Science | The Guardian

Researchers say people who sit or stand for long periods should schedule regular movements throughout the dayThey have been billed as the ultimate antidote to sitting in front of a screen all day at the office. But a study suggests standing desks, which have soared in popularity in recent years, do not compensate for being inactive and may even increase the risk of conditions such as swollen veins and blood clots in the legs.Research involving more than 80,000 adults in the UK has also discovered that standing does not reduce the risk of diseases such as stroke and heart failure, despite the widely held belief that it does. Continue reading...

Ordaining women | Zeno's walking paradox | Mating mallards | Billionaires' boats | Google goes nuclear | Not in for a pennyConcerning your editorial (The Guardian view on women in the Catholic church: let down yet again, 13 October), it may be worth pondering that the great defender of Catholicism, Thomas More, included in his Utopia (1516) the following description: Male priests are allowed to marry - for there's nothing to stop a woman from becoming a priest, although women aren't often chosen for the job, and only elderly widows are eligible."

Clues in painting suggest Francis Williams successfully managed to compute and witness trajectory of Halley's comet over Jamaica in 1759It was painted to celebrate the groundbreaking achievements of a mathematical genius who was Black and had been born into slavery. But for more than 260 years, that great scientific intellect of Francis Williams went unnoticed.Now, clues exposed by an X-ray and high-resolution scans of the painting have finally revealed the extraordinary secret that 18th-century advocates of slavery sought to keep hidden. Continue reading...

Google's new tool NotebookLM lets you create podcasts at the click of the button. They're way more realistic than you'd think ...Anyone who grew up watching The Terminator or The Matrix knows that AI poses an existential threat to humanity. As the robots become smarter, it was thought, they will inevitably replace us, either by destroying us or mining us for resources. However, the age of AI is now here, and the truth is so much worse than anything from a dystopian sci-fi. You see, AI has decided to give us more podcasts.The world needs more podcasts like it needs to be kicked by a horse. Everyone's got a podcast. Gyles Brandreth has a podcast. Paul Giamatti has a podcast. Your four or five worst friends all have podcasts, blathering endlessly into an environment already cluttered with too much content. Now Google has just created the first AI podcasts, and they're as fascinating as they are superfluous. Continue reading...

Group promoting dangerous' scientific racism ideology teamed up with rightwing extremist, recordings revealAn international network of race science" activists seeking to influence public debate with discredited ideas on race and eugenics has been operating with secret funding from a multimillionaire US tech entrepreneur.Undercover filming has revealed the existence of the organisation, formed two years ago as the Human Diversity Foundation. Its members have used podcasts, videos, an online magazine and research papers to seed dangerous ideology" about the supposed genetic superiority of certain ethnic groups. Continue reading...

Exclusive: proposal to Cop16 could see funga' get global legal consideration distinct from flora and faunaA new era of mycelial conservation could begin this month when the UK and Chile propose that fungi should be placed alongside animals and plants as a separate realm for environmental protection.Mushrooms, mould, mildew, yeast and lichen would all receive elevated status under the plan, which will be submitted to the UN convention on biological diversity (CBD) during the Cop16 meeting in Cali, Colombia, which opens on 21 October. Continue reading...

Unaffected by intensive agriculture, Salisbury Plain territory has one of Europe's richest ecosystems for plant diversityA military training ground with tanks charging around, explosions and gunfire hardly seems a haven for wild plants, but the Ministry of Defence's Salisbury Plain site is exceptional.The training ground is the largest remaining area of semi-natural chalk grassland left in north-west Europe, an area of 150 sq miles (380 sq km), the size of the Isle of Wight. It is home to rare plants unique to chalkland and one of the richest ecosystems for plant diversity in Europe. Continue reading...

Researchers show more energy needed to get going than later in walks when body is working more efficientlyResearchers have hit on an unusual tip for walkers who want to burn more calories: rather than plodding along steadily from start to finish, consider taking rest stops.The advice emerged from a study of volunteers who were put through their paces in the laboratory to measure the oxygen and energy demands of short strolls versus longer walks. Continue reading...

Mosaic of 208 gigapixels covers 1% of what will be the final 3D map, which is expected to capture billions of galaxiesThe first chunk of what will be the largest 3D map of the universe ever made has been revealed, putting 14 million galaxies - not to mention tens of millions of stars in our own Milky Way - on show in incredible detail.The Euclid mission, launched in 2023 and run by the European Space Agency (Esa) with contributions from Nasa, sent its first snapshots in November of that year and in May 2024. Continue reading...

The Guardian's picture editors select photographs from around the world Continue reading...

Named after the Chinese observatory and South African programme that detected it in 2023, the comet of the century' may have formed at a distance of up to 400,000 times that between Earth and the Sun. Its coma, or head, measures about 130,000 miles (209,000km) in diameter, with a tail extending 18m miles (29m km). The comet is not expected to return for another 80,000 years Continue reading...

Archaeologists say site near Seddin once had surprisingly densely populated community of farmers and tradersArchaeologists digging at the site of a bronze age kingdom in northern Germany have uncovered remains of what they say was a surprisingly densely populated community of farmers and traders whose lives were upended by climate change.Traces of eight large houses have been laid bare in the sandy soil outside the village of Seddin, about 95 miles (150km) north-west of Berlin, near the spectacular triple grave" of King Hinz, remembered as a kindly ruler, who was laid to rest, purportedly in a golden coffin, next to his wife and a loyal servant. Continue reading...

Ian Sample speaks to Bernadette Woods Placky, chief meteorologist at nonprofit Climate Central, about the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season so far, and what it tells us about how hurricanes will behave in futureClips: NBC News, ABC News, FOX weatherSupport the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod Continue reading...

Process tested in patients over 10-year period involves short course of chemotherapy before chemoradiationDoctors are hailing a remarkable" new treatment regime for cervical cancer that reduces the risk of dying by 40%, in the biggest advance against the disease in 25 years.Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women globally, with about 660,000 new cases and 350,000 deaths every year, according to the World Health Organization. In the UK, there are about 3,200 cases and 800 deaths each year. Continue reading...

Craft lifts off aboard SpaceX's Falcon Heavy with plans to peer under Europa's crust where ocean may be near surfaceA Nasa spacecraft has set sail for Jupiter and its moon Europa, one of the best bets for finding life beyond Earth.Europa Clipper will peer beneath the moon's icy crust where an ocean is thought to be sloshing fairly close to the surface. It won't search for life, but rather determine whether conditions there could support it. Another mission would be needed to flush out any microorganisms lurking there. Continue reading...

The answers to today's puzzlesEarlier today I set the following two puzzles. Here they are again with solutions.The first is by Randall Munroe, cartoonist of the webcomic xkcd and author of the bestselling book What If? Continue reading...

Some participants were able to discriminate order of smells at intervals 10 times shorter than previously thoughtThe human sense of smell is nothing to turn one's nose up at, research suggests, with scientists revealing we are far more sensitive to the order of odours captured by a sniff than previously thought.Charles Darwin is among those who have cast aspersions on our sense of smell, suggesting it to be of extremely slight service" to humans, while scientists have long thought our olfactory abilities rather sluggish. Continue reading...

And an intersection of squaresUPDATE: The solutions are upToday's first puzzle was penned by Randall Munroe, cartoonist of the webcomic xkcd and author of the bestselling book What If?For the (surely) very few readers who have never heard of him, Munroe, a former NASA roboticist, is probably the world's premier science humorist. Continue reading...

$5bn Nasa mission will assess whether ice-covered moon that is thought to have twice Earth's water is habitableNasa is poised to send a spacecraft to a frosty moon of Jupiter where extraterrestrial life may eke out an existence in an enormous ocean hidden beneath its ice-covered surface.The Europa Clipper mission is due to blast off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12.06pm local time on Monday after the original plan to launch on Thursday was scrapped due to the battering winds brought by Hurricane Milton. Continue reading...

CSIRO scientists have mapped the first full genome of the spotted handfish, a step which could aid monitoring, captive breeding and conservation efforts of the critically endangered species. Fewer than 2,000 spotted handfish remain in the wild. Dr Tom Walsh, co-lead of CSIRO's applied genomics initiative, said the genome can provide a better understanding of the species. "What we don't want is for all our endangered species to only exist as genomes," he said. The conservation has to happen on the ground. What the genome can do is provide more information to those people making those decisions." Continue reading...

Just as the cause of shame is outside us, so too must be the cure. Connection with others and collective action is a path to self-acceptance and belief

Elon Musk's huge rocket sets off on test flight before upper stage splashdown and explosion in Indian OceanElon Musk's SpaceX achieved a significant milestone on Sunday by catching the massive booster stage from its Starship rocket in a pair of robotic arms as it fell back to the company's launchpad in southern Texas.The historic feat, which drew praise from astronauts and space experts, topped a successful fifth test flight for the uncrewed Starship, which blasted off from the Boca Chica starbase at 7.25am local time (1325 BST) on Sunday. Continue reading...

SpaceX launched its Starship rocket and caught the returning booster with giant mechanical arms. The empty Starship blasted off at sunrise from the southern tip of Texas near the Mexican border Continue reading...

Forget blue zones, superfoods and hi-tech rejuvenation therapies: study after study suggests our dreams of immortality will never come true. But maybe that's just the kick in the pants humanity needsThe news hasn't been good for people planning to live for ever. First came Dr Saul Newman's investigative work into supercententarians - those aged 110 or older. In a paper titled Supercentenarian and remarkable age records exhibit patterns indicative of clerical errors and pension fraud", Newman reported that high concentrations of supposedly extremely old people occurred, implausibly, in places with the highest rates of poverty- apredictor of the worst health - and with no birth certificates. IntheUS, the number of supercentenarians declined by between 69% and 82%, depending on the state, when birth certificates were introduced.Guttingly for anyone who spends a fortune on jasmine tea and natt by following the Okinawa diet, Newman's research also challenged the notion of blue zones", pointing to high error and fraud rates in those mythic, much-admired areas with high concentrations of centenarians. In 2010, more than 230,000 Japanese centenarians turned out to be missing, imaginary, clerical errors or dead; in Greece, 72% of census-reported centenarians in 2012 were discovered to be dead (or, depending on your perspective, committing pension fraud"). Dump the daikon! Banish Greek beans! (Not really: they are still good for you, just not live to 120" good.)Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Do certain friends' leave you feeling drained and demotivated every time you meet? You need to have a word with them - and yourselfEllie used to wonder why she always felt drained after spending time with her friends. Then she noticed that they were constantly complaining about their jobs or their partners without ever taking steps to change. Or else they would select an unsuspecting victim and sink their teeth into them. They didn't want to hear about Ellie, 35 - the changes she was making in her life, the new business she had started. And they certainly didn't want to hear that it was going well, she says. You almost felt like you couldn't fit in with them unless you were moaning about something."Maybe you have one of these characters in your life: an old schoolfriend, perhaps, who consistently leaves you feeling worse than before you met up with them. In psychological shorthand, they are known as emotional vampires", for their ability to suck the pleasure from a social interaction - and your energy along with it. But what are the signs that you are in one's clutches, or that you have become one yourself? And how can we best handle suchrelationships? Continue reading...

While healthy eating and regular workouts are certainly good for us, many scientists now believe that genes rather than lifestyle are the determining factor in how long we liveTech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson is talking about 16th-century sailors. Back then, he says, circumnavigating the globe was the height of human achievement. But those sailors, some of whom were coincidentally hoping to find a mythical fountain of youth, left port without knowing what really lay ahead. The same is true for Johnson, 47, who sees himself as a modern-day explorer. Like those sailors, he too is pushing the bounds of what is humanly attainable. Not by circumnavigating the globe, but by circumventing death.Johnson's odyssey involves ingesting 111 pills a day, eating his last (vegan) meal of the day at 11am, staying teetotal, doing an hour of exercise daily and going to bed at 8.30pm. But is it scientifically possible to slow our ageing like this? Or is his plan more likely to end up shipwrecked by reality? Continue reading...

British scientists have developed simple ways for those in danger areas to make complex medical equipment quicklyTwo shattering events played a critical role in British scientists' efforts to develop technology that could transform the treatment of people who suffer traumatic injuries in wars or disasters.The first was the blast that devastated Beirut on 4 August 2020, when a vast store of ammonium nitrate exploded in the city, killing more than 200 people and injuring 7,000. The second was Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which has left hundreds of thousands of casualties have been inflicted since war erupted there in February 2022. Continue reading...

The US scientist on being the first Black woman to descend to Earth's deepest point, ignoring career advice - and what really happened to the Titan submersibleThe American oceanographer Dawn Wright is the first Black person and only the 27th human to have been to the deepest spot on the planet. Challenger Deep, at the southern end of the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean, is 10.9km (6.8 miles) below sea level - deeper than Mount Everest (8.8km [5.5 miles]) is tall. Wright's summer 2022 descent is documented in a new book, Mapping the Deep, written with her input. The dive was undertaken in a two-person submersible called Limiting Factor owned (since sold) by Caladan Oceanic, an ocean expedition company founded by investor turned deep sea explorer Victor Vescovo, who was also the craft's pilot. Wright, 63, who also goes by the moniker Deepsea Dawn", is the chief scientist of Esri, a multinational that makes geographic information system (GIS) software for mapping and spatial analytics.Sending people to the deep ocean can be dangerous because of the extreme underwater pressure. Last year, OceanGate's Titan submersible imploded on a journey to view the wreck of the Titanic, killing all five passengers on board. Why not just leave it to robots?

First meetings between new puppies and cats should be taken slowly, say Dogs Trust researchersThe key to stopping your pets from fighting like cats and dogs may lie in how you first introduce them to each other, research suggests.People planning on taking a new puppy home to their cat should think about allowing them to get used to each other slowly, according to findings from Dogs Trust. Continue reading...

Called the comet of the century', Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (Comet A3) was last visible from Earth 80,000 years agoA comet that was last visible when Neanderthals walked the Earth could be spotted with the naked eye this weekend, scientists have said.Comet A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) has been called the comet of the century" because of how bright and visible it could be, according to the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS). Astronomers said it would last have been visible from our planet about 80,000 years ago, and was only discovered in January 2023. Continue reading...

Many people reported spectacular views on Thursday as the northern lights, or aurora borealis, appeared as bright, dynamic curtains of color in the night sky of the northern hemisphere. Continue reading...

Will there be a repeat of Thursday's show on Friday night? And why all the different colours?With reports of spectacular views of the northern lights on Thursday night, including sightings as far south as Kent in the UK, we take a look at what causes the phenomenon and how to catch a glimpse. Continue reading...

Scientists have definitively' proved identity of remains - with navigator's precise origins to be revealedScientists in Spain claim to have solved the two lingering mysteries that cling to Christopher Columbus more than five centuries after the explorer died: are the much-travelled remains buried in a magnificent tomb in Seville Cathedral really his? And was the navigator who changed the course of world history really from Genoa - as history has long claimed - or was he actually Basque, Catalan, Galician, Greek, Jewish or Portuguese?The answer to the first question is yes. The answer to the second is ... wait until Saturday. Continue reading...

Experts say that as play spaces become more sanitised, children are deprived of a chance to connect with natureMichael Follett is a specialist in children's play and is passionate about the importance of playing with mud. It's so tactile," he gushes. You can use it as paint. You can squish it into a pot. You can make a mud pie. You can make cappuccinos!"As a former play worker and founder and director of Opal (Outdoor Play and Learning), which supports schools to improve play opportunities, Follett is evangelical about the benefits of unstructured outdoor play. Continue reading...

Aurora borealis could be seen as far south as London, Kent and East Anglia on Thursday nightThe northern lights lit up the skies with bright pink hues on Thursday night. Photos of the dazzling natural phenomenon, also known as the aurora borealis, were captured across England.The lights could be seen as far south as London, Kent and East Anglia. Continue reading...

Coronal mass ejection hits Earth and severe' geomagnetic storm could disrupt power grids and hit satellites and GPSA severe" geomagnetic storm and auroral displays of the northern lights far into the south of the US could occur on Thursday after charged solar particles slammed into Earth, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's space weather prediction center has warned.The center alerted to the approach of an enormous mass of charged solar particles spewing from the sun, later reporting that the coronal mass ejection hit Earth at 11.15am ET on Thursday. A severe" G4-class geomagnetic storm remained likely. Continue reading...

Dr Gavin Morgan says the ability to access professional help and an educational health and care plan is a postcode lotteryIt is distressing to read that thousands of pupils with special educational needs (Send) are being refused additional funding due to increased financial pressures faced by local authorities (Special needs funding claims in English schools increasingly being refused', 8 October).Buckinghamshire council has said it will not provide top-up funding for pupils without an approved educational health and care plan (EHCP). The grim reality, however, for parents and pupils is that getting appropriate access to Send support and an EHCP is becoming a postcode lottery. Continue reading...

In a world ravaged by war and sexual violence, a new edition of the great psychoanalyst's works is a reminder of his continuing relevanceIn 1935, Sigmund Freud wrote to a distraught mother that her son's suspected homosexuality was no cause for lament, nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation. It cannot be classified as an illness." If her son was unhappy and neurotic, analysis might release him from his distress and help him live a more creative life, but it would not, nor should it aim, to make him straight". No conversion therapy" as we might say today. On another occasion, Freud insisted that homosexuality should not be grounds for anyone to be summoned to a court of law.Shocking for their time, these statements point to an aspect of Freud's writing that is little known. Both appear for the first time in English in the just published Revised Standard Edition of Freud's complete psychological works - a much-anticipated publishing venture and a feat of scholarship that, under the editorship of Mark Solms, has been in preparation for three decades. Readers can now access a full bibliography of Freud's writings, which has expanded from 368 items in the previous Standard Edition of Freud's works, overseen by James Strachey, to 1,730 today. What this edition also establishes, at a time when questions of sexuality and war have never been more fraught, is just how much Freud still has to say to us today.Jacqueline Rose is co-director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities. Her latest book, The Plague: Living Death in Our Times, was published last yearDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

I'm lucky. I have enjoyed good health and lived to see many societal dreams realised. That privilege should be available to allSome things get better. When I was born - in 1933 - my life expectancy was about 65 years; if I were born today, it would be 84 and a half. I am currently 91, and my life expectancy as of now is for four and a half more years. My mother died at 57, weakened by long years of leukaemia, then untreatable. I have already outlived her by 34 years. My father died at 87 after 30 years of retirement filled with gin and golf.According to the latest research, however, some things are getting worse for the generations that followed mine. While life expectancy is still increasing for baby boomers and people in their 50s, they are living for longer with worse health than previous generations. Continue reading...

As average population falls reach 95% in some regions, experts call for urgent action but insist nature can recover'Global wildlife populations have plunged by an average of 73% in 50 years, a new scientific assessment has found, as humans continue to push ecosystems to the brink of collapse.Latin America and the Caribbean recorded the steepest average declines in recorded wildlife populations, with a 95% fall, according to the WWF and the Zoological Society of London's (ZSL) biennial Living Planet report. They were followed by Africa with 76%, and Asia and the Pacific at 60%. Europe and North America recorded comparatively lower falls of 35% and 39% respectively since 1970. Continue reading...

With awards for the discovery of microRNA and the creation of new proteins, plus recognition for artificial intelligence via the physics and chemistry prizes, Madeleine Finlay hears from the Guardian science team - Nicola Davis, Ian Sample and Hannah Devlin - as they break down the news, science and surprises from this year's NobelsClips: Nobel prizeNobel prize in medicine awarded to scientists for work on microRNA Continue reading...

Demis Hassabis and John Jumper of DeepMind and computational biologist David Baker share prize for protein structure breakthroughsTwo scientists at Google DeepMind and an American biochemist have been awarded the 2024 Nobel prize in chemistry for breakthroughs in predicting and designing the structure of proteins.Demis Hassabis, DeepMind's British founder, and John Jumper, who led the development of the company's AI model AlphaFold- which predicts the structure of proteins based on their chemical sequence - share half of the prize. Continue reading...

Google DeepMind chief believes in benefits of AI but says risks must be taken as seriously as the climate crisisMost 17-year-olds spend their days playing video games, but Britain's latest Nobel prize winner spent his teenage years developing them.Sir Demis Hassabis, who was jointly awarded the chemistry prize on Wednesday, got his big break in the tech world as co-designer of 1994's hit game Theme Park, where players create and operate amusement parks. Continue reading...

Director Peter Jackson has given $10m to a startup aiming to revive extinct animals. Did he learn nothing from Jurassic Park?The dodo is dead. That's kind of its claim to fame. Had a bit of an awkward-looking beak. Couldn't fly. Poor relation to the pigeon. Generally mediocre all around, really. But it did manage to waddle its way into the history books due to an unfortunate extinction event.Like a rather clumsy phoenix, however, the dodo may rise again. In 2023, Colossal Biosciences, a gene-editing company that had already made headlines for its plans to revive the woolly mammoth, announced it was trying to bring the dodo back to life". At the time, Beth Shapiro, the lead palaeogeneticist at the Texas-based startup, told the Guardian that she had been fascinated by the dodo ever since she saw a preserved specimen in an Oxford museum in 1999, and tried to persuade the museum to let her extract its DNA. Which was certainly enterprising of her. Continue reading...

Humboldt University of Berlin research also shows Asian elephants have more wrinkles than African cousinsWhile humans are split between right-handers and left-handers, elephants have a preference for which side of their trunk they use. Now scientists have discovered it is possible to determine an elephant's trunkedness" by looking at its wrinkles.While, overall, the pachyderms show an almost 50:50 split in terms of which way they prefer to bend their trunks, scientists have found it is possible to determine an individual adult's preference. Continue reading...

Longitude prize will give one of five finalists money towards creating an innovation for independent livingWith their thick plastic frames and wide arms, the chunky glasses look like 3D specs handed out in a 1990s cinema - not the kind of technology you associate with 21st-century science prizes.But put them on, and it is the real world that takes on a new dimension. Continue reading...

Researchers in China say their suture can speed up wound healing and reduce risk of infection by producing a chargeThe humble stitch plays a crucial role in surgery, holding a gash together while tissues repair. Now scientists have created a type of suture they say can help speed up wound healing and reduce the risk of infection.Researchers in China have created a suture that when put under strain - as occurs during movement - electrically stimulates the wound. Continue reading...

Record emissions, temperatures and population mean more scientists are looking into possibility of societal collapse, report saysMany of Earth's vital signs" have hit record extremes, indicating that the future of humanity hangs in the balance", a group of the world's most senior climate experts have said.More and more scientists are now looking into the possibility of societal collapse, says the report, which assessed 35 vital signs in 2023 and found that 25 were worse than ever recorded, including carbon dioxide levels and human population. This indicates a critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis", it says. Continue reading...

Geoffrey Hinton, godfather of AI', and John Hopfield honoured for work on artificial neural networksTwo researchers who helped lay the foundations for modern artificial intelligence - although one later warned of its potential harms - have been awarded the 2024 Nobel prize in physics.Inspired by the workings of the brain, John Hopfield, a US professor emeritus at Princeton University, and Geoffrey Hinton, a British-Canadian professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, built artificial neural networks that store and retrieve memories like the human brain, and learn from information fed into them. Continue reading...

Items such as cables and old tech could contain 266m worth of metal vital for decarbonisation drive, study findsScientists have called for people to go urban mining" after a study revealed that old cables, phone chargers and other unused electrical goods thrown away or stored in cupboards or drawers could stave off a looming shortage of copper.The research found that in the UK there are approximately 823m unused or broken tech items hiding in drawers of doom" containing as much as 38,449 tonnes of copper - including 627m cables - enough to provide 30% of the copper needed for the UK's planned transition to a decarbonised electricity grid by 2030. Continue reading...