Science | The Guardian

As demand for menopause drugs soars, we trace the oestrogen production line from Chinese soya bean fields to European pharmacy shelvesIn the centre of the factory stand 31 reactors: giant metal globes that can hold up to 10,000 litres of liquid each. Every week, gleaming stainless steel drums arrive by truck at this plant on the outskirts of Oss, in the Netherlands. Their contents are poured into the reactors through a funnel, dissolved, and then heated to boiling point. Standing by one of the vast containers, the factory manager, Robert Dam, compares it to a “cooking pot”. Peering inside, we can see the light liquid bubbling away.At Dam’s factory, a white powder distilled from soya beans and shipped from China is turned into a precious commodity: strong synthetic oestrogen. The plant at Oss, owned by the Dutch subsidiary of South Africa’s largest drugmaker Aspen Pharmacare, produces the most potent variant of oestrogen, known as oestradiol, destined for the UK market. It will be added to gels, sprays and patches used by more than 1 million women in Britain to manage the symptoms of menopause. Continue reading...

Exclusive: The professor chosen to deliver Royal Institution Christmas lectures talks about a fascination with anatomy that goes back to plucking pheasants as a childFrom a solitary set of finger bones to a fragment of skull in a washing machine, the cases Dame Sue Black has helped solve may seem too gruesome for the joyful spectacle that is the Royal Institution Christmas lectures.But it is not the stuff of nightmares that Black, one of the world’s leading forensic anthropologists, will be exploring as she gives Britain’s most prestigious public science lectures this winter. Continue reading...

Experts question long-term benefits of therapy for mental and psychological disordersPopping into a room on your lunch break to have a good scream may seem like a helpful way to let off steam, but experts say there is little evidence the approach offers long-term benefits for mental health.Primal scream therapy (PST) was created by psychologist Arthur Janov in the late 1960s. It is based on the idea that repressed childhood traumas are at the root of neurosis, and that screaming can help to release and resolve the pain. With a bestselling book and high-profile patients, including John Lennon and Yoko Ono, the approach became popular in the 1970s. Continue reading...

Dr Matthew Bothwell, public astronomer at the University of Cambridge, on whether humans will one day be able to observe the origin of the universeThe pictures from the James Webb telescope – described by Nasa as a “time machine” because the light has taken billions of years to reach us – raise the question: will it be possible to someday see the big bang itself? I asked Dr Matthew Bothwell, public astronomer at the University of Cambridge.Why is the James Webb telescope so good?

Discovery offers new support for the theory that life may have been seeded from outer spaceSpecks of dust that a Japanese space probe retrieved from an asteroid about 186 million miles (300m kilometres) from Earth have revealed a surprising component: a drop of water.The discovery offers new support for the theory that life on Earth may have been seeded from outer space. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Expert who has downplayed link between concussion and traumatic brain injury is accused of 10 more cases of plagiarism

David Deutsch, who proposed an as yet unbuildable machine to test existence of parallel universes, shares prize with three othersA theoretical physicist who has never had a regular job has won the most lucrative prize in science for his pioneering contributions to the mind-bending field of quantum computing.David Deutsch, who is affiliated with the University of Oxford, shares the $3m (about £2.65m) Breakthrough prize in fundamental physics with three other researchers who laid the foundations for the broader discipline of quantum information. Continue reading...

Biden’s recent announcement that the pandemic is ending could slow process further, as parents question the necessity of shotsIt’s been three months since the US authorized Covid vaccines for kids under five, yet uptake in this group has been extremely low. Meanwhile, Joe Biden said on Monday that the pandemic is ending – a message that could result in a continued lag.More than 1,400 children have died from Covid in the US, and at least 533 of those deaths have been in children under five, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That makes Covid one of the top 10 causes of child mortality in the country. Continue reading...

First study to look at facial responses of foetuses to tastes shows crying expression twice as likely for kale than carrotIf the taste of kale makes you screw up your face, you are not alone: researchers have observed foetuses pull a crying expression when exposed to the greens in the womb.While previous studies have suggested our food preferences may begin before birth and can be influenced by the mother’s diet, the team says the new research is the first to look directly at the response of unborn babies to different flavours. Continue reading...

The UK’s new health secretary, Thérèse Coffey, has not taken on an easy job. Almost two-thirds of trainee GPs plan to work part-time just a year after they qualify, reporting that the job has become too intense to safely work more. A record 6.8 million people are waiting for hospital treatment in England, and 132,139 posts lie vacant across the NHS in England. Ian Sample hears from acute medicine consultant Dr Tim Cooksley about what’s happening within the NHS, and speaks to the Guardian’s health policy editor, Denis Campbell, about how the UK’s health and social care systems ended up in crisis and whether they can be fixedArchive: ITV News, BBC Sounds, BBC News, Sky News, BBC Newsnight Continue reading...

Farthest planet from sun and its satellites revealed in unprecedented detail by space telescope’s infrared imagerThe James Webb space telescope has turned its gaze away from the deep universe towards our home solar system, capturing an image of a luminous Neptune and its delicate, dusty rings in detail not seen in decades.The last time astronomers had such a clear view of the farthest planet from the sun was when Nasa’s Voyager 2 became the first and only space probe to fly past the ice giant for just a few hours in 1989. Continue reading...

Biogen drug Tofersen showed promising results when taken for six months beyond previous trialAn experimental drug for motor neurone disease (MND) has shown signs of slowing the progress of the devastating illness in a landmark trial.The results provide fresh hope after a phase-three trial of the same drug had previously failed to make a meaningful difference to patient outcomes after six months of treatment. Continue reading...

Three arrived in a Soyuz spacecraft in rare instance of cooperation between Moscow and WashingtonA US astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts have arrived safely at the International Space Station (ISS) after blasting off on a Russian-operated flight in a rare instance of cooperation between Moscow and Washington.The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, and Nasa both distributed live footage on Wednesday of the launch from Kazakhstan, and commentators speaking over the feed said the crew were “feeling well”. Continue reading...

More than a third of children’s clothing tested in a study detected PFAS, which are used to make textiles stain resistantToxic PFAS chemicals are frequently used to make children’s clothing and textiles resist water and stains, but exposure to the compounds in clothes represents a serious health risk, a new peer-reviewed study finds.The study, published in the Environmental and Science Technology journal, detected the chemicals in 65% of school uniforms, rain gear, snowsuits, snowshoes, mittens, bibs, hats and stroller covers tested, and at levels authors characterized as “high”. Continue reading...

Research finds people who had them at least once a week were four times more likely to experience cognitive declinePeople who experience frequent bad dreams in middle age may experience a faster rate of cognitive decline and be at higher risk of dementia as they get older, data suggests.If confirmed, the research could eventually lead to new ways of screening for dementia and intervention to slow the rate of decline. Continue reading...

Researchers think they may have solved enduring mystery of where Typhloesus wellsi sits on tree of lifeThe mystery of a bizarre creature dubbed the “alien goldfish”, which has baffled fossil experts for decades, may have been solved, according to scientists who say the animal appears to have been some sort of mollusc.Typhloesus wellsi lived about 330m years ago and was discovered in the Bear Gulch Limestone fossil site in Montana in the late 1960s, with the remains of other species subsequently identified. Continue reading...

The new song, Semper Supra, is set to a jaunty tune, but critics say its lyrics are ‘verbal word salad’Space Force, the sixth and newest branch of the US military, unveiled its official song on Tuesday amid a less than stellar critical response.As one website dedicated to covering America’s armed forces put it: “It’s not a banger.” Continue reading...

The analysis is based on 489 studies of ant populations spanning every continent where the insects liveThe world’s human population is forecast to surpass 8bn in the coming months. Compared with ants, that is a mediocre milestone.Researchers have made the most thorough assessment to date of the global population of ants and the estimated total is a mind-blowing 20 quadrillion of them, or approximately 2.5 million for every human. Continue reading...

It doesn’t just happen to emergency or frontline workers, and can stem from accidents, bullying, and even severe stress

Archaeologists say find supports theory that drug was used in burial rituals, possibly to ‘enter ecstatic state’Israeli archaeologists have discovered opium residue in 3,500-year-old pottery pieces, providing evidence to support the theory that the hallucinogenic drug was used in ancient burial rituals.The joint investigation by the Israel Antiquities Authority and Weizmann Institute of Science began in 2012 when excavations in the central Israeli town of Yehud revealed a series of late bronze-age graves. Continue reading...

A week certainly is a long time in monarchy. It was fascinating to see individuals actively changed by this experienceA strange thing has happened since last week, when I wrote about how myself and other social psychologists were studying the crowds of people queueing to watch the ceremonials following the death of Queen Elizabeth – finding out the many reasons and motivations for taking part in this mass event. It seems the Queue itself – and what it supposedly tells us about the state of our nation – has become as big a story as the ceremonies. We stopped watching the pageantry and started watching ourselves watching the pageants.This was just the start of a series of remarkable transformations. The size and behaviour of the crowds did not simply reflect the pre-existing state of the nation. Rather, through these crowds we saw a transformation in our desire to participate in the events, a transformation of relations between those in the crowd, and transformations in their relationship to the monarch, the monarchy and the state. A week is a long time, it seems, and not only in politics. Continue reading...

There are many story angles surrounding childhood cancer, but rarely mentioned is the burden of illness on everyday lifeAs a parent of two young children with a high-risk brain cancer diagnosis, it’s wonderful to see donation drives soar and yellow ribbons promote empathy for my family’s situation during childhood cancer awareness month.However, I’m also acutely attuned to important story angles that seem conspicuously absent. Continue reading...

When parents cast a child into the role of mediator, friend and carer, the wounds are profound. But recovery is possibleI came to research the emotional neglect of children by accident. More than a decade ago, I wrote my master’s thesis on the relationship between the personal and professional lives of psychotherapists. How did they manage to keep the distress they heard in their clinics from affecting their own emotional balance? And how did they stop their personal challenges from affecting their clinical work?In our conversations, I asked what brought them to be clinicians. The consistency of their answers surprised me. Virtually all said that being there for others, emotionally, came naturally; they were good at it because they were practised in tending others’ needs since childhood, starting with their own parents. With deeper conversations, I learned of the difficult family circumstances they each came from. Continue reading...

Whether it’s organic or psychosomatic or something in between, multiple chemical sensitivity can cause chronic illness, and its sufferers often feel abandonedSharon calls herself a universal reactor. In the 1990s, she became allergic to the world, to the mould colonising her home and the paint coating her kitchen walls, but also deodorants, soaps and anything containing plastic. Public spaces rife with artificial fragrances were unbearable. Scented disinfectants and air fresheners in hospitals made visiting doctors torture. The pervasiveness of perfumes and colognes barred her from in-person social gatherings. Even stepping into her own back garden was complicated by the whiff of pesticides and her neighbour’s laundry detergent sailing through the air. When modern medicine failed to identify the cause of Sharon’s illness, exiting society felt like her only solution. She started asking her husband to strip and shower every time he came home. Grandchildren greeted her through a window. When we met for the first time, Sharon had been housebound for more than six years.When I started medical school, the formaldehyde-based solutions used to embalm the cadavers in the human anatomy labs would cause my nose to burn and my eyes to well up – representing the mild, mundane end of a chemical sensitivity spectrum. The other extreme of the spectrum is an environmental intolerance of unknown cause (referred to as idiopathic by doctors) or, as it is commonly known, multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS). An official definition of MCS does not exist because the condition is not recognised as a distinct medical entity by the World Health Organization or the American Medical Association, although it has been recognised as a disability in countries such as Germany and Canada. Continue reading...

Against a backdrop of a cost of living crisis caused in part by soaring energy prices, the UK’s new prime minister, Liz Truss, appointed MP Jacob Rees-Mogg as secretary of state for business and energy. In this role, Rees-Mogg will have to tackle these issues while being responsible for the UK’s legally binding target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. It is a goal he has previously described as ‘a long way off’. Madeleine Finlay hears from environment correspondent Fiona Harvey about his plans to extract ‘every last drop’ of oil and gas from the North Sea, the possibility of fracking in the UK, and the importance of energy efficiency and renewables in addressing the cost of living, energy and climate crises togetherArchive: BBC News, Channel 4 News, The Telegraph Continue reading...

The rate of syphilis cases has hit its highest in three decades as officials work on new solutions such as at-home test kitsSharply rising cases of some sexually transmitted diseases, including a 26% rise in new syphilis infections reported last year, are prompting US health officials to call for new prevention and treatment efforts.“It is imperative that we … work to rebuild, innovate, and expand (STD) prevention in the US,” said Leandro Mena of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a speech on Monday at a medical conference on sexually transmitted diseases. Continue reading...

Research shows early birds more sensitive to insulin levels and burn more fat at rest and during exerciseNight owls may be more prone to heart disease and diabetes than early birds because their bodies are less able to burn fat for energy, US researchers say.People who rise early rely more on fat as an energy source, and are often more active in the day, than those who stay up later, meaning fat may build up more easily in night owls, the scientists found. Continue reading...

State is the fifth to legalize environmentally friendly process that allows for natural reduction of human remains to soilCalifornia lawmakers have approved a new way of returning those who have died to the earth, after Gavin Newsom signed into law a bill allowing human composting on Sunday.Cremation, which accounts for more than half of burials, is an energy-intensive process that emits chemicals such as CO into the air. Through human composting, or natural organic reduction (NOR), the body is naturally broken down into soil. Continue reading...

Shuffling and studying the pictures on tarot cards can be like a moment of meditationMy first attempts with tarot readings began on a camping trip with a couple of close friends and their friends. It was Christmas before the pandemic and just before the rains.The ground was so thirsty that the deepest waterholes in the creek were stagnant (and carrying some kind of parasite, we heard later). Snakes coiled near us. Continue reading...

Findings will help build more accurate picture of how often space rocks crash into red planetResearchers have located fresh craters on Mars using shock waves caused by lumps of space rock as they tear through the sky and slam into the ground.The new scars on the face of the planet are the first impact craters ever traced from the bang and crash of hurtling meteoroids bombarding another planet. The findings will help scientists build a more accurate picture of how often Mars is battered by the solar system’s rocky detritus and refine their understanding of the deep internal structure of our planetary neighbour. Continue reading...

The answer to today’s puzzleEarlier today I set you the following puzzle about a hypothetical new Covid variant.Just in case this is the first article you have ever read on viruses: R is the reproduction number, meaning the average number of infections caused by any infected person. Continue reading...

The students traveled to salt lakes to collect specimens of unknown arachnids living in the harsh environmentA pair of California scorpion species that may have crawled under the radar for tens of thousands of years have finally been exposed – thanks to the efforts of two Bay Area teenagers. And for one at-risk species, the students’ work could prove life-saving.Prakrit Jain of Los Altos and Harper Forbes of Sunnyvale, 17 and 18 at the time, identified two new species – Paruroctonus soda and Paruroctonus conclusus – after a tip from social media and excursions into the harsh terrain the arachnids inhabit, aided by a black light and Jain’s mother’s car. Continue reading...

How would it spread?UPDATE: The solution can be read hereThe UK’s autumn Covid-19 booster programme is underway, with approximately 26 million people eligible to receive a jab over the next few months.Today’s puzzle imagines a hypothetical new variant, and asks the solver to think about how it would spread. It was set by Professor Adam Kucharski of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, one of the UK’s leading epidemiologists. Continue reading...

Official Wu Zunyou also called for people to avoid ‘skin-to-skin contact’ with those who had been abroad recently, as well as ‘strangers’A senior Chinese health official has advised people to avoid physical contact with foreigners to prevent possible monkeypox infection after the first known case of the virus on mainland China was reported on Friday.“To prevent possible monkeypox infection and as part of our healthy lifestyle, it is recommended that 1) you do not have direct skin-to-skin contact with foreigners,” Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at the China Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted on his official Weibo page on Saturday. Continue reading...

The right kind of argument can apparently bring couples closer together. Is bickering about the bread bin a good start?I want to get better at arguing. Not the bitter, exhausting kind that happens online, and not the kind that occurs when you put two French people in a room and within 90 seconds one of them is quoting Montaigne and the other has countered with Immanuel Kant, even though they are talking about, say, low-energy lightbulbs (about which neither of them previously had an opinion).I’m interested in the domestic. I have never mastered the short, sharp spat, which can apparently be quite therapeutic. I wouldn’t know. After an early phase of massive, horrible fights, my motto for decades has been: “Why say something when you could let it fester, explode at the worst possible time, be horrified and grovellingly row back until the next time?” Continue reading...

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts• Click here for this week’s questionIf every person in the world isolated from each other for a certain period of time, say a month, would all transmissible diseases disappear? Lily PaulsPost your answers (and new questions) below or send them to nq@theguardian.com. A selection will be published next Sunday. Continue reading...

Studies show that women with heart disease are more likely to be misdiagnosed than men, and will have worse outcomes for surgery. What is behind this bias and how can how it be fixed?Heart diseases are still chronically misdiagnosed or underdiagnosed in women. With depressing regularity, we see stories of women failed by the health system when they come to hospitals with the symptoms of a heart attack. As a professor of cardiac science with 40 years’ experience, for me it has been a frustrating journey to get to the real cause of this problem: a combination of professional, systemic and technical biases. The experiences of individual patients are complex to analyse and interpret, but now we can view these effects on a much bigger scale.Women are 50% more likely to receive a wrong initial diagnosis; when they are having a heart attack, such mistakes can be fatal. People who are initially misdiagnosed have a 70% higher risk of dying. The latest studies have similarly shown that women have worse outcomes for heart operations such as valve replacements and peripheral revascularisation. As well as being misdiagnosed, women are less likely to be treated quickly, less likely to get the best surgical treatment and less likely to be discharged with the optimum set of drugs. None of this is excusable, but is it understandable? Continue reading...

People you don’t see face to face can still provide a communityI was raised not to talk to strangers. Strangers, I was taught as a child, are people we’ve never met before, therefore we don’t know them. Childhood me would have been horrified to know that, now in my 30s, I frequently engage with complete randoms without giving it much thought. I’m not just talking about shop staff who make the mistake of asking me how my day is going, only to be met with a very honest, over-sharing response. I mean the way that social media apps have evolved to illicit a reaction or response, how my thumb reflexively double-taps a metronome as I scroll, giving iambic rhythm to the red hearts that pulse before my eyes. I am not alone in counting people I’ve connected with online as my friends, but how do these friendships compare to those we have in person?There is a certain ease in making online connections that can’t be replicated offline and it’s this ease that appeals to the time-poor, emotionally guarded side of me. Follow? Follow back, job done! While I had a large group of friends at secondary school, I wouldn’t say I am now part of anything that looks like Taylor Swift’s #squadgoals, a term often used to describe her large yet intimate circle of friends. Nor would I know how to go about getting a squad. According to Dr Marisa G Franco, psychologist, friendship expert and author of Platonic, making friends as an adult is more complicated than when we were kids. “Children in school have what sociologists consider the essential ingredients for friendship to happen organically, which is repeated unplanned interaction and shared vulnerability. As adults, we don’t really have environments with those elements, because at work we’re maybe more guarded and less vulnerable, even if we see each other every day.” Continue reading...

As her book of essays by female astronomers is published, the veteran scientist reflects on her career as an astronomy prodigy, the face of the Twilight Zone and Richard Feynman’s life modelVirginia Trimble, 78, is a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Irvine, whose astronomy career spans more than 50 years. She has studied the structure and evolution of stars, galaxies and the universe and published more than 1,000 works, including research papers in astronomy, astrophysics, the history of science and scientometrics – the field concerned with measuring scientific outputs – as well book reviews and biographies. She has co-edited The Sky Is for Everyone, a new collection of 37 autobiographical essays by distinguished female astronomers, including herself. Spanning a range of generations and nationalities, each tells of the barriers they have overcome to change the face of modern astronomy.What got you into astronomy?

Research says clicks emitted from whales’ heads are symbolic marking like human social expressionSperm whales are among the deepest divers on the planet. They are natural submarines, spending 70% of their time foraging for squid in the dark ocean for up to 80 minutes at a time. When they break through what Herman Melville called “the ocean’s skin”, they socialise, twisting and turning their grey bodies around one another in a sensual, enigmatic choreography.They measure up to 18 metres long and have the biggest brains on Earth. For at least 200 years, scientists have wondered what these mammals do with those brains. Now, evidence has emerged that may revolutionise the way we think about whales. Continue reading...

Research offers evidence that tobacco could damage health of people two generations laterChildren are much more likely to develop asthma if their father was exposed to tobacco smoke when he was growing up, a study has found.And they are at even greater risk of suffering from the common lung condition if their father was a smoker himself, according to the international team of researchers. Continue reading...

Some of the winning images from the Royal Observatory Greenwich’s 14 Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. The selection includes the winning image by Gerald Rhemann, Disconnection Event, a rare photograph of a piece of Comet Leonard’s gas tail being disconnected and carried away by the solar wind

Annual satirical awards laud little-known research topics such as why ducklings swim in a line formationIt is one of life’s overlooked arts: the optimal way to turn a knob. Now an investigation into this neglected question has been recognised with one of science’s most coveted accolades: an Ig Nobel prize.After a series of lab-based trials, a team of Japanese industrial designers arrived at the central conclusion that the bigger the knob, the more fingers required to turn it. Continue reading...

Doctor says findings show online healthcare can be as effective as face-to-face appointmentsWatching videos about how to cook, eat less and choose healthier foods can help obese children lose weight, reduce their risk of diabetes and become happier, a study has found.The doctor behind the findings believes they can help in treating childhood obesity because they show that online healthcare can be just as effective as face-to-face appointments. Continue reading...

Experts revise initial assumption that sighting was space junk linked to Elon Musk’s satellite programmeA fireball seen over many parts of the northern UK has been confirmed as a meteor after a day of confusion about its identity.The fireball was visible above northern England, Northern Ireland and Scotland as it blazed across the clear night sky just after 10pm on Wednesday night. Continue reading...

Research using LinkedIn finds most useful acquaintances share a handful of mutual contactsWhether it’s the friend of a friend or a new contact from a conference, arms-length acquaintances have long been thought more useful than close chums when it comes to switching jobs.Now researchers say they have finally found a way to test the theory, revealing that while such “weak ties” do seem to facilitate job shifts, the most useful share a handful of mutual contacts. Continue reading...

Theory of inner satellite ripped apart by gas giant’s gravity 100-200m years ago also explains rings’ relative youthSaturn’s famous rings could be the aftermath of a moon that was ripped apart by the planet’s gravity, according to scientists.The research, based on data from the final stage of Nasa’s Cassini mission, suggests that Saturn may have been ringless for almost all of its 4.5bn-year existence. But about 160m years ago, an inner moon strayed too close to the gas giant causing it to be pulled apart, painting out its own orbit in a trail of shattered icy fragments. Continue reading...

UK Meteor Network says it ‘cannot find any known space junk or satellite de-orbit’ to explain objectA fireball seen over Scotland and Northern Ireland is no longer believed to have been space junk from Elon Musk’s satellite programme, according to astronomers examining it.The UK Meteor Network said the fireball was visible for 20 seconds just after 10pm on Wednesday night. It received almost 800 reports from Scotland, North Ireland and northern England. Continue reading...

Experts say this week can provide new insights into group behaviour and how it influences identity and society

Study finds CAR T-cell treatment sends lupus into remission, raising hopes it could be used to treat diseases such as multiple sclerosisFive people with severe autoimmune disease have become the first in the world to receive a groundbreaking therapy that uses genetically altered cells to drive the illness into remission.The four women and one man, aged 18 to 24, received transfusions of modified immune cells to treat severe lupus, an autoimmune disease that can cause life-threatening damage to the heart, lungs, brain and kidneys. Continue reading...