Altoir na Greine stood for approximately 4,000 years on Dingle peninsula before vanishing in 19th centuryThe remnants of a bronze age tomb once thought to have been destroyed and lost to history have been discovered in County Kerry on the Atlantic coast of Ireland.The tomb, known locally as Altoir na Greine - the sun altar - stood for approximately 4,000 years on a hill outside the village of Ballyferriter on the Dingle peninsula before vanishing in the mid-19th century. Continue reading...
If all goes to plan, Jaxa's lander will make Japan the fifth country ever to land on the moonJapan is on final approach to become only the fifth country to land on the moon, in what would be a reversal of fortunes as it attempts to join a global space race centred on unravelling the mysteries of the lunar landscape.If all goes to plan, the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (Slim) will begin its descent to the rocky lunar surface at midnight on Friday (1500 GMT) before touching down about 20 minutes later, according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa). Continue reading...
Non-brand-name drugs are one inexpensive part of the healthcare system but they're driving some manufacturers out of businessGeneric drugs are the singularity of American healthcare - they are too cheap. And it's driving some manufacturers out of business altogether.Drug prices regularly spark recrimination and outrage on Capitol Hill, such as a recently announced investigation by Senate Democrats and Bernie Sanders into the price of albuterol inhalers. Continue reading...
by Presented by Madeleine Finlay, produced by Rachel on (#6HYDG)
If you've made a resolution to spend less time on your phone this year, help is at hand. The Guardian has launched a new newsletter, Reclaim your brain. Its co-writer and expert coach Catherine Price tells Madeleine Finlay how her own excessive phone use inspired her to investigate the science behind our relationships with our devices, and what we know about how to break the cycle. And Prof Barbara Sahakian of Cambridge University explains why many of us are drawn to looking at bad news on our phones, and what it's doing to us Continue reading...
Skilled medical journalist with a gift for demystifying evidence who was also an admired obituarist of doctors and scientistsIn 1987 the medical journalist Caroline Richmond, who has died aged 82, was shocked at the barrage of protest in response to an article in the New Scientist saying food additives were mostly harmless. Curious to test what else people might believe was harmful, and a fan of wearing bright colours, she wrote a tongue-in-cheek article for the British Medical Journal, Fabric dyes: are they in the consumer's interest?"It suggested wearing brightly coloured clothes might have a range of effects including increasing cancer risk and masking serious psychiatric disorders by making people too cheerful. The article was supposedly issued by the Dye Related Allergies Bureau (DRAB), a subsidiary of the Food Additives Research Team (FART), which Richmond assumed would alert readers to the joke. Continue reading...
My father used to tell me that everything is resolved by walking. He was right. A daily walk became my therapy, and I haven't stopped yetOne sweltering evening in 2020 during the first lockdown, as we sat drinking wine in the shed at the end of the garden, my husband and I came to the surprise decision to finish our 17-year relationship. It's the end of the line, isn't it?" I ventured. I know," he replied, looking down at his glass. Every day I think about it." The unspoken had finally been said.I took a breath. Unexpectedly, there was a wave of relief as recent frustrations dissolved. We toasted our newfound honesty, and chatted into the early hours, celebrating how civilised we were. But the next morning, reality hit: it felt strange sipping a takeaway coffee together on a sunny bench, and yet not reneging on what had been agreed. Admittedly I was also grieving, after the recent death of my father and then our beloved jack russell in quick succession. Was I doing the right thing? Was it too much to start again in my mid-40s? And all against the backdrop of Covid. The airless heat wasn't helping. Continue reading...
Experts hypothesise that attractiveness of behaviour was selected for during domestication processWhether it is an elegant swish or a furious oscillation, tail wagging is ubiquitous among dogs. Now researchers have suggested it may have become commonplace during canine domestication because humans love its rhythm.It is thought humans domesticated dogs sometime between 15,000 and 50,000 years ago - a process that has led to a fervent bond between the two species, with about a third of households in the UK having a dog. Continue reading...
Lichen survived 18 months attached to outside of International Space Station and raises prospect life could exist on MarsLichens are strange organisms, a partnership between a fungus that offers shelter, water and minerals, and an alga or cyanobacterium that supplies food from their photosynthesis. And even though lichens tend to be modest to look at, they are so incredibly tough that some can even survive the harsh environment of space.When lichens were attached to the outside of the International Space Station for 18 months they survived the vacuum of space, no water, extreme temperatures and the full onslaught of radiation and ultraviolet rays from the sun, and carried on photosynthesising. Continue reading...
Spider dung beetles thought to be a only example of animals other than humans working together without knowing object's destinationThere comes a time in a dung beetle's life when the only hope of overcoming an obstacle without losing their prized ball is a partner who can pull off a decent headstand.When their path is blocked, pairs of dung beetles carefully coordinate their actions, with males grabbing the dung ball from above, and females going into a headstand to push the ball off the ground with their legs, researchers say. Continue reading...
Darius Hughes was a key figure in Pfizer's pioneering Covid vaccine drive. Now he has changed companies - and sees a big future for mRNA technologyThe man who launched Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine in the UK three years ago - when 90-year-old Margaret Keenan in Coventry became the first person in the world to receive one - is now overseeing the construction of a manufacturing and research centre in Oxfordshire for rival US jab maker Moderna.The company's Harwell site is Britain's first centre dedicated to the production of messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines against new Covid variants and other illnesses, and part of the UK's 100 days mission" initiative - the ambition for governments to be able to respond to future pandemics within 100 days of a threat being identified. Continue reading...
Largest study of ocean DNA reveals abundance of fungi thriving in extreme environment of the deep seaLarge numbers of fungi have been found living in the twilight zone of the ocean, and could unlock the door to new drugs that may match the power of penicillin.The largest ever study of ocean DNA, published by the journal Frontiers in Science, has revealed intriguing secrets about the abundance of fungi in the part of the ocean that is just beyond the reach of sunlight. At between 200 metres and 1,000 metres below the surface, the twilight zone is home to a variety of organisms and animals, including specially adapted fish such as lantern sharks and kitefin sharks, which have huge eyes and glowing, bioluminescent skin. Continue reading...
Bonsall, Derbyshire: Nature is not separate from, or immune to, its underlying culture, whether long-forgotten industry or the acceptability of what we call speciesThis upland moor is a place where culture and nature are intertwined. Everywhere we looked on this sun-glazed morning were irregular, if repeated, hummocks and corresponding hollows that are theinsignia of old mineshafts.Derbyshire workmen once followed lead seams across Bonsall and, as they dug, they left mounds of spoil. They are still so contaminated with heavy metals that the livestock can die of lead poisoning and grazing pressure remains light. Bird-planted hawthorns have infilled many shaft hollows and now Bonsall is more covered in thorn scrub than almost any other part of this county. Fieldfares gorged their berries and overhead the heavens were freckled with chakking thrushes. Continue reading...
by Presented and produced by Madeleine Finlay, with a on (#6HWH9)
In November, a plane powered by 100% sustainable' jet fuel took off from London to New York. It was hailed by some as a milestone in reducing the carbon footprint of air travel, which accounts for about 2.5% of global CO emissions. Could this be the start of a greener way to fly? Madeleine Finlay speaks to Guy Gratton, associate professor of aviation and the environment at Cranfield University, to find out if the future of aviation can ever truly be guilt-free. Continue reading...
Study of children in US and China found larger impact when brothers and sisters were closely spaced in ageFrom Cain and Abel and the Brothers Karamazov to Cinderella, the warmth and support provided by siblings has hardly been taken for granted.Now, researchers have found that children who moan about their brothers and sisters may have good reason to complain: the more siblings teenagers have, the more it hits their happiness, they claim. Continue reading...
Lion's mane find prompts fungarium to conserve rare fungi at risk from farmers and commercial strainsHenry Jephson was wandering around the countryside near Bristol during a Covid lockdown when his eye was caught by the ghostly appearance of a lion's mane mushroom, its shaggy fronds hanging across a tree trunk.Jephson, the head of research at the Bristol Fungarium, knew he was looking at something rare and special. A staple of traditional Chinese medicine, the lion's mane is also native to the UK, but is under threat. The absolutely enormous" specimen spotted by Jephson was the first to be seen in south-west England in eight years. Continue reading...
Mind-blowing' edition of 16th-century anatomist's De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem estimated to be worth up to 1mWhen the Renaissance physician Andreas Vesalius wrote his magnum opus on human anatomy in 1543, he transformed the study of medicine and revolutionised the way scientists investigate the world.A mind-blowing" edition of his De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem, estimated to be worth up to 1m, is to be sold at auction for the first time since scholars discovered it was annotated by Vesalius himself. Continue reading...
Should we all be taking a leaf out of Arnold Schwarzenegger's book?Something interesting happens in the first few pages of Arnold Schwarzenegger's recent memoir-cum-self-help book Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life. It opens on a moment of weakness, as he describes his lowest point: the day he told his wife that he'd fathered a baby with their housekeeper. No failure has ever felt worse than that," he writes.But that isn't the interesting part. I won't be rehashing that story here," he sniffs, refusing to dwell on it for even a sentence longer. Instead, he instructs readers to Google the story if that's the sort of gossip that happens to get them going. The rest of the book continues at the same sort of clip, with Schwarzenegger wresting away any looming hint of introspection that might impinge on yet another anecdote about the time he cut the legs off his trousers to remind himself to work on his calves. Continue reading...
No technology can yet match the uncanny ability that dogs possess to find their way homeOn New Year's Day, Merlin, a springer spaniel belonging to Daniel Horsley, ran away from his front garden in Cumbria after appearing to suffer some kind of fit. One hundred people were involved in a search involving drones and thermal-imaging cameras. And, 16 hours later, Merlin found his own way home, quite unharmed. If nothing else, all these helpers united by a lost dog confirmed one thing. Quite simply: animals bring people together.But what no one seemed to realise is this. No human technology yet invented can match the uncanny homing abilities of dogs. A century ago, a collie cross in the US was busy showing the rest of them up. In August 1923, the Brazier family lost Bobbie on their holiday in Indiana; and in February 1924 he was back home with them in Silverton, Oregon. All the evidence indicates he walked the whole way, about 3,000 miles, over six months through the intense winter cold. His endurance alone was formidable. But how did he know where to go? Continue reading...
In Greek mythology, Artemis is said to have placed Orion in the stars after a scorpion stung his foot and killed himWinter in the northern hemisphere is dominated by the great constellation of Orion, the hunter.One of the original 48 constellations defined by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, it is now one of 88 recognised by the International Astronomical Union. Named after the great hunter from Greek mythology, Orion is said to have been placed in the stars by Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, after a scorpion stung his foot and killed him. In another version of the story, Artemis killed Orion either by mistake or to defend one of her companions from Orion's forceful advances. Continue reading...
Christopher Rufo, credited with helping oust school's first Black president, touted critic associated with scientific racists'A data scientist promoted by the rightwing activist Christopher Rufo, the Manhattan Institute thinktank, and other conservatives as an expert critic of the former Harvard president Claudine Gay has co-authored several papers in collaboration with a network of scholars who have been broadly criticized as eugenicists, or scientific racists.Rufo described Jonatan Pallesen as a Danish data scientist who has raised new questions about Claudine Gay's use - and potential misuse - of data in her PhD thesis" in an interview published in his newsletter and on the Manhattan Institute's City Journal website last Friday. Continue reading...
The continuing lack of transparency about UFOs in the US is causing concern not only about the existence of aliens but about the psychological fallout of uncovering a conspiracyIf you thought that we were about to finally get the truth about UFOs, think again. At the end of last year, a US government bill that would have mandated the controlled release of all classified documents and artefacts relating to UFOs was significantly watered down at the last minute so that it would get through Congress.Interest in unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs), the new term for UFOs, reignited in June 2023 when ex-US intelligence agency whistleblower David Grusch told the Debrief website that during his official duties he had discovered the US had indeed been retrieving spacecraft of non-human origin for decades. The claims led to a congressional hearing, in which Grusch and others described what they had gleaned of this super-secret project, or seen with their own eyes during military service. Their testimonies resulted in the new Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Disclosure Act, authored by a bipartisan group of five elected representatives, led by Democrat majority leader Chuck Schumer and Republican senator Mike Rounds. Continue reading...
The outspoken Canadian gynaecologist's compelling scientific study cuts through misinformation, myth and worse with clarity and wit in this study of the menstrual cycleThe doctor who taught me about human reproduction at medical school was in fact a veterinarian. More is known about a sheep's rhythms than a woman's, he said, setting the tone in our first tutorial, presumably because ewes drive a healthy profit. I was disappointed. I felt that menstruation and pregnancy shouldn't be narrated to us like they would be for any other animal. These aren't just biological events, but experiences coloured by memory and anticipation. What about days of frantic maxi pad changes in school cubicles that go unspoken between girls, some as young as eight, unpredictably timed yet reliably painful? Periods are a muddled burden: a monthly shame as well as a relief.If millennials have been undernourished with information about their bodies, then previous generations were almost starved of it. A flush of coverage has arisen out of this embarrassed silence, such as Emma Barnett's Period and BBC Radio 4's series 28ish Days Later. Dr Jen Gunter's Blood takes an unapologetically scientific approach to the menstrual cycle, written for anyone who wants to understand its often mystified ways and what medicine can do to help. Perhaps Gunter's resolve to reduce stigma around women's health was a reaction to her own upbringing in Canada, with a mother who thought tampons were evil". Now a gynaecologist in San Francisco with three decades of experience, Gunter became famous in 2018 for ridiculing the pseudoscientific offerings on Gwyneth Paltrow's wellness platform Goop, and has since continued her battle against disinformation with her Substack newsletter the Vajenda, alongside bestselling books The Vagina Bible and The Menopause Manifesto. Without fear, favour or sponsor, Gunter is a cheerleader for professional expertise, informed consent and reproductive justice. Continue reading...
The delay to Nasa's 10-year lunar programme gives us time to beef up the treaties governing the exploitation of extraterrestrial resourcesIt has been a grim time for lunar exploration. Scientists and space engineers had earmarked 2024 as the year that humanity would begin its return to the moon in earnest. An ambitious programme - largely funded through Nasa's $2.6bn commercial lunar payload services (CLPS) initiative - was drawn up. Its forerunner projects included the launch of the robot lander, Peregrine, last week - to be followed by a crewed mission, Artemis II, that would put four people into orbit round the moon in September. These missions would form the vanguard for a schedule of further projects, both robot and crewed, that would lead to the construction of a lunar colony some time in the next decade.These pioneering aspirations have not had an auspicious start, however. Shortly after its launch on Monday, mission controllers revealed that Peregrine - despite a flawless launch - had suffered a critical loss of propellant and wouldfail to make a landing on the moon. Then came the news that Nasa had decided to postpone its Artemis II mission for a year for safety reasons". Continue reading...
A new study unpicks the reasons men and women call time on a relationship and finds that micro-grievances really do matterThe desire to get married is a basic and primal instinct in women," observed the late, great Nora Ephron. It's followed by another basic and primal instinct: the desire to be single again." Relationship wisdom is full of such emphatic generalisations but, according to that eternally reliable media source a recent study", women do appear to fall in and out of love more extremely than men.A behavioural economist, Saurabh Bhargava of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, has published a new study in Psychological Science, the leading journal in the field, which has a number of striking findings. The first is that women reported having feelings of love almost twice as frequently as men. The second is that, over the course of a long relationship, women on average experience a much steeper decline in these feeling compared to their male partners. Continue reading...
New paper claims unless demand for resources is reduced, many other innovations are just a sticking plasterRecord heat, record emissions, record fossil fuel consumption. One month out from Cop28, the world is further than ever from reaching its collective climate goals. At the root of all these problems, according to recent research, is the human behavioural crisis", a term coined by an interdisciplinary team of scientists.We've socially engineered ourselves the way we geoengineered the planet," says Joseph Merz, lead author of a new paper which proposes that climate breakdown is a symptom of ecological overshoot, which in turn is caused by the deliberate exploitation of human behaviour. Continue reading...
by Damian Carrington Environment editor on (#6HTNQ)
Bone strength is set in childhood so better park access could prevent fractures in older people, study findsChildren with more green space near their homes have significantly stronger bones, a study has found, potentially leading to lifelong health benefits.Scientists found that the children living in places with 20-25% more natural areas had increased bone strength that was equivalent to half a year's natural growth. Continue reading...
by Hosted by Savannah Ayoade-Greaves; written by Mari on (#6HTMS)
As the Post Office scandal continues to unfold, Marina Hyde urges us to keep watching and stay angry (1m24s); what one man learned after 30 days of rejection therapy (9m40s); and double Oscar-winner Jodie Foster on beauty, bravery and raising feminist sons (26m49s) Continue reading...
In launch event on Friday, agency shared plans to test over US cities to see if it's quiet enough by engaging the people below'Nasa has unveiled a one-of-a-kind quiet supersonic aircraft as part of the US space agency's mission to make commercial supersonic flight possible.In a joint ceremony with Lockheed Martin Skunk Works in Palmdale, California, on Friday, Nasa revealed the X-59, an experimental aircraft that is expected to fly at 1.4 times the speed of sound - or 925mph (1,488 km/h). Continue reading...
Study calculated that there was an 11% increase in mortality associated with cases involving the use of hydroxychloroquinePeople who took an anti-malaria treatment that Donald Trump touted as a cure for Covid-19 in the early days of the pandemic and waning days of his presidency were 11% more likely to die from the virus, according to a new scientific study.The study's authors - who published their findings in the peer-reviewed Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy journal - also estimated that nearly 17,000 people in six different countries, including the US, died after contracting Covid-19 and taking the antimalarial hydroxychloroquine. Continue reading...
Research with paired voles found surges in pleasure hormone dopamine subsided after period of separationBreaking up is hard to do, but it seems the brain may have a mechanism to help get over an ex.Researchers studying prairie voles say the rodents, which form monogamous relationships, experience a burst of the pleasure hormone dopamine in their brain when seeking and reuniting with their partner. However, after being separated for a lengthy period, they no longer experience such a surge. Continue reading...
Moon mission records provide a clue as to why getting to the lunar surface remains far from straightforwardIt was a flawless launch. In the early hours of Monday morning, the Vulcan Centaur rocket rattled into the darkness over Cape Canaveral, shed its solid rocket boosters and released the Peregrine spacecraft on the perfect trajectory for its landmark mission to the moon.The success prompted a Yee-haw!" from Tory Bruno, the chief executive of United Launch Alliance, which built the rocket: this was the Vulcan's maiden flight, after all. But it wasn't long before the mood shifted. Astrobotic, the company behind Peregrine, found the spacecraft was leaking propellant. And without sufficient fuel, the chances of landing softly on the moon rapidly fell to zero. Continue reading...
Researchers able to model movements of greater horseshoe bats in Devon to help conserve foraging groundsBats fly back to their roosts after a night of hunting in a leapfrogging" pattern that allows them to maximise their time out and stay safe from predators, researchers have found.A team from Cardiff University and the University of Sussex developed a mathematical model using trajectory data" that tracked the flight of greater horseshoe bats in Devon to pinpoint how the creatures engage with the nocturnal environment. Continue reading...
Bearing witness to the climate crisis can feel surreal. These strategies can help manage the feeling of despairIt sucks... and it's only going to get worse," my client says, disbelief colouring their facial expression.I'm inclined to agree, it does suck. Continue reading...
Laser-sensor technology reveals network of earthen mounds and buried roads in rainforest area of EcuadorArchaeologists have uncovered a cluster of lost cities in the Amazon rainforest that was home to at least 10,000 farmers about 2,000 years ago.A series of earthen mounds and buried roads in Ecuador was first noticed more than two decades ago by archaeologist Stephen Rostain. But at the time, I wasn't sure how it all fit together," said Rostain, one of the researchers who reported on the finding in the journal Science on Thursday. Continue reading...
by Hannah Devlin Science correspondent on (#6HSEZ)
A 1.3bn light year-sized ring discovered by PhD student in Lancashire appears to defy the cosmological principle assumptionAstronomers have discovered a ring-shaped cosmic megastructure, the proportions of which challenge existing theories of the universe.The so-called Big Ring has a diameter of about 1.3bn light years, making it among the largest structures ever observed. At more than 9bn light years from Earth, it is too faint to see directly, but its diameter on the night sky would be equivalent to 15 full moons. Continue reading...
Kate Moss at 50 | Vinted's impact on charity shops | IPP sentences | Pant-throwing prowessI am surprised to see that the feature described on your print front page as Kate Moss at 50" (She keeps us enthralled, like Bowie did': the magic of Kate Moss, by her photographers, 11 January) appears to be illustrated by an image of Kate Moss at approximately 20. Are there no mature" images available? It seems that time and again we are shown that beauty is predominately in the young, and it's a pity that the Guardian could not show us a beautifulolderwoman.
A moral philosopher examines the cycles of suffering that perpetuate violenceJonathan Glover's new book, on the seemingly intractable nature of the Israel-Palestine conflict, quotes George Orwell on the Spanish civil war: Everybody believes in the atrocities of the enemy and disbelieves in those of his own side without ever examining the evidence."This could have been written today, amid bipolar thinking and pressure to take sides, where people's identification with the facts can reflect their political predilections. Glover wrote the bulk of his study before the recent horrors, though it is published with a foreword addressing them. Not surprisingly, it is still deeply relevant. We have seen these tragic cycles of violence again and again in the past; they continue on an even more horrific scale today. Glover is a philosopher and author of Humanity: a Moral History of the Twentieth Century, which took him 10 years to write and involved careful scrutiny of acts of human barbarism and the ethical questions surrounding them. Continue reading...
by Robert Booth Social affairs correspondent on (#6HRS8)
Facilities could also slash transmission of diseases and cut pressure on ambulance callouts and hospitals, study saysThousands of lives could be saved if safe rooms were set up in UK cities where people could be supervised while they get high, the world's largest review of the effectiveness of drug-consumption rooms and overdose-prevention centres (OPCs) has found.The part-government-funded study published on Thursday also found the facilities could slash the transmission of fatal diseases, as well as reduce drug litter, the pressure on ambulance callouts and the burden on hospitals. Continue reading...
by Presented by Ian Sample with Hannah Devlin and Pat on (#6HRR9)
Last year was a bumper year for science news, with the rise of weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy, record-high global temperatures, not to mention an attempted orca uprising.So what will this year bring? Ian Sample and science correspondent Hannah Devlin discuss the big stories likely to hit the headlines and share their predictions for 2024. And environment reporter Patrick Greenfield reveals his top climate stories for 2024Archive: BBC, ABC News Continue reading...
Study of ancient DNA shows bronze age Yamnaya people spread gene variants that carry increased risk of multiple sclerosisAncient DNA helps explain why northern Europeans have a higher risk of multiple sclerosis than other ancestries: the disease is a genetic legacy of horseback-riding cattle herders who swept into the region about 5,000 years ago.The findings come from a huge project to compare modern DNA with that culled from ancient humans' teeth and bones - allowing scientists to trace prehistoric migration and disease-linked genes that tagged along. Continue reading...
Giant primate ate bark and twigs after climate change turned sub-tropical environment into savannahIt was the largest primate ever to have roamed the Earth, but just why - and when - our distant cousin giganto" ended up extinct has been something of a mystery.Now researchers say the enormous ape was victim of an unfortunate choice of food when its preferred snacks became scarce. Continue reading...
Artemis III mission to land four astronauts near lunar south pole will be delayed until 2026Nasa has postponed its plans to send humans to the moon after delays hit its hugely ambitious Artemis programme, which aims to get spaceboots bouncing again on the lunar surface for the first time in half a century.The US space agency has announced the Artemis III mission to land four astronauts near the lunar south pole will be delayed a year until September 2026. Artemis II, a 10-day expedition to send a crew around the moon and back to test life support systems, will also be pushed back to September 2025. Continue reading...
Nasa's Canberra Deep Space complex is part of a global network communicating with the Peregrine 1, which has no chance of landing on the moonThousands of kilometres from the Earth, the doomed Peregrine mission to the moon is speaking its last words back home - and it may be an Australian deep space outpost that records its final message.On Tuesday Astrobotic, the US company behind the mission, revealed there was no chance" that Peregrine 1 would fulfil its aim to be the first commercial space probe to make a soft landing on the moon. A critical fuel leak after Monday's liftoff meant the probe would run out of propellant long before its planned 23 February touchdown in the Bay of Stickiness. Continue reading...
Study of sounds and feeding habits shows animals organise into female-based groups of up to 20,000Sperm whales live in clans with distinctive cultures, much like those of humans, a study has found.Using underwater microphones and drone surveys, Hal Whitehead, a sperm whale scientist at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Canada, examined the sounds the animals made and their feeding habits and found they organised themselves into groups of up to around 20,000. Continue reading...
US biotech firm designs cheaper, less invasive multi-cancer screening test it says could be gamechanger'Scientists have developed a simple test that can identify 18 early-stage cancers that experts say could represent a medical gamechanger".Cancer accounts for one in every six deaths worldwide, but early detection can significantly improve outcomes. Existing screening tests have drawbacks, including invasiveness, cost and low levels of accuracy for early stage disease. Continue reading...
The spacecraft, a collaboration between Nasa and Astrobotic, is unlikely to reach the lunar surfaceThe Peregrine lunar lander is a robotic spacecraft designed by the US-based lunar logistics company, Astrobotic. Loaded on to a rocket, and blasted into space, it is designed to deliver payloads to the surface of the moon, or the moon's orbit. Continue reading...
MindEar delivers CBT through chatbot along with sound therapy allowing brain to learn to tune out conditionWhether it is a ringing sound or perpetual buzzing, tinnitus is a common and often debilitating condition. Now researchers say they have designed an app that can reduce its impact.Tinnitus is the perception of sounds that are not the result of an external source, and is thought to affect 7.6 million people in the UK, although fewer have severe tinnitus. Continue reading...
by Presented by Ian Sample, produced by Madeleine Fin on (#6HPVH)
As parks and gyms fill with people hoping to make 2024 their year of fitness, Ian Sample speaks to Martin Gibala, professor of kinesiology at McMaster University in Canada, about how much exercise we should be doing, the benefits of interval training, and how to make a new regime stick Continue reading...
Science | The Guardian