by Damian Carrington Environment editor on (#5P2HX)
South of UK was duller and wetter than usual, while extreme weather hit hard across the worldGlasgow, the host city of the crucial Cop26 UN climate summit in November, has experienced its hottest summer on record, the Met Office has said. Continue reading...
Bones found in 2014 in what is now South Dakota described as ‘miracle of nature and work of art’In its time, approximately 66m years ago, the triceratops, with its massive collared skull and three attacking horns, was one of the most dangerous and daunting of dinosaurs.Now the remains of one of the giants of the Cretaceous period, a herbivore despite its fearsome appearance, have gone on display in Paris before they are auctioned next month. Continue reading...
From sending a quick check-in message to getting vaccinated for their benefit, there are many ways to make your high-risk friends feel loved, even if they are still having to isolateNow that almost all pandemic restrictions have been lifted in the UK, many of us are enjoying getting our social lives back. But if you are clinically vulnerable, you might still be living with self-imposed rules, such as avoiding the indoors or crowds. With more than 3.8 million people in the UK previously told to shield in lockdown, statistically, most of us will have friends or family who are in this boat. It can be a hard thing to navigate. How can you support them and keep relationships going? Here are 10 ideas. Continue reading...
As a Black scientist in a traditionally white field, the Brown University professor has often been ostracized. But to move forward, he says, science must embrace diversityAs a Black physicist, Dr Stephon Alexander has been doubted, spoken over and met with intentional silence. The tenured Brown University professor has even faced this treatment from his students.This is par for the course for many Black professionals in traditionally white environments, but Alexander happens to excel in an especially insular field that was once thought to be too advanced for people like him. In the 70s, the American Physical Society, the country’s most recognized organization of physicists, remained silent as some members claimed that people of African heritage were incapable of engaging in physics because of their inferior intellect – a damning assertion in a field that requires supporting colleagues as they make huge conceptual leaps. Continue reading...
Canines seem to understand whether actions are deliberate or accidental, ‘theory of mind’ study suggestsFrom a canny look to a quizzical grumble, dogs have long conveyed the impression they know more about what their owners are up to than what might be expected. Now researchers have found fresh evidence of canine savviness, revealing dogs seem to be able to tell whether human actions are deliberate or accidental.While theory of mind – the ability to attribute thoughts to others and to recognise that can result in certain behaviours – is often thought to be uniquely human, the study suggests at least some elements may be common to canines. Continue reading...
Models of how the Earth could look in 250m years, with huge land masses and longer days, can help exoplanet huntersIt’s unlikely humans will be around to see it, but in about 250m years Earth’s land masses will have moved together to form the next supercontinent. By this time the sun will be a little brighter and the Earth’s rotation will have slowed down, making a day about 30 minutes longer than now. So how will it feel to live on this future Earth?Michael Way, from the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, and colleagues have used computer models to travel forward in time. They investigated two plausible scenarios: Aurica (a low latitude supercontinent developing around 250m years from now) and Amasia (a high latitude northern supercontinent plus a smaller Antarctic subcontinent about 200m years from now). Continue reading...
by Denis Campbell Health policy editor on (#5P11Q)
Doctors say inclisiran will prevent tens of thousands of deaths from heart attack and strokePatients in England are to start receiving a “gamechanger” drug that doctors say will protect tens of thousands of lives by cutting the number of people who have a heart attack or stroke.The treatment, inclisiran, works by boosting the liver’s ability to reduce the body’s level of “bad” cholesterol, even in those who have already tried using statins. Continue reading...
Seán Boyle suspects that the Gaelicised spelling of ‘craic’ may be a more recent ploy to attract touristsAndrew Poole (Letters, 26 August) is of course correct that “crack” has a long history in Scots and north-eastern English. But it also existed in Ireland well before its late 20th-century emergence as “craic”. Growing up in south Ulster, it was in regular use by young and old – “Sure, he’s great crack”; “Was there any crack in town last night?”; “She’d go anywhere for a bit of crack”. We seldom had recourse to spelling it out, but wouldn’t have considered any spelling other than “crack”.I agree that the adoption of the Gaelicised “craic” is of fairly recent origin. I have no recollection of its use among Gaelic speakers and I suspect that it’s a tourism marketing man’s invention, circa 1980. Gaelicising it suggests that there’s something unique about Irish fun and distances it from other meanings of the word. Otherwise, a slogan such as “Come to Ireland for the crack” might well attract the wrong sort of tourist.
There is scant evidence that ivermectin can treat or prevent Covid - but that hasn’t stopped rightwing pundits and conservative politicians from promoting itYou are not a horse. You are not a cow. You are, I’m afraid, a homo sapiens living in a world so deranged that people would rather poison themselves with worm medicine meant for farm animals than take a vaccine meant for human beings.Related: Australian imports of ivermectin increase tenfold, prompting warning from TGA Continue reading...
The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical conceptsWhat evolutionary advantage comes from women having considerably less body hair than men? Mal Jones, CardiffPost your answers (and new questions) below or send them to nq@theguardian.com. A selection will be published on Sunday. Continue reading...
Food and water were thought to be the main ways humans are exposed to PFAS, but study points to risk of breathing them inToxic PFAS compounds are contaminating the air inside homes, classrooms and stores at alarming levels, a new study has found.Researchers with the University of Rhode Island and Green Science Policy Institute tested indoor air at 20 sites and detected the “forever chemicals” in 17 locations. The airborne compounds are thought to break off of PFAS-treated products such as carpeting and clothing and attach to dust or freely float through the indoor environment. Continue reading...
by Presented by Patrick Greenfield and Phoebe Weston on (#5NZCD)
In an era of divisions over the climate breakdown, tree planting seems to bring everyone together. But are there situations where tree planting can cause more harm than good? And how much can it help us counteract global heating? Patrick Greenfield leads you through the science and controversy behind the decisions we’re making and how those decisions could shape our future environment. He and Phoebe Weston from The age of extinction are back with two new episodes Continue reading...
A coin toss could give me two completely different lives. But once I know the result there’s no going backI’ve spent most of my life knowing I may have inherited a faulty gene that would cause Huntington’s disease, a neurodegenerative disease that can be fatal. My grandad had the disease, my mum has it, and I am yet to take the test to find out if I have it too. It’s a 50/50 chance of inheritance. Right now, I am happily ignorant of whether I carry the mutation or not. A coin toss could give me two completely different lives. Once I know the results, there’s no going back. So far, everyone who has been tested in my family has tested positive. It seems the odds are against me. I’m 27 years old, and I’m starting to think seriously about my future, whether that is moving overseas or contemplating having children. Whatever big decisions I am facing now, I can’t help but wonder, could this disease overshadow them? I explore this tension in a newly released short documentary, Fifty Percent.Related: After the Nobel, what next for Crispr gene-editing therapies? Continue reading...
by Alex Mistlin, Kaamil Ahmed and Martin Farrer on (#5NY5Z)
Six countries removed from EU ‘white list’ of countries with restriction-free travel; South African scientists trying to establish potency of ‘new variant’
A leading scientist explains why the fundamental truth is that it is impossible to know everything about the universeThe American physicist Richard Feynman thought that “nobody understands quantum mechanics”. That is no longer true. Smartphones, nuclear plants, medical scans and laser-operated doors have been built with insights from the physics that governs the subatomic level. What perplexes many is that the quantum world is governed by rules that run counter to classical notions of physical laws.In quantum mechanics, nature is not deterministic. Subatomic particles do not travel a path that can be plotted. It is possible only to calculate the probability of finding these specks at a particular point. Where such calculations leave physics, that hardest of the hard sciences, has troubled its greatest minds. Albert Einstein thought the idea that an element of chance lay deep in science was absurd. “God does not play dice,” he famously declared. Continue reading...
Ian Harvey urges the JCVI to vaccinate teenagers as schools return from the summer break, and Austen Lynch says the Covid death toll is still highScientific advice to the government has mostly been good during the pandemic, but the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) is showing unhelpful signs of procrastination over the vaccination of teenagers and the use of adult boosters (Report, 27 August). It is also playing out its discussion via the media rather than in a timely fashion in private. Its doubts about vaccinating teenagers are said to centre on concerns about side-effects, the ethics of indirect benefit and of using vaccines here rather than overseas. The mRNA vaccines that would be used in this group have an excellent safety profile, and are the least suitable for use in developing countries because of storage temperature requirements. Boys are already vaccinated against rubella for the benefit of others (ie pregnant women). The debate is reminiscent of the early hesitation about mask wearing, where some scientists swerved away from their use on the plausible but unlikely grounds of other unintended effects on behaviour. These were not realised, and most of us now regret the delay in mask wearing. I would urge the JCVI to realise that time is not on its side if an autumn campaign is to be organised.
Deemed ‘astrology for businessmen’ for some, lauded as life-saving by others, the personality tests are a ‘springboard’ for people to think about who they areI am a born executive. I am obsessed with efficiency and detached from my emotions. I share similarities with Margaret Thatcher and Harrison Ford. I am among 2% of the general population, and 1% of women.People like us are highly motivated by personal growth, and occasionally ruthless in the pursuit. We make difficult partners and parents, but good landscape architects. We are ENTJs: extroverted, intuitive, thinking, judging – also known as the executive type or, sometimes, “the Commander”. Continue reading...
At least 12,000 women are still abducted and forced into marriage every year in Kyrgyzstan. But pressure is growing to finally end the medieval customAisuluu was returning home after spending the afternoon with her aunt in the village of At-Bashy, not far from the Torugart crossing into China. “It was 5 o’clock in the afternoon on Saturday. I had a paper bag full of samsa [a dough dumpling stuffed with lamb, parsley and onion]. My aunt always prepared them on weekends,” she said.“A car with four men inside comes in the opposite direction to mine. And all of a sudden it … turns around and, within a few seconds, comes up beside me. One of the guys in the back gets out, yanks me and pushes me inside the car. I drop all the samsa on the pavement. I scream, I squirm, I cry, but there is nothing I can do.” Continue reading...
Skills and reasoning are more vital than ever and the internet is taking the place of memorising by roteLet’s start with the good news: we’re getting brighter. Sadly, not individually as we age, but IQs have risen over time, with new generations having higher reasoning skill scores than their predecessors. This progress on abstract reasoning is in contrast to plateauing or declining scores for retained knowledge such as vocabulary.Better nutrition or healthcare might explain some of this improvement. But there’s also been a greater focus on skills over knowledge by schools and parents. This was what Michael Gove was pushing against with his focus on children needing to learn basic facts. Continue reading...
Councils are struggling to complete children’s education and care plans before the new school year because of a shortage of specialistsCouncils in England are struggling to assess the level of support children with special educational needs require because of a shortage of educational psychologists, with the start of the school year just days away.Education, health and care plans (EHCPs) set out the extra provision that children with high special educational needs and disabilities (Send) are legally entitled to. To decide whether to provide an EHCP, and what should go in it, councils must carry out an assessment, sourcing advice and information from an educational psychologist. Continue reading...
A forensic psychiatrist recalls her attempts to offer therapy to some of society’s most damaged and dangerous peopleDuring my first week as a newly qualified forensic psychiatrist at Broadmoor, I had to visit one of the wards. At the foot of a staircase, I stepped aside to let a group of patients pass. Another staff member joined me, and we waited as the men, mainly in their 40s and 50s, descended in silence, walking carefully, hands skimming or leaning on the bannister for support. One man caught my attention because he looked like a stock image of Father Christmas, with a big white beard. When they’d gone, my companion turned to me. “Do you know who that was?” I shook my head. “Peter Sutcliffe… you know, the Yorkshire Ripper.”I remember thinking, with an intake of breath, “So that’s him.” He was one of the hospital’s most notorious patients, that rarest of offenders, a serial killer. I felt shaken for a moment, and then it dawned on me that the shock was that there was nothing to see. He was just a man, not a monster. When detectives in Yorkshire were desperately trying to solve a series of brutal murders of local women, they interviewed Mr Sutcliffe seven times before he was identified as the suspect. They evidently saw nothing to mark him out from any other man. Continue reading...
Charles Foster’s search for the meaning of human life leads him and his son to become hedgehog-eating hunter-gatherers in a Derbyshire woodCharles Foster’s previous book, Being a Beast, is one of the oddest things I’ve read. In it, the author, a barrister, professor of law, part-time judge and former vet, attempts to live as a series of animals, often in the company of his charming and heavily dyslexic eight-year-old son, Tom. We see Foster eating worms and burrowing into the earth as a badger, swimming naked as an otter, foraging in bins as a fox. Now Foster is back with a follow-up, Being a Human, which acknowledges the charges of eccentricity and even insanity that were levelled at the last book.Foster’s new work continues the project of its predecessor, although this time, rather than seeking to understand the brains and bodies of animals, his question is closer to home: what does it mean to be human? He begins with a contentious argument: far from being a story of progress, the history of humanity is one of disenchantment and loss, one where we have severed our links with other species and the natural world more broadly and in which we live meagre, circumscribed lives. “Few of us have any idea what sort of creatures we are,” he says and embarks on a quest to find out. Continue reading...
It has shipped more than a billion doses, saved countless lives – and faced controversy over its safety and supply. Here, some of those who created the vaccine tell the story of their epic race against the virusIn December 2019, hospitals in Wuhan, China, reported that they were dealing with dozens of cases of pneumonia of an unknown cause. They soon identified the disease as being caused by a novel coronavirus.Teresa Lambe, associate professor, Jenner Institute My brother lived in China, so whenever there was an emerging or break pathogen there, I used to follow it. I remember thinking very early on that this was probably another influenza strain. Continue reading...
Martin Foley announces 64 new cases and says Victoria should not follow NSW on restrictionsThe Victorian health minister, Martin Foley, has dismissed suggestions that Victoria should follow New South Wales in easing some restrictions before the Covid outbreak appears to be under control, saying that easing restrictions is not a sign of hope if daily case numbers keep climbing.He also dismissed a suggestion made by some federal politicians that Australia’s healthcare system was not under strain. Continue reading...
All new cases are in Auckland, with 62 within the Pacific communityNew Zealand’s Covid-19 outbreak has worsened, with 82 new cases taking the total infected to 415.All of Saturday’s cases were in Auckland, with the Pacific community again over-represented with 62 cases. Continue reading...
Annual coronavirus vaccines could be a reality – but Australia is at least 18 months away from manufacturing its ownFrom September – more than nine months after it was approved for emergency use in the United States – the first doses of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine will arrive on Australian shores. The second mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid) vaccine against the coronavirus is a welcome boon amid a period of rolling lockdowns and record case numbers.But Australia’s notoriously sluggish vaccine rollout has been marred by the failure of a locally developed vaccine candidate, as well as changes to age-group recommendations for the AstraZeneca vaccine as a result of its link to rare but blood clots. Continue reading...
by Natalie Grover Science correspondent on (#5NVVF)
Research finds that when humans exercise, our bodies limit the energy used on basic metabolic functionsLosing weight through exercise appears to be more difficult for obese people, research suggests.Initially, researchers thought that the total energy we spend in a day is the sum of energy expended due to activity (ranging from light gardening to running a marathon) and energy used for basic functioning (what keeps us ticking even when we are doing nothing, such as immune function and wound healing). Continue reading...
Regardless of where the virus came from, there’s a growing risk of another Covid-like phenomenon occurringUS intelligence services have just briefed the president, Joe Biden, on the results of their 90-day investigation into the origins of Covid-19. They were asked to test two hypotheses: that it had a “natural” origin, or that it escaped from a lab. Preliminary reports suggest that their findings are inconclusive.Few scientists will be surprised by this, and yet the investigation has been the subject of intense – and intensely divisive – political and media interest over the past three months. The White House has promised more detail, which could be illuminating, especially if it reveals the genetic sequences of viruses related to the one that causes Covid-19, Sars-CoV-2, that were being studied in labs in Wuhan in 2019. But that won’t change the fact that two investigations down, we’re still in the dark as to how this pandemic started. Continue reading...
Napping is a symbol of laziness but it can improve our memory, creativity, empathy and problem-solvingNapping has long been a symbol of laziness, but actually it is an essential bodily function that improves our memory, creativity, empathy and problem-solving abilities.
Researchers measured pain responses in preterm babies during routine procedures in neonatal unitPremature babies appear to feel less pain during medical procedures when they are spoken to by their mothers, researchers have found.Babies that are born very early often have to spend time in neonatal intensive care units, and may need several painful clinical procedures. The situation can also mean lengthy separation from parents. Continue reading...
by Damian Carrington Environment editor on (#5NTYT)
Exclusive: research finds small rise in exposure to air pollution leads to higher risk of needing treatmentExposure to air pollution is linked to an increased severity of mental illness, according to the most comprehensive study of its kind.The research, involving 13,000 people in London, found that a relatively small increase in exposure to nitrogen dioxide led to a 32% increase in the risk of needing community-based treatment and an 18% increase in the risk of being admitted to hospital. Continue reading...
by Natalie Grover Science correspondent on (#5NTA2)
Some females found to have evolved with bright plumage, which seems to protect against male aggressionThey may zip around looking cute and sociable, but the world of hummingbirds is rife with aggression. Now it looks like some female hummingbirds have evolved to avoid this – by adopting the bright plumage of their male counterparts.US researchers captured more than 400 white-necked Jacobin hummingbirds in Panama. Continue reading...
Many countries with already high vaccination rates are considering offering people an additional coronavirus vaccine dose. But are booster shots necessary? And what about the issue of vaccine equity? The Guardian's Natalie Grover examines the costs and benefits of possibly introducing a third jab
Climate engineering sounds scary. But is coming whether we like it or not, this scientist saysThe realities of climate change are front-page news every day. Temperature records are being smashed. Wildfires are raging. There is no sign of things going back to “normal”. If anything, they will only get worse.Last year, when the planet was convulsing with the arrival of a pandemic, we pinned our hopes on technology – in the form of an mRNA vaccine – getting us out of our crisis. The vaccine was a technological intervention, injected into the arms of billions of people. Could we (should we?) look to technological solutions to our climate crisis, too? Continue reading...
Science | The Guardian