The solution to today's puzzleEarlier today I set you the following puzzle, which has been doing the rounds in the academic community, because of its counter-intuitive result. Here it is again with the solution. Continue reading...
Our research suggests that it's not sadness per se that leads to poor mental health, but shutting down input from the body. Sense foraging' offers a way out of the trapModern life seems designed to stop us from being alone with our thoughts and feelings. Our days are built from the bricks of work and play, mortared by media and intoxicants. It's understandable: glimpses behind the curtain can be deeply uncomfortable. When we pause for a second, the mind too often gravitates towards our greatest sources of stress - be they troubled relationships or our own critical stories about ourselves.Scientists have even found that quite a few of us would rather give ourselves painful electrical shocks than wait in a distraction-free room for 15 minutes. Most people would agree that we need an occasional break from constant activity, but we seem unable to take advantage of our time off; rumination rushes in, spoiling what should be a period of respite. Distraction is one option - but why does taking time to chill" now require Netflix? Continue reading...
From processed food to antibiotics, there are many reasons for the increase in allergies - and an urgent need for better safety measuresIn February 2023, 13-year-old Hannah Jacobs died from a severe allergic reaction after drinking a hot chocolate from Costa Coffee. Hannah suffered from allergies to dairy, fish and eggs, and her mother had asked for soy milk, but the hot chocolate contained cows' milk. In July 2016, 15-year-old Natasha Ednan-Laperouse died on a flight after eating a Pret a Manger baguette she had bought at Heathrow. She had a severe allergic reaction to sesame, which had been baked into the bread but wasn't listed on the ingredients label.These types of fatal events linked to food allergies seem to be occurring more frequently. They appear in headlines and have driven a movement to make planes, schools and other restricted environments nut-free". But are food allergies really on the rise, or is our coverage of them merely increasing?Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh Continue reading...
After huge gains by 2005, efforts to wipe the disease out in India, which has most of the world's cases, stalled. But the new campaign is seen as a political move without resourcesAs a teenager, Tanu Bai would burn her hands while cooking but feel no pain. I couldn't feel anything. My hands and feet were numb," she says. I'd burn them but wouldn't be able to tell." Her arms would sometimes become horribly swollen, and then there were the white spots dotting her body.Without treatment, the muscles and bones in her fingers slowly disintegrated and were reabsorbed into her body, reducing her hands to stubs. Orphaned at 10, she had no family to take care of her. Continue reading...
This puzzle is a giftUPDATE: Read the solution hereToday's puzzle has recently got attention among academic mathematicians.Make an intuitive guess at the answer before you try to work it out - the answer is very surprising. Continue reading...
Academics say there has been no serious response from FAO to their complaints of serious distortions' in reportMore than 20 scientific experts have written to the UN's food agency expressing shock at its failure to revise or withdraw a livestock emissions report that two of its cited academics have said contained multiple and egregious errors".The alleged inaccuracies are understood to have downplayed the potential of dietary change to reduce agricultural greenhouse gases, which make up about a quarter of total anthropogenic emissions and mostly derive from livestock. Continue reading...
Zodiacal constellation is composed of faint stars that represent two fish tied together by a cordAs September nights cool and lengthen, the constellation of Pisces, the fishes, emerges in the eastern sky. The chart shows the view looking east from London at 9.30pm BST on 30 September, shortly after the full constellation has risen above the horizon.As the autumn proceeds, the constellation will rise earlier and earlier. Pisces is one of the zodiacal constellations, meaning it crosses the sun's annual path around the sky. Continue reading...
by Written by Ferris Jabr and read by Nezar Alderazi. on (#6R3RX)
Without plankton, the modern ocean ecosystem - the very idea of the ocean as we understand it - would collapse. Earth would have no complex life of any kind. By Ferris Jabr Continue reading...
The existential threat from a large meteor is real, but two next-generation telescopes are about to make us saferOn 4 September, an asteroid was spotted curving towards Earth. Astronomers quickly established that it would impact the planet in 10 hours' time. The Philippines island of Luzon was in the line of fire, and there was nothing they could do about it but watch. Sure enough, at 16.39 UTC (17.39 in the UK), just as predicted, the space rock plunged into the world and burst into flames.If you're wondering why you're still around to read this, it's because that meteor was only a metre in length. Far too puny to cause any damage, the asteroid instead harmlessly ignited in the upper atmosphere, temporarily painting the sky in a blue-green streak of light. As it turns out, small asteroids hit the planet all the time. They're nothing to worry about - but it doesn't take a massive leap in size for one to become a threat. Continue reading...
by Philip Oltermann European culture editor on (#6R39V)
Philippe Boxho's macabre true stories are approaching 1m copies sold and shedding light on a misunderstood' jobA girl on a farm is devoured by pigs. A walker's throat is slit by the broken-off blade of a lawn mower after it hits a stone. A woman fires 13 bullets into the body of her seemingly sleeping father but is cleared of murder because he had died of an aneurysm three hours earlier.Miniature tragedies like these cram the pages of the books of the Belgian forensic pathologist Philippe Boxho, and explain why his bestsellers are at numbers one, two and three of France's nonfiction charts: they are macabre but also darkly comic and, above all, true. Continue reading...
A catastrophe is indeed looming in letting Graham Hancock return with his oddball theories, now with Keanu Reeves in towDiary note: it may seem a while off, but the end of the world is still scheduled for 2030, precise date TBC. After once suggesting that nameless devastation could be upon us in 2012, the evergreen eschatologist Graham Hancock subsequently updated his advice to a comet, now six years off. Or thereabouts. MailOnline, which has been exhuming an ancient Hancock text, reminds readers of his dire warning for our age".What is certain, anyway, is that a great and horrifying catastrophe will occur as soon as 16 October. This is the day Netflix will launch something astounding, almost beyond belief, something sceptics said could never happen: series 2 of Hancock's Ancient Apocalypse. And stranger still: this terrible event stars, along with Hancock, the Hollywood actor Keanu Reeves.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk Continue reading...
Olympians and amateurs alike swear by legal products such as probiotics and creatine for improving their performance - but does the evidence back them up? We ask the experts about four favouritesIn August, Keely Hodgkinson won Great Britain's only Olympic gold medal on the track. The foundation of the 800m star's world-beating performance came from a regime that comprises intensity over mileage, cross-training, sand-dune workouts and a 15 supplement that has been around for years but has enjoyed a breakthrough year in 2024. Hodgkinson uses sodium bicarbonate - AKA baking powder - to power up her training and races, specifically Maurten's bicarb system" that, according to one leading coach, was used by 80% of endurance athletes in Paris. I couldn't recommend it strongly enough," said Hodgkinson's coach, Trevor Painter. But why? What is it about sodium bicarbonate and the Maurten system that's had it labelled gold dust" by another leading coach? And beyond the bicarb, what other legal supplements are used? The industry is currently valued at $17.61bn (13.15bn) - that's an awful lot of pills, powders and potions that purport to improve sporting performance. Here we look at the evidence on four of them. Continue reading...
Looking through old cutlery was a safe haven for my dad after he became lost in dementia land'The days are long in Dad's house in the last year of his life. He is mostly asleep in a hospital bed in the corner of the room, while I sit quietly on the sofa hoping he sleeps a little longer. I sit watching him, worrying he's stopped breathing, listening to the radio playing pop songs that transform the room into a time machine. Catch a bright star and place it on your forehead...", T Rex's Ride a White Swan transports me back to 1970, watching Top of the Pops in this room, Dad teasing us about Marc Bolan's shoes or Noddy Holder's trousers.When he wakes up, I ask him if he remembers the song. He shakes his head slowly. I don't remember anything..." Even trying to remember is too difficult and so, as the song fades away, we fall back into silence until he asks if we can look at spoons. Continue reading...
The space scientist, 56, talks about science and diversity, being made a Barbie, dyslexia and why she told Jools Holland we'd encounter aliens by the end of the yearI said we'd find evidence of alien life by the end of 2024. But I said that when I was on Jools Holland's Hootenanny, and my thinking was that if I said something outlandish they'd invite me back - if only to humiliate me. I'm sure alien life does exist. It's just a numbers game. But we probably won't get confirmation of it in the next three months.
One craft will block the view of the sun from the other to deepen understanding of solar disruptions on terrestrial technologyEuropean scientists are preparing to launch a space mission that has been designed to create total eclipses of the sun on demand.The robot spacecraft Proba-3 will be launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) in a few weeks in a mission which will involve flying a pair of satellites in close formation round the Earth. They will be linked by lasers and light sensors, with one probe blocking the view of the sun as seen from the other craft. The effect will be to create solar eclipses that will last for several hours. Continue reading...
England's chief medical officer also tells inquiry that UK's low level of intensive care provision is a political decisionAnother pandemic as big as the Covid crisis that killed 7 million people worldwide is a certainty", Prof Sir Chris Whitty has warned, as he said that the UK's lack of intensive care capacity for the sickest patients was a political choice".The NHS faced an absolutely catastrophic situation" when the virus first hit in 2020 but it could have been substantially worse" if the UK had not gone into lockdown, England's chief medical officer said. Continue reading...
Immunologists push for increase in testing and more widespread vaccine booster rollout as new variant, XEC, emergesCovid is on the rise in England, and experts have warned that more must be done to prevent and control infections after a capitulation to the virus".Prof Danny Altmann, an immunologist at Imperial College London, said those working in the field were perplexed by the current attitude to the battle against Covid, as the latest figures showed an increase in hospital admissions. Continue reading...
by Kat Lay, Global health correspondent on (#6R1H3)
Pledge at UN follows warnings that antimicrobial resistance may undo century of medical progress and kill 8.2m a yearWorld leaders have committed to reduce deaths linked to superbugs by 10% before the end of the decade.The target for 2030, set during a meeting at the UN's general assembly in New York, came with warnings that antimicrobial resistance (AMR) could reverse a century of medical progress. Continue reading...
Newly discovered figures dating back to 200BCE nearly double the number of known geoglyphs at enigmatic siteArchaeologists using artificial intelligence (AI) have discovered hundreds of new geoglyphs depicting parrots, cats, monkeys, killer whales and even decapitated heads near the Nazca Lines in Peru, in a find that nearly doubles the number of known figures at the enigmatic 2,000-year-old archaeological site.A team from the Japanese University of Yamagata's Nazca Institute, in collaboration with IBM Research, discovered 303 previously unknown geoglyphs of humans and animals - all smaller in size than the vast geometric patterns that date from AD200-700 and stretch across more than 400 sq km of the Nazca plateau. Continue reading...
Fish monitor sea floor using leg-like structures covered in bumps similar to those on a human tongue, study findsA bizarre type of fish with leg-like appendages uses its limbs not only to scurry around but also for tasting" the sea floor to find buried prey, researchers have found.Sea robins have six leg-like structures that are formed from modified fins and are known to use them to walk across the sea floor and even flip over shells in a hunt for prey. Continue reading...
by Kat Lay, Global health correspondent, and Prosper on (#6R12E)
Poll suggests half of Congolese have not heard of deadly disease, as conspiracy theories and rumours spreadFor doctors and nurses fighting mpox in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the virus itself is not the only enemy. They are also facing swirling rumours and misinformation.The first of millions of promised doses of mpox vaccine have finally started to arrive. Now the focus is on ensuring that people who need them will take them when the vaccination campaign begins next month, and teaching wider communities how to protect themselves. Continue reading...
Scientists say total amount of physical activity people get is more important than how frequently they trainIf exercise takes a back seat in the working week, take heart. Cramming the recommended amount of physical activity into the weekend still has significant health benefits, research suggests.A study of nearly 90,000 people enrolled in the UK Biobank project found that weekend warriors" who fit a week's worth of exercise into one or two days had a lower risk of developing more than 200 diseases compared with inactive people. Continue reading...
It used to be that Brits would complain about Americanisms diluting the English language. But in fact it's a two-way streetI am an American, New York-born, but I started to spend time in London in the 1990s, teaching classes to international students. Being interested in language, and reading a lot of newspapers there - one of the courses I taught was onthe British press - I naturally started picking up onthe many previously unfamiliar (to me) British words and expressions, and differences between British and American terminology.Then a strange thing happened. Back home in the United States, I noticed writers, journalists and ordinary people starting to use British terms I had encountered. I'll give one example that sticks in my mind because it is tied to a specific news event, and hence easily dated. Continue reading...
by Presented by Ian Sample, produced by Ellie Sans, s on (#6R0XH)
Industrial civilisation is close to breaching a seventh planetary boundary, and may already have crossed it, according to scientists who have compiled the latest report on the state of the world's life-support systems. They say ocean acidification is close to critical threshold, posing a threat to marine ecosystems and global liveability. Ian Sample speaks to Prof Helen Findlay, a biological oceanographer at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, to find out why the oceans have reached this state, and whether there is anything we can do to reverse the damage.Earth may have breached seven of nine planetary boundaries, health check shows Continue reading...
Women with premature ovarian insufficiency condition are more likely to develop conditions such as diabetes and lupusWomen with premature ovarian insufficiency, whose periods stop before 40, have a much greater risk of severe autoimmune diseases, according to research.Premature ovarian insufficiency (POI) occurs when women under 40 no longer produce eggs because their ovaries have stopped working properly. Periods become irregular and then stop, and some women experience menopause symptoms. It affects 1% of women globally. Continue reading...
Software with database of 380,000 pictures aims to aid quick and accurate identification and ensure correct use of antivenomsThe race to treat snakebite patients in time to save them could be eased by the development of software powered by artificial intelligence.The medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) is trialling AI snake detection in South Sudan using a database of 380,000 pictures of snakes to identify venomous species. Continue reading...
Researchers develop grain with lower glycaemic index and more protein that could have big impact in Asia and Africa'Scientists in the Philippines have created a new variety of rice that could help reduce the growing burden of diabetes.More than 537 million adults worldwide are living with the chronic disease - a number that is expected to grow to 783 million by 2045. Being overweight, genetics and a lack of exercise contribute to type 2 diabetes, which is the most common form. Type 2 occurs when the pancreas fails to produce enough of the insulin hormone, leaving too much glucose in the blood, and cells develop a resistance to insulin. Continue reading...
Researchers find minuscule difference in the amygdala - a region of the brain linked to threat perceptionWhere does our personal politics come from? Does it trace back to our childhood, the views that surround us, the circumstances we are raised in? Is it all about nurture - or does nature have a say through the subtle levers of DNA? And where, in all of this, is the brain?Scientists have delved seriously into the roots of political belief for the past 50 years, prompted by the rise of sociobiology, the study of the biological basis of behaviour, and enabled by modern tools such as brain scanners and genome sequencers. The field is making headway, but teasing out the biology of behaviour is never straightforward. Continue reading...
Christopher Redman displayed a dedication beyond the call of duty with all his patients on the Silver Star pre-eclampsia ward. He would appear at odd times to check on someone's progress, or their baby's, having biked from his home in Oxford.We knew him from 1986-87, when our son Alex was born six weeks early, and thrived after treatment. Our second son, Chris, born in 1992, 14 weeks early, did not make it to Oxford, despite my pleas to use the air ambulance from Walsall. Christopher kept in touch with Walsall Manor hospital throughout my stay. Continue reading...
by Presented and produced by Madeleine Finlay, sound on (#6QYZG)
Madeleine Finlay speaks to Dr Saul Newman, an interdisciplinary researcher at University College London and the University of Oxford, who has just won an Ig Nobel prize - given to scientific research that first makes people laugh, and then makes them think' - for his work showing that many claims of people living extraordinarily long lives come from places with short lifespans, no birth certificates, and where clerical errors and pension fraud abound. He tells Madeleine what happened when he went looking for the world's centenarians, and how his work has been received by the longevity research communityIg Nobel prize goes to team who found mammals can breathe through anuses Continue reading...
Enclosure found under late novelist's garden is older than Salisbury monument and wins national recognitionWhen the author Thomas Hardy was writing Tess of the D'Urbervilles in 1891, he chose to set the novel's dramatic conclusion at Stonehenge, where Tess sleeps on one of the stones the night before she is arrested for murder.What the author did not know, as he wrote in the study of his home, Max Gate in Dorchester, was that he was sitting right in the heart of a large henge-like enclosure that was even older than the famous monument on Salisbury Plain. Continue reading...
Postpartum haemorrhage and severe pre-eclampsia more likely than in women who conceive naturally or with IVFWomen who act as pregnancy surrogates appear to have a higher risk of health complications than those who carry their own babies, researchers have found.The use of surrogates, or gestational carriers", has boomed in recent years, with figures for England and Wales revealing that the number of parental orders, which transfer legal parentage from the surrogate, rose from 117 in 2011 to 413 in 2020. Continue reading...
by Damien Gayle Environment correspondent on (#6QYNF)
Ocean acidification close to critical threshold, say scientists, posing threat to marine ecosystems and global liveabilityIndustrial civilisation is close to breaching a seventh planetary boundary, and may already have crossed it, according to scientists who have compiled the latest report on the state of the world's life-support systems.Ocean acidification is approaching a critical threshold", particularly in higher-latitude regions, says the latest report on planetary boundaries. The growing acidification poses an increasing threat to marine ecosystems." Continue reading...
US physicists show how immense pulse of radiation could vaporise the side of asteroid and nudge it off courseScientists, as well as Hollywood movie producers, have long looked to nuclear bombs as a promising form of defence should a massive asteroid appear without warning on a collision course with Earth.Now, researchers at a US government facility have put the idea on a firm footing, showing how such a blast might save the world in the first comprehensive demo of nuclear-assisted planetary defence. Continue reading...
Beyond being in or out of control, there is an alternative - and it's one of the building blocks to living wellMy family was recently taken down by a brutal stomach bug. It took us out one by one, and although nothing could be more predictable in a household with a child who has recently started nursery, the biblical brutality of the symptoms took me by surprise. I think I had better leave it at that.While I have recovered physically, I am still reeling from the psychological vulnerability of feeling so helpless, of having no control over my own body. So I have been thinking about control, how frightening it is to feel out of it, how we kid ourselves that we are in it. People often speak of feeling out of control - of their thoughts, their emotions, their relationships - and it's something that comes up a lot in therapy, whether I am the patient or the therapist. The assumption seems to be that to build a better life, you have to be in control of it; the truth is, this desperation to be in control can destroy our lives and the lives of those we love. Continue reading...
After sun crosses celestial equator, true moment of equal light and darkness approachesWelcome to autumn! The northern hemisphere's autumnal equinox took place on 22 September. This is the day on which the sun crosses the celestial equator, moving from the northern celestial hemisphere to the southern.The celestial equator is the projection of the Earth's equator up into the sky. So, on the equinox, the sun is shining directly above Earth's equator, and this creates nearly equal hours of daylight and darkness across the globe. This is reflected in the name. The word equinox" comes from the Latin words aequus, meaning equal, and nox, meaning night. Continue reading...
by Denis Campbell Health policy editor on (#6QXTF)
Non-smokers found to have 1% chance of treatment leading to disease compared with between 2% and 6% for smokersBreast cancer patients who continue to smoke after having radiotherapy are at much higher risk of their treatment causing them lung cancer in the future, research has found.Two in three of those diagnosed with early breast cancer in the UK are given radiotherapy. It is a long-established and highly effective treatment but does also have potential side-effects. Continue reading...
The psychology term is now a political expression as Americans across party lines report feeling powerlessBiden Is Trying to Jolt Us Out of Learned Helplessness About Trump," read the headline of a New York Times op-ed in January, which argued that [Donald] Trump's exhausting provocations" were wearing out voters who saw opposing the former president's re-election as a doomed project".Six months later, the mood was slightly more optimistic. Joe Biden had dropped out of the presidential race and Kamala Harris had taken his spot as the Democratic nominee. National Democrats seem to have shaken off their perennial sense of learned helplessness," read a July op-ed from the Charlotte Observer. Continue reading...
What we wear tells the world who we are, but open any wardrobe and the clothes reveal deep memories of our true selvesOn my first birthday I was given a charm bracelet and over the years various friends and relations gave me little charms to put on it: a tiny tennis racket, a dog that looked a bit (but not very) like ours, a key for my 21st birthday. Once I earned my own money, I occasionally bought a charm and added it to the bracelet - and it slowly grew into a miniature record of my life. When it was stolen in a burglary, I felt I'd lost not just the physical object but my life story.Clothes narrate our lives in a similar way, though unfortunately you can't fit them into a tiny box. They are an autobiography in fabric, gathering emotions and memories like a non-rolling stone. When it comes to Proustian triggers, clothes can give the madeleine a run for its money: a rifle through the wardrobe can whisk you back down the corridors of time. It's little wonder that throwing out a beloved dress can feel like burning a diary. It's like giving away part of yourself. Continue reading...
Millions have always known it and now scientists agree that for health and pleasure, less is moreWhat a great feeling it is when a study by actual scientists comes along and validates something that you've been saying for years. Researchers from the behaviour and health research unit at the University of Cambridge (heard of it?!) have recommended that the traditional British pint be abandoned in favour of the two-thirds measure.After a trial in a dozen pubs, bars and restaurants in England, the study leader, Prof Theresa Marteau, concluded that the change - which led to nearly 10% less beer being sold and consumed - could reduce the impact of alcohol-related harm.Elle Hunt is a freelance journalist Continue reading...
First case of person to contract H5N1 after no known animal contact highlights federal-state agency relationshipsThe first case of a person to contract bird flu after no known contact with animals is raising questions about the possibility of human-to-human transmission and highlighting the complicated relationship between states and federal agencies in outbreak response.An extensive investigation into the case of a patient in Missouri who was hospitalized on 22 August has revealed no links to animals, officials at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told reporters on Thursday. Continue reading...
Tesla and others are trying to infuse robots with artificial intelligence, yet their development is dogged by technical and safety challenges. But the dream of a multipurpose domestic droid lives onIn 2013, US robotics company Boston Dynamics revealed its new robot, Atlas. Unveiled at the Darpa Robotics Challenge, the 6ft 2in humanoid could walk on uneven ground, jump off boxes, and even climb stairs. It was like a vision frequently depicted in fiction: a robot designed to operate like us, able to take on all manner of everyday tasks. It seemed like the dawn of something. Robots were going to do all of our boring and arduous chores, and step up as elderly care workers to boot.Since then, we've seen leaps forward in artificial intelligence (AI), from computer vision to machine learning. The recent wave of large language models and generative AI systems opens up new opportunities for human-computer interaction. But outside of research labs, physical robots remain largely restricted to factories and warehouses, performing very specific tasks, often behind a safety cage. Home robots are limited to vacuum cleaners and lawnmowers - not exactly Rosie the Robot. Continue reading...
The ex-president may not be able to explain how in vitro fertilization works, but he's had a lot to say about it latelyDonald Trump, I strongly suspect, would not be able to explain how in vitro fertilization (IVF) works if his life depended on it. Yet in recent months - and in what seems to be a disingenuous and desperate attempt to woo female voters - he has had a lot to say on the subject. Continue reading...
Illness could be treated as a physical, rather than mood, disorder, according to scientists in EdinburghIain Campbell, a researcher based at Edinburgh University, has a special perspective on bipolar depression. He lives with the condition and has lost family members who have taken their own lives because of their depression. It remains an intractable, devastating health problem, he says.More than a million people in the UK have bipolar depression, of whom a third are likely to attempt suicide. Yet the condition's roots remain unknown - despite significant efforts to understand them. Continue reading...
Science | The Guardian