What would it have been like to be inside the Big Bang? We meet the ultra-hi-tech art duo who are using light, sound and sub-atomic astro data to recreate the biggest explosion ever‘Step into the heart of the Big Bang,” says the advert for Halo, a walk-in, 360-degree, audiovisual installation about to open in Brighton. Come off it, I want to retort. You couldn’t “step” into the Big Bang without first travelling 13.8 billion years back in time and then being extremely miniaturised. After all, the universe was, according to one estimate, just 17cm in diameter at its inception.What’s more, it was dark inside the Big Bang. In fact, there was no light at all. True, if you stuck around for 380,000 years, according to Nasa, you might have been able to see something because that was when free electrons met up with nuclei and created neutral atoms that would have allowed light to pass through. But who has 380,000 years to hang around waiting in the dark? Continue reading...

Study analysing brain scans of people finds psychedelic drug lowers barriers that constrain thoughtsWhen Aldous Huxley emerged from a mescaline trip that veered from an obsession with the folds in his trousers to wonder at the “miraculous” tubularity of the bamboo legs on his garden chairs, he offered an opinion on how the drug worked.Writing in The Doors of Perception, his 1954 book that took its name from a William Blake poem, Huxley declared that the psychedelic “lowers the efficiency of the brain as an instrument for focusing the mind on the problems of life”. Continue reading...

We are raiding the Audio Long Reads archives and bringing you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors.This week, from 2017: Luxembourg has shown how far a tiny country can go by serving the needs of global capitalism. Now it has set its sights on outer space. By Atossa Araxia Abrahamian Continue reading...

From Robert Burton’s 17th-century Anatomy of Melancholy to new insights from Ed Bullmore, these are welcome guides to one of the loneliest experiences

The world-first system can allow anyone to check if reefs known to be under heat stress have started to bleachScientists have launched a world-first system to detect in almost real time the bleaching of the planet’s coral reefs that are under severe threat from global heating.The developers of the new tool, which has been four years in the making, claim it can allow anyone to check if reefs known to be under heat stress have actually started to bleach. Continue reading...

Authorities impose mask-wearing and limit gatherings after outbreak spreads to half of island’s counties

The new division will comprise army, navy and air force officers and be based at RAAF headquarters in CanberraAustralia is assembling a new space division comprising military officers from the army, navy and air force to better protect satellites from attack.The space division will be established within the Royal Australian Air Force headquarters in Canberra early next year. Continue reading...

Pandemic fatigue and economic woes blamed for lack of action despite rapid rise in number of cases

The cuckoopint, or Arum maculatum, gives off a pungent scent to attract and trap small pollinators before releasing them

Want a booster shot of knowledge? David Olusoga and Steven Johnson’s new show will teach you about the magic, and the horrors, behind the medical breakthroughs of our time

Six fragments returned to archaeological park, some after being illegally trafficked in 1970sSix fragments of wall frescoes stolen from the ruins of ancient Roman villas have been returned to Pompeii’s archaeological park, after an investigation by Italy’s cultural protection police squad.Three of the relics, which date back to the first century AD, are believed to have been cut off the walls of two Roman villas in Stabiae, a historical site close to the main Pompeii excavations, in the 1970s before being exported illegally. Continue reading...

From deep in the bush just outside Bathurst in Australia, Rodney Watters and Niall MacNeill bring the darkness of space into the light.Using an alchemy of high-speed cameras, telescopes and computer processors, the images created for their new book overcome the multitude of challenges involved in capturing celestial bodies light years away Continue reading...

UK study of 25,000 people finds even moderate drinking is linked to lower grey matter densityThere is no safe amount of alcohol consumption for the brain, with even “moderate” drinking adversely affecting nearly every part of it, a study of more than 25,000 people in the UK has found.The study, which is still to be peer-reviewed, suggests that the more alcohol consumed, the lower the brain volume. In effect, the more you drink, the worse off your brain. Continue reading...

One-of-a-kind digital collectables, known as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), have boomed in areas ranging from music, sport and art. As the focus is on digital artists to seize this opportunity to potentially make millions for their work, the Guardian’s technology correspondent, Alex Hern, talks to Shivani Dave about the pros and cons of this emerging technology Continue reading...

Self-portraits by ultra-realistic android go on show at Design Museum in LondonShe, if it can be called a she, began her career with abstract art but has now moved to self, if they can be called self, portraits and they are alarmingly good.“She is getting better all of the time,” said Aidan Meller, the force behind Ai-Da, the world’s first ultra-realistic robot artist, who is the subject of a display at the Design Museum in London. Continue reading...

Environment secretary George Eustice said he could not rule out restrictions in India variant hotspots

Science has got us much closer to getting back to how things were, but if we don’t remember patience and kindness it will count for very littleWith the gradual easing of restrictions, we are all being faced with questions of “how”. How are we going to manage the “new normal”? How are we going to navigate the months ahead? How are we going to feel in all these unfamiliar situations?These are not easy questions to answer. We have never experienced anything like the pandemic and we can’t begin to know how we will feel as we re-engage with the world outside our front doors. We have been through so many changes and had so much uncertainty that we can feel a bit disoriented and a bit lost. And we can feel anxious. Continue reading...

Nigel Topping acknowledges world is running out of time as he lobbies businesses and lawmakers in lead-up to Cop26 summitThe UK’s climate champion, Nigel Topping, says he is stubbornly optimistic that the world will converge on an agreement to forge a transition to a net zero future at the UN climate talks later this year.Topping’s role in the run-up to the UN Cop26 climate summit, to be held in Glasgow in November, is to drive and encourage action from businesses, civil society, and local and regional government on climate change. Continue reading...

Results show Pfizer/BioNTech and Oxford/AstraZeneca jabs are proving highly effective

Scientists say ice equivalent to 1-2 metres of sea level rise is probably already doomed to meltA significant part of the Greenland ice sheet is on the brink of a tipping point, after which accelerated melting would become inevitable even if global heating was halted, according to new research.Rising temperatures caused by the climate crisis have already seen trillions of tonnes of Greenland’s ice pour into the ocean. Melting its ice sheet completely would eventually raise global sea level by 7 metres. Continue reading...

Scientists’ warning comes as government comes under pressure to explain border policy

Government says it has deployed thousands more vaccine doses to areas with rising cases due to India variants

My wife, Caroline Thomas, who has died aged 79 of cancer, was an applied psychologist who worked on safety and accident prevention, championing the role of consumers in the development of standards.Known professionally as Caroline Warne, she played a pivotal role in consumer safety and accident prevention over six decades, beginning with research into industrial and household accidents, and culminating in her chairing the consumer policy committee of the International Standards Organization (ISO). She was appointed OBE in 2005. Continue reading...

The solutions to today’s puzzlesEarlier today I set three puzzles from Terms & Conditions Apply, a free online game about website deviousness (that I made with Jonathan Plackett.) The puzzles in the game exaggerate the tricks websites use to extract our data.1. Naughty negatives Continue reading...

Not enough people are vaccinated against Covid as a new variant spreads, requiring us to remain vigilant for a little longer

It’s important to recognise the vital role they’ve played in development of vaccines and treatmentsA few weeks ago, I received my first shot of a vaccine against Covid-19. As the newly vaccinated exited the clinic, there was a mix of relief and elation on people’s faces. We exchanged little smiles of solidarity. If we could have burst into spontaneous applause, I’m sure we would have done.

Sage member suggests latest Covid lockdown easing may be reversed if hospital admissions rise

Puzzles about internet deviousnessUPDATE: Solutions can be read here.It’s a depressing fact of online life that websites are often shameless in using shady practices, like misdirection and obfuscation, to get us to sign up to, or to agree to, something we do not want.Today’s puzzles exaggerate the cunning tricks websites use to extract our personal data – but only just! Continue reading...

Faint constellations representing crow, cup and serpent feature in classical Greek and Roman mythThis week offers us the opportunity to locate three of the fainter constellations that are linked by myth: Corvus, the crow; Crater, the cup; and Hydra, the serpent. Corvus is one of the oldest recognised constellations, dating back to Babylonian star charts from at least 1100BC. Hydra was also recognised by the Babylonians, although Crater is a slightly later invention. Continue reading...

Half of all adult women will experience at least one urinary tract infection in their lifetime, yet it remains misdiagnosed, mismanaged and under-researchedAs a health policy analyst and a woman who suffered for many years with a once poorly-recognised chronic disease – endometriosis – I am dismayed to have stumbled upon another public health crisis severely impacting women’s lives. Like endometriosis and the pelvic mesh scandal – to name just two women’s health conditions ignored for too long – this condition is misdiagnosed, mismanaged and under-researched.Each year thousands of Australians – mostly women – are let down by testing for a common bacterial infection, leaving them undiagnosed and unable to access effective treatment for painful, life-altering symptoms. Continue reading...

UK government proposals to recognise vertebrates as sentient beings are welcome, but this should be just the startLook a dog in the eye and a conscious being looks back. A being that feels hunger, thirst, warmth, cold, fear, comfort, pleasure, pain, joy. No one can seriously doubt this. The same is true of any mammal. You cannot watch rats playing hide and seek and doubt that they have feelings – that they are sentient creatures. But as animals become more distant from us in evolutionary terms, some doubt begins to creep in.Consider a bee sneaking past the guards of a rival colony to steal honey. Or the Brazilian ants that, in order to hide their nest at the end of each day, seal off the entrance from the outside. Left out in the cold at night, these ants will never see the morning, but their sacrifice increases the chance that their sisters will. The urge to attribute feelings to insects can be surprisingly strong. Continue reading...

Healthy immune systems work best when exposed to microbes. So what will lockdown have done to our resistance to germs?Every time you kiss another human being intimately for 10 seconds, more than 80m bacteria are transferred from mouth to mouth. If you’re at a party and double dip your tortilla chip into the salsa three times, around 10,000 bacteria will be transferred from your lips to the dip. Say “hi” to your co-workers as you sit down at your office desk and you’ll also be greeted by over 10m bacteria on its surface.Disturbing as these figures may seem, many scientists believe that exposure to these microbes helps fine-tune our immune systems – the network of cells and molecules that protect us from diseases. In 1989, epidemiologist David Strachan first proposed the “hygiene hypothesis” – the idea that being too clean causes defects in the immune system, leading to a rise in inflammatory diseases, such as asthma and allergies. While Strachan’s theory is debated and hygiene saves countless lives, decades of data support the idea that exposure to microbes helps the immune system develop. Continue reading...

Advanced technique used to recover genetic material may help solve the mystery of early manScientists have pinpointed major changes in Europe’s Neanderthal populations – from traces of blood and excrement they left behind in a Spanish cave 100,000 years ago.The discovery is the first important demonstration of a powerful new technique that allows researchers to study DNA recovered from cave sediments. No fossils or stone tools are needed for such studies. Instead, minuscule traces of genetic material that have accumulated in the dust of a cavern floor are employed to reveal ancient secrets. Continue reading...

Starving and trapped by ice, the Norwegian’s crew had discovered how to beat scurvy on an earlier voyage. The benefits proved crucialThirteen years before he became the first person ever to reach the south pole in 1911, the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen experienced his first merciless taste of winter in the Antarctic. Stuck onboard the Belgian expedition ship Belgica, which was grounded in pack ice, he and the rest of the crew contracted scurvy and faced certain death.That is when, according to a new book published later this month, Amundsen started eating raw penguin meat – and discovered a secret that would later give him a huge advantage over Captain Robert Falcon Scott in the race to the south pole. Continue reading...

Misinformation could be causing real harm in the communityLike viruses, false information spreads through networks. In March 2020, more than a quarter of the top Covid-19 related videos on YouTube contained misleading claims and those had more than 60m views worldwide. The World Health Organization’s Covid “myth-busters” page counters ideas such as the notion that eating garlic protects you against infection. But how many people believe such claims?University of Cambridge researchers found in an online survey that about 15% of UK respondents thought it was more reliable than not that “the coronavirus is part of a global effort to enforce mandatory vaccination”, while 9% supported “the new 5G network may be making us more susceptible to the virus”. They found the most important factor linked to resilience to misinformation was numeracy. While we are fully aware that correlation is not causation, it encourages the idea that greater “data literacy” in the population could help bring some critical awareness of the dubious claims circulating on social media. In the meantime, research has shown that an effective strategy is to vigorously “pre-bunk” misinformation – essentially inoculating people against fake news by getting in the warnings first. Continue reading...

All todays events as they happened: China cancels spring Everest climbing season from Tibetan side while Portugal to reopen to UK tourists from Monday

Top adviser warns of India variant impact as scientists urge delay in lockdown changes

It can be debilitating and last a lifetime, but type 2 diabetes, if caught early, can be reversed with weight lossIt’s 10 years since Professor Roy Taylor revolutionised treatment for type 2 diabetes with a groundbreaking study that showed the disease could be reversed through rapid weight loss. Until his research was published, type 2 diabetes was thought to be an incurable, lifelong condition. Now, for many people, we know it is not.But his achievements – and the thousands of people he has cured – are not something he dwells upon. “I’m in a very lucky position of being able to do this research,” he says, “which really extends what I’ve been doing as a doctor throughout my life.” He laughs at the suggestion that he must occasionally marvel at his own success: “No, no,” he chuckles. “Lots of occupations make a useful contribution to society. I wouldn’t set myself apart.” Continue reading...

Biologists recently created a chimera with both human and monkey cells. But not all scientists are happy to blur species boundariesWhen King Minos of Crete was given a magnificent bull by the sea god Poseidon for a sacrifice, he could not bring himself to kill it. In anger, Poseidon enchanted Minos’s wife Pasiphaë to be filled with lust for the creature. The result of their trans-species mating was the bull-headed monster the Minotaur.Hybrids of humans and animals throng within myth and legend: centaurs, mermaids, goat-footed Pan. We’re both fascinated and uneasy about the boundary that separates us from other animals – and whether it is leaky. Continue reading...

US team succeeds in captive breeding of sunflower sea stars and aims to reintroduce them to the wildScientists in a San Juan Island laboratory in Washington state have successfully raised sunflower sea stars, or starfish, in captivity for the first time, in an effort to help save these charismatic ocean creatures from extinction.Sunflower sea stars, whose colours vary widely, can grow as big as a bicycle wheel and have about 20 legs. They were once abundant in coastal waters from Alaska to Mexico, but since 2013, nearly 6 billion of these now critically endangered animals have died from a gruesome wasting disease linked to warming seas. Populations have plummeted by more than 90%. Continue reading...

State-run media says landing ‘spectacularly conquered’ a new milestone; it joins US Perseverance rover which landed in FebruaryAn unmanned Chinese spacecraft has successfully landed on the surface of Mars, Chinese state news agency Xinhua has reported, making China the second space-faring nation after the US to land on the red planet.The official Xinhua news agency said the lander had touched down on Saturday, citing the China National Space Administration. Continue reading...

Latest updates: prime minister announces acceleration of vaccination programme as Indian variant threatens June lockdown easing

AI inspires hypothesis that sleeping human brain might try to break its overfamiliarity with daily dataIt’s a common enough scenario: you walk into your local supermarket to buy some milk, but by the time you get to the till, the milk bottle has turned into a talking fish. Then you remember you’ve got your GCSE maths exam in the morning, but you haven’t attended a maths lesson for nearly three decades.Dreams can be bafflingly bizarre, but according to a new theory of why we dream, that’s the whole point. By injecting some random weirdness into our humdrum existence, dreams leave us better equipped to cope with the unexpected. Continue reading...

A list of possible measures that could be taken by the government to limit the spread of the variant

Soil scientist with a key role in creating the Environmental Change Network and the University of the ArcticWhen Bill Heal, who has died aged 86, began studying soil decomposers in the 1950s, researchers aimed to understand the ecosystem in which they functioned. Growing awareness of global heating in the decades since has given this work increased urgency: the very slow rates of decomposition of plant material in peat enable the removal of great quantities of heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, as well as storage of carbon in its acidic and waterlogged conditions.Soil decomposers constitute the “factory of life”. Below-ground organisms, ranging in size from bacteria and nematodes to earthworms and molluscs, comprise a quarter of Earth’s living species. In order to study how they break down dead plants and animals, researchers inserted cotton fabric strips vertically into soil, with the degree of decomposition assessed by the loss of the strip’s tensile strength. Continue reading...

Analysis: If B.1.617.2 proves highly transmissible, hospitalisations could peak again, models show

The good news is, we think existing vaccines will protect us against this rapidly spreading strain. But we need more data

Deployment of jabs could be speeded up for multi-generational households in areas virus is spreading quickly

A moving and clear-eyed history of bodily freedoms that takes as its central character Wilhelm Reich, inventor of the orgone accumulatorRight at the end of this exhilarating journey through a century’s struggles over the human body, Olivia Laing invites her reader to “imagine, for a minute, what it would be like to inhabit a body without fear”. This simple hope comes to sound like a radical demand for the impossible; after such a vivid catalogue of the many humiliations and cruelties a body can be made to bear, it isn’t easy to imagine.Laing’s impassioned commitment to the promise of bodily freedom, of every body’s right to move and feel and love without harming or being harmed, shines through every sentence of the book. But she is too canny a writer to miss the rich and bitter irony in which efforts to realise this promise so often get caught: every movement to liberate the body comes to be marked in some way by the constrictive regime it’s trying to escape. The writer who best grasped this irony was the Marquis de Sade, of whom Laing writes with an open and compelling ambivalence. De Sade’s nihilistic fantasies of sexual torture are a discomfiting reminder of how easily the liberty of one individual becomes the enslavement and abasement of others. Continue reading...