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

Unprecedented feat reveals little-known Denisovans resembled Neanderthals but had ‘super-wide’ skullsOne of the most mysterious relatives in the human family has stepped out of the shadows after scientists used ancient DNA from a fossilised finger to reconstruct their appearance.The unprecedented feat, described as “exciting” and “extraordinary” by one leading researcher who was not involved in the work, shows that the Denisovans looked similar to the Neanderthals, but had wider heads and more protruding jaws. Continue reading...

Environmental activists Greta Thunberg and George Monbiot have helped produce a short film highlighting the need to protect, restore and use nature to tackle the climate crisis.Living ecosystems like forests, mangroves, swamps and seabeds can pull enormous quantities of carbon from the air and store them safely, but natural climate solutions currently receive only 2% of the funding spent on cutting emissions.The film’s director, Tom Mustill of Gripping Films, said: 'We tried to make the film have the tiniest environmental impact possible. We took trains to Sweden to interview Greta, charged our hybrid car at George’s house, used green energy to power the edit and recycled archive footage rather than shooting new.'

Tasmanian senator says Hitler would be ‘so proud’ after academic website announces it will not tolerate climate change denialThe Liberal senator Eric Abetz has compared the Conversation website to Hitler, Stalin and Mao, after it announced a zero-tolerance approach to climate change deniers.The academic news and analysis website has said it will remove comments and lock accounts that put forward those views, outraging the Tasmanian senator. Continue reading...

Strong civil society movements are needed to ramp up pace of change, says studyGreenhouse gas emissions could be halved in the next decade if a small number of current technologies and behavioural trends are ramped up and adopted more widely, researchers have found, saying strong civil society movements are needed to drive such change.Solar and wind power, now cheaper than fossil fuels in many regions, must be scaled up rapidly to replace coal-fired generation, and this alone could halve emissions from electricity generation by 2030, according to the Exponential Roadmap report from an international group of experts. Continue reading...

Eight-country poll shows people view climate crisis as priority over migration and terrorismA majority of the public recognise the climate crisis as an “emergency” and say politicians are failing to tackle the problem, backing the interests of big oil over the wellbeing of ordinary people, according to an eight-country poll.The survey, which comes before what is expected to be the world’s biggest climate demonstrations on Friday, found that climate breakdown is viewed as the most important issue facing the world, ahead of migration, terrorism and the global economy, in seven out of the eight countries surveyed. In the US it comes third behind terrorism and affordable healthcare. Continue reading...

Smashing of monster asteroid half a billion years ago thought to have caused mini ice ageAn enormous dust cloud that swept through the ancient solar system sent Earth into a mini ice age that sparked an explosion in primitive life on the planet, scientists say.The space dust was created when a monster asteroid was smashed to pieces in a violent collision somewhere between Mars and Jupiter nearly half a billion years ago. Continue reading...

C-section babies pick up more hospital bacteria than those born vaginally, research showsBabies born by caesarean section have different gut bacteria to those delivered vaginally, the most comprehensive study to date on the baby microbiome has found.The study showed that babies born vaginally pick up most of their initial dose of bacteria from their mother, while C-section babies have more bugs linked to hospital environments, including strains that demonstrate antimicrobial resistance. The findings could explain the higher prevalence of asthma, allergies and other immune conditions in babies born by caesarean. Continue reading...

Dire risk is compounded by climate crisis, urbanisation and lack of sanitation, says global monitoring boardIt sounds like an improbable fiction: a virulent flu pandemic, source unknown, spreads across the world in 36 hours, killing up to 80 million people, sparking panic, destabilising national security and slicing chunks off the world’s economy.But a group of prominent international experts has issued a stark warning: such a scenario is entirely plausible and efforts by governments to prepare for it are “grossly insufficient”. Continue reading...

Last year, the government announced plans to ban remote-control collars – but even a dog-owning minister is using one. So what is the truth about these training aids?Is it cruel to give your pet electric shocks? Just little ones? The work and pensions secretary, Thérèse Coffey, has come under fire for using one on her beagle-pug cross, Lola, which reportedly kept trying to attack other dogs. She spoke to Steve Andrews, a Suffolk dog trainer, who recommended an electric collar to help control Lola’s behaviour. This seemed to work, and Andrews has since asked Coffey to help to overturn the government’s plans for a ban on remote-control collars. Awkwardly, the plans were announced by Michael Gove last year, when Coffey was a minister in his department.“Thérèse’s dog responds on setting 11 [out of 100],” Andrews told the Eastern Daily Press. “She felt what that was like and could feel nothing … This is not cruel. Thérèse and her family are dog lovers doing the best for their pet.” Continue reading...

Sticky-tentacled species returns to boglands but introducing meat-eating varieties is not without riskThe great sundew (Drosera anglica) is a carnivorous plant with leaves covered in red tentacles that ooze sticky slime to kill and digest insects, giving the plant extra nutrition in the boglands where it grows.It was once common in England but was almost wiped out as wetlands and peat bogs were drained or dug up, but a project is reintroducing the plant in restored bogland in north-west England, using cuttings from native plants. Continue reading...

Here, let me try. The sun is very, very hotWhen I was an undergrad learning geology, the maxim that was thumped into me wasn’t how to build a mine or drill for oil and gas, it was simply: “The present is the key to the past.” The thing that took a while to accept was that the past was really, really, long.It’s hard to comprehend the scale of geologic time: the timespan for continents to crash together and rip apart, for tiny sea creatures to live, die and condense into kilometres of limestone, or streams to carve epic canyons carrying mountains to the sea. We use comparisons our minds can grasp, such as if all cosmological time was the length of string or compressed into a single year (humans beings appear in the final six hours). Continue reading...

Research finds black carbon breathed by mothers can cross into unborn childrenAir pollution particles have been found on the foetal side of placentas, indicating that unborn babies are directly exposed to the black carbon produced by motor traffic and fuel burning.The research is the first study to show the placental barrier can be penetrated by particles breathed in by the mother. It found thousands of the tiny particles per cubic millimetre of tissue in every placenta analysed. Continue reading...

A new study suggests that people seek instant gratification when they have an empty stomach – which means they are more likely to settle for lessName: Empty stomach stupidity syndrome.Age: As old as the first missed breakfast. Continue reading...

New York forum aims to ‘restore’ the climate by reducing atmospheric levels of carbon to those of a century agoA new effort to rally governments and corporations behind technologies that suck greenhouse gases from the atmosphere to help stave off disastrous global heating will be launched at the United Nations on Tuesday.The first annual Global Climate Restoration Forum, held in New York, aims to spur international support for emerging and sometimes controversial methods to claw back planet-warming gases after they have been emitted from power plants, cars, trucks and aircraft. Continue reading...

Facility know as Vector is one of only two sites holding virus, and also houses Ebola samplesA gas explosion has sparked a fire at a Russian laboratory complex stockpiling viruses ranging from smallpox to Ebola, authorities have said.The State Research Centre of Virology and Biotechnology denied that the fire had exposed the public to the pathogens stored inside, some of the deadliest on Earth. Continue reading...

US study finds Christians are willing to pay for prayers – but atheists will pay to avoid themAll things have a price – and if not, economists will find one. Researchers have calculated the going rate for thoughts and prayers offered in hard times.Rather than settling on one price for all, the study found the value of a compassionate gesture depended overwhelmingly on a person’s beliefs. While Christian participants were willing to part with money to receive thoughts and prayers from others, the idea made nonbelievers baulk. Instead of shelling out to receive the gestures, on average they were willing to pay to avoid them. Continue reading...

Night and day will be of equal length at the end of this week as the sun crosses the celestial equator from north to southThe September equinox takes place this week. Occurring on 23 September, it marks the end of summer and the beginning of autumn for the northern hemisphere and is called the autumnal equinox at northern latitudes. In the southern hemisphere, the situation is reversed and the moment marks the end of winter and the beginning of spring. The equinox is defined as the place in the sky where the sun’s path, called the ecliptic, crosses the celestial equator, which is the projection of Earth’s equator up into the sky. This crossing occurs in Virgo and the sun will cross this point at 0850 BST on 23 September, as shown in the chart. At this moment, the sun will be moving from the northern sky into the southern sky. On this day around the world, everywhere will experience an almost even split of 12 hours day and 12 hours night. After this, the days shorten at northern latitudes and lengthen in the southern hemisphere. The next equinox will take place at 0350 GMT on 20 March 2020. Continue reading...

An intolerance to manufactured scents can lead to migraines, respiratory issues and long-term sick leave. So should they be banned in public spaces?If you flew abroad this summer, you probably passed through an airport’s duty-free perfume section. Perhaps you paused to spritz yourself with an expensive scent you had no intention of buying, before making the obligatory trip to WH Smith for overpriced crisps and bottles of water.For most people, the wafting odours of perfume counters are not a problem. But, for some, the trip through duty free is a choking, cloying experience. Continue reading...

As a GP, I know opioids have their place. But we shouldn’t be complacent about a US-style crisis happening in BritainGrowing concern about the prescription of drugs that cause dependence has been backed up by a recent report from Public Health England (PHE). The agency discovered that in 2017-18, 13% of adults in England received at least one prescription for opioids such as morphine or oxycodone (although this represented a slight downturn in prescribing after a long upward trend). Other drug classes were implicated too, with 25% of adults prescribed one or more of the following drugs: benzodiazepines (such as Valium), z-drugs (sleeping pills such as Zopiclone), gabapentinoids (gabapentin or pregabalin, prescribed for neuropathic pain) or antidepressants.The fear is that the UK is following in the footsteps of the US, where overprescribing is said to have led to a full-blown “opioid crisis”. But where does this leave those who live with severe or chronic pain and are dependent on opioids to function day-to-day? GPs, like me, and pain specialists need lots of time and a toolbox of interventions to properly treat those who suffer. But in the current cash- and time-poor environment, is it any wonder that they dole out prescriptions instead? Continue reading...

Major CBS News poll released as part of Covering Climate Now, a collaboration of more than 250 news outlets around the world to strengthen coverage of the climate story

I thought dementia was all about losing myself, but I have found sides to me I never knew I hadIt was at work where I noticed my first symptoms. I was a non-clinical team leader training matrons and sisters in the art of electronic rostering. My girls called me a workaholic. My brilliant memory, the thing I relied on most, started letting me down badly. Simple words failed me in meetings, the names of colleagues I’d worked with for years were suddenly a mystery. I used to take long runs by the river to unwind, but my brain stopped communicating with my legs and I started having falls. I knew somehow that things were not right, but when I finally went to the doctors it took a long time to get the diagnosis. Initially my symptoms were dismissed as age or stress related (I was 58), but I was persistent and knew how the system worked. When I finally received the diagnosis, in 2014, it was devastating but it was also, bizarrely, a relief. It finally put an end to all the uncertainties which meant I could now start planning my life with this new, unexpected label attached.I was determined to choose a positive path. The very nature of my diagnosis signalled the loss of the old me – my memories, my tastes, my abilities, my plans I took for granted – but, more importantly, it signalled the birth of the new me, a new chance. Many find it hard to believe, but I feel I’ve gained more than I’ve lost. Continue reading...

A major new Radio 4 series breaks down the barriers between art and science, while a revival of Joe Egg is a timely epitaph for Peter NicholsArts people, and I very much include myself, get bewildered by science. I try to listen to Radio 4’s The Life Scientific, but am often lost, while even Melvyn Bragg not long ago admitted to me that he at times struggles with science topics on his stellar In Our Time.To help remedy this, on 23 September Radio 4 kicks off a 20-part series, The Art of Innovation, exploring and, it’s hoped, breaking down barriers between the arts and science, with an accompanying exhibition at London’s Science Museum and a book. Continue reading...

Researchers are building a picture of palorchestids, which had tapir-like skulls and large scimitar-like clawsThe “strange” anatomy of a family of giant marsupials that roamed eastern Australia and Tasmania for much of the past 25m years has been revealed in a new study.Scientists had already figured out that palorchestids had tapir-like skulls and large “scimitar-like claws”, but little was known about the limbs of one of the “strangest marsupial lineages to have existed”, according to the paper published by a group of Australian researchers. Continue reading...

Alexander von Humboldt “was one of the last people to hold essentially all scientific knowledge in one head”Happy Birthday, Alexander von Humboldt. Tomorrow marks 250 years since the birth of the Prussian polymath, whose travels and observations laid the foundation for modern meteorological measuring.Related: Alexander von Humboldt on the loss of his meteorological instruments Continue reading...

My friend Toni Slabas, who has died aged 70, was an internationally renowned plant biochemist. He came from humble beginnings and quietly made a positive impact on the lives of many others.At Durham University, where he was professor of plant sciences from 1990 to 2013, Toni established a world-leading group in plant biochemistry with a particular interest in seed oil production and cell wall biochemistry. He set up a spin-out company, Creative Gene Technology, developing new technologies to improve crop yields, and sat on various UK government advisory committees, as well as acting as scientific adviser to plant biotechnology companies globally. He was also a committed teacher of undergraduate and postgraduate students, many now eminent scientists in their own right. Continue reading...

Readers respond to Adrian Chiles’s report of his struggle to create compost from his organic waste using a wormeryAlong with, no doubt, many other vermophiles, I’d like to reassure Adrian Chiles that wormeries do work and that his worms will handsomely reward his efforts if he persists (The worm has turned – but where’s my compost?, G2, 12 September). Having decided that a wormery would be a good way of recycling vegetable matter in my small back yard, I too had a catastrophic false start, involving some drowned worms and the wrong sort of smelly decomposition, but with the help of a new batch of worms, I discovered the importance of incorporating dry material into the worms’ diet.Torn-up egg boxes are particularly good, and I don’t need a shredder to dispose of details from bank statements when my worms are hungry. For years now, my wriggly little friends have been providing me with small amounts of compost and, more usefully, enough of a miraculously effective liquid plant feed to provide a copious supply to me and all my gardening friends. What’s more, whatever I feed to my worms isn’t going to landfill. Hang in there, Adrian. Be good to your worms, and they’ll be good to you.

Prof Arne Akbar, president of the British Society for Immunology, says compulsory vaccination is a blunt tool which could increase health inequities and alienate parents. Plus Prof Helen Stokes-Lampard and others call for a funded postnatal medical appointment at six to eight weeks specifically to assess new mothers’ physical and mental healthThe recent drop in childhood vaccination uptake is a cause of concern for all of us, as your article rightly points out (No MMR should mean no school place, say GPs, 9 September), with only 87.2% of children in England receiving two doses of the MMR vaccine by age five. However, the factors that have led to this are complex and multifactorial. In such a situation, which has the potential to significantly affect our nation’s health, our policy decisions must be guided by evidence.Compulsory vaccination is a blunt tool and there is no current evidence that it would increase the UK’s immunisation rate, but rather concerns that it could increase current health inequities and alienate parents with questions on vaccination. However, there are lots of other actions that the government can take to positively influence vaccine uptake, many of which were outlined in the No 10’s recent announcement, such as strengthening the role of local immunisation coordinators, promoting catch-up vaccinations and improving information provision on vaccination. Continue reading...