Science | The Guardian

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...

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...

The rodent was filmed repeatedly gathering objects and placing them in a tray in a shed in Builth WellsMice like to keep themselves clean, but does this diligence extend to their homes? Video footage of a mouse gathering up objects in a shed and placing them neatly inside a box, night after night, has been interpreted as evidence for mousekeeping". But there could be other explanations for this curious behaviour, experts say.The Builth Wells rodent, nicknamed Welsh Tidy Mouse" by the shed's owner, Rodney Holbrook, was recorded gathering clothes pegs, corks, nuts and bolts and placing them in a tray on Holbrook's workbench - a behaviour that has been going on for months. It follows a similar incident in Bristol in 2019, when a mouse was videoed stockpiling" screws, piece of chain and other metal items inside a box of birdfeed. Continue reading...

US firm Astrobotic says it is assessing alternative mission profiles' after finding failure in propulsion systemA private moon mission that blasted into space on Monday appeared to be in jeopardy after suffering a critical loss of propellant" and operators said they are considering alternatives for the mission.After lift-off on Monday, the Peregrine Mission One (PM1) - which carries a piece of technology developed by UK scientists - experienced an anomaly" that would have prevented the lander from achieving a stable position pointing towards the sun, according to Astrobotic, the US firm behind the project. Continue reading...

The answer to today's tantalising tech teaserEarlier today I set you the following puzzle, a classic interview question for software engineers. It seems really to have caught your imaginations: so far the original article has had almost 500 below-the-line comments. Many are lateral takes on the problem, often humorous. Many are meditations on the ambiguities involved when phrasing a technical question about data structures in a fantasy setting. Some are furious posts about what makes a spoiler, and some are celebrations of your favourite software engineers.Enough already, here is the puzzle again, together with the solution. Continue reading...

Pressure grows on artificial intelligence firms over the content used to train their productsThe developer OpenAI has said it would be impossible to create tools like its groundbreaking chatbot ChatGPT without access to copyrighted material, as pressure grows on artificial intelligence firms over the content used to train their products.Chatbots such as ChatGPT and image generators like Stable Diffusion are trained" on a vast trove of data taken from the internet, with much of it covered by copyright - a legal protection against someone's work being used without permission. Continue reading...

Pioneering British surgeon who carried out the world's first liver, heart and lung transplantIn the 1960s Roy Calne, professor of surgery at Cambridge University, was gripped by the emerging new science of transplantation to help those with kidney and liver failure.Calne, who has died aged 93, became Britain's premier transplant surgeon and researcher, achieving a number of firsts, including the first liver transplant in Europe in 1968, the world's first liver, heart and lung transplant in 1986 (with John Wallwork) and the world's first successful organ cluster" transplant (stomach, intestine, pancreas, liver and kidney) in 1994. Continue reading...

The Peregrine 1 lander carrying Nasa scientific equipment is on its way to the moon after a successful launch of the Vulcan Centaur rocket at Cape Canaveral. Within minutes of separation from the rocket, Astrobotic mission control received a signal from the lander, which will go into a highly elliptical orbit to put it on course to its destination. Peregrine is set to land on 23 February and will seek to gather data about the lunar surface ahead of planned future human missions

Latest news: lunar lander expected to reach the moon by end of February, the first US lander there for 50 yearsHere are some pictures of the rocket at Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida from the last couple of days. The 62m tall (202 ft) Vulcan Centaur rocket was rolled out to the launchpad on 5 January ahead of today's planned launch, which is currently on track for about half-an-hour's time.United Launch Alliance spokesperson Amanda Sterling has said everything is on track for launch at this stage.We are currently holding at T-minus seven minutes as part of our planed 60 minute hold, and the team is not working any issues at this time.The Vulcan booster is fuelled to flight level with super-chilled liquid oxygen and liquid methane ... and the ULA team is on track for an on-time lift off at 2.18am Eastern (7.18am GMT). Continue reading...

This puzzle will spin you in circlesUPDATE: The solution can be read hereToday's puzzle is a classic interview question for jobs in programming. I hope it flicks your switches.The loopy labyrinth Continue reading...

Look for the distant giant shortly after the sun sets and light starts to drain from the skyWhat a difference a week makes to the moon. Last week it was a waning crescent in the morning sky. This week it returns to the evening twilight as a waxing crescent.The illuminated percentage of the visible surface remains almost the same at 14%, compared with last week's 12.7%, but this time it is the moon's eastern hemisphere that is illuminated instead of the west. Last week, the moon's planetary companions were Mercury and Venus, this week it is the turn of Saturn. Continue reading...

A cold Roman soldier is promised new socks, while his commander's wife invites her peers to party: mundane texts offer priceless historical insightsFor the average museum-goer the romance of archaeology is inextricably bound to extravagant displays of power and riches: Egyptian pharoahs in their gilded sarcophaguses, China's extraordinary Terracotta Warriors, the gold and jewellery of ancientRome. Inthe field, it is the remnants of mighty fortifications and sumptuous palaces, the imprint of catastrophic events, that people cross continents to visit.Few of the thousands who traipse along Hadrian'sWall to the Roman fort of Vindolanda each year would go out of their way to see two of thetreasures discovered there, both now at the BritishMuseum. One is a birthday invitation from the wife of the fort commander to a friend, including greetings from her husband and my little son". The other is a letter to a soldier promising socks, sandals and underpants to protect him from the Northumberland cold. Yet these messages offer sharpand human insight into colonial life in a remoteoutpost of empire nearly 2,000years ago. Moretablets are still being unearthedby archaeologists racing against the effectsof climate change. Continue reading...

Charismatic founder of Kids Company who stepped down after the charity's collapse in 2015For two decades Camila Batmanghelidjh, who has died after a long illness aged 61, was one of the most passionate and readily recognisable figures on the UK charity circuit.Kids Company, the charity she founded in 1996 to help distressed, abused and abandoned children and teenagers in south London, undoubtedly helped several thousand young people. Batmanghelidjh and her assistants surrounded them with unquestioning love, meals, support, advice, therapy and even clothes and pocket money, and the charity eventually spawned other outposts in Bristol and Liverpool. Continue reading...

Fixating on results can make us miserable, as some of the top sports stars have discovered. It's the intrinsic joy of what we do that brings the best rewardsWhy do we like sport? There are millions of people around the world who feel happiest when they are engaged in pursuits that - on the face of it - are pointless. And yet sport is serious business. Jamie Carragher and Declan Rice are two English footballers who have said their sport is all about winning". Is that really true? I was a sports presenter for BBC Radio 1 for eight years, encompassing the 2012 London Olympics, Andy Murray's historic Wimbledon win and a World Cup in Brazil. It was frequently thrilling, yet over time when I went on air to report on the action, I had a nagging sense that something was missing. The fixation on results didn't convey sport's deep beauty and its many life lessons. Sport is often described as a metaphor for life and so I set out to explore exactly that - and found many important insights about where happiness and fulfilment are to be found. Here's what I discovered. Continue reading...

Of course there is a link between mind and body: mental health is inextricably linked with physical wellbeingYour article shows the way that depression will be treated worldwide in future (A weight off our minds: how therapy got physical to beef up mental health", News). Exercise as a treatment for depression has five massive advantages: it is free; it can be used in combination with other treatments; the benefits last; it confers other health benefits; and it empowers the individual to take positive action in fighting off depression.The underlying science has little to do with release of endorphins: exercise has been proved to work more permanently by stimulating neuroplasticity (ie new circuits) in key parts of the brain that subserve mood, emotion and executive functioning. It works in the same way as all other treatments for depression, from placebo to talking therapy to medication to ECT, and is synergistic when combined with any of these. Those with seasonal affective disorder should start an exercise programme when the clocks go back. Exercise really is the new antidepressant.

After four-month journey, Aditya-L1 will measure and observe sun's outermost layersIndia's solar observation mission has entered the sun's orbit after a four-month journey, the latest success for the space exploration ambitions of the world's most populous country.The Aditya-L1 mission was launched in September and is carrying an array of instruments to measure and observe the sun's outermost layers. Continue reading...

Astronomers say launch of dozens of lunar probes could jeopardise research and valuable resources such as sea ice in cratersScience and business are heading for an astronomical clash - over the future exploration of the moon and the exploitation of its resources. The celestial skirmish threatens to break out over companies' plans to launch dozens of probes to survey the lunar landscape over the next few years. An early pioneer - Peregrine mission one - is set for launch this week.The aim of this extraterrestrial armada - largely funded through Nasa's $2.6bn Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative - is to survey the moon so that minerals, water and other resources can be extracted to build permanent, habitable bases there. These would later provide a springboard for manned missions to Mars. Continue reading...

In the former president's eyes, he has wronged no one - he thinks he is the victim of injustice, not the perpetrator, writes Phil LeaskIn trying to understand Donald Trump in his review of David Keen's book Shame (27 December), Charlie English does not distinguish between shame - our feeling of having done something wrong - and shaming, a demonstrative and abusive act of power that seeks to humiliate someone. Trump feels no shame because he does not accept or share the values of those who are critical of him; in his eyes he has wronged no one. At the same time, he cannot be shamed because he has constructed a defensive shield around himself that ensures every criticism bounces off. He seeks, instead, to humiliate anyone who opposes him or represents a different way of being in the world.Of course, if we look deep into Trump's past we could find that he was a victim of humiliation, which would partly explain but in no way justify his rage, vitriol and abuse, his sense that he is currently a victim of injustice, and his desire for revenge. All of these are consistent consequences of humiliation. Seeing his own actions as entirely just, he has no need - in his eyes - to feel shame. He cannot be defeated by accusations of shamelessness or attempts to humiliate him, but only by political action and being held legally responsible for his actions.

Assuming we are all doing the best we can might free us up to feel gentler, kinder and more compassionate to ourselves - and othersRadical acceptance of ourselves opens the door to knowing and accepting that we are imperfect. This is vital because we spend so much of our lives trying to find some version of perfection. Interestingly, as soon as we build a strong enough practice of accepting ourselves, we usually become more accepting towards other people. This can't work in reverse - if we try to accept other people while still holding a seething bedrock of anger and hate at ourselves, we will project that anger on to other people.I rarely speak in absolutes, but I will say it is impossible to feel for someone else what we cannot feel for ourselves. Self-acceptance must accompany any other acceptance. Continue reading...

Commercial Peregrine mission aims to deliver Nasa scientific equipment to moon along with mementos and ashes of Star Trek creatorFinal preparations are under way at Cape Canaveral in Florida for a milestone mission to put a US lander on the moon, an achievement not seen in more than 50 years since the end of the Apollo project.Last-minute glitches aside, Peregrine mission one, named after the fastest animal on Earth, will roar into the sky at 7.18am UK time Monday. After looping around the planet, it will head to the moon and slip into lunar orbit before an attempted landing soon after local sunrise on 23 February. Continue reading...

Mycologists Alan Rockefeller and Mandie Quark are on a mission to meticulously document species in Ecuador's jungle - before they vanishWords and photographs by Rachel Bujalski

Barnard Castle, Teesdale: In the winter woodland you can find more activity than you might think, including the most numerous animals on EarthTwo o'clock on a cold December afternoon, and the sun is already sinking towards the western horizon, sending long shadows through Flatts Wood. Ahead, a blackbird lands beside the footpath and begins flinging aside dead leaves, with the irascible air of a gardener discovering fly-tipped rubbish on their lawn. During shortwinter days these birds expend a lot of energy excavating layers of decaying autumn leaves, in search of buried food. Head cocked to one side, he seems to be listening, perhaps sensing something hiddenhere, and ignores us until we are a few paces away.When he flies, we take a closer look: what lives under last summer's discarded foliage? Beneath loose, wind-dried leaf litter lies several years of accumulated dead foliage; a leafy lasagne welded together by fine fungal threads advancing from a spreading delta of pure white mycelium, creeping out from under a fallen branch. For every toadstool that appears above the surface, there will be miles of these fine hyphae, digesting their way through dead plants, until they can store enough energy to organisethemselves into another fungal fruiting body. Continue reading...

Both ice giants are similar pale blue, new research finds, correcting earlier beliefs about the planets' relative huesIt's a colour beloved by interior designers, but it seems duck-egg blue is also splashed across our solar system, with research suggesting it is the true colour of both Uranus and Neptune.The new work puts paid to the popular belief that Neptune has a deep blue hue, suggesting instead both planets are a similar colour - with Neptune only slightly more blue than Uranus. Continue reading...

Rocket and satellite maker responds to National Labor Relations Board complaint that it wrongly fired employeesRocket and satellite maker SpaceX on Thursday sued a US labor board to block its case accusing the company of illegally firing employees who sent a letter to company executives calling its CEO, Elon Musk, a distraction and embarrassment".In a lawsuit filed in Brownsville, Texas, federal court, SpaceX claims the structure of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) - which issued a complaint against the company on Wednesday - violates the US constitution. Continue reading...

Experts say severe muscle damage, mitochondrial problems and microclots may explain impact of working outMany people with long Covid feel tired, unwell and in pain for lengthy periods after exercise, and researchers say they now know why.Experts say they have evidence that biological changes are to blame, such as severe muscle damage, mitochondrial problems and the presence of microclots in the body. Continue reading...

Science Weekly revisits episode three of this 2023 mini-series from Full Story.In the final part of this three-part series, the Australian climate scientists Lesley Hughes, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg and Graeme Pearman take stock as they look back on their life's work. How does it feel for them to carry this burden of knowledge? Could they have done more? And what hope do they hold for the future? Continue reading...

Psychoanalysis comeback | Worldrenowned floggers | Lights, camera, Croydon | Pantomime in parliament | Full-leaf failuresHannah Zeavin quotes Harold Bloom in praise of Sigmund Freud's metaphors (Psychoanalysis has returned': why 2023 broughtanewFreud revival, 29 December). Bloom also said: I do not know of anyone who has ever benefited from Freudian or any other mode of analysis, exceptforbeing, to use the populartrope, so badly shrunk,that they became quite dried out" (Paris Review, 1991).

Fragments of butchered animal bones and drinking vessels indicate site near Barry was also used for feastingAn extraordinary early medieval cemetery with women's bodies placed carefully in crouched positions has been found close to the end of an airport runway in Wales.The bodies, which were buried about 1,500 years ago, were all laid on their side facing south, suggesting they were the subject of a specific ceremony. Continue reading...

Zosurabalpin has defeated strains of pneumonia and sepsis in mice, raising hopes for human trialsScientists have discovered an entirely new class of antibiotic that appears to kill one of three bacteria considered to pose the greatest threat to human health because of their extensive drug-resistance.Zosurabalpin defeated highly drug-resistant strains of Carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (Crab) in mouse models of pneumonia and sepsis, and was being tested in human trials. Continue reading...

Complaints amateur fossil hunter Philip Jacobs was airbrushed' from BBC film about pliosaur discoveryA campaign has been launched to have a reptile that starred in Sir David Attenborough's latest blockbuster documentary named after the amateur fossil hunter who found it, after complaints he was airbrushed" from the BBC show.Attenborough and the Giant Sea Monster, which won widespread acclaim, has been criticised for only mentioning the finder of the pliosaur skull, Philip Jacobs, in the credits at the end of the programme. Continue reading...

Scientists played audio recordings to volunteers - with the majority responding correctly to the birds' emotionsPeople can tell if chickens are chirpy or frustrated from their calls, according to researchers who believe that listening to the birds could help breeders improve the welfare of their flocks.Scientists played audio recordings of hens to nearly 200 volunteers and found that 69% could tell the difference between birds that were happy about an imminent treat and those that were annoyed that no such reward was forthcoming. Continue reading...

Science Weekly revisits episode two of this 2023 mini-series from Full Story.In part two of Weight of the world, three Australian climate scientists reveal the professional and personal toll of their predictions.Lesley Hughes tells us about the axing of Australia's Climate Commission, a group tasked with educating the public about climate science and the need to cut carbon emissions; Graeme Pearman talks of the pushback from government and industry; and Ove Hoegh-Guldberg speaks of the personal attacks and death threats that followed his warnings. All three express their disbelief that meaningful action didn't follow the science, with Pearman saying he was naive' to think it would Continue reading...

Rising temperatures have spurred an influx of beavers to Alaska and northern Canada on a huge scale'The stream through western Alaska never looked like this before. In aerial photography from the 1980s, it wove cleanly through the tundra, thin as thread. Today, in satellite images, it appears as a string of black patches: one large pond after another, dozens of metres apart.It's a transformation that is happening across the Arctic, the result of landscape engineering on an impressive scale. But this is no human endeavour to reshape the world. It is the work of the North American beaver, and there is no sign of it stopping. Continue reading...

As I fled that plane I knew it would be the most humiliating moment in my lifeMy fear of flying arrived with full force and every day I ask myself if I will ever fly again. It's a thought that sits with me daily.Anxiety arrived without warning and it packed a punch when I was 15. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Millennium Cohort's finding raises questions about why a large proportion has a difficult relationship with social mediaAlmost half of British teenagers say they feel addicted to social media, according to findings that come amid mounting pressure for big tech companies to be held accountable for the impact of their platforms on users.The finding, from the Millennium Cohort study, adds to evidence that many people feel they have lost control over their use of digital interactive media. It comes as dozens of US states are suing Instagram and its parent company, Meta, accusing them of contributing to a youth mental health crisis and as the EU has ushered in major reforms designed to give consumers more control over smartphone apps. Continue reading...

We give things up when we believe we can change; we give up when we believe we can'tIn the ordinary way of things, when people say that they are giving up, they are usually referring to something like smoking, or alcohol, or chocolate, or any of the other anaesthetic pleasures of everyday life; they are not, on the whole, talking about suicide (though people do tend to want to give up only their supposedly self-harming habits). Giving up certain things may be good for us, and yet the idea of someone just giving up is never appealing. Like alcoholics who need everybody to drink, there tends to be a determined cultural consensus that life is, and has to be, worth living (if not, of course, actually sacred).There are, to put it as simply as possible, what turn out to be good and bad sacrifices (and sacrifice creates the illusion - or reassures us - that we can choose our losses). There is the giving up that we can admire and aspire to, and the giving up that profoundly unsettles us. What, for example, does real hope or real despair require us to relinquish? What exactly do we imagine we are doing when we give something up? There is an essential and far-reaching ambiguity to this simple idea. We give things up when we believe we can change; we give up when we believe we can't.Narrow attention. This first way of perceiving seemed to be the automatic one, the kind of attention which my mind gave to everyday affairs when it was left to itself ... this kind of attention has a narrow focus, by this means it selects what serves its immediate interests and ignores the rest. As far as I could see it was a questing beast", keeping its nose close down to the trail, running this way and that upon the scent, but blind to the wider surroundings. It saw items according to whether they served its purposes, saw them as a means to its own ends, not interested in them at all for their own sake. This attitude was probably essential for practical life, so that I supposed from the biological point of view it had to be one which came naturally to the mind ...Wide attention. The second way of perceiving seemed to occur when the questing purposes were held in leash. Then, since one wanted nothing, there was no need to select one item to look at rather than another, so it became possible to look at the whole at once. To attend to something and yet want nothing from it, these seemed to be the essentials of the second way of perceiving ... if by chance we should have discovered the knack of holding wide our attention, then the magic thing happens. Continue reading...

Science Weekly revisits episode one of this 2023 mini-series from Full Story.Pioneering Australian scientists Graeme Pearman, Lesley Hughes and Ove Hoegh-Guldberg saw the climate crisis coming. Pearman predicted the increase of carbon dioxide levels, Hughes foresaw the alarming number of species extinctions and Hoegh-Guldberg forecast the mass coral bleaching events we're seeing today. All three went on to become some of the country's most respected experts in their fields, travelling the globe, briefing leaders, and assuming the world would take action having heard their alarming findings.In part one of this three-part series, these climate change scientists reveal the moment they realised the planet was heading for certain catastrophe. What did they do when they found out? How did they think the world would respond? And how do they feel today, looking back on that moment of cognisance? Continue reading...

Ted Green, a conservation adviser to the crown estate at Windsor, has a provocative take on our living heritage'Ted Green is a rebel. He calls sheep land maggots". A horse-riding centre is a dog-food complex". And the ancient tree expert's new book includes a photo of him sticking up two fingers at a portrait of Margaret Thatcher.But the influential, iconoclastic Green, 89, who has lived his whole life around Windsor Great Park and still works as a conservation adviser for the crown estate, is also a staunch advocate for King Charles's protection of Britain's unique trove of ancient trees. Continue reading...

Before making another new year resolution it's worth asking if change is what you needIt wasn't until I'd finished reading a fourth article ranking the best wellies for children" that it dawned on me that maybe I could be doing something better with this precious time on Earth. Many websites use a five-star rating to rank the boots, just as one might rate films or albums or restaurants. These ratings, though subjective and often fickle, take on a life and meaning of their own. A spiteful customer can sink a small business with one-star online reviews. I wouldn't buy a three-star welly, even though it's not clear how much anyone should expect from a rubber boot.The American psychologist Barry Schwartz observed that faced with apparently endless consumer choice, people respond in two ways. Satisficers" are happy to pick a good enough option and are unlikely to spend their free time reading hundreds of product reviews, but maximisers" feel compelled to make the best possible choice. This means the more choices they are offered, the worse off they are: an expansion of possibilities makes decision-making harder and regret the more likely outcome. Studies suggest that maximisers often do better professionally - in this sense, their high standards pay off - but even then they feel worse. Maximisers tend to be less happy, and more prone to depression and negative social comparison. Continue reading...

The two inner planets will be visible, Venus blazingly obvious and Mercury harder to spotThe new year starts in fine style with the two inner planets, Mercury and Venus, putting on a fine show in the morning sky.Venus, situated 114m miles from Earth, will be blazingly obvious in the sky. Its reflective cloud layer acts like a mirror to the sunlight and it will be easily visible in a clear sky. Continue reading...

Turning normal sleeping cycles upside down helped this bestselling writer recover her energyWhy don't you go to sleep when normal people do?" This is a question asked of me on countless occasions. The last time was in a radio interview and I was about to give my usual self-deprecating comments about the joys of not being normal, when I took a breath and replied, Because I don't want to." It really is that simple. Going to bed at 5pm and getting up just after midnight suits me. I enjoy the peace and quiet. My productivity levels soar. It's just a shame other people find it so difficult to accept. I'm not entirely sure why. I do exactly what everyone else does, I just do it about seven hours earlier. Around the time most of the country is pouring milk on their Weetabix, I'm chopping garlic and frying mushrooms for my lunch. As you're settling down with a glass of wine and a film, I've long since gone to bed. A week of keeping to the same pattern and it became my new routine.The day always begins with a 1am breakfast before a long walk with my dog, then I start my working day. Working from home makes it all too easy to creep into the world of permanent loungewear, so I try to make the effort and dress as if I were going out to an office. It can feel strange, switching on my computer and settling down to write in the dark, but it doesn't seem long before the rest of the world wakes up. My office looks out over the town and I see lights appear as the new day begins. I break for lunch around 8am, then go back to my desk. One rule is no napping! I still get an afternoon dip, like everyone else, but it usually happens mid-morning and a quick snack does the trick. If I give in, my sleeping pattern becomes even more erratic. Another thing I have to be strict with is reading emails after my day is over. When everyone else is at their desk chatting away, it's tempting to join in so, around 2pm, I shut down all the tech, read for a couple of hours, then go to bed. Continue reading...

Finding drugs that mimic the benefits of a workout has long been a goal of science. As a new trial begins, the hope is to assist not just the time-poor or the lazy but elderly people and those with disease or disabilityIn a hospital in northern Norway, just south of the Arctic Circle, a landmark experiment is taking place that could transform the way we treat ageing in the years to come. Called ExPlas - exercised plasma - the clinical trial involves taking blood plasma from young and healthy adults who exercise on a regular basis and injecting it into people aged between 50 and 75 in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. It's the first time this has been tested in humans.The full results will be available in 2025, and the hope is that it will represent a new way of rejuvenating the minds and bodies of older people, and perhaps one day even all of us who lead largely sedentary lives. Continue reading...

Therapists and gyms are working both brain and body as the full benefits of fitness are increasingly recognisedTwelve years ago, when he was in his mid-40s, psychotherapist Andrew Keefe found himself in a very stressful job - working with survivors of torture - and really out of shape. Determined to improve, Keefe joined an outdoor fitness class. Hours of burpees and press-ups in London's Finsbury Park helped him get physically fit, but he was fascinated to discover that his state of mind also completely changed.Afterwards I would be incredibly relaxed - blissful," he says. Continue reading...

Despite a surplus of eggs at fertility clinics around the country, very few end up being donated to research or other prospective parentsThe vast majority of eggs frozen by prospective mothers go unused, causing headaches for IVF clinics and preventing potentially groundbreaking research.Scientists are decrying a wasted opportunity as thousands of frozen eggs sit unused in storage instead of being used in potentially valuable medical research. Continue reading...

Experts say prolonged delay in replacing chair signals that government does not take net zero policy seriously enough and is harming investmentRishi Sunak has come under fierce attack from UK climate experts for the Conservative government's failure over the past 18 months to appoint a new chair of the independent committee that advises ministers on emissions targets.In a letter to the prime minister leaked to the Observer, the UK's leading organisation working on the economic effects of global warming condemned the excessive delay" in finding a replacement to the previous chair, Lord Deben. Continue reading...

Sir Humphry Davy's unpublished verse - including one published below for the first time - was found in notebooks alongside details of his groundbreaking experimentsHe is famous for discovering elements of the periodic table, for inventing a lamp in 1815 that would save the lives of hundreds of thousands of miners and as an electrochemical pioneer.But it is the unpublished poetry of the British chemist Sir Humphry Davy - and the intriguing connections between his poems and scientific breakthroughs - that is now electrifying academics. Continue reading...

Dozens of elections, Ukraine and Israel-Gaza, moon missions, the climate crisis and AI Support independent Guardian journalism in 20242024 will be a landmark year: dozens of elections across the world, unresolved conflicts in Ukraine and Israel-Gaza to address, and further milestones expected in everything from global temperatures to space exploration and artificial intelligence.Here are some of the major events scheduled for the year. Continue reading...

Extending the limit could help uncover causes of recurrent miscarriage and congenital conditions, experts sayScientists are calling for a review of the 14-day rule on embryo research, saying that extending the limit could help uncover the causes of recurrent miscarriage and congenital conditions.Until now, scientists studying the earliest stages of life have been restricted to cultivating embryos up to the equivalent of 14 days of development. They can then pick up the path of development several weeks later, on pregnancy scans and from material donated from terminations. Continue reading...

The Marches, Shropshire: Gales like this have a violent beauty as they rip through trees, bending trunks and pulling at the rootsOn solstice eve, a gale came thrashing trees, strewing sticks. Around each tree in the park, particularly the limes and ash, was a leeward shadow of branches and twigs, mostly dead brash winnowed from the living boughs, cast down to rot into the earth.Before decaying and recycling nutrients back to the tree roots through fungi, the fallen sticks had a more esoteric presence. They fell individually but made patterns or shapes together - shapes like the Chinese characters or the symbolism of Nordic runes used in spells, or Mimih spirit sticks in the ceremonies of the Kunwinjku people of Australia, or the stick divination of the Dagara people ofBurkina Faso. Continue reading...