Science | The Guardian

Exclusive: doctors and patients forced to make decisions in vacuum of evidence' as women under-represented in dataHealth experts are calling for more UK clinical trials to focus on finding new treatments for women, as concerning" data reveals they are severely under-represented, with 67% more male-only studies than female-only.Details of thousands of studies were collected by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and the University of Liverpool. The evidence shows the UK is a hub for pioneering research, with one in eight trials testing humans for the first time, and cutting-edge treatments such as gene therapies becoming a new growth area. Continue reading...

British team says new study radically transforms' understanding of bronze age trade networksIn about 1300BC, the major civilisations of the eastern Mediterranean made a cultural and technological leap forward when they began using bronze much more widely for weapons, tools and jewellery. While a form of the metal had previously been used in smaller quantities by the Mycenaeans and Egyptians among others, bronze was now abundant - but how?Most bronze is an alloy of copper and tin, but while the former was widely available in antiquity, tin is a rare element, with no large sources within thousands of kilometres. This left one big question, referred to by archaeologists as the tin problem". Where were the bronze age societies of the Mediterranean getting the tin for their bronze? Continue reading...

This display caused by Earth passing through debris from Halley's Comet will peak this week and be most visible on Wednesday - but only if you're up before dawn

A new study has found that helping sufferers manage their emotions lessens their experience of chronic painWhen Jabez Allies developed chronic lower back pain 10 years ago, her doctor sent her to the physio, who recommended different types of stretching and exercises - some that helped, some that didn't help at all - as well as hot-water bottles and painkillers.But as the pain got progressively worse every year, so too did Allies' feelings of being overwhelmed - frustrated she couldn't do the things she could before and spiralling into hopelessness that there was nothing she could do to fix it.Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads Continue reading...

Advocacy groups say gutting EPA's scientific research arm would turn it into a purely political agencyAmericans' health is being put at risk after new cuts were announced by Donald Trump's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reduce staffing to 1980s levels and gut its scientific research arm, experts and advocacy groups warned.The EPA's administrator, Lee Zeldin, announced on Friday that the agency would slash its budget by $300m in the fiscal year 2026 as part of a broad overhaul that he said was designed to cut it to levels resembling those in the Reagan administration. Continue reading...

A British company is producing mosquitoes that carry a self-limiting' gene that kills off female offspring, limiting the spread of diseases such as malaria and dengue feverIn an unassuming building on an industrial estate outside Oxford, Michal Bilski sits in a windowless room with electric fly swatters and sticky tape on the wall, peering down a microscope. On the slide before him is a line of mosquito eggs that he collected less than an hour previously and put into position with a brush.Bilski manoeuvres a small needle filled with a DNA concoction and uses it to pierce each egg and inject a tiny amount. Continue reading...

This display caused by Earth passing through debris from Halley's Comet will peak this week and be most visible on Wednesday - but only if you're up before dawn

This display caused by Earth passing through debris from Halley's Comet will peak this week and be most visible on Wednesday - but only if you're up before dawn

Direct to consumer tests that claim to tell us our biological - as opposed to chronological - age are getting a lot of attention, but what can they really tell us about our health? Science editor Ian Sample talks to Dr Brian H Chen, an epidemiologist at the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute, who has conducted research into a variety of these tests called epigenetic clocks. He explains what exactly they are measuring and whether, once we have the results, there are any evidence-based strategies we can adopt to lower our biological ageReal age versus biological age: the startups revealing how old we really areSupport the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod Continue reading...

Ink traces show text is part of work by Epicurean philosopher Philodemus, burned during AD79 volcano eruptionA charred scroll recovered from a Roman villa that was buried under ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted nearly 2,000 years ago has been identified as the influential work of an ancient Greek philosopher.Researchers discovered the title and author on the Herculaneum scroll after X-raying the carbonised papyrus and virtually unwrapping it on a computer, the first time such crucial details have been gleaned from the approach. Continue reading...

Survey of 164 primates in Rwanda shows how impact of being close to others is affected by group size and sexHuman friendship groups are complex - and often fraught - but a study of mountain gorillas has found that their societies can also be head-scratchingly complicated.The study, which took in 20 years of health data involving 164 gorillas in Rwanda, discovered that the costs and benefits of being close to others changed depending on the size of groups and differed for males and females. Continue reading...

Three different tests flagged up a long list of potential problem foods, but they failed to agree on a single oneThe list of foods I should consider cutting out is long and daunting.Meat, mushrooms, most nuts and seeds, milk products, soya beans and potatoes - all this would no doubt result in me losing weight, but weight loss is not what I'm investigating. These are the combined results of three commercial food sensitivity tests that are sold online and have surged in popularity in recent years. Continue reading...

Small experiment monitored transfer of gluten after couples had kissed with tongues for at least one minutePeople with coeliac disease can kiss gluten-eaters without concerns for their health, researchers have said after finding only trivial amounts of the protein are transferred during a french kiss.About 1% of people around the world are thought to have coeliac disease, an autoimmune condition triggered by gluten, although many do not have a clinical diagnosis. Continue reading...

Exclusive: British scientists over the moon' with re-entry to funding scheme after losing out for three yearsBritish scientists are over the moon" to be back in the EU's flagship science research programme Horizon after a three-year Brexit lockout, with new data revealing they have been awarded about 500m in grants since re-entry.As the EU secretly draws up strategies for the next seven-year funding cycle in 2027, the UK is hoping its success in the first 12 months since returning to Horizon will leave it in pole position with Germany and France to dominate European science, despite Brexit. Continue reading...

Eta Aquariids have roughly a week of activity in May, though they are better seen from southern hemisphereDebris from the tail of one of the most famous comets of all - Halley's comet - will slam into the Earth's atmosphere this week, creating a meteor shower. The Eta Aquariids are not fantastically well placed for northern sky watchers, but they can still be rewarding for those willing to get up in the early hours.Unlike most meteor showers, which have a definite night of peak activity, there is roughly a week of activity during the Eta Aquariids, which are usually centred around the nights of 5-7 May. Continue reading...

Beyond self-help mantras like Let them', radical acceptance shows us the value in learning how to truly accept life just the way it isHave you ever been in the middle of difficult life circumstances to be told let it go" or don't dwell on it" as if it were a simple choice?Such advice can have the effect of minimising our distress and abruptly changing the subject. Yet it is not the phrases themselves that are troubling - there is real substance to them - but the missed opportunity to grasp the true meaning of what Buddhist teacher Tara Brach calls radical acceptance". Continue reading...

Macron and von der Leyen expected to announce protections for researchers seeking to relocate amid Trump's crackdownFrance and the EU are to step up their efforts to attract US-based scientists hit by Donald Trump's crackdown on academia, as they prepare announcements on incentives for researchers to settle in Europe.The French president, Emmanuel Macron, alongside the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, will make speeches on Monday morning at Sorbonne University in Paris, flanked by European university leaders and researchers, in which they are expected to announce potential incentives and protections for researchers seeking to relocate to Europe. Continue reading...

Residents - most of them SpaceX workers - in remote Texas community approve plan to create new cityVoters in a small patch of south Texas voted this weekend to give Elon Musk a town to call his own, officially creating a new city called Starbase in the area where Musk's SpaceX holds rocket launches.A couple of hundred residents of what was previously known as Boca Chica decided to make their unincorporated neighborhoods into a town that will grant them the authority to pass city ordinances. Continue reading...

It would now be easier for us if Dad had sorted things before he died but the process of emptying his house allowed me to see him differently

Musk and Bezos are the heirs to a quasi-religious belief in tech salvation. The rest of us are stuck in the real worldIt's tempting to believe that tech billionaires' embrace of Donald Trump and the far right is a sudden rupture with the usual political ideology of Silicon Valley. Op-eds in the New York Times and elsewhere have made this case. Even Marc Andreessen, one of the billionaires in question, claims that this is what happened - he said that it was a change in the Democratic arty that pushed him and his fellow oligarchs into the arms of the GOP.Yet this is a serious misunderstanding of the situation. There wasn't a sudden shift in the politics of tech - it was a homecoming. While it's true that Silicon Valley has long supported Democratic candidates for political office - and that rank-and-file tech workers still vote overwhelmingly for Democrats - the fundamental ideology underpinning the culture of Silicon Valley's venture capitalists and CEOs has always had a far-right libertarian core. This is even true for Andreessen: while he likely believed what he said while he was saying it, his own words and actions make it clear that he wasn't giving an accurate assessment of his own motivations, much less anyone else's. His venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, has long opposed government regulation of any sort that touches on their investments; Andreessen himself posted a techno-optimist manifesto" that, despite its claim to be politically neutral, promotes an authoritarian vision of unfettered power for tech oligarchs. He even lovingly paraphrases Filippo Marinetti, the co-author of the Fascist Manifesto. Continue reading...

As infections pummel communities in the US, Mexico and Canada, fear of the most contagious human disease' growsA leading immunologist warned of a post-herd-immunity world", as measles outbreaks affect communities with low vaccination rates in the American south-west, Mexico and Canada.The US is enduring the largest measles outbreak in a quarter-century. Centered in west Texas, the measles outbreak has killed two unvaccinated children and one adult and spread to neighboring states including New Mexico and Oklahoma. Continue reading...

Ronan the sea lion can still keep a beat after all these years. She can groove to rock and electronica, but the 15-year-old California sea lion's talent shines most in bobbing to disco hits such as Boogie Wonderland.Not many animals show a clear ability to identify and move to a beat aside from humans, parrots and some primates. But then there's Ronan, a bright-eyed sea lion that has scientists rethinking the meaning of music.A former rescue sea lion, Ronan burst to fame about a decade ago after scientists reported her musical skills. From age three, she has been a resident at the University of California, Santa Cruz's Long Marine Laboratory

Infectious disease experts say the latest outbreak is still in its infancy and could get a lot worse - here's what to know

Infectious disease experts say the latest outbreak is still in its infancy and could get a lot worse - here's what to know

Sea lion grooving along to hits such as Boogie Wonderland helps show scientists rhythm is not exclusive to humansRonan the sea lion can still keep a beat after all these years.She can groove to rock and electronica. But the 15-year-old California sea lion's talent shines most in bobbing to disco hits such as Boogie Wonderland. Continue reading...

Blood from man bitten hundreds of times by deadly species is used to create most broadly protective antivenom yetHe has self-administered more than 850 doses of venom from cobras, mambas, rattlesnakes and other deadly species in pursuit of a singular quest: to develop immunity to snake bites in the hope of helping scientists create a universal antivenom.Now the extreme 18-year experiment by Tim Friede, a former truck mechanic from Wisconsin, appears to have paid off. Scientists have used antibodies from his blood to create the most broadly protective antivenom to date, which could revolutionise the treatment of snake bites. Continue reading...

Anfield celebrations of Alexis Mac Allister strike caused tremor with peak magnitude of 1.74Labelling a win as seismic" has become a lazy and overused term. But not in the case of Liverpool FC's title-clinching win over Tottenham Hotspur when scientists recorded genuine Earth-shaking seismic activity triggered by celebrations at Anfield.Researchers from the University of Liverpool's department of Earth, ocean and environmental sciences were on site on Sunday to measure ground movement from the crowd throughout the match when the home team won 5-1 and claimed the Premier League title for the 2024-25 season. Continue reading...

A wetter farming' project explores rehydrating peatland to help grow crops in boggier conditions while cutting CO2 emissionsI really don't like the word paludiculture' - most people have no idea what it means," Sarah Johnson says. I prefer the term wetter farming'."The word might be baffling, but the concept is simple: paludiculture is the use of wet peatlands for agriculture, a practice that goes back centuries in the UK, including growing reeds for thatching roofs. Continue reading...

Method of preserving 18th-century Austrian vicar has never been seen before, say researchersThe mystery of a mummy from an Austrian village has been solved, according to researchers who say it was embalmed in an unexpected way - via the rectum.Intrigue had long swirled around the mummified body stored in the church crypt of St Thomas am Blasenstein. The remains were rumoured to be the naturally preserved corpse of an aristocratic vicar, Franz Xaver Sidler von Rosenegg, who died in 1746 at the aged of 37, gaining the mummy the moniker of the air-dried chaplain". Continue reading...

Kosmos 482, weighing 500kg, was meant to land on Venus in the 1970s but it never made it out of orbit because of a rocket malfunctionA Soviet-era spacecraft meant to land on Venus in the 1970s is expected to soon plunge uncontrolled back to Earth.It's too early to know where the half-ton mass of metal might come down or how much of it will survive re-entry, according to space debris-tracking experts. Continue reading...

Ethel Caterham, who lives in a care home in Surrey and takes life in her stride, is first Briton to claim title since 1987The secret of longevity is to do what you like, according to the 115-year-old British woman named the world's oldest living person.Ethel Caterham, born in 1909, is the first Briton to claim the title of world's oldest person since 1987, when 114-year-old Anna Williams was the record holder. Continue reading...

Linzagolix hailed as a possible gamechanger' in tackling the painful condition for some patients in EnglandMore than 1,000 women a year in England could benefit from a new pill for endometriosis.The condition occurs when tissue similar to the womb lining grows elsewhere in the body, such as the pelvis, bladder and bowel. It can cause chronic pain, heavy periods, extreme tiredness and fertility problems. Continue reading...

Aluminium emissions from satellites as they fall to Earth and burn up is becoming more significant as their numbers soarRight now there are more than 9,000 satellites circumnavigating overhead, keeping track of weather, facilitating communications, aiding navigation and monitoring the Earth. By 2040, there could be more than 60,000. A new study shows that the emissions from expired satellites, as they fall to Earth and burn up, will be significant in future years, with implications for ozone hole recovery and climate.Satellites need to be replaced after about five years. Most old satellites are disposed of by reducing their altitude and letting them burn up as they fall, releasing pollution into Earth's atmosphere such as aerosolised aluminium. To understand the impact of these growing emissions from expired satellites, researchers simulated the effects associated with an annual release of 10,000 tonnes of aluminium oxide by 2040 (the amount estimated to be released from disposal of 3,000 satellites a year, assuming a fleet of 60,000 satellites). Continue reading...

The narrative of ancient tribes around the world regularly using ayahuasca and magic mushrooms in healing practices is a popular one. Is it true?Beginning in 2001, the Austrian anthropologist Bernd Brabec de Mori spent six years living in the western Amazon. He first arrived as a backpacker, returned to do a master's thesis on ayahuasca songs, and eventually did a PhD on the music of eight Indigenous peoples in the region. Along the way, he married a woman of the local Shipibo tribe and settled down.I did not have a lot of money," he told me, so I had to make my living there." He became a teacher. He built a house. He and his wife had children. That rare experience of joining the community, he said, forced him to realise that many of the assumptions he had picked up as an anthropologist were wrong. Continue reading...

Authorities are still trying to understand what triggered the massive power outage that left the majority of the Iberian Peninsula without electricity on Monday. To understand what might have been at play, and whether there's any truth to claims that renewable energy sources were to blame, Ian Sample hears from Guardian energy correspondent Jillian Ambrose. And Guardian European community affairs correspondent Ashifa Kassam explains what it was like to experience the blackout and how people reactedShipwrecked in the 21st century': how people made it through Europe's worst blackout in living memorySupport the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod Continue reading...

Focus on overuse contributes to antibiotics reaching less than 7% of people with drug-resistant infections in poorer countries, say researchersLess than 7% of people with severe drug-resistant infections in poorer countries get the antibiotics they need, a new study suggests, with researchers warning that not only is this causing suffering and deaths, but is also likely to be driving antimicrobial resistance (AMR).With AMR forecast to cause 1.9m deaths a year by 2050, they are calling for urgent action, akin to the fight earlier this century to get HIV drugs to Africa's virus hotspots. Continue reading...

Corroboree frog belongs to 100m-year-old family of amphibians but is now found only in the puddles and peat bogs of Kosciuszko national park

Wealthy nations are slashing funding for essential services such as the HIV/Aids response, but poorer countries cannot absorb the impact overnightCountries across the world are cutting aid budgets, abandoning the decades-old consensus that supporting health and development is both a moral duty and a strategic interest. But the end of aid cannot mean the end of global solidarity - because our global economy is stacked against low- and middle-income countries to such an extent that they simply cannot afford to respond to global crises alone.Developing countries are drowning in debt, facing interest rates up to 12 times higher than wealthy countries. When interest rates shot up after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the global south was worst hit. Low- and middle-income countries now pay $4 (3) to the richest in the global north for every $1 they receive in aid. Thirty-four of Africa's 54 countries spend more on debt than on healthcare. Continue reading...

Exclusive: British team exposed live cells to toxic proteins to gather rare insight into how dementia developsScientists have used living human brain tissue to mimic the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia, in a breakthrough that will accelerate the hunt for a cure.In a world first, a British team successfully exposed healthy brain tissue from living NHS patients to a toxic form of a protein linked to Alzheimer's - taken from patients who died from the disease - to show how it damages connections between brain cells in real time. Continue reading...

Findings of survey on happiness, health, finances, meaning in life and relationships raise concerns for young peopleBritain ranks among the poorest countries for human flourishing", according to a major study that raises questions about the nation's wellbeing and younger people in particular.The survey, which spanned 22 countries on six continents, rated the UK 20th based on a combined score that considered a range of factors from happiness, health and financial security to relationships and meaning in life. Continue reading...

Exercise such as aerobic and resistance training and yoga found to reduce heart and nerve damage and brain fogExercise can counter the detrimental effects of cancer treatment, according to the most comprehensive review of its kind.Several studies have evaluated how physical activity affects the health outcomes of patients with the disease, but significant gaps in the evidence have remained until now. Continue reading...

Scientific recipe for cacio e pepe avoids a lumpy sauce but uses powdered starch instead of reserved pasta waterIt may be only pasta, pecorino and black pepper, but cacio e pepe is not nearly as easy to make as some would imagine.Now, researchers have come up with a scientific recipe that avoids a lumpy sauce every single time - but it all gets a lot more complicated. Continue reading...

First 27 satellites launched into space from Florida, part of $10bn effort to beam broadband internet globallyThe first 27 satellites for Amazon's Kuiper broadband internet constellation were launched into space from Florida on Monday, kicking off the long-delayed deployment of an internet from space network that will rival SpaceX's Starlink.The satellites are the first of 3,236 that Amazon plans to send into low-Earth orbit for Project Kuiper, a $10bn effort announced in 2019 to beam broadband internet globally for consumers, businesses and governments - customers that SpaceX has courted for years with its powerful Starlink business. Continue reading...

Oral medications are in development to provide alternative to injectables such as Wegovy that must be kept in fridgeNewly developed weight loss pills could have a big impact on tackling obesity and diabetes in low- and middle-income countries, experts have said.Weight loss jabs such as Wegovy and Mounjaro, that contain the drugs semaglutide and tirzepatide respectively, have become popular in countries including the UK after trials showed they can help people lose more than 10% of their body weight. Medications containing semaglutide and tirzepatide can also be used to help control diabetes. Continue reading...

Maintaining a positive mood and eating more fruit may also help lower risk, researchers findDrinking champagne, eating more fruit, staying slim and maintaining a positive outlook on life could help reduce the risk of a sudden cardiac arrest, the world's first study of its kind suggests.Millions of people worldwide die every year after experiencing a sudden cardiac arrest (SCA), when the heart stops pumping blood around the body without warning. They are caused by a dangerous abnormal heart rhythm, when the electrical system in the heart is not working properly. Without immediate treatment such as CPR, those affected will die. Continue reading...

Just Stop Oil, the climate activism group behind motorway blockades, petrol station disruption and tomato soup attacks on major artworks, has disbanded after staging a final action in London this weekend. To find out why the group has decided to hang up the famous orange high-vis, Madeleine Finlay hears from our environment correspondent Damien Gayle who has been covering Just Stop Oil since its inception. He explains how policy wins and policing crackdowns combined to bring the movement to a close, and what the future of climate activism could look like in its wakeWhat next for climate activism now Just Stop Oil is hanging up the hi-vis'?Support the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod Continue reading...

The solutions to today's puzzlesEarlier today I set you these puzzles about straws. Here they are again with solutions.1. Lift-off Continue reading...

The Lunar Hatch project aims to blast eggs into space, hoping that aquaculture will provide protein for astronauts on missionsAt first glance, there doesn't seem to be anything special about the sea bass circling around a tank in the small scientific facility on the outskirts of Palavas-les-Flots in southern France. But these fish are on a mission.When fully grown, they will produce offspring that will be the first to be launched into space as part of a scientific project called Lunar Hatch that is exploring whether sea bass can be farmed on the moon - and eventually Mars - as food for future astronauts. Continue reading...

Riddles with long paper cylindersUPDATE: To read the solutions click hereThe most heated puzzle about the drinking straw is does it have one hole or two?" (This debate periodically goes viral and for those who want to suck up its delicious complexities I recommend this chat with mathematician Jordan Ellenberg.)Today's puzzles are also about straws, but are much less controversial. Continue reading...

Using Arcturus, Spica and Regulus as points, you have a marker for faint constellations