Ex-government adviser says substances such as psilocybin could have medical valueRestrictions on the use of psychedelic drugs in research should be relaxed to help find new treatments for conditions including mental health disorders, the former government adviser Prof David Nutt has said.Nutt was sacked as chair of the advisory committee on the misuse of drugs in October 2009 over his views that ecstasy and LSD are less dangerous than alcohol. Continue reading...
As scientist David Nutt campaigns for drug rules to change, we look at artists who said yes to psychedelic cultureWhile the neuropsychopharmacologist David Nutt and colleagues campaign for rules around psychedelics to change to aid research, such drugs have a long history in creative circles.LSD was important to the Beatles, whose song Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds is thought to be a nod to the drug, with psychedelics referred to in Day Tripper among others. LSD is also thought to have played an important role in the creation of the album Revolver. John Lennon and George Harrison were enthusiastic about taking the drug, whereas it took Paul McCartney some time to begin taking it. Continue reading...
Change is coming to the UK, when this crisis is over. Unless progressives have a plan, they will lose out like they did in 2008It can take a grave national crisis to fire a flare, revealing the ugliest features of a society defined by injustices that the wealthy and powerful would rather forget. It took the second world war to achieve what the Jarrow hunger marches of the 1930s struggled for: to illustrate the national shame that millions of people who were called upon to make grand sacrifices were afflicted by poverty and malnourishment. As child evacuees with hungry bellies arrived on the doorsteps of the relatively well-to-do, the other Britain could no longer be ignored. “A revolutionary moment in the world’s history is a time for revolutions, not for patching,†declared William Beveridge as he laid the foundations for the postwar welfare state. Unprecedented state direction of the economy meant that Labour’s ambitious programme of nationalisation no longer seemed quite so scary. The old order perished in the rubble of war-ravaged Britain.Coronavirus has done two things: it has magnified existing social crises and has proved that the government can act decisively when the will is there. Millions are only ever one pay packet away from destitution; the self-employed and gig economy workers lack security and basic rights; private tenants are at the mercy of their landlords; our welfare state is woefully inadequate; and many designated “key workers†are desperately undervalued and badly paid. Who, in good faith, can now blind themselves to these grim truths? Continue reading...
Experts say new evidence from Cretaceous period ‘shows us what carbon dioxide can do’Think of Antarctica and it is probably sweeping expanses of ice, and the odd penguin, that come to mind. But at the time of the dinosaurs the continent was covered in swampy rainforest.Now experts say they have found the most southerly evidence yet of this environment in plant material extracted from beneath the seafloor in west Antarctica. Continue reading...
Study finds fashionable hoppy brews lose their characteristic taste while sitting on the shelfIt will be music to the ears of Belgian beer enthusiasts: drink up.Scientists studying how well the fashionable hoppy-tasting beers of today keep in the cupboard have highlighted the particular propensity for them to lose their flavour over time. Continue reading...
by Ian Anderson, Joseph Pierce, Ryan Baxter and Paul on (#51HWM)
As Elon Musk's Starlink and Jeff Bezos's Project Kuiper race to create high-speed internet using satellites orbiting Earth, there's a small problem that could get in the way: debris. From dead spacecraft that have been around since the dawn of the space age to flecks of paint smashing windows on the International Space Station, rubbish is clogging up our orbits. And with objects moving as fast as 15,500mph (25,000 kmph), the satellite services we've come to depend on are at constant risk of collision. So how to fix the problem with junk in space? Ian Anderson investigates
by Presented by Nicola Davis and produced by India Ra on (#51HKH)
With scientists still racing to find treatments for Covid-19, Nicola Davis speaks with Prof Pall Thordarson about why soap is so effective at deactivating Sars-CoV-2 and how this differs from hand sanitiser. Continue reading...
After the financial crash, Britain’s young shouldered the burden. The Conservatives must not let that happen againThe kids are boomeranging back again. Up and down the country, overgrown children are shuffling home to roost, refugees from a virus that has stalled their adult lives mid-launch. University lectures and supervisions have all been moved online, so there’s no point student children moping around deserted halls when they could be home ransacking the parental fridge. Gap years too are ending abruptly in a mad scrabble for the last flight out. And for those losing wobbly first jobs in the early wave of coronavirus redundancies, from bar and shop workers to freelancers whose commissions have dried up overnight, home is the refuge of last resort. But now what?Everyone rightly sympathises with forlorn GCSE and A-level students, left in limbo when their exams were cancelled and still unsure of their path to university. But the worst hit in many ways are 18-year-old school leavers and final-year university students, due to emerge this summer into the world of work. Who will be hiring in the wake of what looks like a vertiginous crash? It’s hard to see many openings at the bottom of the ladder, and the temporary jobs in pubs or coffee shops that graduates took during the last recession when the “milk round†recruiters stopped calling are precisely the ones now going to the wall. Continue reading...
From cucumber-crunchers to cranial exams, YouTube is full of ASMRtists provoking the strangely pleasurable autonomous sensory meridian response. Now they’ve got their own euphoric museum showSome whisper gently into the microphone, while tapping their nails along the spine of a book. Others take a bar of soap and slice it methodically into tiny cubes, letting the pieces clatter into a plastic tray. There are those who dress up as doctors and pretend to perform a cranial nerve exam, and the ones who eat food as noisily as they can, recording every crunch and slurp in 3D stereo sound.
Tuesday’s top story: NY governor says state’s coronavirus deluge is a harbinger of what’s to come for the US. Plus, a heatwave in the coldest place on EarthGood morning, I’m Tim Walker with today’s essential stories. Continue reading...
by Presented by Hannah Devlin and produced by Madelei on (#51FTE)
Hannah Devlin speaks with Prof David Smith about the various ways in which clinicians can test whether or not someone is infected with Sars-CoV-2. And, following the recent announcement that the UK government has bought millions of antibody tests, explores what these might be able to tell us Continue reading...
by Helen Sullivan (now and earlier), Kevin Rawlinson, on (#51DZF)
Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in self-isolation; Moscow announces lockdown of 12m people; Syria records first death. This blog is now closed
System uses machine learning to offer new way to screen for hard-to-detect cancersA new blood test that can detect more than 50 types of cancer has been revealed by researchers in the latest study to offer hope for early detection.The test is based on DNA that is shed by tumours and found circulating in the blood. More specifically, it focuses on chemical changes to this DNA, known as methylation patterns. Continue reading...