Science | The Guardian

New technique means the eye can be studied in seconds for markers of brain health and signs of neurodegenerationHigh street opticians could play a key role in pinpointing individuals at risk of dementia by spotting distinctive patterns in the retinas of those in the early stages of cognitive decline. These diagnoses would carried out during routine eye checks.The prospect follows the development of an AI technique known as Quartz that can be used to study eye scans and identify key differences in the shapes and sizes of retinal blood vessels in a few seconds. The technology automatically measures width and the extent to which these tiny veins and arteries - known as arterioles and venules - twist and turn. Continue reading...

Armed with the new EEG machine, investigators were able to look into the familiar yet strange phenomenon more deeply than ever beforeSleep is like love. If you have it, you take it for granted,' reports Wendy Cooper in the Observer Magazine on 24 January 1971. If you don't, it's rhythmic rocking or counting sheep for you, though not for Charles Dickens: he made sure his bed faced north, better to boost his creativity as he slumbered.We spend a third of our lives sleeping, but some feel they still don't get enough, some (narcoleptics) fall asleep when they eat. Some sleepwalk or, in one case, sleepride their motorbike in the middle of the night. Continue reading...

Scientific triumphs were made in the battle against the pandemic, but the memories and lessons are already in danger of being lostOn 9 March 2020, Martin Landray was studying the likely impact of Covid-19 as it started to sweep Britain. What was needed, he realised, was a method for pinpointing cheap, effective drugs that might limit the impact of the Sars-CoV-2 virus that was filling UK hospitals with dangerously ill patients.Within 10 days, Landray - working with Oxford University colleague Peter Horby - had set up Recovery, a drug-testing programme that involved thousands of doctors and nurses working with tens of thousands of Covid-19 patients in UK hospitals. Continue reading...

Maybe your isolation vision reflects a need to escape from the weight of responsibility that life inevitably bringsThe question I am a woman in my early 30s and about two years ago, I moved out of London and back home with my parents as I found the city soul-crushing: expenses and rent constantly going up and a sense of only surviving there, for which I saw no end in sight. I don't think it's unrelated that I felt my job placed unceasing, unrealistic expectations of availability on me and gave no acknowledgment of that in return.Now, I'm working remotely in a job I like well enough, that pays me more than I've ever made in my life for relatively easy work, allowing me to save. I'm enjoying being around nature and having the extra time with my family as I contemplate my next steps. But I find myself with no desires, no thoughts about where I might live or what I see my life looking like. I still feel that something is not quite right. Continue reading...

The rise of the precursor to the Irish language remains a historical mystery that linguists, geneticists and archaeologists continue to debateSaint Patrick, whose feast day is celebrated on 17 March, left behind two short works in Latin, but he probably spoke a Celtic language. By the time he was saving Irish souls in the fifth century AD, linguists are pretty sure that Celtic was spoken throughout Britain and Ireland. When Celtic first arrived in those islands, however, is an enduring mystery - one that new findings in archaeology and genetics might help to solve.The dates range between the early bronze age, around 2500BC, when archaeologists detect a major cultural transformation in Britain and Ireland, and the first century AD. Most linguists place it in between, in the last millennium BC - the iron age - but they can't prove it because the language wasn't written down until much later. Continue reading...

President's slashes to higher education institutions and research funding threaten US public health, workers sayStudents, researchers, faculty and leadership at universities and colleges across the US are grappling with drastic short- and long-term impacts for decades to come" caused by funding freezes, cuts and executive orders from the Trump administration.It's sowing a lot of chaos on campuses," said Sarah Spreitzer, vice-president and chief of staff of government relations at the American Council for Education, a non-profit representing more than 1,600 colleges, universities and related associations. Continue reading...

Virus that caused death of actor's wife in Santa Fe is rare but serious illness that can damage major organs of the bodyAuthorities said on Friday that actor Gene Hackman died of heart disease days after his wife, Betsy Arakawa, died from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS). But what exactly is this rare illness?Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome is a rare but serious viral disease that can damage the heart, lungs and other organs. The syndrome progresses quickly and can be fatal, according to the Cleveland Clinic, one of the largest and most respected medical centers in the US. Continue reading...

Robotic private spacecraft touched down about 250 meters from its intended landing site on ThursdayA robotic private spacecraft designed to provide crucial data for returning humans to the moon toppled over as it landed on the lunar surface, bringing an immediate and premature end to the mission, its operators said on Friday.Athena, a probe launched by the Texas-based company Intuitive Machines (IM) last month, touched down about 250 meters from its intended landing site near the moon's south pole on Thursday. Initially at least, it was generating some power and sending information to Earth as engineers worked to make sense of data showing an incorrect attitude". Continue reading...

Researchers used 20,000 hours of recordings of great tits in Oxford to see how culture changes among populationsWhich songs birds sing can - as with human music - be influenced by age, social interactions and migration, researchers have found.Not all birds learn songs, but among those that do, individuals, neighbourhoods and populations can produce different collections of tunes, akin to different music albums. Continue reading...

Many fellows feel the billionaire has breached its code of conduct, but others say scientific neutrality is at stakeIt is a 365-year-old institution revered the world over, with past members including luminaries such as Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Dorothy Hodgkin. But now a row over a billionaire maverick has thrown the Royal Society into crisis, splintering the fellowship and raising existential questions about its role in society.A growing number of scientists have called for the academy to investigate the conduct of Elon Musk - who was elected a fellow in 2018 - resulting in a passionate debate at a meeting of the scientific body on Monday evening. Continue reading...

Fruit variety developed in Norwich remains fresh for up to 12 hours after being peeledMany of us have been guilty of binning a mushy, overripe banana - but now scientists say they have a solution with the launch of a genetically engineered non-browning banana.The product is the latest in a series of gene-edited fruits and vegetables designed to have a longer shelf life. Scientists say the technology is emerging as a powerful new weapon against food waste, which occurs globally on an epic scale. Continue reading...

SpaceX's Starship spacecraft has exploded after lifting off from Texas, dooming an attempt to deploy mock satellites in the second consecutive failure this year for Elon Musk's Mars rocket programme. Videos posted on social media show debris streaking through the skies near south Florida and the Bahamas. The rocket exploded after it began to spin uncontrollably with its engines cut off, a SpaceX livestream of the mission showed

A second consecutive Starship from Elon Musk's company SpaceX has failed. A livestream posted to X shows the rocket spinning in space before the company confirms it had lost contact with the ship. Video posted to social appears to show debris from ship over the Caribbean sky. Continue reading...

Back-to-back mishaps indicate big setbacks for program to launch satellites and send humans to the moon and MarsSpaceX's Starship spacecraft exploded on Thursday minutes after lifting off from Texas, dooming an attempt to deploy mock satellites in the second consecutive failure this year for Elon Musk's Mars rocket program.Several videos on social media showed fiery debris streaking through the dusk skies near south Florida and the Bahamas after Starship's breakup in space, which occurred shortly after it began to spin uncontrollably with its engines cut off, a SpaceX livestream of the mission showed. Continue reading...

Surgeons believe the technique called functional septorhinoplasty (fSRP) kickstarts' smell recovery in patientsDoctors in London have successfully restored a sense of smell and taste in patients who lost it due to long Covid with pioneering surgery that expands their nasal airways to kickstart their recovery.Most patients diagnosed with Covid-19 recover fully. But the infectious disease can lead to serious long-term effects. About six in every 100 people who get Covid develop long Covid, with millions of people affected globally, according to the World Health Organization. Continue reading...

Flight controllers try to confirm Intuitive Machines probe's status in firm's second lunar landing in just over a yearThe Athena robotic spacecraft touched down on the lunar surface on Thursday in the second moon landing for the US space company Intuitive Machines in little more than a year.An as-yet-undiagnosed problem following its descent, however, left the craft at an incorrect attitude", with mission managers telling an afternoon press conference that they were unable to predict to what extent the operation of Athena and its various payloads will be affected. Continue reading...

Re-dating of Flagstones monument to about 3,200BC came after analysis by Exeter University and Historic EnglandA prehistoric burial site in Dorset is now thought to be the earliest known large circular enclosure in Britain prompting researchers to question whether current dating of Stonehenge may need revising.The Flagstones monument, near Dorchester in Dorset, has been re-dated to about 3200BC, approximately two centuries earlier than previously thought, following analysis by the University of Exeter and Historic England. Continue reading...

At a time when US scientists are under attack from their own government, the illiteracy around these elephantine fantasies is dangerousYou will never ever see a living woolly mammoth. While this is an obvious truth to most geneticists, zoologists and mammoth experts, the endless promises that you might get to meet an extant version of this very-much extinct elephantid apparently necessitate me typing it.The latest on the conveyor belt of mammoth resurrection stories came this week in the form of a slightly hairy mouse. Colossal Biosciences, the US company behind the woolly mouse" and ensuing media frenzy, published a non-peer-reviewed paper in which it has genetically engineered a mouse to express a gene that relates to mammoth hair, resulting in a mouse with slightly longer hair than normal.Dr Adam Rutherford is a lecturer in genetics at UCL and the author of How to Argue With a RacistThis article was amended on 6 March 2025. Colossal is proposing to modify the genes of an Asian elephant. An earlier version said the species was an African elephant Continue reading...

Madeleine Finlay and Ian Sample discuss three intriguing science stories from the week. From two private moon landings to the controversy over Elon Musk's continued membership of the Royal Society, and a new study making a link between men's health and their sperm qualityStriking images show Blue Ghost Mission 1's successful moon landingElon Musk survives as fellow of Royal Society despite anger among scientists Continue reading...

Exclusive: Sequencing will help doctors identify bacteria that cause infections and offer effective treatments faster and more accuratelyScientists have developed a rapid DNA sequencing system to stem the rise of superbugs by identifying bacterial infections faster and more accurately.Currently, hospital labs can take as long as seven days to specify bacterial infections, while for some infections a definitive diagnosis may take eight weeks. Continue reading...

Jay Bhattacharya tells hearing he is intent on protecting research, even as president takes axe to federal fundingDonald Trump's nominee to run the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Jay Bhattacharya, told senators he was committed to ensuring scientists have the resources they need" - even as the $48bn agency he hopes to lead has become a focus of the administration's ideological war and cost-cutting efforts.At a confirmation hearing on Wednesday, Bhattacharya made a pitch for free scientific inquiry and an examination of the chronic disease epidemic, now a cornerstone of Republican health rhetoric, while hoping to serve in an administration that has frightened scientists into self-censorship. Continue reading...

Study suggests infection is sexually transmitted and opens up new way to reduce recurrence by treating male partnersBacterial vaginosis can be passed to women by male sexual partners, researchers have said, challenging the longstanding view that it is not a sexually transmitted infection.Experts say the study offers a new way to reduce the risk of the infection returning in women, with another scientist saying it showed up the UK's NHS website as outdated and misleading". Continue reading...

Pioneer in the field of neuropsychopharmacology who trained a generation of scientistsMacbeth's doctor declared himself unable to cure the mind diseased", and it remains a challenge to understand and treat mental and neurological conditions.Susan Iversen, who has died aged 84, was a neuropsychologist. She saw the need to start with the fundamentals - understanding how different brain areas, and the complex networks of chemical signals that communicate between them, exert their impact on behaviour. Continue reading...

Monitoring pathogens in sewer systems would be major improvement' on current techniques, new research showsWastewater sampling could predict new disease outbreaks and the emergence of new variants of pathogens weeks or months before they become widespread, new research shows.Pathogen monitoring in sewer systems, including on airplanes, can reveal which viruses and bacteria are present and cause outbreaks, two studies indicate. Continue reading...

Study on cancer data in US agricultural heartland finds children more at risk than if exposed to just one pesticideExposure to multiple pesticides significantly increases the risk of childhood cancers compared with exposures to just one pesticide, first-of-its-kind research finds, raising new fears that children are more at risk to the substances' harmful effects than previously thought.The study's authors say they are the first to look at the link between exposures to multiple widely used pesticides and the most common childhood cancers. Most research considers pesticides' toxicity on an individual basis, and the substances are regulated as if exposures occur in isolation from one another. Continue reading...

Scientists are studying whether the grounded A23a iceberg might help stir nutrients and make food more available for penguins and sealsThe world's biggest iceberg appears to have run aground roughly 70km (43 miles) from a remote Antarctic island, potentially sparing the crucial wildlife haven from being hit, a research organisation said Tuesday.The colossal iceberg A23a - which measures roughly 3,300 sq km and weighs nearly 1tn tonnes - has been drifting north from Antarctica towards South Georgia island since 2020. Continue reading...

Research suggests difference in life expectancy between men with highest and lowest quality is nearly three yearsSperm may be the canaries in the coalmine for male health, according to research that reveals men with higher-quality semen live longer.Danish scientists analysed samples from nearly 80,000 men and found that those who produced more than 120 million swimming sperm per ejaculate lived two to three years longer than those who produced fewer than 5 million. Continue reading...

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, at the International Space Station since last June, were on a mission that was to last a few weeksNasa's two stuck astronauts are just a few weeks away from finally returning to Earth after nine months in space.Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have to wait until their replacements arrive at the International Space Station next week before they can check out later this month. Continue reading...

Beavers were once abundant in the UK, but hunting them for their fur, meat and scent oil drove them to extinction. Now they're back, with the news that the release of beavers into English waterways is to be allowed for the first time in centuries. To understand why this is seen as a huge win for the environment, Madeleine Finlay hears from the Guardian's environment reporter Helena Horton.Ultimate bringers of life': How one Cornwall farmer is using beavers to stop floodingSupport the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod Continue reading...

It is vital to act, and I urge colleagues to do so. How can we stand by and laud this man while he undermines scientific integrity?Fellows of the Royal Society met yesterday to discuss, as they put it, Fellows' behaviour". In light of the resignation of two fellows and an open letter signed by nearly 3,500 scientists, many, including me, expected the discussion to be focused on the behaviour of one particular fellow: Elon Musk.The Royal Society, as one of the world's most esteemed scientific institutions, bears the responsibility of maintaining standards among its fellows. Musk, admitted as a fellow in 2018 for his technological innovations, has recently engaged in behaviour that contravenes the society's code of conduct. In particular, many scientists have taken issue with his assault on the conduct of science in the US and beyond as head of the Trump administration's department of government efficiency" (Doge) as well as his malicious accusations against public scientists (such as Anthony Fauci) and other public figures. Continue reading...

Genetically modified mice have traits geared towards cold tolerance, in step towards modifying elephantsA plan to revive the mammoth is on track, scientists have said after creating a new species: the woolly mouse.Scientists at the US biotechnology company Colossal Biosciences plan to de-extinct" the prehistoric pachyderms by genetically modifying Asian elephants to give them woolly mammoth traits. They hope the first calf will be born by the end of 2028. Continue reading...

Shez Partovi, chief innovation officer at Philips, is excited about the benefits of new technology for patients and cliniciansTwo decades ago, Shez Partovi was working as a neuroradiologist at the US private hospital chain Dignity Health in Arizona, and remembers listening to a lecture by a nun between seeing his VIP patients from Mexico and Saudi Arabia. Sister Margaret was talking about children with diabetes on Native American reservations just 50 miles from the private hospital, who had little or no access to medical care.Partovi, now chief innovation and strategy officer at the Dutch healthcare company Philips, recalls: She said: I want you to remember there are people that are born, live and die never having seen a physician, and your job is to know that.'" Continue reading...

Astronomers deeply concerned that darkest, clearest skies in world will be compromised by proposed facility nearbyIn the Atacama desert, the driest non-polar region on Earth, the sky shines when the sun sets.Up in the arid hills 130km south of the Chilean city of Antofagasta, comets burn brightly and flawless trails of stars and nebulae streak the night sky. Continue reading...

Under Arnolds Field, tonnes of illegally dumped waste have been burning for years, spewing pollution over the area. Locals fear for their health - and despair that no one seems willing to help

UCL team is inviting parents to share their experiences, as age at which children in west acquire the skill risesStorybooks about potties, underpants featuring superheroes, rewards for doing a wee: toilet training is a rite of passage for any child. But with the average age of toilet training steadily creeping upwards, scientists are now hoping to crack the question of which methods are most effective.A team at University College London is inviting people from across the world to share their experiences and techniques as part of the Big Toilet Project. The ultimate aim is to uncover evidence that could help parents toilet train children earlier and reduce the massive contribution that disposable nappies make to landfill waste. Continue reading...

Analysis forecasts a third of young people will also be overweight or obese, in unparalleled' threat to healthMore than half of adults and a third of children and young people worldwide will be overweight or obese by 2050, posing an unparalleled threat" of early death, disease and enormous strain on healthcare systems, a report warns.Global failures in the response to the growing obesity crisis over the past three decades have led to a staggering increase in the numbers affected, according to the analysis published in the Lancet. Continue reading...

Questions remain over whether further action will be taken after resignations and calls for the Tesla CEO to be expelledElon Musk's fellowship of the Royal Society remains intact after a meeting of the scientific body, the Guardian has learned, but questions remain about whether further action will be taken.Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO who also owns the social media platform X, was elected a fellow of the UK's national academy of sciences in 2018, apparently in recognition of his work in the space and electric vehicle industries. Continue reading...

The solutions to today's gridsEarlier today I set you these three Sudokus. They obey the standard rule of having all digits form 1 to 9 in each row, column and 3x3 box, with the extra rule:A cell that contains its position in either its row, column or 3x3 box (read left-to-right, top-to-bottom) is coloured gold. Continue reading...

Details emerge about Natal conference in Austin later this month, set to feature figures linked to far-right politicsA natalist conference featuring speakers including self-described eugenicists and promoters of race science, apparently including the man behind a previously pseudonymous race-science influencer account, and the founder of a startup offering IQ screening for IVF embryos, will be held at a hotel and conference venue operated by the public University of Texas, Austin.Details of the conference have emerged as a prominent supporter of pro-natalist positions, the tech billionaire Elon Musk, lays waste US government agencies under the banner of his Doge" initiative, with the blessing of Donald Trump. Continue reading...

My husband - like many others - is obsessed with the seasoning', cleaning and pH levels of these hefty, hulking pans. Must I tolerate it?

Get in positionToday I unveil a fantastic new type of Sudoku invented by reader Alf Smith. Like all Sudoku, the digits from 1 to 9 must appear in all rows, columns and boxes.What's different in this new variant, however, is that the starting grids have no number clues. Instead, some cells are coloured gold. The extra rule is that the numbers in gold cells must describe the position of that cell in either its row, column or box (read left-to-right, top-to-bottom.) Continue reading...

The size of a compact car, the four-legged Blue Ghost touched down Sunday near an ancient volcanic vent on Mare Crisium, a large basin in the north-east corner of the moon's Earth-facing side. Flight controllers at Firefly's Austin, Texas headquarters watched as Blue Ghost descended toward the moon's surface at 2 miles per hour, confirming on a live stream that the spacecraft had entered lunar gravity

US firm Firefly Aerospace celebrates second-ever commercial lunar landingA US company has successfully landed its spacecraft on the moon, marking only the second private mission to achieve the milestone - and the first to do so upright.Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost Mission 1 touched down at 8.34am GMT near Mons Latreille, a volcanic formation in Mare Crisium on the moon's north-eastern near side. Continue reading...

Over time, she was able to more readily accept the impact of ADHD on her life without labelling this as a character flaw

I suggest to my son that the object of going to the planetarium should be for him to learn something, not to catch the scientists outSince it was half-term, I took the boy out for the day. My choice was the planetarium at the Royal Greenwich Observatory, which melds my two great loves: space and having to traverse the entirety of London, with a chatty six-year-old, twice in one wet afternoon. Our journey involves two buses, a tube, an overground, and 20 minutes of walking either side. Time was, all these various modes of transport would be a big plus for my son, who used to whoop and cheer as trains arrived and scream with contagious delight at every bus driver he met. As he moans about how long everything is taking, I realise for the first time that those mundane pleasures of the everyday world have left him. No wonder, I think with egregious lachrymosity, he has his eyes set on the stars.Being a six-year-old, he is stocked with questions. We have both presumed he will get some time with space boffins, ready and eager to answer any queries from 4ft-tall astronomers in training. It's just that my son is equally insistent that they'll be eager to learn something from him. As we take our seats on the tube, he lays out his prolix plan: a set of 14 questions sorted into four distinct classes; 4 x easy, 4 x medium, 4 x hard, and 2 x EXTREME. Continue reading...

Five years on from March 2020, millions of people still face debilitating symptoms, with huge repercussions on public health and productivity. But politicians are starting to pretend the pandemic never happenedOn 20 March 2020, Rowan Brown started to feel a tickle at the back of her throat. Over the next few days, new symptoms began to emerge: difficulty breathing, some tiredness. By the following week, the UK had been put under lockdown in a last-minute attempt to contain the spread of SARS-CoV-2, or Covid-19. No one else she knew had yet been infected, so she posted updates on Facebook to keep people informed: Oh, guys, it feels like a mild flu. Tonsillitis was definitely worse."Brown didn't know then she was at the beginning of a condition that did not yet have a name, but which has since become known as long Covid. After two weeks, she had a Zoom with a friend, and at the end of the conversation it was as if all life force had drained out of her body. Her doctor advised her to stay in bed for two weeks. Those two weeks turned into three and a half months of extended Covid symptoms: nausea, fevers, night sweats, intense muscle and joint pain, allodynia (a heightened sensitivity to pain), hallucinations, visual disturbances. By the end of the three months, she had noted 32 different symptoms. I didn't recognise the way my body felt at all: my skin, my hair," she remembers now. It was like being taken over by a weird alien virus, which I guess is what happened." Continue reading...

Academics and medics are working to understand why hamstring injuries are keeping players sidelined for longerThe sight of a player pulling up with a hamstring injury has become all too familiar in the Premier League. Weary muscles are being stretched to the limit by an expanding calendar, but dealing with more games is not the only challenge for medical departments.It is not that there has been a sudden explosion. It can simply seem that way when high-profile players such as the Arsenal forwards Bukayo Saka and Kai Havertz are long-term absentees. Using figures up to and including game week 26, that ended last Sunday, the Premier Injuries website says 100 of the 418 injuries this season related to hamstrings (24%), compared with 120 from 457 (26%) at the same stage last year. Continue reading...

Experts hope research can create greener methods of extracting the metal vital for renewable energy revolution and boom in electrical devicesIt is the key ingredient of bronze, the alloy that helped create some of the world's greatest civilisations and took humanity out of the stone age on its way to modern times. For good measure, the metal is invaluable for electrical wiring, plumbing and industrial machinery. We owe a lot to copper.But the metal now faces an uncertain future as manufacturers prepare to expand its use to make the electric cars, renewable power plants and other devices that will help the planet move towards net zero. Unrestricted extraction could cause widespread ecological devastation, scientists have warned. Continue reading...

Out of his depth and determined to defy stereotypes, one writer discovered his sense of self in a bracing cold dipGrowing up, I learned not to trust water. I was a poor swimmer and splashing in the sea on holiday always had a hard edge to it. The second my toes left the sandy floor I panicked, for fear of being swept away.Things changed a few years ago at a friend's birthday weekend in Cornwall. One February morning, a dozen of us took a hungover walk to the beach. It was overcast and blustery, and we had come to skinny-dip. I was buoyed up by the camaraderie and games of the night before, and felt a safety in numbers. People stripped off, actions hastened by the wind, and before I could think, I followed. We ran over sand and pebbles and dived into the oncoming waves. It was a total sensory overload. Salt filled my nose and mouth. I heard shrieks and cursing, and so much laughter. As I emerged there was a surge of adrenaline, and I couldn't stop giggling. It was scary, but I was also proud, like a child who's climbed a really big tree. Afterwards my skin tingled and as we shared a flask of tea, I felt singularly happy. Continue reading...

It was yet another reminder that Trump and his associates will turn even the sex trafficking of minors into a photo opDrum roll, please: the most transparent administration in American history" is declassifying shocking new information about Jeffrey Epstein and his associates. After years of speculation that powerful people have been concealing information related to the late financier and convicted sex offender, the Trump administration said earlier this week that it would release unseen details about the case. Continue reading...