Science | The Guardian

After its mixed Covid response, the EU must now focus on really delivering what its citizens want

New coalition calls on governments to tackle root cause of emerging infections – the destruction of nature

Octopuses and their relatives are remarkably clever and controlled. How many of our top politicians can say the same?Back in the gentler days of the internet, before it was just bots and people shouting at tea, I had a blog, and through it, occasional exchanges with a woman I described as my “cephalopod correspondent”. She would write, sharing interesting titbits about squid behaviour, cuttlefish news and, once, a picture of “an Octopus cyanea on a penny”.I think of her often now, as every week it seems we learn something spectacular about the tentacular. Octopuses are competent and creative problem-solvers, can master mazes, and frequently escape from captivity. They can even predict the outcome of football matches (OK, possibly not, but octopus Paul’s strike rate was impressive). Our collective fascination only deepened with last year’s Netflix documentary My Octopus Teacher, a lovely exploration of the curiosity and resourcefulness of one uncommonly touching common octopus. Perhaps even better was the relatable recent revelation that octopuses sometimes punch their fish co-workers when on joint hunting missions: it has certainly deepened my respect for them. Continue reading...

Groundbreaking new analysis could allow more than 100,000 people to claim compensationFrance has consistently underestimated the devastating impact of its nuclear tests in French Polynesia in the 1960s and 70s, according to groundbreaking new research that could allow more than 100,000 people to claim compensation.France conducted 193 nuclear tests from 1966 to 1996 at Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls in French Polynesia, including 41 atmospheric tests until 1974 that exposed the local population, site workers and French soldiers to high levels of radiation. Continue reading...

Researchers at Japan's Nara Women's University have discovered a new trait exhibited by the sacoglossan sea slug – it has the ability to decapitate itself, then regrow its body. The process, from shedding all of itself below the neck to regrowing a new body, takes less than a month, in an extreme example of a process known as autotomy

‘Dream come true’ to locate first carbonaceous chondrite seen in UK, part of fireball that caused sonic boomA lump of a rare meteorite that lit up the night sky over the UK and northern Europe last week has been recovered from a driveway in Gloucestershire.The fragment, weighing nearly 300 grams, and other pieces of the space rock were located after scientists reconstructed the flight path of the fireball that unleashed a sonic boom as it tore across the sky shortly before 10pm UK time on Sunday 28 February. Continue reading...

Action on Salt assessed 119 snacks including lentil curls and chickpea chips, finding some to be saltier than seawater

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US research suggests scans offer better price predictions than the actual choices investors make

Dr Annie Hickox advocates for the powerful combination of medication plus talking therapy. And Laurel Farrington highlights how empathy reduces when we are anxious and stressedAs a mental health professional, I was glad to read Jenny Stevens’ description of her experience of antidepressant medication and how it helped her during a mental health crisis that was exacerbated by Covid-19 (I’m not ashamed medication got me through the pandemic – but we need talking therapies too, 2 March). Her account of the initial effects of medication on her sleep and her ability to return to day-to-day activities that helped keep her “sane and stable” will resonate with many who have had severe depression.She rightly points out that despite the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines, and her own recognised need, talking therapy was repeatedly unavailable to her on the NHS. The difficulty in accessing psychological support contributes greatly to the surge in antidepressant prescribing and increases the stigma surrounding medication by those whose agenda is driven by an anti-medication ideology and misinformation. Continue reading...

I got all my solutions with meEarlier today I set you the following two puzzles:1. The two sisters Continue reading...

Survey finds parents of young children also more hesitant – but overall vaccine sentiment is positive

I got all my street smarts with meUPDATE: Read the solutions here.It’s March, so let’s begin with this riddle:1. The two sisters Continue reading...

Grouping spans length of Capricornus, helping to mark out faint shape of the goat constellation

Zolgensma, which costs £1.79m for one-off treatment, will be available in England this year for the first timeThe world’s most expensive drug, which treats babies and young children with a rare and often fatal degenerative disorder, will be available this year for the first time on the NHS in England.Zolgensma, which costs £1.79m per dose, halts the progression of spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), which involves loss of movement, muscle weakness and paralysis, and is the leading genetic cause of death in infants. Continue reading...

‘Limited’ cardiology research also shows mask wearing likely to reduce spread of coronavirus in indoor gyms

These insects have declined by a third over 50 years. While their appetites can be a nuisance, ultimately we must protect these gloriously beautiful, elusive creatures

Population immunity to non-Covid viruses could be lower owing to lack of exposure, says PHE official

1,300 people take part in music event designed to aid decisions on how to reopen country despite coronavirus

Psychiatrist Bruce Greyson has spent decades talking to people about near-death experiences. His work raises questions about what happens when we die, and how we ought to choose to liveWhen Gregg Nome was 24 years old, he slipped into the churn beneath a waterfall and began to drown, his body pummelled against the sandy riverbed. What he saw there surprised him. Suddenly, his vision filled with crystal-clear scenes from his childhood, events he had mostly forgotten, and then moments from early adulthood. The memories, if that’s what they were, were vivid and crisp. Was he reliving them? Not quite. They came at high speed, almost all at once, in a wave. And yet he could process each one individually. In fact, he was able to perceive everything around him: the rush of the water, the sandy bed, all of it brilliantly distinct. He could “hear and see as never before,” he recalled later. And, despite being trapped underwater, he felt calm and at ease. He remembered thinking that prior to this moment his senses must have been dulled somehow, because only now could he fully understand the world, perhaps even the true meaning of the universe. Eventually, the imagery faded. Next, “There was only darkness,” he said, “and a feeling of a short pause, like something was about to happen.”Nome recounted this story at a support group in Connecticut, in 1985, four years after the experience. He had survived, but now he hoped to understand why, during a moment of extreme mortal crisis, his mind had behaved the way it did. The meeting had been organised by Bruce Greyson, now a professor emeritus in psychiatry at the University of Virginia. (Some of the group’s members had responded to an ad Greyson placed in a local newspaper.) As Nome spoke, Greyson sat in a circle of 30 or so others, as if at an AA meeting, listening intently, nodding along. Continue reading...

A pilot study’s analysis of schools’ wastewater shows its potential as an early warning system for public health teams

There is too much messianic passion and not enough enlightening psychology in Peterson’s follow-up to the bestselling 12 Rules for LifeFew books in recent years have had quite so noisy a cultural impact as Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. With its odd mixture of Darwinian determinism, Jungian myth-interpretation and Heideggerian ontology (Being written with a capital B!), it was an unlikely self-help manual and an even unlikelier bestseller. But its dozen behavioural rules for leading a meaningful life rode a steep wave of frustration with the shibboleths of postmodernity.Peterson’s radical traditionalism was seen as a bracing corrective to the notion that there was no objective truth, only a matrix of prejudicial power relations. Social hierarchies, he argued, were the product of evolution rather than of capitalist exploitation. Continue reading...

Behind the numbers: The UK’s gene sequencing labs are at the forefront of global efforts to trace and identify every single case

A love of complex smells and flavours gave our ancestors an edge and stopped hangoversHuman evolution and exploration of the world were shaped by a hunger for tasty food – “a quest for deliciousness” – according to two leading academics.Ancient humans who had the ability to smell and desire more complex aromas, and enjoy food and drink with a sour taste, gained evolutionary advantages over their less-discerning rivals, argue the authors of a new book about the part played by flavour in our development. Continue reading...

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She has always maintained her four children died of natural causes. Now 90 scientists argue she may be rightLeading scientific experts are petitioning for the pardon of the woman dubbed Australia’s worst female serial killer, arguing that all four of her children had rare genetic conditions that could explain their deaths.Kathleen Folbigg is in jail for killing her children as infants between 1990 and 1999. Continue reading...

Forty years after the mutant genes that cause the deadliest cancers were discovered, drugs that target them could be approvedIn the early 1980s, Channing Der was just beginning his career as a scientist at Harvard Medical School when he happened upon a discovery that would change the course of cancer research. At the time, the holy grail of cancer biology was discovering so-called oncogenes – genetic switches that can turn a normal cell into a cancer cell – in the genomes of tumours. But while teams of scientists had thrown everything at it for the best part of a decade, their efforts had proved fruitless. One by one, they were beginning to accept that it might be a dead end.Der found himself assigned to test 20 different genes that had been identified as possible oncogene candidates. His question was simple: did any of them actually exist in tumours in a form that was different from normal cells? Continue reading...

A difficult pregnancy meant the only item I dared buy for my unborn child was a book. When she arrived we read it to her every dayNine years ago, I gave birth to a little girl. And now that little girl has grown into a bookworm. It began, as all stories about books should really begin, in a bookshop. I was several months pregnant and I picked up an American picture book I had never come across before: Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. It featured a poem that my husband and I would end up reading, oh, I don’t know, at least 900 times. The book became such a pillar of my daughter’s nightly routine that by the time she could talk, I realised she knew it by heart.It also marked a turning point for me. I had been finding the pregnancy hard. Various complications meant it was high risk, and there was a good chance I would not manage to carry my baby to term. This knowledge weighed heavily in my heart while, in my womb, Flora was literally doing somersaults for the sonographers, happily oblivious to my concerns. Continue reading...

The companies in line for the biggest gains – and the shareholders who have already made fortunes

Vehicle had no problem going 6.5 metres, turning and backing up, then photographed its own wheel marks on planet’s surfaceNasa’s Mars rover Perseverance has taken a short drive two weeks after touching down, mission managers have said.The six-wheeled, car-sized probe went 6.5 metres (21.3 feet) during a half-hour test within Jezero crater, an ancient lake bed and river delta. Continue reading...

Foreign affairs minister says Europe ‘ravaged’ by coronavirus and Italy is working according to EU regulation

The speed and cooperation of the Covid response has been honed by decades of dealing with ‘the biggest pandemic the world has ever seen’When Dr Anthony Fauci spoke at the 20th International Aids Conference in Melbourne in 2014, his appearance garnered little media attention.Nearly seven years later, the HIV expert and director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has become a household name throughout the world as the adviser to the White House on the Covid-19 pandemic, appearing in the media daily and speaking plainly about the science and the nature of the virus. Continue reading...

Previously unknown individual who tested positive for variant located in south London after massive search

Health secretary defends proposed 1% pay rise for NHS staff; UK individual who tested positive for Brazil variant found in Croydon. This live blog has now closed – please follow the global Covid live blog for updates

We’ve had a traumatic year and lost patients and colleagues. But all he offers us is a derisory 1% pay offer

As the UK government plans to extend the use of lie detectors to terrorism and domestic abuse, our science editor puts himself in the hot seat“Did you plant the bomb?” It’s not a question I’ve been asked before but I’m comfortable enough denying it. Truth is – I didn’t plant a bomb. I planted a pretend bomb – a shoebox filled with webcams and wires – and I’m relying on my physiology to share the pedantic, but surely relevant, distinction. “No,” I answer. There is no bomb.I’ve been told to look straight ahead at the wall so have no idea what Amanda – not her real name – makes of my response. A trainee polygraph examiner, she is hunched over a laptop monitoring my reaction to her questions via sensors on my hand, arm and around my chest. She tells me to sit still. The seat pad has detected a shuffle – a warning I may be deploying “countermeasures”. One such trick, I learn too late, is to firmly clench the buttocks. Continue reading...

David Morris encounters rare optical illusion known as superior mirage while out on coastal stroll

Image unexpectedly shows light and dark features, including Aphrodite Terra, a highland area near planet’s equatorA newly released image from Nasa’s Parker Solar Probe unexpectedly shows surface features on Venus. It is a surprising result because Venus is permanently covered in clouds that should block out any view of the surface at optical wavelengths.Previous spacecraft have resorted to radar or infrared cameras to map out the terrain. The image was taken in July 2020 when the spacecraft flew by Venus en route to the sun. During the encounter, the spacecraft’s Wide-field Imager for Parker Solar Probe (WISPR) targeted the planet’s night-time hemisphere, while 12,380km (7,693 miles) away. Instead of clouds, it showed light and dark surface features. The largest of these areas has been identified as Aphrodite Terra, a highland region near Venus’s equator. Continue reading...

Prime minister thanks New Zealand for complying with seven-day restrictions on fifth day of no new community casesAuckland’s seven-day lockdown is due to lift on Sunday morning after no new cases of coronavirus were recorded in the community on Friday.The prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, said Auckland would go from alert level three to level two at 6am on Sunday, while the rest of the country would move down to level one. Continue reading...

The space debris was spotted falling to Earth near Bordeaux but astronomer admits to ‘needle in a haystack’ searchFrance’s ranks of amateur astronomers have been urged to help find an apricot-size meteorite that fell to Earth last weekend in the south-west of the country.The rock, estimated to weigh 150 grams (just over five ounces), was captured plunging through the atmosphere by cameras at an astronomy education facility in Mauraux, and landed at exactly 10.43pm on Saturday near Aiguillon, about 100km (62 miles) from Bordeaux. Continue reading...

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World’s largest neuroscience prize goes to researchers whose work has paved way for preventive treatments

Academics write to Robert Jenrick predicting dire consequences for climate crisis if plans go aheadLeading international climate scientists are among more than 200 academics who have written to the government calling on it to halt what they say would be an ecologically destructive expansion of Leeds Bradford airport.Almost 250 professors, academics and researchers from Leeds University, including two of the lead authors of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, have written to Robert Jenrick, the minister for housing, communities and local government, predicting dire consequences for the climate crisis if the plans go ahead. Continue reading...

Focus on agro-business rather than ecology has split groups invited to planned UN conference on hunger

MHRA says it will not insist that vaccines altered for new variants are ‘non-inferior’ to original

What we believe is influenced by an array of factors, from our past experience to who our friends are. But a recent paper has now looked at what role how we think plays in sculpting our world-views. Natalie Grover speaks to lead author Dr Leor Zmigrod about the research evaluating the link between cognitive disposition – differences in how information is perceived and processed – and ideologies Continue reading...

Embracing difference is vital for our success as a species, but it places extra demands on the brain. Here’s how to get better at itMost people enjoy variety. We like to eat different foods from meal to meal. We wear different clothes. We like to try new activities and visit new places, which may be hard to remember right now in our tiny, socially isolated rooms, but it’s true. Likewise, with too little variety we become bored. Your favourite food might be duck à l’orange, but you wouldn’t want to eat it for three meals a day, every day.Nevertheless, there’s one place we tend to dislike variety, and that’s in each other. We often have a hard time with people who look different from us, practise different rituals, wear unfamiliar clothes, or hold beliefs or values that we do not share. Continue reading...

Elon Musk’s last two prototypes reached similarly high altitude, but crash-landed in fireballsSpaceX’s futuristic Starship looked like it aced a touchdown Wednesday, but then exploded on the landing pad with so much force that it was hurled into the air.The failure occurred just minutes after SpaceX declared success. Two previous test flights crash-landed in fireballs. Continue reading...

Elon Musks's Starship rocket has made its first test launch, flight and intact landing – before suddenly exploding minutes later. After a delay to the initial flight, SN10 lifted off from Boca Chica, Texas, reaching an altitude of 10 kilometres, before descending and landing upright, albeit apparently on fire at its base. Three minutes after touchdown and soon after the SpaceX live stream was turned off, the rocket exploded. The landing was at least better than the last two times, where the prototypes crashed down and exploded Continue reading...

Australian DJ and neuroscientist Rebecca Poulsen – AKA BeXta – is studying what happens to a zebrafish larvae brains when they hear certain sounds. Then she played one MC Hammer's 1990 hit … 'You can see when the vocal goes ‘ohhh-oh’, specific neurons light up and you can see it pulses to the beat,' she says. 'To me it looks like neurons responding to different parts of the music' Continue reading...