E Mann is presidential distinguished professor of earth and environmental science at the University of Pennsylvania. He is author of The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our PlanetSusan Joy Hassol is director of the non-profit Climate Communication. She publishes Quick Facts on the links between climate change and extreme weather eventsThis article was amended on 1 October 2022 to clarify that Hurricane Ian was a category 1 storm when it hit Puerto Rico, and subsequently strengthened Continue reading...
James Webb and Hubble space telescopes captured impact on Dimorphos, moon of the asteroid Didymos, 6.8m miles from EarthNasa has released the first detailed images of its pioneering deep-space “planetary defense test” in which a spacecraft was crashed into a distant asteroid in an attempt to alter its trajectory.The pictures were taken by what the agency calls its “two great observatories”, the James Webb and Hubble space telescopes, which captured Monday’s impact on Dimorphos, moon of the asteroid Didymos, 6.8m miles from Earth. Continue reading...
Review of 400 published studies stresses vaping is not risk-free and urges action to reduce teenage useVaping is substantially less harmful than smoking, according to a major review of nicotine products, but action is needed to tackle the sharp rise in e-cigarette use among children.Researchers at King’s College London said smokers who switched to vaping would experience a “substantial reduction” in their exposure to toxic substances that cause cancer, lung and cardiovascular disease, but they strongly urged non-smokers not to take up either habit. Continue reading...
by Presented by Ian Sample, produced by Jacqui Wakefi on (#6464Q)
This week, Nasa scientists smashed a spacecraft into an asteroid, more than 11m km from Earth. Most rocket scientists would wince at the thought, but the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, was purposefully designed to slam head-on into the asteroid Dimorphos. The aim is to nudge it off its current orbit, in an experiment that will assess the possibility of deflecting a killer space rock – if one was ever headed our way. Ian Sample speaks to Prof Colin Snodgrass about why they chose Dimorphos, what happens to the asteroid now, and whether there are other ways to prevent space-based planetary destructionArchive: BBC News, NASA Livestream, BBC World Service Continue reading...
Study finds stress response changes people’s ‘odour profile’ – which dogs can sniff outWhether it’s a tricky maths problem or an unexpected bill, daily life is full of stressful experiences. Now researchers have found that humans produce a different odour when under pressure – and dogs can sniff it out.While previous studies have suggested canines might pick up on human emotions, possibly through smell, questions remained over whether they could detect stress and if this could be done through scent. Continue reading...
by Hannah Devlin Science correspondent on (#645KQ)
Younger adults became more prone to stress and less trusting, say US researchersThe impact of the Covid pandemic may have been so deep that it altered people’s personalities, according to research.Previously psychologists have failed to find a link between collective stressful events, such as earthquakes or hurricanes, and personality change. However, something about the losses experienced or simply the long grind of social isolation appears to have made an impact. Continue reading...
by Hannah Devlin Science correspondent on (#64558)
Study shows cognition in early-stage patients on lecanemab declines by 27% less than those on placeboAn experimental drug has slowed the rate of decline in memory and thinking in people with early Alzheimer’s disease in what is being described as a “historic moment” for dementia treatment.The cognition of Alzheimer’s patients given the drug, developed by Eisai and Biogen, declined by 27% less than those on a placebo treatment after 18 months. This is a modest change in clinical outcome but it is the first time any drug has been clearly shown to alter the disease’s trajectory. Continue reading...
Study says possible causes could include faster warming in Chinese seas and lower air pressureSea level along the Chinese coast is rising faster than the global average, with some regions experiencing an increase of nearly 5mm a year, according to tide gauge and satellite data. A new study investigates what is causing the localised rise, and identifies which communities are most vulnerable.Global heating is causing sea level rise around the world, with the average rate now 3.6mm a year (compared with 1.4mm a year for most of the 20th century). Oceans are interconnected and water sloshes between them, but the rate of sea level rise is not evenly distributed. Chinese seas are experiencing a significantly higher rate of sea level rise, with the average increase along the Chinese coast now at 3.9mm a year. Continue reading...
For decades, patients with complex illnesses – especially those that affect women more – have been told that it’s in their heads, says Beth PollackMultiple chemical sensitivity (MCS), discussed in your article, is a common symptom of several illnesses that I research (Allergic to the world: can medicine help people with severe intolerance to chemicals?, 20 September).The article suggests that MCS should be treated, at least in part, as a mental illness. For decades, patients with complex illnesses have been told that it’s in their heads, and this is especially true for illnesses that predominantly affect females. Multiple sclerosis patients weren’t widely believed until MRI machines were invented. Until long Covid, ME/CFS patients often weren’t taken seriously, despite 25% of them being housebound from severe illness. Fibromyalgia patients were commonly dismissed until researchers discovered half of them have small fibre neuropathy. Continue reading...
Experts say healthy lifestyle changes such as quitting smoking and eating more vegetables can lower riskMore than 400 people are being diagnosed with preventable cases of cancer every day in the UK, analysis suggests, prompting health experts to urge people to adopt a healthier lifestyle.A total of 387,000 people were diagnosed with cancer in 2019-20, and 40% of those cases – about 155,000 – could have been avoided, according to analysis of the latest official data by the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF). Continue reading...
Digital model of ageing reveals importance of psychological health as well as biologicalFeeling unhappy, depressed or lonely could speed up the ageing processes more than smoking or even certain diseases, researchers have suggested.While everyone has an age based on their date of birth – their “chronological age” – they also have what is known as a “biological age”, based on the ageing of the body’s functions, influenced by genetics, lifestyle and other factors. Studies have previously suggested the higher the biological age, the higher the risk of various diseases, and the risk of death. Continue reading...
by Presented and produced by Madeleine Finlay, sound on (#643A9)
The Breakthrough prizes are described by their Silicon Valley founders as ‘the Oscars of science’, and while they are not as glamorous, they do come with a $3m award. This year, one of the prizes was dished out to Prof Emmanuel Mignot at Stanford University and Masashi Yanagisawa at the University of Tsukuba for their work uncovering the cause of narcolepsy. Their discovery has opened the door to the development of treatments for this chronic and often debilitating condition. Madeleine Finlay speaks to Mignot about how he pinpointed the cause of narcolepsy, why it is similar to diabetes and what sleep mysteries he wants to solve next Continue reading...
Space agency conducts Dart mission to learn whether asteroid’s trajectory can be diverted away from EarthSix minutes to impact on what is one of Nasa’s coolest missions of recent history.It has taken Dart 10 months and 470m miles to get here, since launch last year.Usually Nasa spacecraft are intended to operate for many years, or even decades, but not Dart.Dart was built to be destroyed. Dart is a mission of firsts, proving that a spacecraft can autonomously seek, find and approach a target in space that’s so far away we don’t even know what it looks like. Continue reading...
Bid to change asteroid’s course marks ‘new era of humankind’ as agency seeks to protect Earth from future disasterA multimillion-dollar spacecraft collided head-on with an asteroid the size of a football stadium on Monday in an unprecedented test of Nasa’s capacity to defend Earth from a doomsday scenario.Nasa’s craft successfully crashed into the asteroid Dimorphos 6.8m miles from Earth. The mission, known as Dart (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), marked humanity’s first attempt at moving another celestial body, with the goal of seeing if a large asteroid hurtling toward our planet could be successfully diverted. Continue reading...
Nasa’s Dart spacecraft has crashed into the asteroid Dimorphos 6.8m miles from Earth in the space agency’s first “planetary defense test”. Dart (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) collided head-on with an asteroid the size of a football stadium on Monday in an unprecedented full-scale test of Nasa’s capacity to defend Earth from a doomsday scenario. The test was humanity’s first attempt at moving another celestial body, to see if a large asteroid hurtling towards Earth could be diverted
Footage released by Nasa shows a view of Hurricane Ian that can be seen from the International Space Station as it flies over the storm. Hurricane Ian moved near the Cayman Islands and closer to western Cuba early on Monday on course to hit Florida as a major hurricane this week. A surge of up to 2.4 metres (8ft) of ocean water and 25cm (10in) of rain, with as much as 38cm (15in) in isolated areas, is predicted for the Tampa Bay area. That is enough water to inundate low-lying coastal communities
Pianist Susan Tomes passes on advice that she received from a psychotherapist to chase away dreaded earwormsTim Harrison asks for tips on how to get rid of certain music playing on an endless loop in his brain (Letters, 25 September). I once developed a bad case of music-looping after recording an album of jolly 1920s syncopated piano music. The resulting sleeplessness got so bad that I consulted a psychotherapist. He advised deep breathing techniques and taught me how to devote my attention to slow, even breathing while allowing my mind to become quiet. I still use this method to chase away the dreaded earworms.
The Dart mission’s ‘planetary defense’ experiment hopes to test whether an Armageddon-style impact could be avertedAn unprecedented and long-awaited deep-space venture will take place almost 7m miles from Earth on Monday night when a Nasa spacecraft will be deliberately crashed into an asteroid in an attempt to show humanity can avert an Armageddon-style impact to Earth.Here’s what’s happening, and why: Continue reading...
Put any biases aside and you might just become a ‘superforecaster’From Nostradamus to Paul the “psychic” octopus, who supposedly foresaw the results of World Cup matches, there has been no shortage of people who argue they – or their animals – are able to predict the future. In most cases it’s easy to dismiss such claims, be they incredibly vague, biblical-sounding prophecies (as with Nostradamus) or slippery coincidences (as with Paul).But are there any people who actually can tell us what’s going to happen? We do, after all, look to academics or well-known political pundits to help us make sense of the world. If we want to know what’s coming down the line in Ukraine, for example, we might ask someone who has studied the Russian military forces, or perhaps a foreign policy guru. For the outlook on inflation in 2023, we might go to an economist. What’s surprising is that the evidence tells us academics and commentators don’t, in fact, do particularly well. Continue reading...
In private, many physicists admit they do not believe the particles they are paid to search for exist – they do it because their colleagues are doing itImagine you go to a zoology conference. The first speaker talks about her 3D model of a 12-legged purple spider that lives in the Arctic. There’s no evidence it exists, she admits, but it’s a testable hypothesis, and she argues that a mission should be sent off to search the Arctic for spiders.The second speaker has a model for a flying earthworm, but it flies only in caves. There’s no evidence for that either, but he petitions to search the world’s caves. The third one has a model for octopuses on Mars. It’s testable, he stresses.Sabine Hossenfelder is a physicist at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, Germany. She is author of Existential Physics: A Scientist’s Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions and creator of the YouTube Channel Science Without the Gobbledygook.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at guardian.letters@theguardian.com Continue reading...
I’ve started talking to household objects – and none of us are enjoying what we’re hearingThere has been a flurry of debate about whether people do or do not have an inner monologue. What none of us has, really, is an adequate vocabulary to explain what goes on in our heads, or convey it to others. We can’t grasp how others experience their inner lives, just as we can’t know what they see or hear.Currently, though, my inner monologue is striving to bridge that gap by becoming an outer monologue. I have spent longer than usual – on balance, probably too long – alone recently, as various members of my family went away, and I have started vocalising the stuff that used to stay in my head. Talking to yourself isn’t necessarily bad (one study found it might help you find your keys, sort of, but talking to objects is revealing troubling things about me.Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Hidden hieroglyphics could suggest the king is buried within a much larger structure housing the Egyptian queenThe discovery of hidden hieroglyphics within Tutankhamun’s tomb lends weight to a theory that the fabled Egyptian queen Nefertiti lies in a hidden chamber adjacent to her stepson’s burial chamber, a world-renowned British Egyptologist has said.Nicholas Reeves, a former curator in the British Museum’s Department of Egyptian Antiquities, said that while the theory remained unproven after inconclusive radar scans, it has been given fresh impetus following the new clue. Continue reading...
Constellation’s brightest star, Altair, gives out 11 times more light than our sunThe celestial eagle is in full flight at this time of the year for the northern hemisphere.The constellation of Aquila is one of the 48 constellations defined by Ptolemy in the 2nd century, though it had been mentioned in Greek tradition as long ago as the 4th century BC by Eudoxus. In mythology, Aquila represents the eagle that holds Zeus’s thunderbolts. Continue reading...
by Hannah Devlin Science correspondent on (#641KW)
Despite its ‘hellish’ environment, scientists argue there are good reasons to focus on ‘Earth’s sister’With a surface hot enough to melt lead, crushing atmospheric pressure and clouds of sulphuric acid, Venus might not sound like the most enticing destination for human exploration.But a group of experts are advocating that our other nearest neighbour, rather than Mars, should be the initial target for a crewed mission to another planet. Continue reading...
Aim is to see whether space rocks can be deflected should one threaten humans with same fate as dinosaursMost mission scientists would wince at the thought of their spacecraft being smashed to smithereens. But for those behind Nasa’s Dart probe, anything short of total destruction will be chalked up as a failure.The $330m (£300m) spacecraft is due to slam head-on into an asteroid about 11m kilometres above the Indian Ocean soon after midnight on Monday. The impact, at nearly seven kilometres a second, will obliterate the half-tonne probe, all in the name of planetary defence. Continue reading...
Third delay in the past month for test flight as technical issues and weather hamper US effort to return to the moon after five decadesNasa is skipping Tuesday’s launch attempt of its new moon rocket over concerns about a tropical storm headed to Florida that could become a major hurricane.It’s the third delay in the past month for the lunar-orbiting test flight featuring mannequins but no astronauts, a follow-up to Nasa’s Apollo moon-landing program of a half-century ago. Continue reading...
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