Science | The Guardian

The answer to today's polling puzzleEarlier today I asked you the following puzzle, about voters who give wrong answers to opinion polls because they embarrassed to admit to their preferences. Here it is again with a solution.The shy voter puzzle Continue reading...

Therapy involves patients talking with animated digital representations of voices they hearYou tried to tell yourself I wasn't real': what happens when people with acute psychosis meet the voices in their heads?Digital characters - avatars - could help people with psychosis hear voices less often and reduce the distress caused, research suggests.The therapy involves a series of guided sessions during which patients are able to have a conversation with an animated digital representation of their distressing voice. Continue reading...

My friend and colleague Stephan Harding, who has died aged 71, was a scientist, ecologist and teacher. At the heart of his work lay his deep feeling for the Earth and his belief in the planet as a living intelligence.As teacher and resident ecologist, he was one of the five founding faculty at Schumacher College, a progressive institution for ecological studies created in 1991 as part of Dartington Hall Trust in Totnes, Devon. Continue reading...

Prof Kelly Chibale says the world is failing to take advantage of African genetic diversity, and everyone could be losing outAfrica has the greatest variety in human genes anywhere on the planet but the world is failing to capitalise on it, according one of the continent's leading scientists, Prof Kelly Chibale, a man determined to change that. He believes the birthplace of humanity could hold the scientific key to its future.About 18% of the global population lives in Africa - a proportion set to rise over the next few decades - and it accounts for 20% of the global disease burden. But only 3% of clinical trials take place on the continent, and most of those in just two countries - South Africa and Egypt. Continue reading...

The perils of opinion pollsUPDATE: Solution now upToday's puzzle is about voters who are embarrassed to tell pollsters what they really think.In elections past, right wing parties like the Conservatives have often done better than opinion polls predict. One explanation is that shy Tory' voters lie to pollsters because they are embarrassed to admit their preferences in public. With the US polls neck and neck, the existence of shy Trump voters could decide the election. (As could shy Harris voters, of course.) Continue reading...

Team at Nottingham Trent University is investigating how chemotherapy in early life could damage nerve cellsTreatments that could help alleviate the chronic pain experienced by thousands of childhood cancer survivors are being investigated by scientists and researchers in the UK.About eight out of 10 children survive their cancer for 10 years or more but more than half of them report delayed and ongoing pain in adulthood. Continue reading...

The dark months make nature harder to access, but these simple activities will help you stay connected to itAs the clocks go back today, it's worth remembering that even though we may consider ourselves to be a nation of nature lovers, in a recent study people in the UK were found to be more disconnected from the natural world than most of our European neighbours. And the result is a decline not just in nature's wellbeing but in ours, too. And, though it's harder to get out and enjoy nature with longer nights and shorter days, the good news is that a new relationship with nature can start very simply, with eight everyday activities close to home. What matters is not the amount of time you spend in nature, but what you do with that time. Continue reading...

Research shows up to 80% in some communities missed getting full vaccine jabsPeople from ethnic minority groups in the UK are twice as likely to be under-vaccinated against Covid-19 compared with individuals who have a white British background.That is the striking finding of a study carried out by scientists at Health Data Research UK, which indicates that people from these groups are more likely to need hospital treatment or risk death from Covid because they lack full protection against the disease. Continue reading...

More than half the women in the UK over the age of 50 will suffer a fracture. But can more awareness - and some heavy lifting - help us beat many of the effects of osteoporosis?Imagine a room full of women. Imagine half of them breaking a bone. What will it be? Hip? Spine? Wrist? Neck? Imagine the plaster casts, the metal screws, the pain, the immobility, the grief - a third of those who break a hip will die within a year, according to the NHS. The Royal Osteoporosis Society says one in two women over 50 in the UK will get a fracture due to osteoporosis. And that just doesn't need to happen.Thanks to many factors, including neglect and gender bias in medicine, midlife women are not told about the simple preventive measures they can take to maintain healthy bones. Your bones are silent until they break. And then they scream," says Dr Vonda Wright, a campaigning American orthopaedic surgeon and the author of Fitness After 40: How to Stay Strong at Any Age. Continue reading...

British capital may be second only to New York in the number of at-risk languages spoken, says Ross PerlinLife in London has been mapped according to its health, wealth, land ownership, politics and transport at key points in its long history. But it is now hoped it can be charted in a way that tells a different story: the story of language itself.Ross Perlin, an academic who claimed a prestigious 25,000 book prize last week, now hopes to start work on a mapping project with British researchers that would reveal the whereabouts of the speakers of the capital's most at-risk languages. The map, they believe, would be a first step to saving them. Continue reading...

Unidentified member of team who returned in SpaceX capsule from ISS had been kept for observationA Nasa astronaut who was briefly hospitalised after returning from space has been released, the space agency said Saturday.Nasa's Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps, and Russia's Alexander Grebenkin, were flown to the hospital for additional medical checks on Friday after parachuting into the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida coast on board a SpaceX capsule. Continue reading...

Research and development is an investment, not a cost, and if the UK is to maintain its world-leading position it must commit to long-term fundingThe research sector has been a consistent, if sometimes undervalued, UK success story, with countless examples of breakthroughs that have transformed our understanding of the world and the way we live in it, and contributed significantly to our health and wealth.In Manchester last week we celebrated 20 years since the Nobel prize-winning discovery of graphene by researchers at the University of Manchester. Graphene has completely reshaped many research areas including materials science and condensed matter physics, reaching far beyond into life sciences, and now gradually but steadily expanding into industrial and consumer products. Continue reading...

Goosebumps, tears, a sense of solidarity... There's a name for that feeling, and its manifestations - from Swifties handing out friendship bracelets to strong responses to political messaging - can bring good and illI am about 20 minutes into my conversation with the psychological anthropologist Alan Fiske when he starts talking about a lost kitten. If you saw it outside, you would go pick it up and stop it getting run over by a truck, check if it's hungry, and make sure it's warm and safe," he says. Your heart goes out to it."I'm not an ardent cat lover, and I don't consider myself to be an especially soppy person, but his words send chills down my neck. I feel something open in my chest and my eyes start prickling. Continue reading...

Patients responded well in times of high environment demand' because sense of urgency led to hyperfocusA recent study has revealed that some people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) cope best during periods of high stress.Maggie Sibley, a clinical psychologist and psychiatry professor at the University of Washington and the study's lead author, initially set out to learn whether it is possible for adults to recover from ADHD. In an earlier study, published in 2022, she investigated a National Institute of Mental Health data set that tracked 600 patients with ADHD over 16 years, starting from childhood. Continue reading...

New exhibition shows how Perth museum traced Ta-Kr-Hb mummy's origin to Kingdom of Kush - modern day SudanAn ancient Egyptian sarcophagus has been a prized object in Perth Museum since it was donated to the Scottish collection in 1936. Now the face of the woman mummified and buried inside it about 2,500 years ago has been brought to life in a dramatic digital reconstruction.The curators and expert who recreated her believe she was a black woman from the kingdom of Kush, one of the largest empires in the ancient world, which took control of Upper Egypt and whose lands included modern-day Sudan. The reconstructed head and her sarcophagus will feature in the museum's forthcoming exhibition, Waters Rising, opening on 8 November. Continue reading...

As an airport limits goodbye cuddles to three minutes, here's a guide to different embraces, and their positive effectsBe it a brief squeeze or a bone-crushing bear hug, few can deny the comfort of a farewell cuddle from a person you love. Yet in an effort to keep traffic flowing at Dunedin international airport on New Zealand's South Island, bosses have decided to impose a three-minute cap on hugging in the airport's drop-off zone.Passengers wishing to engage in longer and fonder farewells have been instructed to use the car park instead. Continue reading...

Four-member mission splashed off Florida coast and one is under observation for an unspecified medical conditionA Nasa astronaut who just returned from the International Space Station has been hospitalized for an unspecified medical condition but remains stable, according to the US space agency.The four-member Crew-8 mission splashed down off the coast of Florida early on Friday after nearly eight months aboard the orbital laboratory. Continue reading...

Expert says any suggestion of Human Diversity Foundation accessing sensitive data could affect public trust in scienceConcerns have been raised about access to a scientific trove containing the genetic data and medical records of more than 500,000 people, after an investigation revealed that race scientists" appeared to claim to have obtained the data.A senior scientist has warned that the leadership responsible for the data held by UK Biobank have to be very careful with ensuring that correct processes are followed" around access to the information in order to maintain public confidence. Continue reading...

SpaceX capsule touches down carrying three Americans and a Russian who were scheduled to return in AugustFour astronauts have returned to Earth after a nearly eight-month space station stay extended by Boeing's capsule trouble and Hurricane Milton.A SpaceX capsule carrying the crew parachuted before dawn on Friday into the Gulf of Mexico, just off the Florida coast, after undocking from the International Space Station earlier this week. Continue reading...

Paintings include one depicting a scantily clad Phaedra, mythological queen of Athens, and her stepson HippolytusA tiny house featuring erotic frescoes is the latest discovery in the ruins of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. Experts say the exquisitely decorated abode, called the House of Phaedra after the mythological queen of Athens, sheds light on the changing architectural styles in the first century AD but is also further proof that the residents of Pompeii had an appetite for sensual art.The vividly coloured wall paintings include one depicting a sexual encounter between a satyr and a nymph on a bed and one of a scantily clad Phaedra and her stepson Hippolytus, whom, according to Greek legend, she accused of rape after he spurned her advances. Another fresco features gods presumed to be Venus and Adonis. Continue reading...

Open letter by 82 laureates commends Harris and calls Trump a potential threat to progress on climate crisisMore than 80 Nobel prize winners have endorsed Kamala Harris for the presidency, warning that Donald Trump would jeopardize any advancements in our standards of living" given his earlier proposals for enormous cuts to science funding.In an open letter, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, 82 Nobel prize winners from the US in the fields of physics, chemistry, economics and medicine, said this is the most consequential presidential election in a long time, perhaps ever, for the future of science and the United States". Continue reading...

Many drugs in development aim to delay, slow or reverse symptoms, but which are causing the biggest stir?This week England's health spending watchdog rejected a new Alzheimer's drug - the second such drug it has turned down this year.Both donanemab and lecanemab were approved by the UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), yet the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) said their benefits were too small to justify their costs, while there have also been concerns over potential side-effects - such as brain swelling and bleeding. Continue reading...

Four astronauts have returned to Earth after a nearly eight-month space station stay extended by Boeing's capsule trouble and Hurricane Milton. A SpaceX capsule carrying the crew parachuted before dawn on Friday into the Gulf of Mexico, just off the Florida coast, after undocking from the International Space Station this week. The three Americans and one Russian should have been back two months ago, but their homecoming was stalled by problems with Boeing's new Starliner astronaut capsule, which came back empty in September because of safety concerns. Hurricane Milton then interfered, followed by a further two weeks of high wind and rough seas

Subtle temperature difference between ocean skin' and water beneath found to drive more CO absorptionA sliver of cool surface water less than 2mm deep helps oceans absorb carbon dioxide, a British-led team of scientists has established after months of voyages across the Atlantic painstakingly measuring gas and temperature levels.The subtle difference in temperature between the ocean skin" and the layer of water beneath it creates an interface that leads to more CO being taken in, the scientists observed. Continue reading...

The kaleidoscopic world and polymathic interests of the great neurologist brought to life in his correspondenceIn 1960, Oliver Sacks, a 27-year-old University of Oxford graduate, arrived in San Francisco by Greyhound bus. Born in Cricklewood, London, Sacks spent the better part of his 20s training to be a doctor, but came to feel that English academic medicine was stifling and stratified. A tight and tedious" professional ladder, he thought, was the only one available to aspiring neurologists like him.A young queer man with a growing interest in motorcycle leather, Sacks had other reasons to leave. The revelation of his sexuality had caused a family rift: his mother felt it made him an abomination". And so he looked for escape across the Atlantic. America, for him, was the wide open west of Ansel Adams photographs; California was Steinbeck's Cannery Row. The new world promised space, freedom, interstices in which I could live and work". This is how we meet Oliver Sacks in Letters: as an immigrant undertaking an internship at Mount Zion hospital, the first step in a career on US soil that would span another five decades. Continue reading...

Harry Shukman of the anti-racism group Hope Not Hate went undercover to expose how some of the wealthiest and most powerful people see race. He tells Michael Safi what he found

Tests will soon be available by prescription, but they are only recommended for people in close contact with animalsAs the number of people infected with bird flu rises in the US, continued limits on testing may pose a problem as these cases crop up.Commercial labs are now developing tests that will be available by prescription, but the tests will still be recommended only for people in close contact with animals and animal products - even as cases in Missouri remain a mystery and wild bird migration and extreme heat may increase spillover opportunities, officials say. Continue reading...

Kelly and Zach Weinersmith's book overturns Elon Musk's claim that we could live on the red planet within years while stressing the good reasons to pursue space settlementA book debunking Elon Musk's claims that humans could live on Mars in the near future has won the 25,000 Royal Society Trivedi science book prize.A City on Mars by American couple Kelly and Zach Weinersmith was announced as the winning book at a ceremony at the Royal Society in London on Thursday evening.A City on Mars by Dr. Kelly Weinersmith & Zach Weinersmith (Penguin Books Ltd, 25). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply. Continue reading...

Official hails discovery of great significance' on Port Island, with remains of as yet unknown species to go on display in shopping district on FridayHong Kong officials say they have discovered dinosaur fossils in the city for the first time, on a remote and uninhabited island.The fossils were part of a large dinosaur from the Cretaceous period, about 145m to 66m years ago, the government said in a statement. They will need to conduct further studies to confirm the species of the dinosaur. Continue reading...

Those who have a stroke are 35% less likely to have another if drugs given earlier than they are now, research findsPeople with irregular heartbeats who have a stroke are 35% less likely to have a second stroke if they are given blood-thinning drugs earlier than currently recommended, research has found.There are more than 1.6 million people in the UK with atrial fibrillation - an irregular heartbeat. The condition can lead to a clot forming inside the heart, which can travel to the brain, blocking the blood supply and causing a stroke. Continue reading...

News of the 20m scheme comes as new drug for Alzheimer's was rejected for use on NHS in EnglandTens of thousands of dementia patients are to be enrolled in clinical trials designed to dramatically speed up the hunt for a cure, leading scientists have announced, as a second treatment was rejected for use on the NHS.Dementia presents a rapidly growing threat to health and social care services, with soaring numbers of people affected. But despite the urgent need for cheap and effective drugs to treat the condition, only 61 patients took part in trials in the UK in 2021-22. Continue reading...

With less than two weeks until the US election, Madeleine Finlay speaks to climate activist and author Bill McKibben to find out what a win for Donald Trump could mean for the environment and the world's climate goalsIf Trump wins the election, this is what's at stakeSupport the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod Continue reading...

Superhuman' technology known as Aire can detect potential problems doctors cannot see from ECG resultsThe NHS in England is to trial a superhuman" artificial intelligence tool that predicts a patient's risk of disease and dying early.The new technology, known as AI-ECG risk estimation, or Aire, is trained to read the results of electrocardiogram (ECG) tests, which record the electrical activity of the heart and are used to check for problems. Continue reading...

Researchers say findings differ from previous theories that words are understood one by oneWhether it is news headlines or WhatsApp messages, modern humans are inundated with short pieces of text. Now researchers say they have unpicked how we get their gist in a single glance.Prof Liina Pylkkanen, co-author of the study from New York University, said most theories of language processing assume words are understood one by one, in sequence, before being combined to yield the meaning of the whole sentence. Continue reading...

Surprising' finding by Australian-led study is first recorded instance of one antibiotic causing resistance to another in a different classThe rise of an almost untreatable superbug has been linked to a common antibiotic, an Australian-led study has found.The study - published in Nature - found that rifaximin, an antibiotic used to treat liver disease, causes resistance to another antibiotic, daptomycin. Continue reading...

Researchers hope to recreate entire bodies of ancient creatures using paleo-inspired roboticsA robotic Tyrannosaurus rex might seem best placed in a Jurassic horror movie but researchers say machines based on extinct animals could help shed light on evolution.Scientists say the nascent field of paleo-inspired robotics" can bring fossils to life and help researchers explore how changes in anatomy have affected the way animals move, their speed, and how much energy they use. Continue reading...

Cases of bonebreak fever' are on the rise, mostly in Latin America, Africa and south-east Asia. But incidences in Europe and the US are also being recorded - with an estimated 4 billion people at risk worldwideThe fatigue was so bad I couldn't stand, and that's terrible when you need to take care of a child, right? My head hurt, my eyes hurt - I couldn't keep them open for long," remembers Ana Luisa Braga.The 38-year-old, a social worker and mother of a three-year-old, from Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais state in Brazil, fell ill with dengue fever in March. Continue reading...

Myths about the madness of crowds, long propagated by politicians and the establishment, have been overturned by new researchI don't expect measured analysis from Suella Braverman, but even so I was taken aback this time last year when I heard that she had described the Palestine solidarity demos as hate marches". Earlier that week I had walked with my friends - some Jewish like me, some not - in a crowd of 500,000 others over Waterloo Bridge, and looked west down the Thames towards parliament, as a British Muslim girl of about eight years old led chants through a loudhailer: Gaza, Gaza, don't you cry / We will never let you die."In many years of attending and reporting on protests, rallies, general strikes and riots, I have rarely experienced more orderly, peaceful, family-oriented mass gatherings than these demonstrations. Continue reading...

Jab could bring huge health and economic benefits as virus often spreads rapidly and can be seriousDoctors have begun trialling the world's first mRNA vaccine against the vomiting bug norovirus in the hope the jab could bring huge health and economic benefits.Norovirus causes sickness and diarrhoea and can spread very rapidly between people who are in close contact, with outbreaks often occurring in hospitals, care homes, schools and nurseries. Continue reading...

The US sociologist's study of psychoactive fungi to treat little-known medical conditions such as cluster headaches is well researched and wide-rangingOf all the symptoms with which illness acquaints us, pain is famously the most difficult to quantify. Both a somatic and psychic experience, pain is a chameleon and stubbornly private. As Virginia Woolf observes in her essay On Being Ill, how can prose capture the nature of this monster, this body, this miracle, its pain without slipping into mysticism"?If pain is challenging for a writer, it is even more so for a doctor. Is a patient who is presenting with pain in as much discomfort and distress as they say they are? And, if so, how to treat them? And what if they are a malingerer or a hysteric and by alleviating their symptoms you reinforce their psychopathology? Continue reading...

Peter White, Trudie Chalder and Michael Sharpe, and Dr Jake Hollis, respond to an article by George MonbiotWe agree with George Monbiot that the death of Maeve Boothby O'Neill was tragic and should have been avoided. Unfortunately, Monbiot draws generalisations from her sad death that are based on a view of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) that is itself outdated (Maeve Boothby O'Neill died because of a discredited view of ME. How was this allowed to happen?, 18 October).Monbiot suggests such illnesses are generally thought of as either physiological or psychological. This is an outdated dualistic view of any illness, let alone ME/CFS. It has been shown that many such illnesses are the result of a dynamic interaction between biological, psychological and social mechanisms. Just one example of our own research showed the important role of certain viruses in triggering the illness. Continue reading...

People with working sense of smell sniff more than those with anosmia, with possible implications for healthPeople born without a sense of smell breathe differently to those with one, researchers have found, which could help explain why problems with odour perception are associated with a host of health issues.While some have dismissed the sense of smell as unimportant - Charles Darwin said it was of extremely slight service" to humans - studies have associated its loss with depression, feelings of personal isolation and even an increased risk of early death. Continue reading...

Madeleine Finlay hears from Ted Schultz, curator of ants at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, about his recent study into the origins of fungi farming in ants. He tells Madeleine about the incredibly complex way that ants cultivate and protect their fungi gardens, and how the asteroid that hit Earth 66 million years ago could have kickstarted it allSupport the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod Continue reading...

Using cutting-edge methods, Alexandra Morton-Hayward is cracking the secrets of ancient brains - even as hers betrays herAlexandra Morton-Hayward, a 35-year-old mortician turned molecular palaeontologist, had been behind the wheel of her rented Vauxhall for five hours, motoring across three countries, when a torrential storm broke loose on the plains of Belgium. Her wipers pulsed at full speed as the green fields of Flanders turned a blurry grey. Behind her sat a small, black picnic cooler. Within 24 hours, it would be full of human brains - not modern specimens, but brains that had contemplated this landscape as far back as the middle ages and had, miraculously, remained intact.For centuries, archaeologists have been perplexed by discoveries of ancient skeletons devoid of all soft tissue, except what Morton-Hayward cheerfully described as just a brain rattling around in a skull". At Oxford, where she is a doctoral candidate, she has gathered the world's largest collection of ancient brains, some as old as 8,000 years. Additionally, after poring over centuries of scientific literature, she has tallied a staggering catalogue of cases - more than 4,400 preserved brains as old as 12,000 years. Using advanced technologies such as mass spectrometry and particle accelerators, she is leading a new effort to reveal the molecular secrets that have enabled some human brains to survive longer than Stonehenge or the Great Pyramid of Giza. Continue reading...

Findings from phase two trial suggest patients could receive treatment without having to attend a clinicPeople with major depression could alleviate their symptoms by self-administering a form of electrical brain stimulation at home, according to a clinical trial of the therapy.Patients who took a 10-week course of the treatment were about twice as likely to see their depression go into remission than those in a control group who performed the same procedure with the current switched off. Continue reading...

I have unbridled lust when faced with a buffet - as do many others. But penalties for overfilling our plates are only one possible answer ...Should you be penalised for having eyes bigger than your belly? A Cornish pub is trying it out: Mark Graham, the landlord of the Star Inn, now charges 2.40 a person for buffet excess leftovers". A few spuds is obviously no problem," Graham told a customer who complained, but said that buffet behaviour was out of control, citing a plate piled so high you could put a ladder and a flag on top of it".I can believe it. I lose my mind faced with a buffet, although I usually clean my plate (gravely regretting my choices in the hours that follow). Are we our best selves as we take up tongs in the glow of the heating lamps? That depends which side of the chafing dish you are standing on. Our hunter-gatherer instincts are capable of making any food and beverage professional quake; call it Homo Harvester. Continue reading...

Delegates from 196 countries are discussing progress in preserving biodiversity. So what are the sticking points?Every two years, leaders from around the world gather to discuss the state of life on Earth, negotiating agreements to preserve biodiversity and stop the destruction of nature. This week, representatives of 196 countries are gathering in Cali, Colombia, for the 16th UN Conference of the Parties summit (Cop16).It is the first biodiversity-focused meeting since 2022, when governments struck a historic deal to halt the destruction of ecosystems. Scientists, Indigenous communities, business representatives and environment ministers from nearly 200 countries will discuss progress towards the targets and negotiate how they will be monitored. Here are the main things to look out for during the summit.Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow the biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on X for all the latest news and features Continue reading...

Project examines how switch to winter time affects wellbeing - either positive or negative - and time perceptionDoes the prospect of darker evenings make you feel gloomy, or will you relish the extra hour in bed for one morning? Scientists are launching a study to better understand how the annual switch back to winter time affects people's wellbeing and time perception - and they need your help.In the UK, the clocks are due to go back at 2am on Sunday 27 October. Previous studies have largely focused on the negative effects of the spring transition to daylight saving time (DST) on people's sleep, cognitive performance and propensity to accidents, but less is known about the impact of the autumn change - or how these biannual events affect our perception of the passage of time. Continue reading...

Everyone feels like a shrinking violet now and then, but it needn't hold you back. Experts share their tips for speaking out, socialising and leaving timidity behindWhen Laura, 34, was growing up in a genteel neighbourhood in Edinburgh, her parents taught her that the worst thing a person could do was make a show of themselves. By that, they meant wearing bright colours, laughing or talking loudly; doing anything at all to attract attention."Although she deplored their attitude, Laura finds she has inherited their mindset. The other Sunday, I had to have a difficult conversation with a neighbour about their incessantly barking dog. They ended up shouting at me and I wanted the earth to swallow me up. There were other people around and I'm sure they were all wondering what I had done to create this scene. I can't stop replaying it in my mind." Continue reading...

Space agency has expanded its diplomatic reach in recent months, signing 12 of 45 signatories since JanuaryIt was a simple pledge made amid the excitement of a landmark moment in space exploration: We go together," Bill Nelson, the head of Nasa, promised the world as the agency prepared to launch Artemis 1, its first moon-capable rocket in more than half a century.Now, nearly two years on from that successful uncrewed mission, and as the US - despite delays - edges ever closer to placing humans on the lunar surface for the first time since 1972, the resonance of Nelson's message has become clear. Continue reading...