China has sent into space the core module of its space station at the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in the southern province of Hainan, kicking off a series of key launch missions with one of the goals to create a national space laboratory.
Analysis of bones from sixth to 16th centuries reveals the disease was 10 times more prevalent than expectedIt was a time when battles, plagues and ghastly accidents caused many a misery, but now research suggests the inhabitants of medieval Britain were no strangers to another tribulation: cancer.According to Cancer Research UK about 50% of people in the UK born after 1960 will receive a diagnosis of cancer during their lifetime. However, such diseases were thought to be relatively rare in medieval times. Continue reading...
Oliver Burkeman’s long read pitches philosophical readers against the more scientifically minded onesI read the online version of Oliver Burkeman’s long read that raises the question of whether free will is an illusion, and shortly afterwards read the same article again in print (The clockwork universe, Journal, 27 April). I was surprised when I realised that the brief reference to quantum physics online was missing in the printed version. Was it simply a matter of space, or was it left out because it made the whole argument too complicated? Either way, its omission was unfortunate.Most physicists would not regard the events in our universe as deterministic, or clockwork if you insist; they are in fact considered probabilistic and would leave Laplace’s demon scratching its head when attempting to make any long-term predictions. Quantum theory is fundamental to our understanding of reality, and those “tiny fluctuations” that the article mentions are an essential part of our reality. They allow the stars to shine, for instance. The argument for determinism implies a first mover, the unmoved mover, as Thomas Aquinas put it. Perhaps the quantum universe injects a multiplicity of unmoved movers, all that is needed to disrupt a predictable, in theory at least, deterministic universe and restore the possibility of free will.
Dr Dominic Salisbury says poor-quality evidence lies behind some treatments such as CBTIn reviewing the possible role of psychology in treating long Covid (Long Covid is very far from ‘all in the mind’ – but psychology can still help us treat it, 27 April), Dr Carmine Pariante misrepresents why many ME/chronic fatigue syndrome patients remain sceptical about psychological interventions such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). It is not because we deny the important overlap between mental and physical illness, but rather because these interventions are offered as treatments based on poor-quality evidence of short-term marginal improvements in some patients.No cancer patient is offered psychotherapeutic interventions as treatment; rather, these therapies play a supportive role for patients who require them. In contrast, CBT has been recommended as a first-line treatment for ME/CFS for more than a decade. Indeed, the dominance of the biopsychosocial model of ME/CFS – with its emphasis on the roles of thoughts and behaviour, rather than pathology – is one of the reasons why long Covid patients are now facing such limited options in clinics.
Archaeologists studying Warsaw’s national collection of mummies expected to uncover a male priestPolish researchers examining an ancient Egyptian mummy that they expected to be a male priest were surprised when X-rays and computer tests revealed instead that it was a mummy of a woman who had been seven months pregnant.The researchers said on Thursday it was the world’s first known case of such a well-preserved ancient mummy of a pregnant woman. Continue reading...
Astronaut and pilot of the command module Columbia during 1969’s Apollo 11 missionOn 20 July 1969, Michael Collins, who has died aged 90, became the most solitary human in the universe – even if he derided that categorisation as “phony philosophy”. He orbited the moon alone, inside Apollo 11’s command module Columbia, and out of touch with ground control for 48 minutes on each orbit. Meanwhile, and more famously, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were becoming the first men to set foot on that rock, some 240,000 miles away from Earth.As the command module pilot, on $17,000 a year, Collins was, he later wrote half-jokingly, “the navigator, the guidance and control expert, the base-camp operator, the owner of the leaky plumbing – all the things I was least interested in doing”. He was also, thought Aldrin, probably Nasa’s best-trained command module pilot. Continue reading...
China has successfullylaunched the first moduleof its new space station, part of an ambitiousplan for Beijing to have a permanenthuman presence in space. The Tianhe, or Heavenly Harmony, unmanned core module, launched fromWenchang in China’s Hainan province, is expectedto become fully operational in 2022, with about 10 more missions requiredto launch and assemble parts
Hormones, steroids and antibiotics intended for use on dogs, horses, pigeons and farm animals intercepted by officialsThe government has been urged to open an investigation into illegal imports of veterinary drugs, after the number seized at the UK border increased dramatically last year.The Veterinary Medicines Directorate, the executive agency that regulates animal drugs, seized more than 40 different illegal medicines in the year to March 2021, compared with just one in 2019, one in 2018 and three in 2017. Continue reading...
Impact is on par with adult punch and larvae can move fast enough to capture prey, researchers observedThere’s a small, iridescent crustacean you might have heard of: its powerful punch can crack holes in aquarium glass and be deployed at the speed of a bullet. These aggressive critters – called mantis shrimp – can also be trigger happy, keen to pummel prey, predators and even their own kind if the need arises.So how old do offspring have to be to unleash blows? Pretty young it turns out. Mantis shrimp larvae can bludgeon their dinner nine to 15 days after hatching, researchers have found. Continue reading...
The space station is expected to become fully operational in 2022 after about 10 missions to bring up more parts and assemble them in orbitChina has launched the first module of its new space station, a milestone in Beijing’s ambitious plan to place a permanent human presence in space.The Tianhe or “Heavenly Harmony” unmanned core module, containing living quarters for three crew, was launched from Wenchang in China’s Hainan province on a Long-March 5B rocket on Thursday. Continue reading...
by Presented by Linda Geddes and produced by Madelein on (#5H6WH)
Over her career, first as a forester and then as a professor of forest ecology, Suzanne Simard has been uncovering the hidden fungal networks that connect trees and allow them to send signals and share resources. Speaking to Suzanne about her new book, Finding the Mother Tree, Linda Geddes discovers how these underground webs allow plants to cooperate and communicate with each other Continue reading...
Collins, known as the ‘forgotten astronaut’, kept command module flying while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moonAmerican astronaut Michael Collins, who was part of the Apollo 11 original moon landing crew and kept the command module flying while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon, has died at the age of 90, his family said on Wednesday.Collins had cancer. He was sometimes known as the “forgotten astronaut” because he didn’t get to land on the moon, while Armstrong and Aldrin became household names. Continue reading...
Michael Collins, who was part of the Apollo 11 moon landing crew and kept the command module flying while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon, has died at the age of 90, his family said on Wednesday. He was sometimes known as the 'forgotten astronaut' because he did not get to land on the moon, while Armstrong and Aldrin became household names. But his role in the mission in 1969 was just as crucial and his task to keep the module in lunar orbit as his crewmates departed in the Eagle lander and then returned safely was just as crucial, nerve-racking and exciting for the mission as a whole.
Latest updates: Matt Hancock says UK has secured 60m doses of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to be used for booster shots later this year. This live blog is now closed – please follow the global live blog for Covid updates
Discovery could accelerate development of easy-to-use treatments for mental health conditionsResearchers have identified a psychedelic that doesn’t trigger hallucinations, a key discovery that could allow scientists to accelerate the development of easy-to-use treatments for mental health and neurological conditions.Researchers are racing to harness the therapeutic potential of psychedelics for poorly treated conditions such as depression and PTSD. While antipsychotics typically work by altering brain chemistry, psychedelics appear to promote neural plasticity, essentially allowing the brain to rewire itself. Continue reading...
Sticky property of bacteria used to create microbe nets that can capture microplastics in water to form a recyclable blobMicrobiologists have devised a sustainable way to remove polluting microplastics from the environment – and they want to use bacteria to do the job.Bacteria naturally tend to group together and stick to surfaces, and this creates an adhesive substance called “biofilm” – we see it every morning when brushing our teeth and getting rid of dental plaque, for example. Researchers at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) want to use this sticky bacteria property and create tape-like microbe nets that can capture microplastics in polluted water to form an easily disposable and recyclable blob. Continue reading...
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Covid-19 outbreak in Pacific nation has forced lockdowns across the country, after the island nation avoided transmission for a yearFijian health officials are bracing for a “tsunami” of Covid-19 cases, after the Indian variant was detected in the Pacific nation this week, with lockdowns announced in an attempt to stem the outbreak.The Pacific country had largely managed to avoid community transmission over the course of the pandemic, before a cluster emerged this month linked to a quarantine facility, and exacerbated after a woman with the virus attended a funeral with 500 people. Continue reading...
As a specialist in biological communication between the body and brain, I know it can be hard to draw a line between the twoAs the UK nears what will hopefully be the end of lockdowns and high death tolls, our doctors and nurses are left to deal with a worrying secondary aspect of the pandemic in the shape of long Covid. There are more than 1 million people with long Covid in the UK alone, amounting to a human and medical emergency, with potentially a huge impact on society and the workforce. A clinical picture is emerging, with many patients reporting similar symptoms including shortness of breath, difficulty in concentration, body aches, persistent fatigue and other symptoms. The illness has been recognised in the US, Europe and elsewhere. Moreover, long Covid has parallels with CFS/ME, a debilitating condition that has similar symptoms.Unfortunately, in the face of all this suffering, advances in science and clinical care are being jeopardised by an antiquated and unhelpful debate on whether these symptoms are “in the mind”, as if they were a fantasy or a dream. Of course, long Covid and CFS/ME symptoms are not in the mind. No symptoms are. Unfortunately some people with CFS/ME or, more recently long Covid, have been dismissed by health professionals. Some patients might have felt not taken seriously by their doctor while others might have lost the opportunity to benefit from a broader, psychosocial approach. Continue reading...
by Presented by Patrick Greenfield and produced by Ma on (#5H41C)
Worldwide, we drink around 2bn cups of coffee every day. But as coffee plants come under pressure from the climate crisis, sustaining this habit will be increasingly challenging. Recently, a new study provided a glimmer of hope: a climate-resistant coffee plant just as tasty as arabica. Patrick Greenfield asks Dr Aaron Davis about his work tracking it down, and speaks to Dr Matthew Reynolds about developing climate-resistant crops Continue reading...
A growing chorus of scientists and philosophers argue that free will does not exist. Could they be right?Towards the end of a conversation dwelling on some of the deepest metaphysical puzzles regarding the nature of human existence, the philosopher Galen Strawson paused, then asked me: “Have you spoken to anyone else yet who’s received weird email?” He navigated to a file on his computer and began reading from the alarming messages he and several other scholars had received over the past few years. Some were plaintive, others abusive, but all were fiercely accusatory. “Last year you all played a part in destroying my life,” one person wrote. “I lost everything because of you – my son, my partner, my job, my home, my mental health. All because of you, you told me I had no control, how I was not responsible for anything I do, how my beautiful six-year-old son was not responsible for what he did … Goodbye, and good luck with the rest of your cancerous, evil, pathetic existence.” “Rot in your own shit Galen,” read another note, sent in early 2015. “Your wife, your kids your friends, you have smeared all there [sic] achievements you utter fucking prick,” wrote the same person, who subsequently warned: “I’m going to fuck you up.” And then, days later, under the subject line “Hello”: “I’m coming for you.” “This was one where we had to involve the police,” Strawson said. Thereafter, the violent threats ceased.It isn’t unheard of for philosophers to receive death threats. The Australian ethicist Peter Singer, for example, has received many, in response to his argument that, in highly exceptional circumstances, it might be morally justifiable to kill newborn babies with severe disabilities. But Strawson, like others on the receiving end of this particular wave of abuse, had merely expressed a longstanding position in an ancient debate that strikes many as the ultimate in “armchair philosophy”, wholly detached from the emotive entanglements of real life. They all deny that human beings possess free will. They argue that our choices are determined by forces beyond our ultimate control – perhaps even predetermined all the way back to the big bang – and that therefore nobody is ever wholly responsible for their actions. Reading back over the emails, Strawson, who gives the impression of someone far more forgiving of other people’s flaws than of his own, found himself empathising with his harassers’ distress. “I think for these people it’s just an existential catastrophe,” he said. “And I think I can see why.” Continue reading...
From Sydney’s Bondi Beach, to Istanbul’s Bosphorus and the mountains of Caracas in Venezuela, the first supermoon of 2021 has been seen across the globe. A supermoon is a name given to a full moon that occurs when the moon is closest to the Earth. According at NASA, this year's super moon has been called a 'pink' super moon, as it appears in April and named after an American plant, pink phlox, that blooms in spring
Group hits out at oil and gas firm’s sponsorship of Our Future Planet exhibition as ‘appalling’Organisers of the school strike movement, in which tens of thousands of young people have taken to the streets to demand urgent climate action, are calling for a boycott of an exhibition at the Science Museum sponsored by Shell.The group described the museum’s decision to have the fossil fuel company as a sponsor of its Our Future Planet exhibition in London as “appalling” and called for the museum to cancel the deal or face a widespread boycott. Continue reading...
Many people have spent more time at home due to the pandemic, creating opportunity for some, to do more stargazing. Readers share their astrophotographyThis photo of the Whirlpool galaxy was taken from my backyard in Commack, New York, over the course of two nights in mid January, 2021. Stargazing has helped me throughout the pandemic because it gave me something to do during the many months I was out of school and home during the summer. I used my Orion 150mm telescope and a dedicated astrophotography camera to take many long exposure images which are stacked together and edited to get the image that you see here. My sighting made me even more curious about the universe and everything that’s in it. It made me realise how small we are when you consider just how large these objects are. Brandon Berkoff, 15, Commack, New York Continue reading...
As the online giant devotes vast resources to instantly gratify our shopping desires, it becomes increasingly hard to resist“Libidinal” is just about the last word that comes to mind when gazing upon Amazon’s rather anonymous warehouse in Bromley-by-Bow. If you want to understand why a significant fraction of all the things bought and sold in greater London in the course of any given day flows through this one building, though, libido is a particularly useful concept to have at hand.The idea, as developed by a line of psychoanalytical thinkers going all the way back to Freud, refers to the rhythms of desire, its frustration and release. Nothing else quite captures what’s going on in the circuit that runs straight through this building, fusing Amazon’s familiar, consumer-facing website to factories on the other side of the world. This is because, like some giant analogue of our response to desire, the entire sprawling apparatus is dedicated to nothing other than the elimination of friction. Continue reading...
Nasa's Ingenuity helicopter stretched its rotors on Sunday 25 April, taking its third flight on Mars.The flight was Nasa's most ambitious to date, with Ingenuity rising to a height of five metres and then accelerating horizontally for 50 metres before returning to its take-off point.
With the moon near the closest point in its orbit to Earth, a spectacular sight should be in storeThis week, take a moment to enjoy the full moon. For the next three nights, our natural satellite will appear more or less fully illuminated. Catch it rising above the horizon if you can, it’s a beautiful moment to witness. Find a clear eastern view, and settle yourself at least five minutes before the time.On Monday night, from London, moonrise takes place at 19:28 BST. On Tuesday, it is at 20:59 BST, and on Wednesday 22:31 BST. On each of these nights, roughly 98% of the moon’s surface will be illuminated from Earth. From Sydney, moonrise times are 16:57 AEST on 26 April, 17:33 AEST on 27 April and 18:13 AEST on 28 April. Continue reading...
Cancer researcher who sought to make the public case for science as a Labour MPIan Gibson, who has died aged 82 of pancreatic cancer, had a considerable reputation as a cancer researcher before seeking a political career in order to try to advance the cause of science in public life. He was elected for the first time in 1997, aged 58, as the Labour MP for Norwich North and spent the ensuing 12 years in an energetic pursuit of this case, while also propounding his strongly held convictions on a wide range of issues about health and education.He was a popular, charismatic man who won the influential chairmanship of the Commons select committee on science and technology in 2001, despite the opposition of his own party whips. Continue reading...
During the pandemic, I have gone from uttering a few words of encouragement to myself to full-blown arguments. I’m not the only one. I asked psychologists what purpose this serves
Deep Time project investigated how a lack of external contact would affect sense of time – and two thirds wanted to stay longerFifteen people have emerged from a cave in south-west France after 40 days underground in an experiment to see how the absence of clocks, daylight and external communications would affect their sense of time.With big smiles on their pale faces, they left their voluntary isolation in the Lombrives cave to a round of applause and basked in the light while wearing special glasses to protect their eyes after so long in the dark. Continue reading...
Companies may seek to dismantle prejudice among their employees – but psychologists question whether these courses effect lasting changeHere’s a fact that cannot be disputed: if your name is James or Emily, you will find it easier to get a job than someone called Tariq or Adeola. Between November 2016 and December 2017, researchers sent out fake CVs and cover letters for 3,200 positions. Despite demonstrating exactly the same qualifications and experience, the “applicants” with common Pakistani or Nigerian names needed to send out 60% more applications to receive the same number of callbacks as applicants with more stereotypically British names.Some of the people who had unfairly rejected Tariq or Adeola will have been overtly racist, and so deliberately screened people based on their ethnicity. According to a large body of psychological research, however, many will have also reacted with an implicit bias, without even being aware of the assumptions they were making. Continue reading...
Celestial event due to take place shortly before sunset on Tuesday and will be visible until next morningA pink supermoon is set to brighten the night skies over the UK next week, though there will not be any noticeable difference in colour, as the name might suggest.The full moon in April is also known as the “pink moon” as it is named after pink flowers, known as phlox, which bloom in the springtime. Continue reading...
Marine archaeologist unearths evidence suggesting biblical king’s riches were based on voyages he funded with Phoenician alliesKing Solomon is venerated in Judaism and Christianity for his wisdom and in Islam as a prophet, but the fabled ruler is one of the Bible’s great unsolved mysteries.Archaeologists have struggled in vain to find conclusive proof that he actually existed. With no inscriptions or remnants of the magnificent palace and temple he is supposed to have built in Jerusalem 3,000 years ago, the Israelite king has sunk into the realm of myth. Continue reading...
The government has hit both its self-imposed targets so far. How will it go the rest of the way?More than half of the UK population has now received at least a first dose of vaccine against Covid-19. By Friday evening 33,388,637 people had received one of the Pfizer, AstraZeneca or Moderna vaccines. Here’s how it was done, and what is still left to do. Continue reading...