Countries must join forces and sign a peace treaty or space will become a war-fighting domainThe thought of Donald Trump as space commander-in-chief, whizzing around the Milky Way, zapping alien invaders and conquering new worlds, is both comical and terrifying. Before they began exchanging love letters, the US president ridiculed his North Korean counterpart, Kim Jong-un, as “little rocket man”. With his relaunch last week of US space command (SpaceCom), terrestrial Trump has appropriated the title for himself.While this may be a big step for the man in the White House, it’s a giant leap backwards for mankind. Fresh from his bungled attempt to expand America’s frontiers by buying Greenland, Trump is now suggesting the US has a right to colonise outer space, treating it as a free-fire zone for unlimited superpower competition in “the next war-fighting domain”. Trump has watched too many repeats of Independence Day. The universe does not belong to America. Continue reading...

Taking time out is crucial. Don’t fill up your whole day and you can kickstart a new sense of rhythmMachines work well at a constant speed – and the faster the better. They are designed and built for it. Whether they are spinning cotton or crunching numbers, regular, repetitive actions are what they excel at. Increasingly, our world is designed by machines, for machines. Digital technology brings them ever more intimately into our lives. We hold our phones in the palm of our hand, but it is they that have us in their grasp. We adapt to machines and hold ourselves to their standards: people are judged by the speed with which they respond, not the quality of their response. We find ourselves in a state of “continuous partial attention” – rarely stopping, never fully present. Such ideas are being woven into our culture. “Always on” becomes something to boast of, or aspire to. The moral high ground belongs to those who get on with things, not those who “delay”.Most of us are busy most of the time, if not with work then with family, domestic tasks or our social networks – real and virtual. When I ask people how they are, they almost always answer “busy” or some variation of it. Busy-ness is high status. We feel we are being “sensible, logical, responsible, practical”. Ticking things off the “to do” list becomes a means of defining, or escaping ourselves. Faced with that anxiety we try to keep calm by carrying on, but what are we missing out on? Continue reading...

Asteroids and space debris could wreak untold devastation on the planetNext year, Nasa will launch what all involved hope will be the most impactful space mission to date. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (Dart) is designed to smash headlong into its target. It’s an attempt to deflect an asteroid as a test of what to do if we spot a similar space rock on a collision course with our planet.It’s hardly news we want to hear at a time of so many domestic problems, but the threat from near-Earth asteroids is just one of a string of dangers that the planet and its technology are facing from space. Explosions on the sun create “space weather” that can play havoc with our satellites and other electrical systems, while the growing amount of space debris imperils the satellites that we all invisibly rely on. Continue reading...

Joan’s Hole, Stourport-on-Severn, Worcestershire: An extended campfire yarn unfurls around some unusual-looking fungiFruit has just started falling in the damson orchard. We can’t help squashing those that lie on the narrow paths to the rusting shepherd’s hut that’s home for a few days. There’s no phone signal, no wifi, and we’ve eschewed the camp stove in favour of the outdoor fireplace. Smoke coiling into the evening air wards off the gnats and midges while the potatoes nestle in the embers.I’ve just started boiling the eggs when my son returns from the woodpile with an expression of blended revulsion and puzzlement, and holds out a log on which are arrayed what look at first glance like a row of large turds, though on closer inspection they are more like carbonised doughballs. They’re brittle and almost weightless and, cracked open, they reveal growth rings – matryoshka layers of charcoal and silver, ball within ball within ball. A copious dusting of spores escapes to coat fingers, clothes and the logs we’re perched on. Continue reading...

New space command reveals fears over vulnerability of superpowers’ satellitesDonald Trump’s declaration that space represents “the next warfighting domain” comes at a time when nervous superpowers are taking an idea that once belonged to the realms of fiction increasingly seriously.US military briefings leading to Trump’s formal announcement of a new, separate space command argued that “an emergent China and a resurgent Russia” have eroded what Washington traditionally believed was an arena it could dominate. Continue reading...

Experts produce clusters of enamel-like calcium phosphate to crack age-old problemScientists say they have finally cracked the problem of repairing tooth enamel.Though enamel is the hardest tissue in the body, it cannot self-repair. Now scientists have discovered a method by which its complex structure can be reproduced and the enamel essentially “grown” back. Continue reading...

Same sex attraction isn’t genetic. It’s humanThe argument that some behaviour is “in our genes” is distrusted by the left. Too often it is used to whitewash terrible injustices. Yet it cannot be entirely dismissed. Certain patterns of behaviour and thought, such as the faculty of language acquisition, are very clearly a part of our genetic inheritance as a species. The instinct for justice itself appears to arise spontaneously in small children. The escape from the idea that genes determine our fate is not to pretend that they have no influence, but to come to understand that they can have many different, often conflicting influences, even within the same people and certainly within populations. This is true both of their effects on behaviour and on bodies.Biology is a science that deals with variations. There is no one perfect type of a species. Diversity, in this sense, is not just something to aim at but something necessary for a population to flourish. The idea that natural selection works only on mutations is a deeply misleading oversimplification. It is much more likely to alter the proportions of an already existing mixture of genes. What is more, game theory shows that the balance of advantage will shift as a result of the shift in a gene’s frequency. With very few exceptions, such as the change that Noam Chomsky postulates makes possible the complexity of human syntax, few mutations are going to be so overwhelmingly advantageous that they drive out all other variants. More often, if any one variation becomes dominant, there will be an advantage for its opposite. “Normal” is thus a shifting, fuzzy category. Continue reading...

Below-inflation pay rises have left staff with 13% real-terms wage cut since 2010, says unionStaff at Science Museum sites across England have begun a 24-hour strike in protest over low pay.The action comes after the group’s directors refused to increase a below inflation 1.5% pay rise offered to more than 75% of staff this year. Continue reading...

Gender norms imprison us all, dictating our behaviour for fear of abuse – and that extends to who we sleep or fall in love withIt turns out that genetics is almost as complicated as love and sex. New research has shown that the long fabled “gay gene” does not exist; that a variety of different genes contribute to same-sex attraction, and that several other factors are in the mix too.For many LGBTQ people – myself included – the very notion of this study sets off big queer alarm bells, though it should be noted researchers worked closely with LGBTQ groups. As early as 1993, the Daily Mail – and mock it all you like, it’s one of the country’s main newspapers – published an article under the headline “Abortion hope after ‘gay genes’ findings”. In the age of supposed “designer babies”, what if the hatefully inclined chose to make sure their unborn child wasn’t gay or bisexual? Continue reading...

Do you know what noise a hungry sea anemone makes? Soundscape ecologist Bernie Krause does. Armed with over 5,000 hours of recordings, he takes Ian Sample on a journey through the natural world and demonstrates why sound is a powerful tool for conservationFirst broadcast on 15 June 2018Do you know what noise a hungry sea anemone makes? This is one of the 15,000 species that the soundscape ecologist Dr Bernie Krause has recorded. For half a century, Bernie has travelled the world recording the noise of nature. His collection is one of the oldest that exists and as a result it is a hugely valuable tool in documenting how we’ve changed our planet. For example, when Bernie returned to some sites, the environment has changed so dramatically that it had fallen silent.

Over the past few hundred years in the UK all compass needles have pointed west of true northAt some point over the next two weeks, compasses at Greenwich will point true north for the first time in about 360 years.And for some parts of the UK, this may not happen for another 20 years. Either way, it is a once-in-a-lifetime event. Continue reading...

Donald Trump has said the newly formed US Space Command will 'defend America's vital interests in space, the next war-fighting domain'. Speaking at a ceremony in Washington, Trump said Space Command would protect US satellites orbiting the planet and detect missile launches abroad, and would be followed by the establishment of the Space Force, 'the sixth branch of the United States armed forces'. Creating a new military branch still requires congressional approval and the matter has met with skepticism from both Democrats and Republicans

Individual action can’t fight climate crisis. These Americans know we need a collective responseLast fall, as I landed in New Orleans, a seed of existential anxiety lodged itself deep in my gut. It was my fifth flight in just over a week. I was in the middle of a tour to promote a book on how coastal communities around the US were already responding to the climate crisis in surprising, often radical ways. Outside, the bayou shimmered below, the city itself barely distinguishable from the water that surrounds it. I could see the landscape that my air travel would play a role in diminishing – the additional CO2 in the atmosphere melting Arctic sea ice and Antarctic glaciers, causing sea levels to rise. What am I doing here? I wondered.Related: Welcome to the US, Greta. With your help we can save the planet and ourselves | Rebecca Solnit Continue reading...

Shutting parliament is the latest wheeze from the trigger-happy Vote Leavers in power. Don’t buy into their politics of divisionWhat did you feel? Maybe it was anger, fury, fear. Perhaps it was excitement, hope, a certain thrill. It is unlikely that you experienced the announcement of parliament’s prorogation in purely cerebral, intellectual terms: it is hard to remain numb in the face of such drama. We are emotional beings and the emotions we felt were entirely natural and human. There is nothing wrong with them.But in all likelihood, whatever you felt was precisely what you were expected to feel. For the people in No 10 care only that you felt something. And they will be delighted with their latest wheeze, which has already served its purpose: to create outrage and entrench opinion. The ferocity of the reaction is all part of the plan. It is time for those of us who are opposed to it to become smarter and wiser in how we deal with all this. Continue reading...

President detailed operations in ceremony, including defending against Chinese and Russian anti-satellite weapons, and promised space force will soon follow

Study prompts medicines regulator to advise all women using HRT to remain vigilantThe risk of breast cancer from using hormone replacement therapy is double what was previously thought, according to a major piece of research, which confirms that HRT is a direct cause of the cancer.The findings of the definitive study will cause concern among the 1 million women in the UK and millions more around the world who are using HRT. It finds that the longer women take it, the greater their risk, with the possibility that just one year is risk-free. It also finds that the risk does not go away as soon as women stop taking it, as had been previously assumed. Continue reading...

Many genetic variants each play role in homosexual behaviour, study findsA vast new study has quashed the idea that a single “gay gene” exists, scientists say, instead finding homosexual behaviour is influenced by a multitude of genetic variants which each have a tiny effect.The researchers compare the situation to factors determining a person’s height, in which multiple genetic and environmental factors play roles. Continue reading...

Astronauts will no longer be able to urinate on bus that picks them up for launchRussia has unveiled a new space suit but the design may have to be changed to continue a decades-old tradition – making a stop to pee on the way to the launch.The Sokol-M prototype suit was designed as a replacement for suits worn during launches to the International Space Station (ISS) on Soyuz spacecraft. Continue reading...

Experts believe the children were sacrificed by the Chimú culture to appease the El Niño phenomenonArchaeologists excavating what is thought to be the world’s largest child sacrifice site have unearthed the skeletons of 227 young victims in the coastal desert of northern Peru.Teams have been digging since last year at the sacrificial site in Huanchaco, a beachside tourist town close to Trujillo, Peru’s third largest city. Continue reading...

‘Iconic’ finding of 3.8m-year-old fossil in Ethiopia casts doubt on previous evolutionary theoryThe face of the oldest species that unambiguously sits on the human evolutionary tree has been revealed for the first time by the discovery of a 3.8 million-year-old skull in Ethiopia.The fossil belongs to an ancient hominin, Australopithecus anamensis, believed to be the direct ancestor of the famous “Lucy” species, Australopithecus afarensis. It dates back to a time when our ancestors were emerging from the trees to walk on two legs, but still had distinctly ape-like protruding faces, powerful jaws and small brains, and is the oldest-known member of the Australopithecus group. Continue reading...

This documentary on the pleasurable highs and puritanical prejudices around cannabis use was lively and educational – even when its presenter got the munchiesIt is the best and the worst time to have a documentary that requires you to balance two contradictory thoughts in your head; we are out of practice. We are a bit too mono, in everything, these days. But the latest instalment of the flagship science show Horizon, presented by the wisely chosen Javid Abdelmoneim – a doctor who wears his intelligence lightly and always looks to take the audience with him – encourages us to do so.In Cannabis: Medical Miracle or Dangerous Drug? (BBC Two), Abdelmoneim disentangles the facts-so-far from the myths that have grown up around cannabis – and, since legislation changed last year, the over-the-counter products that contain it – with a view to discovering where he, as a doctor, should stand. Continue reading...

Average consumption down nearly a quarter since 2011, researchers find

As the Indian government loosens its prescription opioid laws after decades of lobbying, the cash-fed healthcare system is ripe for misuseIn the crowded waiting room of Dr Sunil Sagar’s clinic, in the working-class neighborhood of Bhagwanpur Khera, a toddler breathes from a nebulizer. The patients sit, motionless, but there is somehow tremendous noise. The clinic is a squat cement building draped in wires, a red cross on the door. Sagar sits behind a desk in a small, open room, as a squad of assistants escort patients to him. Continue reading...

In a system stacked against women, we must direct our harshest judgment at people and institutions who remain silent

Exclusive: Panel head Ian Chubb compares ‘roadshow of Dr Ridd’ to tobacco industry strategy defending smokingAn expert panel led by the former chief scientist Ian Chubb has warned ministers that controversial scientist Peter Ridd is misrepresenting robust science about the plight of the Great Barrier Reef, and compared his claims to the strategy used by the tobacco industry to raise doubt about the impact of smoking.The warning, in a letter to the federal environment minister, Sussan Ley, and the Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, follows Ridd launching a lecture tour in which he has repeated his claim that farmland pollution does not significantly damage the natural wonder. Continue reading...

From new employee entitlements to soap opera storylines, older women’s health needs a bigger profileConnected as it is with ageing, it is not surprising that the menopause has a bad reputation. Even for women who have generally found their periods to be a nuisance, the cessation of the monthly cycle of egg production often comes as a shock. As well as the psychological impact of what used to euphemistically be called “the change”, the menopause brings with it symptoms for which a lot of women find themselves alarmingly unprepared – as many readers told us when we invited them to share their stories.These symptoms include the heavy or irregular bleeding that often precedes the cessation of menstruation, hot flushes and night sweats, an increased risk of osteoporosis (brittle bones), disrupted sleep, anxiety, vaginal dryness and reduced sex drive. Given all this, and the fact that millions of women are going through the menopause at any one time (around 1 million women in the UK take hormone replacement therapy, although four in five do not medicate), it is remarkable the extent to which the taboo surrounding the menopause remains untouched. Even as other aspects of female reproductive health have become more widely discussed, the menopause has been stuck on the shelf. Continue reading...

Coprolite reveals felines in southern Andes had roundworm 17,000 years ago, long before humans got thereThe compact, gnarled and knobbly specimen looks like a root of ginger. In fact, it’s 17,000-year-old puma poo, and it contains the oldest parasite DNA yet recorded.The team of researchers behind the discovery say the finding not only confirms that the felines were prowling around the Andes towards the end of the last ice age, but reveals that they were infested with roundworm long before humans and their animals turned up. Continue reading...

Research claims people who ‘look on the bright side’ stand better chance of reaching 85Seeing the glass as half full may mean a longer life, according to research suggesting that optimists not only live longer in general, but have a better chance of reaching 85 or older.It is not the first time optimism has been linked to health benefits. People of an upbeat disposition have previously been found to have a lower risk of heart conditions and premature death. Researchers now say it could also play a role in living a long life. Continue reading...

The solution to today’s puzzleEarlier today I set you this puzzle:You are in a big city where all the streets go in one of two perpendicular directions. You take your car from its parking place and drive on a tour of the city such that you do not pass through the same intersection twice and return back to where you started. If you made 100 left turns, how many right turns did you make? Continue reading...

Even the way a woman’s decline in oestrogen relates to her symptoms is a mystery, scientists sayWhen Elena Sanchez-Heras realised the menopause was upon her, she did what she always does when faced with a biological unknown. “I’m a scientist,” she said. “I’ve been trained when you encounter a problem and want to figure it out, you go and seek out original sources.”Sanchez-Heras, now 56, is a cell biologist at University College London and has access to a vast online library of peer-reviewed scientific literature. But she was surprised by the number of questions that remained unanswered – and by the relative lack of research on a process that directly affects women. Continue reading...

The genetic condition is one of the most common in the UK and may be a leading cause of infertility in men. Why does it so often go untreated?Three years ago, Paul (not his real name), now 31, went to the doctor with stomach pains. His blood test came back with low testosterone levels. “We went to see a urologist and he said bluntly that we wouldn’t have any options to have kids with my sperm – we would have to use a donor or adopt,” he says. “My wife immediately burst into tears.” The couple had been trying for a child since they married in 2015. Paul was also devastated. “It put so much stress on me, because I thought I couldn’t give my wife or my family what they so desperately wanted.”Eventually, Paul was diagnosed with Klinefelter syndrome. Affecting about one in 600 men, it is one of the most common genetic conditions in the UK, yet most people have never heard of it – including many who have it. Its symptoms – extra height, persistent tiredness, reduced bodily hair and small testes – can be difficult to identify, meaning it often goes unnoticed by patients and GPs. Untreated, however, it can lead to reduced testosterone and infertility, and even increased prevalence of testicular cancer. Continue reading...

A streetwise puzzleUPDATE: For the solution please click here.Today’s puzzle is a trip.You are in a big city where all the streets go in one of two perpendicular directions. You take your car from its parking place and drive on a tour of the city such that you do not pass through the same intersection twice and return back to where you started. If you made 100 left turns, how many right turns did you make? Continue reading...

It’s a natural part of the female life cycle – so why don’t we talk more about the menopause, its debilitating effects and possible mitigation?The menopause is when a woman’s fertile period comes to a halt. This is generally a gradual process over months or even years, but technically the menopause is defined as when a woman has gone 12 months without a period. In the UK, the average age for this happening is 52 years, but about one in 100 women have a menopause before the age of 40. Continue reading...

Dr Peter Trewby questions the risk-reduction figures of the Iran study and Oliver Lepen says the focus must be on preventing disease, not medicationYour headline (Single polypill reduces risk of heart attacks and strokes, study finds, 23 August) should really have been tempered by quoting the absolute rather than the relative risk-reduction figures.The 34% reduction in major cardiac events you quote is calculated from “on the ground” reduction in events from 8.8% over five years in those not on the polypill to 5.9% in those receiving it – that is a 2.9% chance of benefit over five years to the individual and with no effect on mortality. Continue reading...

Using supercomputers to explain life, the universe and everything takes us into territory previously only laughed atFans of Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy treasure the bit where a group of hyper-dimensional beings demand that a supercomputer tells them the secret to life, the universe and everything. The machine, which has been constructed specifically for this purpose, takes 7.5m years to compute the answer, which famously comes out as 42. The computer helpfully points out that the answer seems meaningless because the beings who instructed it never knew what the question was. And the name of the supercomputer? Why, Deep Thought, of course.Machine-learning may soon enable us to accurately predict how a protein will fold. But it won’t be scientific knowledge Continue reading...

Researchers found athletes regularly drink energy drinks, and use gels, all of which can damage teethBritish Olympic and professional athletes could be damaging their teeth by regular using sports drinks, energy bars and gels, according to a study.Researchers from University College London surveyed 352 female and male athletes across 11 sports, including cycling, swimming, rugby, football, rowing, hockey, sailing and athletics. The study concluded that elite athletes had poor oral health despite efforts to care for their teeth. Continue reading...

Having survived a decade of drink and drugs as a young woman, Professor Judith Grisel focused all her determination on writing a book about addictionWhen Professor Judith Grisel sat down to write her book Never Enough (a guide to the neuroscience of addiction that has been her life’s work), she didn’t expect to share so much of her own story. Nevertheless the resulting chapters are a collision of the personal and professional, detailing the deep links between her work life and the decade of drug and alcohol addiction that almost destroyed her.On paper, Grisel was an unlikely candidate for going off the rails. One of three children, she describes a privileged upbringing in a progressive, suburban area of New Jersey. With an airline pilot father and a mother who was a registered nurse, Grisel remembers growing up in a “perfect-looking family”. Continue reading...

Roslin Institute scientists create a flock to mimic human gene that causes Batten disorderScientists have created a flock of sheep that carry the gene for a lethal inherited brain disorder in humans. The condition, Batten disease, usually starts in childhood and is invariably fatal, often within a few years of diagnosis.The project, which is designed to test treatments for the disease, is based at Edinburgh University’s Roslin Institute, where cloning techniques were used to create Dolly the sheep in 1996. The scientists acknowledge that the approach could be controversial as it involves creating animals programmed to die, but stress that their aim is to alleviate human suffering. Continue reading...

Volunteers at Strata Florida Abbey in Wales find they enjoy the work and camaraderieScrabbling around on hands and knees in a muddy trench surrounded by the misty mountains of mid Wales may not be everyone’s idea of a fun way to while away the last days of summer.But Julian Pitt, a former Royal Navy sailor still traumatised by his experiences in the Falklands and Gulf wars, was delighted to be sifting soil as part of the Strata Florida abbey archaeology project in the wilds of Ceredigion. Continue reading...

During our summer break, we’re revisiting the archives. Today, Wildlife recordist Chris Watson concludes this three-part journey into the sonic environment of the ocean, celebrating the sounds and songs of marine life and investigating the threat of noise pollutionFirst released: 03/05/2019As wildlife recordist Chris Watson looks for solutions to ocean noise pollution, he hears from Tim Gordon, whose long-awaited trip to the Great Barrier Reef became a devastating experience when he heard the eerie silence of a dying coral reef, caused in part by global warming.

Hate may be less like a cancer and more like bubbles, says Neil Johnson, who applies physics theory to human behaviorLone wolves. Terrorist cells. Bad apples. Viral infections.The language we use to discuss violent extremism is rife with metaphors from the natural world. As we seek to understand why some humans behave so utterly inhumanely, we rely on comparisons to biology, ecology and medicine. Continue reading...

Reviewing more than 20 years of my inner world was often painful but some universal lessons emerged from the pagesRecently I came across a dusty box in the garage that was full of old journals that held all my secrets from 1996.Rereading them was excruciating, painful even, like hearing a recording of your own voice. Do I (did I) really sound like that? I reread the diaries out of sequence (1999 becomes 2012 becomes 2006) to lessen the shock of a past me unfurling and escaping from the pages like a genie. To be back there so vividly felt like a profound jolt – unnatural even. I had to take it slowly, taking in little bits at a time. Often I didn’t recognise myself. Who was this person who did those wonderful things, who took stupid risks, fretted about things that turned out to be unimportant, loved the wrong people, who had all these feelings? Continue reading...

Three-year review says new vaccines for eradicating disease are only 40% effectiveMalaria will not be eradicated in the foreseeable future even though it is achievable and would save millions of lives, according to World Health Organization (WHO) experts following a three-year review.The WHO remains committed to the “disappearance of every single malaria parasite from the face of the planet”, as it has been since the UN organisation was launched in 1948, said Dr Pedro Alonso, the director of its global malaria programme. Continue reading...

Large trial held in Iran of inexpensive medication combining four common drugsA cheap, single pill taken once a day that combines four common drugs is safe and reduces the risk of events such as heart attacks, strokes and sudden death in people over the age of 50, research has found.The study, the first large-scale trial to date, looked at the effectiveness of a so-called polypill – a four-in-one therapy containing drugs to lower cholesterol and blood pressure that was first proposed more than 15 years ago. The researchers found those taking the polypill had a more than 30% lower risk of serious heart problems than those just offered advice. Continue reading...

If Chandrayaan-2 is successful, it will make India the fourth country to reach the moon’s surfaceIndia’s moon mission, Chandrayaan-2, has arrived in lunar orbit. The spacecraft is engaged in a series of manoeuvres that will place it in its final operating orbit, a circular path looping over the moon’s poles at an altitude of 100km (62 miles).Chandrayaan-2 entered lunar orbit at about 0500 BST on 20 August. Its initial orbit was highly elliptical, swinging from 114km above the moon to 18,072km. A second rocket burn on 21 August changed this to 118km and 4,412km. Continue reading...

Age UK says unintended interactions between different medicines can be dangerousAbout 2 million elderly people in the UK are on at least seven different medications and at risk of potentially life-threatening harm from interactions between the drugs or side-effects from pills that are no longer right for them.Older people are being let down by a healthcare system that is allowing medicines to do more harm than good, according to a report from Age UK. One in five prescriptions for elderly people living at home are inappropriate, it said. Care home residents take an average of at least eight medicines, with a one in 10 risk of a mistake when the drugs are prescribed or given to them. Continue reading...

Report calls for more research and warns against complacency over the issueMicroplastics are increasingly found in drinking water, but there is no evidence so far that this poses a risk to humans, according to a new assessment by the World Health Organization.However, the United Nations body warned against complacency because more research is needed to fully understand how plastic spreads into the environment and works its way through human bodies. Continue reading...