Liberal leaders line up to praise her, yet their inaction on the climate crisis shows they are not really listening to her messageGreta Thunberg has made a lot of enemies. They are easy to recognise because their rage is so great they cannot help making themselves look ridiculous. Thunberg’s arrival in the US earlier this month set off rightwing pundits and then the president himself. The conservative provocateur Dinesh D’Souza compared her look to a Nazi propaganda poster; a Fox News guest called her a “mentally ill Swedish child” being exploited by her parents; and Trump mocked her on Twitter as a “happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future”, after a speech in which she urgently laid out the dismal prospects for her generation’s future.Related: THE GRETA THUNBERG PROBLEM, so many men freaking out about the tiny Swedish climate demon | First Dog on the Moon Continue reading...

Look high in the sky to see the Greek hero who slew the sea serpent on his winged horseNow is a good time to find the constellations based on the Greek myth of Perseus. The chart shows the core of these constellations: Perseus, Cassiopeia, Andromeda and Pegasus. They can be found high in the sky looking south this week. Continue reading...

SpaceX spacecraft would carry passengers anywhere in solar system and land back on Earth perpendicularlyElon Musk has unveiled a SpaceX spacecraft designed to carry crew and cargo to the moon, Mars or anywhere else in the solar system and land back on Earth perpendicularly.In a live-streamed speech from SpaceX’s launch facility near the southern tip of Texas, Musk said on Saturday that the space venture’s Starship is expected to take off for the first time in about one or two months and reach 19,800 meters (65,000ft) before returning to Earth and landing. Continue reading...

A family festival, where children learn courageous feats, helped me break my over-protective habitsOne Saturday this summer I stood in a field and held my breath as I waited for my nine-year-old daughter Sofya to jump through a ring of fire. Despite her enthusiasm, the hours of practice she’d had with expert adults and the many fire marshals on duty, I could see she was in conflict: afraid of the flames and equally scared of not pushing herself through that fear into the unknown.As she watched her friends take their turns – tensing her body as they ran; wincing as they jumped; grinning and clapping when they were safely on the other side – I faced my own internal struggle. I was torn between scooping her up to a safe place away from all this heat and pressure, and standing back, trusting her and letting her take the risk. It felt like a rite of passage for us both. Continue reading...

Google has built a super-fast computer, but whether it can break the encryption we take for granted is mootSomething intriguing happened last week. A paper about quantum computing by a Google researcher making a startling claim appeared on a Nasa website – and then disappeared shortly afterwards. Conspiracy theorists immediately suspected that something sinister involving the National Security Agency was afoot. Spiritualists thought that it confirmed what they’ve always suspected about quantum phenomena. (It was, as one wag put it to me, a clear case of “Schrödinger’s Paper”.) Adherents of the cock-up theory of history (this columnist included) concluded that someone had just pushed the “publish” button prematurely, a suspicion apparently confirmed later by stories that the paper was intended for a major scientific journal before being published on the web.Why was the elusive paper’s claim startling? It was because – according to the Financial Times – it asserted that a quantum computer built by Google could perform a calculation “in three minutes and 20 seconds that would take today’s most advanced classical computer … approximately 10,000 years”. As someone once said of the book of Genesis, this would be “important if true”. A more mischievous thought was: how would the researchers check that the quantum machine’s calculation was correct? Continue reading...

British zoologists part of global project to release 15,000 endangered creatures vital to French PolynesiaThey are some of the smallest animals on our planet, measuring from 1cm to 2cm in length. But the recent return of thousands of tiny tropical tree snails to French Polynesia represents one of the biggest reintroduction programmes ever attempted by conservationists.More than 15,000 partula snails – bred by a total of 16 key international conservation organisations, including the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), and Edinburgh, Chester and Amsterdam zoos – have been shipped out to Polynesia over the past five years. A few weeks ago, the most recent arrivals – more than 4,000 Partula rosea and Partula varia snails – were released on the islands of Huahine and Moorea in the Society Islands. (The archipelago, which includes Tahiti and Bora Bora and covers an area of 1,600 sq km in the South Pacific, is noted for its coral-fringed lagoons and rugged mountains.) Continue reading...

Half of people live five years or more with combination immunotherapy treatment, study finds

The health secretary wants to introduce genetic screening to the NHS – but many firms are already selling cheap testing kitsThe buzz phrase among a small army of biotech companies looking to get a foothold in the ever-expanding health market is “personalised medicine” or, as it’s also known, “precision medicine”. At the core of this concept is the understanding that we are all different, with different biological make-ups and different environments. Therefore a one-size-fits-all approach to diagnostics and treatment is long out of date.One of our most important areas of difference, and certainly the one that is increasingly subject to scientific scientific analysis, is our personal genome. The 21st-century revolution in genetics has been as dramatic as that seen in computer technology. The first human genome to be sequenced took 13 years. It can now be done in a day. The genetic information that cost about £2bn to extract in 1990 can now be got for a couple of hundred pounds. Continue reading...

Despite being something that will affect half the world’s population, the menopause, and how it can lead to things such as hot flushes, has historically been a bit of a ‘black box’ for scientists. But thanks to new insights from animal research, a much-needed alternative to hormone replacement therapy could be just around the corner. Hannah Devlin investigates Continue reading...

Review of 15 studies finds link between positive outlook and cardiovascular healthPeople who have an upbeat outlook on life have a lower risk of cardiovascular events and premature death, a review of studies has found.The review comes after research published last month suggested optimists had a greater chance of living to a ripe old age than those with a less sunny disposition. Continue reading...

Amount is significantly higher than the estimated amount of microplastics particles consumed by a person in an entire yearTea drinkers could be getting more than they bargained for in their brew, as a new study has found that a single plastic tea bag can shed billions of particles of microplastics.The researchers from McGill University in Canada have found that when plastic tea bags are steeped in a cup of almost boiling water (95C), the bag releases around 11.6bn microplastics and 3.1bn smaller nanoplastic particles into the cup. Continue reading...

Infant mortality rate higher in babies exposed to pollutants such as sulphur dioxideBabies living in areas with high levels of air pollution have a greater risk of death than those surrounded by cleaner air, a study has found.It is not the first study to investigate the link between air pollution and infant mortality , but thestudydrew particular focus on different pollutants and its analysis at different points in babies’ lives. Continue reading...

Remains of previously unknown military site include coins and French tablewareThe remains of a Roman fort have been discovered under a bus station in Exeter.Archaeologists have described the find, which occurred during redevelopment of the site in the Devon city, as important and unexpected. Continue reading...

‘It’s a race against time and one we are losing,’ says Harry as he visits reforestation project in BotswanaPrince Harry has said the science on the climate crisis is undeniable as, led by Greta Thunberg, the “world’s children are striking” to force action.The Duke of Sussex is in Botswana helping to create a new forest habitat after decades of deforestation because of locals gathering firewood and through elephant activity. Continue reading...

Panel of researchers plans to continue reviewing studies, as at least 21 million Americans said to live with unacceptable air pollutionAn advisory panel of air pollution scientists disbanded by the Trump administration plans to continue their work with or without the US government.The researchers – from a group that reviewed the latest studies about how tiny particles of air pollution from fossil fuels make people sick – will assemble next month, a year from the day they were fired. Continue reading...

School climate strike activists call on theatre group to sever ties with oil firmSchool climate protesters who took to the streets in huge numbers across the UK last week are threatening to boycott the Royal Shakespeare Company over its sponsorship deal with BP.In a letter being sent to the RSC on Thursday, a group representing young people in towns and cities across the UK, says it will launch a boycott campaign unless the theatre company severs its ties with big oil. Continue reading...

Drinking vessels unearthed in Bavaria appear designed to be held by babies or toddlersBabies from prehistoric cultures were fed animal milk in small ceramic pots, according to a study that suggests bottle-feeding is not a modern phenomenon.The drinking vessels, which were excavated from children’s graves in Bavaria, date to between 450 and 1,200BC. They have teat-shaped spouts, appear designed to be easily held by an older baby or toddler and one is shaped as an imaginary animal, suggesting it may have doubled as a toy. Continue reading...

Messages can only be seen under UV light and can be erased using a hairdryerForget lemon juice and hot irons, there is a new way to write and read invisible messages – and it can be used again and again.The approach, developed by researchers in China, involves using water to print messages on paper coated with manganese-containing chemicals. The message, invisible to the naked eye, can be read by shining UV light on the paper. Continue reading...

Data shows 13,170 centenarians in UK with five times more women of this age than menThey lived through the great depression, the second world war, the creation of the NHS and the social and civic transformation of the 1960s – and are still going strong, according to data showing that the number of people in the UK who are older than 105 has more than doubled since 2002, with five times more women of this age alive compared to men.The number of centenarians is now 13,170, according to the statistics from the Office for National Statistics (ONS): almost 73% more than in 2002, when it was 7,630. Continue reading...

Research suggests AI able to interpret medical images using deep learning algorithmArtificial intelligence is on a par with human experts when it comes to making medical diagnoses based on images, a review has found.The potential for artificial intelligence in healthcare has caused excitement, with advocates saying it will ease the strain on resources, free up time for doctor-patient interactions and even aid the development of tailored treatment. Last month the government announced £250m of funding for a new NHS artificial intelligence laboratory. Continue reading...

No one had any idea what to expect of a plan for people to meet in Rachel, Nevada, to see for themselves if the government was hiding aliensIn the middle of the Nevadan desert, outside a secretive US military airstrip, I found the world’s strangest social media convention.Dozens of young, good-looking, often costumed people were running around filming each other with semi-professional video rigs. They were YouTube and Instagram stars – or, more often, aspiring stars – here to “storm” Area 51 for the benefit of their followers and free the aliens held captive within. Or at least film themselves talking about it. Continue reading...

Only a fifth of the companies will remain on track, according to analysis of their disclosuresMore than four fifths of the world’s largest companies are unlikely to meet the targets set out in the Paris climate agreement by 2050, according to fresh analysis of their climate disclosures.A study of almost 3,000 publicly listed companies found that just 18% have disclosed plans that are aligned with goals to limit rising temperatures to 1.5C of pre-industrialised levels by the middle of the century. Continue reading...

Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez, which reveals bias towards men in measures of human life, hailed as vital work

It is very important to emphasise the importance of prevention, writes former mentor Constantine Louis. And get rid of freshers’ week, writes Jackie ShermanYou rightly bring to your readers’ attention the suffering of students with mental health problems (Report, 16 September). It is outrageous that students have to wait between two and three months for help – and tragically, in some cases, it is too late.I am 78, and up until recently I was a specialist mentor, working with university students. During that time, I came across an alarmingly high number of young people who were self-harming and often contemplated suicide. Initially, students were able to receive instantaneous help, as our counsellors had a walk-in policy and I was always available to see my mentees in a pod within the university library. Our main focus was to enable these young men and women, facing suicidal thoughts, to develop coping strategies and above all to learn to respect themselves. Continue reading...

The solutions to today’s puzzles and the results of the pint mnemonic challengeEarlier today I set you four puzzles, and a challenge to devise a rhyme about a pint being 568ml. The solutions first and the best pint-sized poems afterwards.1) A piece of paper is folded to make a shape that looks a bit like the back of an envelope, illustrated below. If the paper is unfolded again to make a flat sheet, what shape will it be? Prove it. Continue reading...

Scientists say felines display similar ‘attachment styles’ with caregivers as dogs and children – but not everyone is convincedCats may sometimes seem aloof, contrary and utterly nonplussed by humans, but it turns out that might not be the full story.Researchers say they have found that, like children and dogs, cats form emotional attachments to their caregivers including something known as “secure attachment” – a situation in which the presence of a caregiver helps them to feel secure, calm, safe and comfortable enough to explore their environment. Continue reading...

As the fall equinox strikes, marking the official end of summer, the Guardian’s Susie Cagle offers and illustrated guide to what the hot summer means for the future Continue reading...

We are in the middle of a climate breakdown, and all they can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growthThis is all wrong. I shouldn’t be standing here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to me for hope? How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!For more than 30 years the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away, and come here saying that you are doing enough, when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight. Continue reading...

The Guardian’s picture editors select photo highlights from around the world, including the Emmy awards, the Milky Way and Corbyn in a wicker car at the Labour party conference Continue reading...

Researchers hope to use bubbles trapped in ice to help predict effect of CO2 on the Earth’s climateMillion-year-old ice buried deep in Antarctica could hold crucial information about the planet’s past and help climate predictions.And scientists with the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) are a step closer to unearthing it. Continue reading...

Stationery puzzles to get your brain movingUPDATE: Solutions now up and the winners of the mnemonic challenge announcedToday, we’re pushing the envelope.1) A piece of paper is folded to make a shape that looks a bit like the back of an envelope, illustrated below. If the paper is unfolded again to make a flat sheet, what shape will it be? Prove it. Continue reading...

The blue-white star Fomalhaut, one of the brightest in the sky, can be seen low in the southern sky from the northern hemisphereIf there is one star that signposts autumn in the northern hemisphere, it’s Fomalhaut. Now is a good time to start your search for this bluish-white star. The chart shows the view at midnight (BST) as 23 September becomes the 24th, looking south. With a clear horizon, Fomalhaut will appear low and isolated as there are no other stars of comparable brightness around it. This has led astronomers to nickname it “the loneliest star”. The star itself is about twice the size and mass of the sun, yet pumps out about 16 times more light than our star. At a distance of 25 light years, it is a relatively nearby star. It is the brightest star in the faint southern constellation of Piscis Austrinus. While it is relatively easy to see, the other stars in this constellation are difficult to pick out from northern latitudes because they are so faint and appear so low in the sky. The star’s name is Arabic and translates literally as “mouth of the whale”. Continue reading...

After losing all sense of hope and home, hunting in woodland with other mushroomers got me through my griefI was a bright-eyed 18-year-old, just one month into an international study exchange in Stavanger in Norway when I met Eiolf. I stood next to him at a party and we spent the whole night talking. It helped that he was one of the few Norwegian students I met who could actually point to my home country of Malaysia on a map. After that night I’d hang around the library hoping to cross his path. Luckily, he had the same idea.Eiolf was knowledgeable and read a lot, but he also had a goofy sense of humour. He was very kind, too, the sort of person who children and animals gravitate towards. I had assumed that at the end of my exchange I’d go back to Malaysia, but instead I relocated to Norway to be with him; it just felt right. Norway was very different to my homeland, but I settled there and enjoyed a fulfilling career as an anthropologist, while Eiolf became an architect. We were together for 32 years, and I never lost that sense of joy in our relationship. He made me a better version of myself. Continue reading...

Brain-computer interface technology is moving fast and Silicon Valley is moving in. Will we all soon be typing with our minds?Almost two years ago, Dennis Degray sent an unusual text message to his friend. “You are holding in your hand the very first text message ever sent from the neurons of one mind to the mobile device of another,” he recalls it read. “U just made history.”Degray, 66, has been paralysed from the collarbones down since an unlucky fall over a decade ago. He was able to send the message because in 2016 he had two tiny squares of silicon with protruding metal electrodes surgically implanted in his motor cortex, the part of the brain that controls movement. These record the activity in his neurons for translation into external action. By imagining moving a joystick with his hand, he is able to move a cursor to select letters on a screen. With the power of his mind, he has also bought products on Amazon and moved a robotic arm to stack blocks. Continue reading...

Fine particulate matter in polluted air enters the body via the lungs and affects our health in a variety of waysThis week, scientists announced that they’d found, for the first time, air pollution particles on the foetal side of placental tissue. The discovery may explain the link between increased miscarriages and premature births and exposure to dirty air. Continue reading...

The lure of bioengineering is obvious but we should be wary of bugsA few days ago, on my way to a discussion in the exquisite little McCrum theatre, which is hidden away in the centre of Cambridge, I had to pass through the courtyard of the Eagle pub in Bene’t Street. As I did so, I suddenly remembered that this is the hostelry where, on 28 February 1953, Francis Crick, rushing in from the nearby Cavendish Lab, announced to astonished lunchers that he and James Watson had discovered the secret of life. (They had just unveiled their double-helix model of the DNA molecule to colleagues in the laboratory; there’s now a blue plaque on the wall marking the moment.)As a graduate student in the late 1960s, I knew the pub well because it was where some of my geeky friends from the Computer Lab, then located in the centre of town, used to gather. We talked about a lot of things then, but one thing that never really crossed our minds was that there might be a connection between what Crick and Watson had done in 1953 and the software that many of us were struggling to write for our experiments or dissertations. Continue reading...

Dairy farmers cash in on a growing trend to replace both homogenisation and plastic with a revival of the traditional ways“When the milk price crashed five years ago, we were in a bad way,” says Bryce Cunningham, a third-generation farmer running Mossgiel farm in Ayrshire. “Fifty, sixty years ago, you could make a living on a dairy farm; now you’re expected to just survive. So I thought, ‘If we did it the way they did it before, could we survive?’”The farm sits on the land that Robert Burns farmed in the 1700s. “Farming the land that he worked, could we recreate the milk that he drank?” Continue reading...

PM says five-year commitment designed to make Australia ‘partner of choice’ to support expeditions to moon and MarsScott Morrison has used a visit to Nasa on Saturday local time to unveil a $150m investment in Australian businesses and new technology to support the American space agency launch expeditions to the moon and to Mars.The Australian prime minister on his second day in the American capital visited Nasa, and also laid a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery. Morrison visited the graves of Australian military personnel and visit the tomb of The Unknown Soldier. Continue reading...

Recent research shows that superbolt lightning breaks the patterns associated with conventional lightningSummer is often a time for spectacular lightning, but a new study reveals that the most powerful lightning bolts strike during northern hemisphere winter. Unlike conventional lightning, “superbolts” are most common over water with hotspots over the Mediterranean and north-east Atlantic.The World Wide Lightning Location Network uses data from about 100 globally distributed lightning detection stations to pinpoint the location and size of lightning strikes. The largest bolts, known as superbolts, release more than 1,000 times more electrical energy than the average bolt. About one in every 250,000 lightning bolts is a superbolt. Continue reading...

Evading liability feels comfortable, but turns out to be a prison, while stepping up feels unpleasant, but ends up being freeingBack in 1964, in his book Games People Play, the psychiatrist Eric Berne described a pattern of conversation he called “Why Don’t You – Yes But”, which remains one of the most teeth-grindingly irritating aspects of everyday social life. The person adopting the strategy is usually a chronic complainer. Something is terrible about their relationship, job, extended family or other situation, and they moan about it incessantly, but find some excuse to dismiss any solution that’s proposed. The reason, of course, is that on some level they don’t want a solution; they want to be validated in their position that the world is out to get them. If they can “win” the game – dismissing every suggestion until their interlocutor gives up in exasperation – they get to feel pleasurably righteous in their resentments and excused from any obligation to change. We all know someone like this. To be honest, sometimes I worry I know one so well that I share a toothbrush with him.Part of the trouble here is what the writer Mark Manson calls the “responsibility/fault fallacy”. When you’re feeling hard done by – taken for granted by your partner, say, or obliged to work for a knucklehead boss – it’s easy to become vehemently attached to the position that it’s not your job to address the matter, and that doing so would be an admission of fault. But there’s a confusion here. To use Manson’s example, if I were to discover a newborn at my front door, it wouldn’t be my fault, but it most certainly would be my responsibility. There would be choices to make, and no possibility of avoiding them, since trying to ignore the matter would be a choice. The point is that what goes for the baby on the doorstep is true in all cases: even if the other person is 100% in the wrong (and even if quitting the job or relationship is your only option), there’s nothing to be gained, long-term, from using this as a justification to evade responsibility. Continue reading...

Ian Sample speaks to the theoretical physicist Sean Carroll about his mission to demystify quantum mechanics. It won’t be easy, though, as Carroll’s favoured interpretation of this fundamental theory – the ‘many worlds’ interpretation – results in a possibly infinite number of parallel universes Continue reading...

Emma Thompson and Mark Ruffalo among signatories of open letter to secretary generalA global campaign backed by 450 activist groups and celebrities, including actors Emma Thompson and Mark Ruffalo, is calling on the UN to endorse a global end to fracking before the industry torpedoes efforts to tackle the climate crisis.The open letter to the UN secretary general, António Guterres, includes signatures from individuals representing global environmental movements, universities and faith groups. Continue reading...

AI and brain-scanning technology could soon make it possible to reliably detect when people are lying. But do we really want to know? By Amit Katwala• Read the text version here Continue reading...

The young protesters have been inspiring. Politicians have to respond – and our Green New Deal bill will slash carbon emissionsIt’s been more than 10 years in the making, and is the top demand of the youth strikers gathering on Friday for the UK’s largest ever climate protest – which is why Friday is also the first attempt in Britain to put legislation in place to make a Green New Deal a reality for our country. Working with the Labour MP Clive Lewis, I am launching the full version of a Green New Deal bill (formal title, the decarbonisation and economic strategy bill), which sets out a transformative programme driven by the principles of justice and equity. It aims to move our economy away from its harmful dependence on carbon, at the scale and speed demanded by the science, and to build a society that lives within its ecological limits while reversing social and economic inequality.Related: It's time for nations to unite around an International Green New Deal | Yanis Varoufakis and David Adler Continue reading...

HMS Montagu awarded heritage status after war veterans surveyed wreck siteThe wreck of a battleship that ran aground more than a century ago has been granted special protection after wounded military veterans carried out the first full archaeological survey of the remains.HMS Montagu, a pre-first world war Duncan-class British battleship was wrecked in 1906 on Lundy island, off the Devon coast, while taking part in secret radio communication trials when a navigator miscalculated its position in heavy fog. Continue reading...

Two target markers deployed around Ryugu ahead of lander’s planned descent next monthJapan’s Hayabusa 2 spacecraft has deployed two target markers around asteroid Ryugu. The deployment took place at 5.17pm BST on 17 September from an altitude of 1km. In the minuscule gravity of the asteroid, the unpowered markers are still falling to its surface. They are expected to land sometime over the weekend or early next week at the latest.The 10cm-wide markers are covered in a highly reflective material that makes them easy to observe from the main spacecraft, which has now risen to a height of 20km (12.4 miles). By tracking their descent, planetary scientists can deduce the precise gravitational field that the asteroid generates, which reveals its internal structure. Hayabusa 2 arrived at Ryugu on 27 June 2018. It has already released three small rovers to the surface and performed two touchdowns to collect surface material. Continue reading...

Leading academics from around the country say it is their moral duty to rebel to ‘defend life itself’• Hundreds of Australian academics declare support for climate rebellionWe the undersigned represent diverse academic disciplines, and the views expressed here are those of the signatories and not their universities. While our academic perspectives and expertise may differ, we are united on one point: we can no longer tolerate the failure of the Australian government, or any other government, to take robust and urgent action to address the worsening ecological crisis.The science is clear, the facts are incontrovertible. We are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction, with about 200 species becoming extinct each day. This includes many species of insects, some of which are essential to our food systems. Many people around the world have already died or been displaced from the effects of a rapidly warming climate. July 2019 was the Earth’s hottest on record. Arctic peat is burning and ice is melting at rates far beyond even the most radical scientific predictions. The Amazon is burning at an alarming rate. All are creating devastating feedback loops, releasing more CO2 and reducing the Earth’s heat reflecting capacities. Continue reading...

Global outbreak of antibiotic-resistant superbugs linked to overconsumption of meatHotspots of antibiotic-resistant superbugs are springing up in farms around the world, the direct result of our overconsumption of meat, with potentially disastrous consequences for human health, a study has found.Areas in north-east India, north-east China and the Red River delta in Vietnam were identified as hotspots in Asia, with areas as widely separated as Mexico and Johannesburg also affected. But the hotspots are expanding quickly. The study found areas where resistance to antibiotics among farm animals was starting to emerge in Kenya, Morocco, Uruguay, southern Brazil, central India and southern China. Continue reading...

Millions will take to the streets in global climate crisis protests from 20 to 27 September