People who cannot stand on one leg for 10 seconds are found to be almost twice as likely to die within 10 yearsIf you have difficulty standing on one leg, it could be a sign of something more serious than overdoing it at the office summer drinks party. Middle-aged and elderly people who cannot balance on one leg for 10 seconds are almost twice as likely to die within 10 years than those who can, research suggests.How well a person can balance can offer an insight into their health. Previous research, for instance, indicates that an inability to balance on one leg is linked to a greater risk of stroke. People with poor balance have also been found to perform worse in tests of mental decline, suggesting a link with dementia. Continue reading...

Ohio State University researchers gauged responses to climate science versus scepticism and suggest facts bear repeatingPeople’s views of the climate crisis can be influenced by the media, according to new research. But accurate scientific reporting only has limited impact on people who already have a fixed political viewpoint, particularly if it is opposed to climate action.Researchers who ran an experiment in the US to find out how people responded to media reporting on the climate found that people’s views of climate science really were shifted by reading reporting that accurately reflected scientific findings. They were also more willing to back policies that would tackle the problem. Continue reading...

Ballistic missile interception system trial follows North Korean tests and deployment of US THAAD system in South KoreaChina has claimed a successful test of a land-based ballistic missile interception system amid heightened tensions in Asia, in a move its defence ministry described as “defensive and not aimed at any country”.Beijing has in recent years been ramping up research into all sorts of missiles, from those that can destroy satellites in space to advanced nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles, as part of a modernisation overseen by President Xi Jinping. It came after North Korea conducted a series of missile tests, which prompted South Korea and the US to warn that Pyongyang could conduct a nuclear test at any time. Continue reading...

Thanks to the war in Ukraine, there is a shortage of agricultural chemicals. As each adult produces enough pee annually to fertilise 145kg of wheat, perhaps bodily waste is the answerName: Peecycling.Age: As a term, dates to about 2006; as a practice, centuries old. Continue reading...

In today’s newsletter: With case numbers on the rise in the UK, Nimo Omer looks at what shape our future relationship with the virus could take

On successive days, before the sun rises, the visible planets will be visited in turn by the waning moonAwake with the dawn chorus this week? Take a look to the east. On successive days, before the sun rises, the visible planets will be visited in turn by the waning gibbous moon.Start looking at about 0400BST on the morning of 21 June, when the moon will be close to Jupiter. The chart shows the view looking east from London at 0400BST a day later on 22 June. By this time the moon will be heading for Mars, which it will pass on the morning of 23 June. Continue reading...

The government pretends that farming and the countryside are synonymous – and our environment suffers as a resultWe have a problem. The environment secretary, George Eustice – the highest green authority in the land – is, in a crucial respect, a climate denier. In an interview with the Telegraph, he claimed that “livestock, particularly if you do it with the right pastoral system, has a role to play in tackling climate change”.Though such claims are often made, there is no evidence to support them. A wide-ranging review of the data by the Oxford Martin School found no case of a livestock operation sequestering more greenhouse gases than the animals produce. Moreover, because of the very large land area required for grazing livestock, pastoral systems carry a massive carbon opportunity cost (this means the carbon that would be captured if the land were returned to wild ecosystems). According to the government’s Climate Change Committee, “transitioning from grassland to forestland would increase the soil carbon stock by 25 tonnes of carbon per hectare (on average across England) … This is additional to the large amounts of carbon that would be stored in the biomass of the trees themselves.”George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

Social media abuzz with pictures and theories about formations thought to be from exhaust plume of SpaceX rocketNew Zealand stargazers were left puzzled and awed by strange, spiralling light formations in the night sky on Sunday night.Around 7.25pm Alasdair Burns, a stargazing guide on Stewart Island/Rakiura, received a text from a friend: go outside and look at the sky. “As soon as we actually went outside, it was very obvious what it was he was referring to,” Burns said. Continue reading...

A pioneering research laboratory in Cambridge proves that corvids are delightfully clever. Here, its founder reveals what the crow family has taught her – and her heartbreak at the centre’s closureLeo, an 18-year-old rook, is playing mind games. It’s a street-corner classic – cups and balls. Only this time the venue is the Comparative Cognition Laboratory in Madingley, Cambridge, and the ball is a waxworm. Leo – poised, pointy, determined – is perched on a wooden platform eager to place his bet. A wriggling morsel is laid under one of three cups, the cups shuffled. Leo cocks his head and takes a stab. Success! He snatches the waxworm in his beak and retreats to enjoy his prize. Aristotle, a fellow resident donned in a glossy black feather coat, who has been at the aviary almost as long as the lab itself, looks on knowingly.Watching alongside me is Professor Nicola Clayton, a psychologist who founded the lab 22 years ago, and we are joined by Francesca Cornero, 25, a PhD researcher (and occasional cups and balls technician). Clayton, 59, who is short, with blonde hair, large glasses and is wearing loose, black tango trousers, studies the cognitive abilities of both animals and humans, but is particularly known for her seminal research into the intelligence of corvids (birds in the crow family, which includes rooks, jays, magpies and ravens). Corvids have long proved to be at odds with the “bird-brain” stereotype endured by most feathered creatures and her lab, a cluster of four large aviaries tucked behind a thatched pub, has paved the way for new theories about the evolution and development of intelligence. Thanks to Clayton’s own eclectic tastes, which span consciousness to choreography (her other love, besides birds, is dance), the lab also engenders a curious synthesis of ideas drawn from both science and the arts. Continue reading...

After admitting to other Black dads he found parenting difficult, Marvyn Harrison began transforming his relationship with his kidsIt was on Father’s Day, five years ago, that Marvyn Harrison sent a heartfelt message to his friends that would change his life for ever. Back then, his son was three and his daughter was six months old. And he couldn’t seem to help feeling constantly like a fake, an impostor. “I felt like I was being fraudulent,” he says.He was going through the motions of being a loving dad and a supportive husband, without feeling the intense emotional bond with his children he had always expected to feel. Looking back now, he says, “I didn’t understand how to connect deeper.” Continue reading...

Two men who contracted the virus share their experiences of contact tracing and vaccination system

Suggestions vaccines may need to be offered to all men who have sex with men to combat spread of virus

The risk to humans from the disease, spread by wild birds, is low but a record level of outbreaks this year has researchers worriedBird flu outbreaks rose nearly fivefold last year, creating an urgent need for research into preventing the spread of the disease, according to the head of a new consortium investigating the virus.The record of 26 outbreaks involving H5N1 in 2021 has been shattered, with 121 outbreaks involving the H5 serotype this year, according to Prof Ian Brown, head of virology at the government’s Animal and Plant Health Agency (Apha). Continue reading...

Lawyers and MPs in England and Wales express concern over ‘unregulated’ psychologists who play key role in disputes over domestic abuseMPs, lawyers and charity leaders are among those calling for an urgent inquiry into the use of unregulated psychological experts in the family courts, after an investigation by the Observer.In a letter sent to the justice secretary, the victims’ commissioner for London, Claire Waxman, and a group of MPs write: “We believe there is ample evidence that children and survivors of domestic abuse are being put at risk by the evidence provided by unregulated experts who do not belong to any professional body and therefore cannot be held to account.” Continue reading...

The scientist and author Dr Adam Rutherford looks at how the study of genetics has been warped for political endsIt’s a quirk of history that the foundations of modern biology – and as a consequence, some of the worst atrocities of the 20th century – should rely so heavily on peas. Cast your mind back to school biology, and Gregor Mendel, whose 200th birthday we mark next month. Though Mendel is invariably described as a friar, his formidable legacy is not in Augustinian theology, but in the mainstream science of genetics.In the middle of the 19th century, Mendel (whose real name was Johann – Gregor was his Augustinian appellation) bred more than 28,000 pea plants, crossing tall with short, wrinkly seeds with smooth, and purple flowers with white. What he found in that forest of pea plants was that these traits segregated in the offspring, and did not blend, but re-emerged in predictable ratios. What Mendel had discovered were the rules of inheritance. Characteristics were inherited in discrete units – what we now call genes – and the way these units flowed through pedigrees followed neat mathematical patterns. Continue reading...

Modern techniques to test traditional explanation that most bones from 1815 battle were ground into powder for fertiliserIt was an epic battle that has been commemorated in words, poetry and even a legendary Abba song, but 207 years to the day after troops clashed at Waterloo, a gruesome question remains: what happened to the dead?While tens of thousands of men and horses died at the site in modern-day Belgium, few remains have been found, with amputated legs and a skeleton unearthed beneath a car park south of Brussels among the handful of discoveries. Continue reading...

Litter left behind | Getting rid of things | Moving on from Partygate | Russian spy’s wrong turn | The Green Man in the treeCall me a peddler of conspiracy theories if you like, but I have had a good look at that piece of silver paper on Mars and it looks very much like a KitKat wrapper to me (Nasa rover sighting reignites fears about human space debris, 16 June).

Exclusive: experts believe new form of photoimmunotherapy may become fifth major cancer treatmentScientists have successfully developed a revolutionary cancer treatment that lights up and wipes out microscopic cancer cells, in a breakthrough that could enable surgeons to more effectively target and destroy the disease in patients.A European team of engineers, physicists, neurosurgeons, biologists and immunologists from the UK, Poland and Sweden joined forces to design the new form of photoimmunotherapy. Continue reading...

We’ve all had an everyday interaction go horribly wrong. Experts give advice on how to handle difficult issues like sex, money and even dog pooTricky conversations are easy to put off – but dodging them only makes things harder. They’re often about something that could make life easier or better but the fact that the exchange may be embarrassing or difficult for one party or both, forms a big barrier.Remembering a few ground rules could make things easier. First: this is a two-way thing. It’s not just about you – the other person may also be nervous, uncertain, defensive, scared or unhappy. Continue reading...

The best of this week’s wildlife pictures, including a poisonous frog, an alligator lizard and a walrus called Stan Continue reading...

Unlike carbon dioxide, hydrogen does not have a direct effect on climate – it affects other pollutantsWe are taught at school that hydrogen burns to produce water. This is part of its image as clean fuel. But new analysis is providing warnings for the engineers who will create and operate our future energy systems.In 2021, the UK government launched its hydrogen strategy, providing a roadmap to kickstart a hydrogen economy by 2030 that visualises a future where hydrogen could be powering the boilers that heat our homes, fuelling our transport and providing heat for chemical and steel production. Continue reading...

Researchers in France used virtual reality to test the impact of tweaks made to urban settingsHaving bright colours and greenery in our cities can make people happier and calmer, according to an unusual experiment involving virtual reality headsets.A team of researchers at the University of Lille, in France, used VR to test how volunteers reacted to variations of a minimalist concrete, glass and metal urban landscape. The 36 participants walked on the spot in a laboratory wearing a VR headset with eye trackers, and researchers tweaked their surroundings, adding combinations of vegetation, as well as bright yellow and pink colours, and contrasting, angular patterns on the path. Continue reading...

An Anglo-Saxon burial site containing over 140 people along with their belongings has been uncovered near Wendover, Buckinghamshire, along the route of the HS2 railway. 'To find this number of individuals is really unique,' said Rachel Wood, a lead archaeologist working on the site. A total of 138 graves were found at the site, making it 'one of the largest Anglo-Saxon burial grounds uncovered in Britain'. More than 2,000 beads were discovered, with 89 brooches, 40 buckles, 51 knives, 15 spearheads and seven shield bosses. Wood called it a 'once-in-a-lifetime discovery'

Research counters idea that everyone wants to be as rich as possible, though many Americans want $100bnHow much money do you need to lead your “absolutely ideal life”? The answer for most people, according to new research by university psychologists, is $10m (£8.6m) – but not Americans, who say they need at least $100m, and frequently insist on $100bn.Academics at the universities of Bath, Bath Spa and Exeter found that contrary to the assumption that everyone wants to be as rich as possible, most people say they would be happy with a few million. Continue reading...

Court finds that Paolo Macchiarini carried out experimental procedure on patient who was not critically illA Swedish court has found an Italian surgeon, once hailed for pioneering windpipe surgery, guilty of causing bodily harm to a patient, but cleared him of assault charges.Paolo Macchiarini won praise in 2011 after claiming to have performed the world’s first synthetic trachea transplants using stem cells while he was a surgeon at Stockholm’s Karolinska University hospital. The experimental procedure was hailed as a breakthrough in regenerative medicine. Continue reading...

Mars object thought to be piece of thermal blanket from when Perseverance touched down on planetNasa’s Perseverance rover typically beams back evocative images of bleak dusty landscapes, red-hued sandstorms and Martian rock samples. So its operators were surprised to receive an image on Monday of a shiny silver object resembling a discarded crisp packet wedged between two rocks.The object, the Nasa team concluded, is a piece of debris discarded by the robotic craft during its touchdown in February 2021. Continue reading...

Losing a loved one can be life-changing and, for some, debilitating. Could a diagnosis help, or are we medicalising a natural human emotion?For a while, Davina Rivers thought something wasn’t right with her. “It will be seven years in November since my husband died, and I’m still grieving for him every day, I miss him every day, I wish he was here every day,” she says. She has suffered from depression before, and she thought her intense grief had settled, like a grey mist, into a kind of depression. Rivers and her husband, Eric, married in 1998, and they have three daughters; he died in 2015 at the age of 49. She spoke to Eric’s brother recently, to celebrate the achievement of one of her daughters, which Eric would have been thrilled with. “He said: ‘Oh, yes, I thought about him one day this week’, and I just thought, “How different our lives are.” For me, it’s an everyday feeling: whenever I wake up, and go to sleep, I miss him.”She has met other widows online, and feels she is different. “I see people start new relationships and get married and go on to have great happiness in their lives, and I don’t see that for myself, somehow. My husband, I think he was my One.” Losing him, she says, has affected everything. Rivers, 61, continued to work after her husband was diagnosed with motor neurone disease, and after his death, she went back to work as a podiatrist five months later. “But I found it very difficult. I think the trauma of it all had a massive impact on me. I became quite introverted. I didn’t want to be a burden to people so I stopped going out. I don’t like going out walking, which is the really strange part of it: it’s almost like I don’t like people seeing me. I can get up and go to work, but I find it difficult to go for a walk.” And so, she says, “I seriously thought that there was something wrong with me.” Continue reading...

A journalist and psychotherapist explores what it means to be an adult in a world that often infantilisesWhat’s going to happen to the children, when there aren’t any more grownups?” sang Noël Coward, satirising the self-indulgent hedonism of the 1920s. But Coward’s ironic lyrics seem even more relevant today when the traditional values of adulthood, self-control, self-sufficiency and the willingness to take responsibility have become sources of angst rather than a desirable, if difficult, end. So what then, if anything, has been lost? In her book, journalist and analyst Moya Sarner attempts to find answers to this question.The project arose out of her own experience of psychoanalysis, where four times a week, for a number of years, she discovered the remedial effects of being properly listened to. This, in turn, led her to train as a psychotherapist. She takes her skills as a journalist and what she has learned about listening to explore the vexed question of what becoming a mature adult personality might entail, and why achieving it has become such a trial and a puzzlement for so many today, herself included. The answer, inevitably, is many-faceted, as emerges from her accounts of the interviews she holds with a wide variety of people, which she intersperses with psychological commentary drawn from eclectic sources, alongside meditations on her own attitudes to adulthood that have been prompted and enlarged by these conversations. Continue reading...

Forget the spreadsheets and make it up as you go along – that’s the message of leaders from Elon Musk to Boris Johnson. But is acting on instinct really a good idea?There are, it seems, two types of “winging it” stories. First, there are the triumphant ones – the victories pulled, cheekily, improbably, from the jaws of defeat. Like the time a historian (who prefers to remain nameless) turned up to give a talk on one subject, only to discover her hosts were expecting, and had advertised, another. “I wrote the full thing – an hour-long show – in 10 panicked minutes,” she says. “At the end, a lady came up to congratulate me on how spontaneous my delivery was.”Then there is the other kind of winging it story – the kind that ends in ignominy. Remember the safeguarding minister, Rachel Maclean, tying herself in factually inaccurate knots when asked about stop-and-search powers? The Australian journalist Matt Doran, who interviewed Adele without listening to her album? Or the culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, claiming Channel 4 was publicly funded, then that Channel 5 had been privatised? Continue reading...

Remains of more than 140 people found at site in Buckinghamshire, along with trove of personal itemsAn Anglo-Saxon burial site containing the remains of more than 140 people interred with some of their most favoured objects, including jewellery, knives and even a personal grooming kit, has been discovered by archaeologists working on the HS2 route.The site, near Wendover, Buckinghamshire, contained a “stunning set of discoveries”, said the historian Dan Snow. “Traditionally, this period has been dismissed as a dark age. But archaeology has filled the gaps.” Continue reading...

Last week an engineer at Google claimed that an AI chatbot he worked with, known as LaMDA, had become ‘sentient’. Blake Lemoine published a transcript of his conversations with LaMDA that included responses about having feelings and fearing death. But could it really be conscious? AI researcher and author Kate Crawford speaks to Ian Sample about how LaMDA actually works, and why we shouldn’t worry about the inner life of software – for now.Archive: BBC News Continue reading...

Seeing natural event as hormone deficiency requiring treatment could increase women’s anxiety, say medicsDoctors have hit back at critics saying they are failing menopausal women, and said that treating menopause as a hormone deficiency that requires medical treatment could fuel negative expectations and make matters worse.Writing in the British Medical Journal they said there was an urgent need for a more realistic and balanced narrative which actively challenges the idea that menopause is synonymous with an inevitable decline in women’s health and wellbeing, and called for continued efforts to improve awareness about the symptoms and how to deal with them. Continue reading...

International team link spike in deaths at cemeteries in Kyrgyzstan in 1300s to start of plague pandemicResearchers believe they have solved the nearly 700-year-old mystery of the origins of the Black Death, the deadliest pandemic in recorded history, which swept through Europe, Asia and north Africa in the mid-14th century.At least tens of millions of people died when bubonic plague tore across the continents, probably by spreading along trade routes. Despite intense efforts to uncover the source of the outbreak, the lack of firm evidence has left the question open. Continue reading...

Scientists observed fewer cases of avian bronchitis and superior meat after chickens given cannabisIt all began when Ong-ard Panyachatiraksa, a farm owner in the north of Thailand who is licensed to grow medicinal cannabis, was wondering what to do with the many excess leaves he had amassed. He asked: could his brood of chickens benefit from the leftovers?

Urgent move to change name comes after scientists call it ‘inaccurate’ and ‘stigmatising’ as virus spreadsThe World Health Organization has said it will rename monkeypox to avoid discrimination and stigmatisation as the virus continues to spread among people in an unprecedented global outbreak of the disease.Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director general, said the organisation was “working with partners and experts from around the world on changing the name of the monkeypox virus, its clades and the disease it causes”. Continue reading...

From a walk in the woods at night to exploring a ghostly derelict building or riding a bloodcurdling rollercoaster, can a dose of fear make you forget your everyday worries?

The moon reached its full stage on Tuesday, during a phenomenon known as a supermoon because of its proximity to Earth, and it is also called the strawberry moon because it is the full moon at strawberry harvest time Continue reading...

Due to the climate crisis, within 30 years these coastal properties will be potentially unsalvageable, researchers saySea level rise will put about 200,000 coastal properties in England at risk within 30 years, new data suggests, as the climate crisis takes hold.These are the homes that may not end up being saved because it would be very expensive to try, by measures such as seawalls and other coastal defences. Some of the areas most at risk include North Somerset, Sedgemoor, Wyre, and Swale. Continue reading...

Study of triple vaccinated people also says Omicron infection does little to reduce chance of catching variant againPeople who caught Covid during the first wave of the pandemic get no boost to their immune response if they subsequently catch Omicron, a study of triple vaccinated people reports.Experts say that while three doses of a Covid jab help to protect individuals against severe outcomes should they catch Omicron, previous infections can affect their immune response. Continue reading...

Scientists spot extremely luminous object powered by supermassive black hole using Coonabarabran telescope

Photographer Craig Loechel hones his macro lenses on nature’s beauty to reveal details not normally seen by the naked eye Continue reading...

Differences between the UK and India in treating the blood-clotting disease highlight a global medical apartheidLike the Hindu deity Krishna, I was born with blue skin. My body bruised at the trauma of simply being held. And so the family arranged for a ritual to appease the gods. Haemophilia is a genetic blood disorder that makes it very hard for the body to stop bleeding. If your haemophilia is severe like mine, you bleed spontaneously, without an injury or known cause. A handshake once took me to A&E.To stop bleeding, you need clotting injections. In much of the developing world, these injections are available only to the chosen few. Multinational corporations, such as Pfizer and Baxter, make money selling drugs at high prices in low-income countries. Continue reading...

According to some estimates smoking causes one in 10 deaths worldwide. A lesser known side-effect of cigarettes is the damage they cause to our mental health. Yet, the rates of smoking among people with mental health conditions are much higher than the rest of the population.Last week, the UK government published the Khan review, an independent report looking at how England could become smoke free by 2030. One of the recommendations was to tackle the issue of mental health and smoking. Madeleine Finlay speaks to epidemiologist Dr Gemma Taylor about how significant this link is, what we can do to break it, and how to dispel the myth that smoking is a stress relieverArchive: Sky News Continue reading...

Shortening of telomeres accelerates ageing process, research shows – a ‘pernicious silent threat’

Scientists analysed footage from small video cameras with infrared night-vision attached to the animalsWhen they are in the deep, dark ocean, seals use their whiskers to track down their prey, a study has confirmed after observing the sea mammals in their natural habitat.It’s hard for light to penetrate the gloom of the ocean’s depths, and animals have come up with a variety of adaptations in order to live and hunt there. Whales and dolphins, for example, use echolocation – the art of sending out clicky noises into the water and listening to their echo as they bounce off possible prey, to locate them. But deep-diving seals who don’t have those same acoustic projectors must have evolutionarily learned to deploy another sensory technique. Continue reading...

The solution to today’s word puzzlesEarlier today I set you a bulging girdle of post-Wordle word puzzles. Here they are with the answers.1. Old horse Continue reading...

Measures such as improved ventilation would boost economy by helping prevent ill health, says reportMandating improved ventilation and other forms of disease control in public buildings could save the UK economy billions of pounds each year through the prevention of ill health and its societal impacts, according to a report.It is the first study to comprehensively evaluate the health, social and economic costs of airborne infections, including Covid. Even without a pandemic, seasonal respiratory diseases cost the UK about £8bn a year in disruption and sick days, said the report by the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers. In the event of another severe pandemic within the next 60 years, the societal cost could be as high as £23bn a year. Continue reading...

Mail-order tests promise an estimate of how well you’re ageing but the results can be just one more thing to worry aboutAt the end of last year, Jay Chan, a 30-year-old marine engineer, bought his mother a biological age test from Elysium, a New York-based biotech and health supplements start-up founded in 2014. The test was simple – it required only a saliva sample – and it helped that it was being offered for half off the usual $499 (£400) price.For fans of the self-described “longevity movement” like Chan, the concept of biological age is liberating. Rather than simply measure the passage of time, biological age aims to quantify the ageing of our body’s functions and even predict mortality. Many scientists and longevity advocates believe this information can not only help us understand our own ageing process, but can give us the power to change it. Continue reading...

The robotic spacecraft unravels the history of the our galaxy’s evolution – and could identify habitable regions of the Milky WayAstronomers have unveiled the most detailed survey of the Milky Way, revealing thousands of “starquakes” and stellar DNA, and helping to identify the most habitable corners of our home galaxy.The observations from the European Space Agency’s Gaia probe cover almost two billion stars – about 1% of the total number in the galaxy – and are allowing astronomers to reconstruct our home galaxy’s structure and find out how it has evolved over billions of years. Continue reading...

A spike in infections every three months seems to be the pattern, but the UK has the power to beat this if we act wiselyAs we move into summer, more than two years since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the words “new wave” are probably the last thing anyone wants to hear. Yet it is true that recent UK data (as well as data from Florida and other places) indicates that sublineages of the Omicron variant, BA.4 and BA.5, are kicking off a new wave of cases. With the pandemic no longer dominating the news in the way it once did, it’s worth taking stock of where we are and what needs to be done.After all, these variations on Omicron are not more severe, but they do have the capacity to reinfect people, even those who have had a previous version of Omicron. This is further evidence that reaching “herd immunity” (where enough people are vaccinated or infected to stop further circulation) against Covid-19 is probably impossible.Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh Continue reading...