Using cutting-edge methods, Alexandra Morton-Hayward is cracking the secrets of ancient brains - even as hers betrays herAlexandra Morton-Hayward, a 35-year-old mortician turned molecular palaeontologist, had been behind the wheel of her rented Vauxhall for five hours, motoring across three countries, when a torrential storm broke loose on the plains of Belgium. Her wipers pulsed at full speed as the green fields of Flanders turned a blurry grey. Behind her sat a small, black picnic cooler. Within 24 hours, it would be full of human brains - not modern specimens, but brains that had contemplated this landscape as far back as the middle ages and had, miraculously, remained intact.For centuries, archaeologists have been perplexed by discoveries of ancient skeletons devoid of all soft tissue, except what Morton-Hayward cheerfully described as just a brain rattling around in a skull". At Oxford, where she is a doctoral candidate, she has gathered the world's largest collection of ancient brains, some as old as 8,000 years. Additionally, after poring over centuries of scientific literature, she has tallied a staggering catalogue of cases - more than 4,400 preserved brains as old as 12,000 years. Using advanced technologies such as mass spectrometry and particle accelerators, she is leading a new effort to reveal the molecular secrets that have enabled some human brains to survive longer than Stonehenge or the Great Pyramid of Giza. Continue reading...

Findings from phase two trial suggest patients could receive treatment without having to attend a clinicPeople with major depression could alleviate their symptoms by self-administering a form of electrical brain stimulation at home, according to a clinical trial of the therapy.Patients who took a 10-week course of the treatment were about twice as likely to see their depression go into remission than those in a control group who performed the same procedure with the current switched off. Continue reading...

I have unbridled lust when faced with a buffet - as do many others. But penalties for overfilling our plates are only one possible answer ...Should you be penalised for having eyes bigger than your belly? A Cornish pub is trying it out: Mark Graham, the landlord of the Star Inn, now charges 2.40 a person for buffet excess leftovers". A few spuds is obviously no problem," Graham told a customer who complained, but said that buffet behaviour was out of control, citing a plate piled so high you could put a ladder and a flag on top of it".I can believe it. I lose my mind faced with a buffet, although I usually clean my plate (gravely regretting my choices in the hours that follow). Are we our best selves as we take up tongs in the glow of the heating lamps? That depends which side of the chafing dish you are standing on. Our hunter-gatherer instincts are capable of making any food and beverage professional quake; call it Homo Harvester. Continue reading...

Delegates from 196 countries are discussing progress in preserving biodiversity. So what are the sticking points?Every two years, leaders from around the world gather to discuss the state of life on Earth, negotiating agreements to preserve biodiversity and stop the destruction of nature. This week, representatives of 196 countries are gathering in Cali, Colombia, for the 16th UN Conference of the Parties summit (Cop16).It is the first biodiversity-focused meeting since 2022, when governments struck a historic deal to halt the destruction of ecosystems. Scientists, Indigenous communities, business representatives and environment ministers from nearly 200 countries will discuss progress towards the targets and negotiate how they will be monitored. Here are the main things to look out for during the summit.Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow the biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on X for all the latest news and features Continue reading...

Project examines how switch to winter time affects wellbeing - either positive or negative - and time perceptionDoes the prospect of darker evenings make you feel gloomy, or will you relish the extra hour in bed for one morning? Scientists are launching a study to better understand how the annual switch back to winter time affects people's wellbeing and time perception - and they need your help.In the UK, the clocks are due to go back at 2am on Sunday 27 October. Previous studies have largely focused on the negative effects of the spring transition to daylight saving time (DST) on people's sleep, cognitive performance and propensity to accidents, but less is known about the impact of the autumn change - or how these biannual events affect our perception of the passage of time. Continue reading...

Everyone feels like a shrinking violet now and then, but it needn't hold you back. Experts share their tips for speaking out, socialising and leaving timidity behindWhen Laura, 34, was growing up in a genteel neighbourhood in Edinburgh, her parents taught her that the worst thing a person could do was make a show of themselves. By that, they meant wearing bright colours, laughing or talking loudly; doing anything at all to attract attention."Although she deplored their attitude, Laura finds she has inherited their mindset. The other Sunday, I had to have a difficult conversation with a neighbour about their incessantly barking dog. They ended up shouting at me and I wanted the earth to swallow me up. There were other people around and I'm sure they were all wondering what I had done to create this scene. I can't stop replaying it in my mind." Continue reading...

Space agency has expanded its diplomatic reach in recent months, signing 12 of 45 signatories since JanuaryIt was a simple pledge made amid the excitement of a landmark moment in space exploration: We go together," Bill Nelson, the head of Nasa, promised the world as the agency prepared to launch Artemis 1, its first moon-capable rocket in more than half a century.Now, nearly two years on from that successful uncrewed mission, and as the US - despite delays - edges ever closer to placing humans on the lunar surface for the first time since 1972, the resonance of Nelson's message has become clear. Continue reading...

By writing a book about Korean myths, a writer learned that the old stories ran deep in her familyIn my childhood homes, I grew up with Korean culture all around me. For years we had a woodblock print of a tiger (intended to ward off evil spirits) on top of our bookcase, a print of the 10 symbols of longevity and a shamanic dance mask of a syphilitic monk mounted on our wall, ancient Silla-style and celadon pottery on a bookshelf and carved wooden wedding ducks on a side table. All of these things were like background noise to me - they were just normal.When I was an infant, my father would lift me up and chant the Korean phonemes, Ga, na, da, ra..." to me to ensure I would be able to pronounce all the sounds of the language. As I grew, he would sing me Korean children's songs and say rhymes. I still remember all the words to Mountain Rabbit and Forsythia. Sythia, sythia, forsythia, pluck one, put it in your mouth." Still, I used to have trouble pronouncing the plosive letters, of which there are no equivalent in English, and telling the difference between the short and long o" sounds. Continue reading...

Research at the Francis Crick Institute could lead to new drugs to counter progress of diseases like Alzheimer'sBritish scientists are about to launch a remarkable research project that will demonstrate how the air we breathe can affect our brains. This work will be vital, they say, in understanding a major medical problem: how atmospheric pollution can trigger dementia.In recent years, scientists have discovered that air pollution is one of the most pernicious threats to human health and have shown it is involved in causing cancer, heart disease, diabetes, low birthrates, and many health conditions. Continue reading...

The researcher spent 10 years studying how attitude affects mood and behaviour, and her new book shares ways in which we can learn to value the colder monthsKari Leibowitz holds a PhD in social psychology from Stanford University, where she studied the role of our mindsets on our health and wellbeing. For the past 10 years, Leibowitz has been investigating people's attitudes to winter and the ways they can powerfully affect our mood and behaviour - research that has culminated in her debut book, How to Winter: Harnessing Your Mindset to Thrive in Cold, Dark Or Difficult Times.As a Fulbright scholar, you moved from Atlanta to the University of Tromso in Norway. The polar night there lasts for almost two months. How did that experience inform your views of winter?

Recognized as a religion by the IRS, the group uses the religious right's tactics, and their victories, against themThe devil works hard, but the Republican party works harder. Not a day seems to go by without anti-abortion zealots on the right advancing some cunning new plan to strip women of their bodily autonomy. As well as shutting down abortion clinics, Republican states are trying to essentially outlaw abortion pills: on Friday, Missouri, Kansas and Idaho renewed a legal push to drastically reduce access to mifepristone. Continue reading...

Researchers hope to uncover how people died and how diseases have developed over 1,000 yearsDeep beneath the streets of Paris, thedead are having their last word. They are recounting 1,000 years of death in the city: how many are buried in the labyrinth of tunnels that make up Les Catacombes, what killed them and how the diseases that may have led to their demise have developed over the centuries.In the first ever scientific study of the site, a team of archeologists, anthropologists, biologists and doctors is examining some of the skeletons of an estimated 5-6 million people whose bones were literally dumped down quarry shafts at the end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th. Continue reading...

From chaotic collisions to depletion of the ozone layer, the thousands of satellites in orbit around Earth have the potential to wreak havoc in coming decades. What are the solutions to a growing menace?Since the start of the space age, we've had a throwaway culture - a bit like plastics in the ocean," says Nick Shave, managing director of Astroscale UK, an in-orbit servicing company headquartered in Japan.Getting a satellite into orbit around the Earth used to be a big deal. From the launch of the first, Sputnik, in 1957, as it became easier and cheaper to put satellites into space, the numbers have boomed. In 2022, there were about 6,000 and by 2030, one estimate suggests there will be nearly 60,000 satellites in orbit around our planet. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Lack of formal oversight means anyone can set up in practice and continue to work after misconduct cases, campaigners say

Guardian and Hope Not Hate investigation has raised the stakes' over threat posed by rightwing ideologyHealth institutions and policymakers need to wake up" to the danger posed by scientific racism and attempts to normalise an ideology that poses a significant threat to minority communities, thinktanks have warned.The Institute of Race Relations, the Race Equality Foundation and Race on the Agenda say they have been raising their voices about the return of race science" beliefs as a subject of open public debate over the past few years, with little response from national institutions. Continue reading...

Researchers urge caution after Jordan tomb excavation and say new clues about Nabataean culture may lie elsewhereFor one of the most famous ancient sites on the planet, there is a surprising amount about the city of Petra - and the Nabataean people who built it - that we don't know for sure.What exactly were their origins? How did their society operate? And why did they hand-carve such spectacular monuments into the reddish rock of the Jordanian desert? Continue reading...

Deborah Anna Luepnitz and Desmond Hewitt respond to Jacqueline Rose's article on the great psychoanalystI agree with Jacqueline Rose about Freud's continued relevance to our understanding of sexualities (What Sigmund Freud can teach us about the Middle East and #MeToo, 10 October). One could argue that the contemporary movement for marriage equality began with Freud, given his refusal to pathologise homosexuality. Many people assume that the Oedipus complex is meant to produce boys who will grow up loving women, and girls who will love men (I would call that Oedipus simplex").I wish Rose had mentioned what Freud called the complete Oedipus complex", which suggests that every child forms both same-sex and cross-sex attractions. Littleboys can have romantic feelings for Daddy as well as Mommy, as his famous case of Little Hans showed. For whatever reason, it does seem to be true that younger people are giving Freud a second look. In the past five years, 12 universities in the US have made it possible for students to obtain aminor - study a secondary subject - in psychoanalytic studies". At the University of Pennsylvania,whereIhave taught, these courses are attracting a surprising number of students.

Study finds that breaking up your exercise is more effective, but Tim Dowling remains to be convincedLet me start by saying that I am not looking for ways to be more tired. I'm tired enough. However, a study suggesting that exercise punctuated by frequent breaks requires more energy than steady-state" exertion has a certain counterintuitive attraction: I can exercise better by resting more.The results of the study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, are striking. Volunteers on treadmills and stair climbers used 20-60% more oxygen when walking in bursts of 10-30 seconds than they did covering the same distance without stopping. This apparently has something to do with the sheer inefficiency of stop-start activity. We found that when starting from rest, a significant amount of oxygen is consumed to start walking," said the study's author, Francesco Luciano. We incur this cost regardless of whether we then walk for 10 or 30 seconds, so it proportionally weighs more for shorter rather than longer bouts." Would this strategy, I wondered, work for me? Continue reading...

A startup in the US, Heliospect, appears to be preparing to launch a service to enable parents to select desirable' traits

Heliospect's services were marketed at up to $50,000 for 100 embryos, undercover footage shows

Chronic fatigue syndrome is as physiological as a broken leg. For the sake of those who have it, we must learn all we can from this tragic caseHow could this happen in the 21st century? This question could apply to many issues, but this one sends you reeling. A brilliant and lively young woman with a common illness was repeatedly disbelieved, dismissed and given inappropriate treatment, until she starved to death. It is a terrible result of the most remarkable situation I've ever encountered in either medicine or journalism.Last week, the coroner at the inquest into the death of Maeve Boothby O'Neill published her damning report on the prevention of future deaths. Maeve was suffering from myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), a condition afflicting hundreds of thousands in the UK. ME/CFS robs those who have it of energy. Severe cases can shut down every aspect of their lives. Continue reading...

Research is one of 11 projects part of a 12m government plan to reduce drug overdoses with new technologyResearchers are building a virtual reality world to help people overcome their cocaine addiction by repeatedly exposing them to tempting scenarios in a safe environment.The project draws on the experiences of drug users to create tailored 3D experiences, such as being alone in a flat or at a party with friends, where people can be immersed via a VR headset in realistic situations that trigger the urge to take drugs. Continue reading...

Once thought extinct after the fall of empire, this debunked practice has re-emerged with support from rogue experts and rich backersCivilisation is going to pieces ... if we don't look out the white race will be - will be utterly submerged. It's all scientific stuff; it's been proved." Sentiments like this will be familiar to those who lurk in the less wholesome corners of the internet, where racism and other bigotries flourish. As a geneticist who specialises in racism and eugenics, I lurk so that you don't have to.However, this particular phantom threat comes from Tom Buchanan, Daisy's brutish husband, barking these unsolicited words at supper in the opening pages of The Great Gatsby. F Scott Fitzgerald paints a picture of upper-class ghouls that is fundamentally accurate: eugenics, race and the menace of immigrants were defining campaigning issues in Jazz-era America, as they were in Edwardian Britain.Dr Adam Rutherford is a lecturer in genetics at UCL and the author of How to Argue With a RacistThis article was updated on 18 October 2024 to add details of partners participating in a recent Guardian investigation into a race science" network. Continue reading...

We would like to hear from people who volunteered for UK Biobank after a possible breach of controls on dataWe would like to hear from people who donated their health information to UK Biobank. The Guardian has revealed that a group of race science" researchers claim to have obtained a large" haul of the data UK Biobank holds.

Exclusive: Fringe network recorded boasting of securing data from UK Biobank trove donated by 500,000 volunteers

An artful account of a scientific genius and her female disciples leaves Marie Curie's inner life an enigmaTo write a biography of a figure as well known as Marie Curie and still offer something fresh or surprising is no easy undertaking. The double Nobel prizewinner is, as author Dava Sobel acknowledges, the only female scientist most people can name. She has inspired more biopics and biographies than I can count, including those written by her two daughters. Parents of young children will have encountered her story in almost every one of the worthy children's anthologies that adorn school bookshelves: she features in Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls, She Persisted Around the World and Little People, Big Dreams.To help shed new light on such an iconic figure, Sobel, a bestselling writer of science histories, has interwoven her account of Curie's life and scientific discoveries with those of dozens of female scientists who passed through her lab in Paris. Continue reading...

Institute for AI and data science sends memo saying it will concentrate on fewer projectsThe UK's national institute for artificial intelligence and data science has launched a consultation process that could lead to redundancies among its 440 staff.In a memo sent to staff this month the Alan Turing Institute gave an update on its new strategy, under which it will concentrate on fewer projects. Continue reading...

As the sleep tracking industry booms, some worry that it could be driving orthosomnia, the medical term for an unhealthy obsession with attaining perfect sleep, usually driven by a wearable device. Madeleine Finlay speaks to consultant neurologist and sleep physician Dr Guy Leschziner to find out whether this tech is helping or hindering our chances of maximising sleep's health benefitsClips: @sabreenawadhwani, @_bryan_johnson_, @everythingemmaleseSleep perfectionists: the exhausting rise of orthosomnia Continue reading...

The world has long been in thrall to the idea that Japan is a haven of controlled, ordered minimalism. But the reality is much different - and far messier - than you might expect

A well-preserved thylacine head was a gruesome sight - but it also contained RNA molecules crucial to reconstructing the extinct animal's genomeBreakthroughs sometimes turn up in unexpected places. The researchers working on the international push to bring back the thylacine say they found theirs in a long-ignored bucket in the back of a cupboard at a Melbourne museum.It contained an astonishingly well-preserved head of the extinct marsupial, also known as the Tasmanian tiger. Continue reading...

Research suggests the marine animals are inhaling pollutants when they come up for air, with even rural populations affectedMicroplastics have been found in dolphin breath for the first time, according to a study that suggests the marine mammals are inhaling the potentially harmful contaminants when they come up for air.The US research team, whose preliminary findings are published in the journal, Plos One, are concerned about the potential impact of inhaled plastics on the animals' lungs. Continue reading...

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...