The Dutch philosopher and artist believes we should change our relationship to animals. This involves recognising that they talk to us – and granting them proper rightsFagan the horse is enormous, nervy and then, suddenly, inexplicably calm when Eva Meijer strokes his neck and whispers in his twitching ears. Meijer, a Dutch philosopher, novelist, visual artist and singer-songwriter, is visiting the splendidly acronymed Faith (For Animals In Trouble, there’s Hope) animal rescue centre in Norfolk.Our photographer is hoping to obtain a portrait of Meijer talking to the animals, Dr Dolittle-style, for this interview about Animal Languages, her fascinating, accessible new book about how animals communicate, and what this means for their place on a human-dominated planet. Continue reading...

Bambang Hero Saharjo has received death threats for testifying against companiesA scientist who takes on the companies responsible for massive wildfires across Indonesia has won the prestigious John Maddox prize for standing up for science in the face of harassment, intimidation and lawsuits.Bambang Hero Saharjo, a fire forensics specialist at Bogor Agricultural University, gathers evidence for criminal trials against firms that are accused of using illegal slash-and-burn methods to clear peatland for cash crops such as palm oil, pulpwood and rubber trees. Continue reading...

Dave Morris on the collective power of research and Alastair Leake on the decline in moth populationsThe efforts of campaigners to highlight important issues can often be overlooked by a historical approach that focuses on individuals, often academics or politicians. An example is in the obituary of the biologist Victoria Braithwaite (Obituary, 9 November), which asserts that “until the early 2000s everyone knew that fish do not feel pain”. But almost 20 years earlier, we had produced and started to widely distribute a leaflet called Fish Feel Pain. And of course hundreds of thousands of people were already refusing to eat fish on those very grounds.In that same era, our group and others were campaigning on a range of other matters – such as traffic pollution, junk food, the arms trade, non-renewable energy, single-use plastics, environmental destruction – which may have seemed marginal at the time but are now acknowledged as mainstream concerns. Continue reading...

Boarding schools | Wellington college fees | Steve McQueen’s Year 3 project | Spike Milligan’s election advice | Shared ancestry | Parliamentary disillusionGeorge Monbiot’s article on boarding schools (Journal, 7 November) will have been a painful read for many, and may well have been painful for him to write. As a director for Boarding School Survivors Support (BSSS), I read of experience after experience of suffering. I applaud Mr Monbiot for having the courage to bring his story into the public eye. For those who suffer, there is help: visit the BSSS website as a first step.

Big floods likely to become more frequent because of climate breakdownPoor management of the rural landscape along with global heating and building on floodplains are the main factors that led to the floods that have engulfed towns in northern England, according to experts.Sheffield, Rotherham and Doncaster are among the places flooded, 12 years after they were badly hit when the River Don burst its banks in 2007. Many affected areas, including Meadowhall shopping centre, where customers were stranded overnight, lie within the river’s floodplain – low-lying land next to the river that naturally floods during high flow. Continue reading...

Many of us crave historical connections – but ultimately, everybody now is descended from everybody thenAfter watching Ant & Dec’s DNA Journey on ITV, I can confidently say that one thing it failed to do for me – and which genetics could definitively answer – is clarify which one is Ant and which one is Dec. Alas, this mystery remains unsolved.Aside from that, the documentary is entertaining enough. In the first episode, Ant and Dec travel around, talking to genealogists and distant relatives who have been identified by having similar bits of DNA to them – like Who Do You Think You Are? but with bonus genetics. We are introduced to Dixie Carter, who is described as a “genetic cousin” to Dec, though I couldn’t tell precisely what relation she is. The two shared an ancestor from around 150 years ago, and her presence provides light relief as she is a Texan wrestling promoter. Continue reading...

Infection found in patient who required quadruple amputation after developing rare conditionDoctors have discovered an aggressive flesh-eating infection that spreads around the body when two strains of microbe combine to overcome the host’s defences.The infection was found in a patient who required a quadruple amputation after they developed necrotising fasciitis, a rare bacterial condition that is lethal in nearly a third of cases, even when treatment is on hand. Continue reading...

Silver-backed chevrotain caught on camera after it was feared lost to scienceA distinctly two-tone mouse deer that was feared lost to science has been captured on film foraging for food by camera traps set up in a Vietnamese forest.The pictures of the rabbit-sized animal, also known as the silver-backed chevrotain, are the first to be taken in the wild and come nearly 30 years after the last confirmed sighting. Continue reading...

Politicians running scared of big pharma and the taboo around cannabis are blocking access to these vital drugsThat the government will allow a few serious epilepsy and multiple sclerosis sufferers to get cannabidiol medicine to relieve their symptoms is good news. That is all that can be said. Once more a decision emerges from the caverns of Britain’s NHS that reveals the evils of a politicised, centralised, deadened health service.Related: Legalisation of cannabis in the UK would help protect its users from harm | James Nicholls Continue reading...

A new survey of England’s dialects is instead likely to shine a light on social tribes and generational differencesAre you a blatherskite? Do you have murfles? Are you frightened of Old Harry? In the 1950s, the Survey of English Dialects sent fieldworkers across England to track regional variations in everyday words. Blatherskites were gossips, murfles were freckles and Old Harry was a bogeyman.Now the survey is being repeated. The research will undoubtedly provide a fascinating update on the changing contours of the English language. Not only have regional dialects shifted, but immigration has introduced many new accents and dialects. Continue reading...

Research scientists have largely gone unnoticed as major users of unrecyclable material. Now some universities are helping them kick the habitScientific research is a largely ignored consumer of single-use plastics, with the biomedical sciences a particularly high-volume offender. Plastic petri dishes, bottles of various shapes and sizes, several types of glove, a dizzying array of pipettes and pipette tips, a hoard of sample tubes and vials: they have all become an everyday part of scientific research. Most of us will never use such equipment, but without it, we wouldn’t have the knowledge, technologies, products and medicines we all rely on. It is vital to 21st-century lives, but it is also extremely polluting.In 2015, researchers at the University of Exeter weighed up their bioscience department’s annual plastic waste, and extrapolated that biomedical and agricultural laboratories worldwide could be responsible for 5.5m tonnes of plastic waste a year. To put that in context, they pointed out that this was equal to 83% of the plastic recycled worldwide in 2012. Continue reading...

The Trump administration is putting profits before people by pressuring the country not to ban harmful chemicalsYou know it’s a dark day for America when foreign leaders have to lecture US officials about the importance of prioritizing public health over corporate profits.Yet that is what is happening now, as the Trump administration pressures Thailand not to ban three pesticides that scientific research has shown to be particularly dangerous to children and other vulnerable populations. Continue reading...

‘Pernicious’ campaign is unfair on well-meaning people who want to help – expertThe battle between climate change deniers and the environment movement has entered a new, pernicious phase. That is the stark warning of one of the world’s leading climate experts, Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University.Mann told the Observer that although flat rejection of global warming was becoming increasingly hard to maintain in the face of mounting evidence, this did not mean climate change deniers were giving up the fight. Continue reading...

Over the past decade I’ve watched a young boy grow up and become a daily reminder to me of just how proud his mother would have beenI remember there was an aquarium in the hospice where my cousin Billie spent the last few weeks of her life. Luis, her son, liked going to visit her there more than to the hospital, not realising what her move to a palliative care centre really meant. He liked watching the big guppy in the fish tank kiss the glass when he pressed his face up against it. He’d kick a football down the corridors; seven years old and often straight from school in his too-big uniform, polished black shoes loudly slapping the lino as he ran to her room.I call Luis my nephew because Billie was always more of a sister to me. Throughout her six-year illness – she was diagnosed with a brain tumour at 26 and died at 31 – I helped look after Luis. He was just two when Billie had the first operation and although she did her best to carry on as a young working mother (she was a really in-demand makeup artist), I know she appreciated that family and friends babysat when we could. Continue reading...

Clinic hopes to help those at risk of losing ability to speak maintain sense of identityA pioneering centre aimed at preserving and re-creating people’s voices using artificial intelligence has opened in the US, with researchers hoping it will change the lives of people who face losing their ability to speak.Researchers say the venture – a joint effort between Northeastern University in Boston and the company VocaliD – could play an important role in maintaining a sense of identity among those with conditions ranging from throat cancer to motor neurone disease, by offering them the chance to sound like themselves even after self-generated speech has become impossible. Continue reading...

University of Leeds researchers to update groundbreaking 1950s language surveyAre you terrified by “harvest men” or “long-legged tailors”? Do you have “ferntickles” or “brunny-spots” on your face? If someone called you “gibble-fisted” would you be affronted or amused?The words for daddy long-legs, freckles and left-handed are all examples of English regional dialect discovered in the 1950s by a team of fieldworkers in what was the most comprehensive survey of its kind ever undertaken. Continue reading...

In 1992, Anthony Pelosi voiced concerns in the British Medical Journal about controversial findings from Hans Eysenck – one of the most influential British psychologists of all time – and German researcher Ronald Grossarth-Maticek. Those findings claimed personality played a bigger part in people’s chances of dying from cancer or heart disease than smoking. Almost three decades later, Eysenck’s institution have recommended these studies be retracted from academic journals. Hannah Devlin speaks to Pelosi about the twists and turns in his ultimately successful journey. And to the Guardian’s health editor, Sarah Boseley, about how revelations from tobacco industry documents played a crucial role Continue reading...

FoI release shows how embassy and FCO staff sought to make sense of mystery illnessesOfficial emails and diplomatic telegrams marked as sensitive reveal for the first time how the British government scrambled to understand a series of alleged “sonic attacks” on US diplomats who became ill in mysterious circumstances while on duty in Cuba.The US government ordered all non-essential staff at its embassy in Havana to return home after dozens of diplomats and family members developed headaches, dizziness and problems with balance, concentration and sleeping in a wave of illness that struck between 2016 and 2018. Continue reading...

A diet high in added sugar, impossible to escape in processed foods, has been linked to diabetes, heart disease and possibly cancerThere’s a delectable scene in André Aciman’s latest novel Find Me where three characters sit down to lunch. They have just purchased fresh fish and scallops from the market, plus spinach and wine. On a balcony overlooking Rome, the woman “split open the branzini she had broiled in a cast-iron frying pan, removed their bones, and on a different plate came the spinach and old puntarelle, over which, once we were seated, she sprinkled oil and freshly grated parmesan”.Related: Fishy business: should we all be seagans? Continue reading...

Anti-vaxxers keep telling the same obvious lies without shame, despite being debunked and factcheckedYet again a popular show is giving an anti-vaxxer a high-profile platform to spread lies and cause harm to an audience of millions. This time it’s Bill Maher who last week hosted Jay Gordon, a controversial doctor who peddles misinformation about vaccines and is best known for providing hundreds of personal belief exemptions for families to forgo school vaccine requirements.The 14-minute interview on Real Time with Bill Maher doubled down on all the dangerous views we’ve heard before: highlighting discredited work on vaccines and autism, disingenuously labelling measles a benign illness, and questioning a vaccine schedule that has been proven safe and effective by decades of research. Continue reading...

New research has found that being an extrovert makes you happier. So I spent a week attending social events to see if I could trick myself into being more naturally outgoing

Bavarian fossils of likely common ancestor of humans and apes ‘put back start of bipedalism by millions of years’The distinctive human habit of walking upright may have evolved millions of years earlier than thought, according to researchers who uncovered the remains of an ancient ape in southern Germany.Excavations from the Hammerschmiede clay pit in Bavaria turned up fossilised bones belonging to a previously unknown baboon-sized ape that lived nearly 12m years ago, long before humans split from their modern-day cousins, the chimpanzees and bonobos. Continue reading...

My brother Dan Lobb, who has died aged 80, was a designer of optical instruments for spacecraft, working at the Scientific Instrument Research Association (Sira) in Chislehurst, Kent, from the 1960s onwards.Early on in his career, he became a designer of laser projector-based flight simulators, and spent a year in the US working at the Naval Research Laboratory, in Washington. Then, in the 80s Sira began developing optical instruments for space satellites, mainly for the European Space Agency (ESA). As an inventor of uniquely clever designs, a driver of computer analyses to optimise the shapes of the lenses and mirrors, and a very good physicist and mathematician, Dan was central to the work. Continue reading...

Debate has raged for years as to whether female sexual pleasure exists for its own sake or has a role in reproduction. But the two views need not be at warThe results are finally in – a study in Clinical Anatomy has found that the clitoris does play an important role in reproduction, activating a series of brain effects (taking as read, incidentally, that it is done right: so we are talking about a female orgasm, not about an ignored clitoris, sitting there, minding its own business). Those brain effects in brief: enhancement of vaginal blood flow, increased lubrication, oxygen and temperature, and an altered position of the cervix, which paradoxically slows down the sperm and improves their motility.From a lay perspective, this feels pretty uncontroversial. The clitoris is right there in the reproductive ballpark; it would be weird if it did not at least try to help. Yet this – perhaps predictably, since female sexuality is involved – is a highly contested space. Continue reading...

Generations yet unborn will face rising oceans and coastal inundations into the 2300s even if governments meet climate commitments, researchers findSea level rise is set to challenge human civilization for centuries to come, even if internationally agreed climate goals are met and planet-warming emissions are then immediately eliminated, researchers have found.The lag time between rising global temperatures and the knock-on impact of coastal inundation means that the world will be dealing with ever-rising sea levels into the 2300s, regardless of prompt action to address the climate crisis, according to the new study. Continue reading...

From Sagan to Tesla, scientists have long puzzled over how to talk to extraterrestrial intelligenceSo you’ve received a message from an extraterrestrial intelligence. Congratulations! You are now at the centre of one of the most important events in human history. But now comes the hard part: what do you say in return – and, more importantly, how do you say it?For the past 200 years, the problem of interstellar communication with an extraterrestrial intelligence has vexed some of the world’s greatest scientists and mathematicians. Carl Friedrich Gauss, the mathematician and inventor of the heliotrope, suggested using a large array of mirrors; Guglielmo Marconi and Nikola Tesla, pioneers of wireless communication, found a solution in radio waves; and John McCarthy and Marvin Minsky, the progenitors of artificial intelligence, wanted to send computers into space as our extraterrestrial envoys. Continue reading...

Durham University Botanic Garden: Curious fungi open a gate to the mysteries of mycologyBefore I retired from university teaching, I brought undergraduates to this valley at the bottom of the botanic garden to demonstrate the rudiments of mycology. It’s a perfect location for a fungal foray: deciduous beech and oak woodland on one side of a small stream, a conifer plantation on the other, with plentiful fallen timber.The site is managed for mycological diversity, allowing dead branches to decay where they fall, entering an afterlife where wave after wave of fungal hyphae slowly reduce them to humus. As that great woodsman Oliver Rackham once said: “A horizontal tree – alive or dead – is at least as good a habitat as an upright one.” Continue reading...

Researchers find link between tobacco cigarettes and depression and schizophreniaSmoking tobacco cigarettes could increase the risk of mental health problems such as depression and schizophrenia, research suggests.It has long been known that smoking is more common among people with mental health conditions. However, it has been unclear whether smoking could be a factor in causing such problems or is simply a form of self-medication among those already living with poor mental health. Continue reading...

Study reveals which conditions can render basaltic volcanoes highly destructiveMore than half of the world’s volcanoes are basaltic. Most basaltic eruptions tend to ooze their magma out in a relatively benign way, producing a thick, sticky flow. But occasionally they go off with a big bang, like the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79, which destroyed the Roman town of Pompeii. Now a study reveals what makes some basaltic eruptions so explosive.By cooking up miniature volcanoes in the lab, analysing rock samples flung from explosive basaltic eruptions and numerically modelling the eruption process, Dr Fabio Arzilli, from the University of Manchester, and colleagues showed that low temperature magma and fast ascent up the pipes are key conditions for an explosive basaltic eruption. Continue reading...

Statement sets out ‘vital signs’ as indicators of magnitude of the climate emergency

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical conceptsAt what point does the air around us become the sky above us?Rosa Aers, Newcastle upon Tyne Continue reading...

It’s difficult to find lasting love, but by recognising your attachment type you can be more conscious in your relationships and stop self-sabotagingIt was the breakup that changed Amir Levine’s life. Fifteen years ago, he told his partner that he was falling in love with him and wanted them to move forward as a couple. His partner fled, moving across the country. The end of the relationship was especially painful for Levine. At the time he was a student at Columbia University in New York, where he is now assistant professor of clinical psychiatry. He was working in a therapeutic nursery programme, helping mothers with post-traumatic stress bond with their children. Through it, he became fascinated by the science of adult attachment.In the 1950s, the influential British psychologist and psychiatrist John Bowlby observed the lifelong impact of the earliest bonds formed in life, between children and parents, or primary caregivers: attachment theory, which has been widely researched and drawn upon since then. There are three major styles of attachment: secure, anxious and avoidant. Continue reading...

EU’s agriculture policy needs urgent reform, organisations tell incoming commission presidentThe EU’s common agricultural policy (CAP) should be overhauled urgently to stop the intensification of farming practices that is leading to a steep decline in wildlife, scientists from across the bloc have urged.Five organisations representing more than 2,500 experts have written to Ursula von der Leyen, the incoming president of the European commission, and the European parliament, to demand major changes to the way the CAP operates. Continue reading...

Previous research suggested health benefits increased with greater volume of runningAny amount of running is good for you, according to research suggesting it is linked to a similar reduction in the risk of early death no matter how many hours you clock up a week or how fast you go.According to the World Health Organization, about 3.2 million deaths each year are down to people not doing enough physical activity. Continue reading...

Since launching in 1977, the Nasa probe has captured never-before-seen images of the solar system

The solution to today’s puzzleEarlier today I set you a question from Oxford university’s Mathematics Admissions Test.You need to pack several items into your shopping bag without squashing anything. The items are to be placed one on top of the other. Each item has a weight and a strength, defined as the maximum weight that can be placed above that item without it being squashed. A packing order is safe if no item in the bag is squashed, that is, if, for each item, that item’s strength is at least the combined weight of what’s placed above that item. For example, here are three items and a packing order: Continue reading...

Nasa craft is second to travel beyond heliosphere but gives most detailed data yet

Swabs or urine self-sampling could be less invasive at identifying high-risk womenSwabs or urine samples taken at home could be as effective at identifying women at high risk of cervical cancer as traditional smear tests, according to new research.Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women globally. In the UK, women aged between 25 and 64 are invited for cervical screening every three years. Continue reading...

Grief and pain lay behind my obsession with buying new clothes. Moving in with my fiance forced me to shed the material burden, and the persona I had been hiding behind

Try your luck at its fiendish maths entrance examUPDATE: To read the solution click hereLast week about 3,500 of Britain’s most mathematically gifted sixth formers sat Oxford university’s annual Mathematics Admissions Test.The exam is designed to test “mathematical understanding…rather than a breadth of knowledge.” Today’s puzzle is taken from a recent paper. It’s about stacking items in a shopping bag. Continue reading...

Study shows people with more Bacteroidales bacteria may have up to 15% more risk of diseaseBacteria in the gut might influence the chance of developing bowel cancer, research suggests, in the latest study to link human health to the microbes within.The gut microbiome – the collection of fungi, bacteria and viruses within our gut – is a booming topic of research, with scientists suggesting certain microbial makeups could be linked to conditions ranging from anxiety to obesity. Continue reading...

The Harvard professor on science and scepticism – and why climate deniers have run out of excusesIn her new book Why Trust Science? Naomi Oreskes, professor of the history of science at Harvard University, argues that if more people heard scientists talk personally about their values, it would help turn back the creeping tide of anti-science sentiment. The former geologist recently gave evidence both to a US House of Representatives subcommittee hearing, “Examining the Oil Industry’s Efforts to Suppress the Truth about Climate Change”, and a Senate Democrats special committee hearing looking at “Dark Money and Barriers to Climate Action”.Your previous book, Merchants of Doubt, chronicled tactics used by professional climate deniers. What inspired this one?

Study by Nottingham researchers shows immune response to tumour cells can reveal diseaseBreast cancer could be detected five years before clinical signs appear in patients thanks to a blood test that could identify the body’s immune responses to tumour cells. That is the claim that has been made about research to be presented at a national cancer conference in Glasgow on Sunday. However, other cancer experts have warned these claims should be treated with caution.The study is the work of researchers at Nottingham University’s School of Medicine who focused on chemicals known as antigens. These are produced by cancer cells and trigger an immune response inside humans. In particular, they cause our bodies to make auto-antibodies that target and try to block those invading antigens. Continue reading...

Researchers say study dispels belief that state no longer has ‘real dingo’ populationsAlmost all of the so-called wild dogs in New South Wales that are killed to protect livestock are actually dingoes or “dingo-dominant hybrids”, according to new research.Researchers at the University of New South Wales said their DNA sampling project showed between 9% and 23% of the “wild dogs” in the state had only dingo ancestry, challenging a notion that most dingo populations had died out. Continue reading...

Scientists have found a discrepancy in estimates for the rate of expansion of the universe. Why is this and what does it mean?Astronomers have reached a fundamental impasse in their understanding of the universe: they cannot agree how fast it is flying apart. And unless a reasonable explanation can be found for their differing estimates, they may be forced to completely rethink their ideas about time and space. Only new physics can now account for the cosmic conundrum they have uncovered, many believe.“Five years ago, no one in cosmology was really worried about the question of how fast the universe was expanding. We took it for granted,” says astrophysicist Daniel Mortlock of Imperial College London. “Now we are having to do a great deal of head scratching – and a lot of research.” Continue reading...

My Instagram posts made me a role model for average-sized women. But overuse left me feeling overwhelmed and lostMy longest relationship began seven years ago. I think I can say that I’ve been a dedicated partner. Like any relationship, we’ve had our fair share of ups and downs. There have been times that felt like nothing could possibly come between us. Then there have been times that felt so dark I thought the only choice we had was to go our separate ways. For better or worse, we have always found our way back to one another. This love is addictive and all-encompassing. This love I’m referring to is my long-term, codependent relationship with Instagram.There were others before Instagram. Myspace was my first, then a moment with Facebook and a liaison with Twitter. I was cutting my teeth, learning how to communicate with the world beyond me. When Instagram rolled in, I was ready for the long-term. I loved that it was image-focussed; having worked as a model for most of my life, I knew how to make something look desirable. Continue reading...

Researchers re-create the face of a woman buried with an impressive collection of weaponry for a National Geographic documentaryThink of a Viking warrior and you probably imagine a fearsome, muscular, bearded man. Well, think again. Using cutting-edge facial recognition technology, British scientists have brought to life the battle-hardened face of a female fighter who lived more than 1,000 years ago.The life-like reconstruction, which challenges long-held assumptions that Viking warrior heroes such as Erik the Red left their women at home, is based on a skeleton found in a Viking graveyard in Solør, Norway, and now preserved in Oslo’s Museum of Cultural History. The remains had already been identified as female, but her burial site had not been considered a warrior grave “simply because the occupant was a woman”, according to archaelogist Ella Al-Shamahi. Continue reading...

Psychologists such as Steven Pinker and Jordan Peterson argue patriarchal society is the ‘natural order’, but it is a relatively new development, writes Gaia VinceFathers are happier, less stressed and less tired than mothers, finds a study from the American Time Use Survey. Not unrelated, surely, is the regular report that mothers do more housework and childcare than fathers, even when both parents work full time. When the primary breadwinner is the mother versus the father, she also shoulders the mental load of family management, being three times more likely to handle and schedule their activities, appointments, holidays and gatherings, organise the family finances and take care of home maintenance, according to Slate, the US website. (Men, incidentally, are twice as likely as women to think household chores are divided equally.) In spite of their outsized contributions, full-time working mothers also feel more guilt than full-time working fathers about the negative impact on their children of working. One argument that is often used to explain the anxiety that working mothers experience is that it – and many other social ills – is the result of men and women not living “as nature intended”. This school of thought suggests that men are naturally the dominant ones, whereas women are naturally homemakers.But the patriarchy is not the “natural” human state. It is, though, very real, often a question of life or death. At least 126 million women and girls around the world are “missing” due to sex-selective abortions, infanticide or neglect, according to United Nations Population Fund figures. Women in some countries have so little power they are essentially infantilised, unable to travel, drive, even show their faces, without male permission. In Britain, with its equality legislation, two women are killed each week by a male partner, and the violence begins in girlhood: it was reported last month that one in 16 US girls was forced into their first experience of sex. The best-paid jobs are mainly held by men; the unpaid labour mainly falls to women. Globally, 82% of ministerial positions are held by men. Whole fields of expertise are predominantly male, such as physical sciences (and women garner less recognition for their contributions – they have received just 2.77% of the Nobel prizes for sciences). Continue reading...