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The US company Vertex has put a ludicrous price on a new cystic fibrosis drug. But we’ve found a way to bypass its greed

Scientists find higher cortisol levels in owners matched by raised levels in canine companionsIf the dead-end job, the pokey flat and the endless failings of the neighbours are getting on your wick, then spare a thought for the dog.In research that confirms what many owners will have worked out for themselves, scientists have found that the household pets are not oblivious to their owners’ anxieties, but mirror the amount of stress they feel. Continue reading...

A UN climate conference bid could be a perfect catalyst for change – and unify the UK for the push for a green revolutionAlmost halfway through 2019, it has felt, sometimes, like a breakthrough year for climate action. Given the rapid emergence of social movements across the world calling for climate justice, this often previously sidelined issue has become a international conversation. But the harsh reality of the challenge at hand re-emerged as the “leader of the free world” attempted to position the United States – one of the largest greenhouse gas emitters – as clean on climate, in an extended exchange with Prince Charles during his state visit to the UK. To contextualise, this comes in the wake of an Orwellian rebranding of hydrocarbons as “freedom molecules” and “freedom gas” by the US energy department ahead of a major export drive.Battlelines have been drawn around climate action in the US, with the Democratic primary campaign defined by candidates declaring their support for Green New Deal-style policies. Such is the strength of feeling that the issue has become a litmus test of contenders’ viability for the presidential nomination for 2020. With polling on such legislation indicating majority support among both Democrat and Republican voters, it’s clear that climate action can become a unifying issue as ordinary people seek solutions to the crisis, even as politicians of the right complain. Continue reading...

Every year nearly 5,800 people are expected to die in New York, 2,500 in Los Angeles and more than 2,300 in MiamiThousands of heat-related deaths in major US cities could be avoided if rising global temperatures are curbed, new research has found.On current global heating trends, thousands of people are set to perish due to the heat every year across 15 major US cities, in an analysis by a team of British and American researchers. Continue reading...

DNA analysis reveals hardy group genetically distinct from Eurasians and East AsiansIt was cold, remote and involved picking fights with woolly mammoths – but it seems ancient Siberia 30,000 years ago was home to a hardy and previously unknown group of humans. Scientists say the discovery could help solve longstanding mysteries about the ancestors of native North Americans.While it is commonly believed the ancestors of native North Americans arrived from Eurasia via a now submerged land bridge called Beringia, exactly which groups crossed and gave rise to native North American populations has been difficult to unpick. Continue reading...

Deep-sea creature’s teeth are made of similar material to ours, but heavily adapted for stealthThe dragonfish, a dweller of the dark ocean depths, would slot nicely into any horror movie, with virtually transparent fangs and bioluminescent barbel that help it thrive in its extreme environment.The nature of its teeth had been a mystery until Wednesday, when scientists revealed they are made of the same basic material as human teeth but with a different microscopic structure. Continue reading...

Blast-off makes China the third country after US and Russia to master sea launch technologyChina has launched a rocket from a mobile platform at sea for the first time, sending five commercial satellites and two others containing experimental technology into space.The Long March 11 rocket blasted off from a launch pad onboard a commercial ship in the Yellow Sea off the coast of Shandong province – the 306th Long March rocket launch, but the first one at sea. Continue reading...

Postdoc researchers like me aren’t considered university employees, even though we’re essential to research. This must changeBehind most of the technological advances we take for granted are brilliant researchers working long hours to complete experiments and advance our understanding. The backbone of this labour is made up of junior university researchers, or postdocs, who suffer poor progression opportunities, low job security and a dependence on their line managers for continued employment. This leads to bad science, bullying and discrimination, while driving a brain drain of our best and brightest away from academic research.Related: It's hard to build a life when you need to move cities for an academic career | Anonymous academic Continue reading...

Investors’ network warns of serious risk to aquaculture from global heating as well as over-reliance on medicinesThe climate crisis, drug use and feeding farmed fish with wild stocks risks “sinking” the $230bn (£180bn) aquaculture industry, according to an ethical investment network.Fish farms now surpass wild fisheries as the main provider of seafood on our plates, but combined risks from global heating, excessive use of antibiotics, a dependence on wild stocks for feed, and poor governance threatens the lucrative and fast-growing sector, warned Farm Animal Investment Risk and Return (Fairr), a $12trn-backed network. Continue reading...

Examining isotopes in Cambrian rocks reveals ‘boom and bust’ cycles in levels of gasLife on Earth got started more than 4bn years ago, but it was another 3.5bn years before evolution really started to take off. The turning point happened about 540m years ago and is known as the Cambrian explosion.A plethora of complex creatures burst on to the scene, many of which were the precursors of the animal groups we see today. Now a new study reveals that oxygen was a crucial ingredient for this sudden flowering of life. Continue reading...

Researchers say best years tend to be preceded by rise in number of acting creditsMacaulay Culkin peaked young, Jane Lynch hit the big time in her late 40s and Matthew McConaughey’s mid-career resurgence is the stuff of legend.Now researchers say they have developed an algorithm that predicts with 85% accuracy whether an actor is yet to have their most productive year, or whether they have already peaked. Continue reading...

Airbnb and the genetic testing company 23andMe have teamed up to suggest travel itineraries based on ancestry. It’s another boost for outdated and unscientific ideas23andMe, the at-home genetic testing company, has teamed up with Airbnb to offer travel itineraries based on your DNA. Give 23andMe some spit and some money, and it will give you an ancestry report in return, along with suggestions of places you can go to explore your heritage. Based on my DNA results, for example, 23andMe suggested I try falconry in the United Arab Emirates or a traditional Irish music pub crawl. Weirdly, despite the fact I’m half-Palestinian, it didn’t suggest I try a relaxing stay in one of the illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank listed on Airbnb, or a traditional military checkpoint crawl.This sort of “DNAdvertising” is a growing trend: last year, for example, Spotify partnered with the world’s largest for-profit genealogy company, Ancestry, to build music playlists based on your DNA. But while genetically modified playlists or heritage holidays may seem like nothing more than fun marketing stunts, there’s a more insidious element to them. This sort of DNAdvertising is perhaps inadvertently helping to bring outdated and unscientific ideas about “race” and genetics to the mainstream. Continue reading...

Mutant form linked to rise of cooking helps about half of humans keep blood sugar lowerAn ancient mutation that spread through humans after the advent of cooking may protect people against high blood sugar and diabetes today, scientists have said.Researchers at University College London (UCL) discovered the mutation while studying a gene called CLTCL1, which is heavily involved in removing sugar from the bloodstream. Continue reading...

Human trials will begin within two years after treatment shows promise in animalsScientists have developed heart patches that could benefit hundreds of thousands of people who have a heart attack.The British Heart Foundation (BHF) said the patches, which are grown in a lab and help repair damaged hearts, could one day provide an off-the-shelf treatment. They have shown promise in animals, and clinical trials in humans will begin in the next two years. Continue reading...

Pembrolizumab with platinum chemotherapy less ‘aggressive’ and extended survival ratesImmunotherapy could help patients with head and neck cancer live longer, new research suggests.The drug pembrolizumab, used in combination with platinum chemotherapy, was found to extend survival among those whose disease had returned or spread, according to a study presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting in Chicago. Continue reading...

Reproductive biologist and author of popular science and science fiction books best known for the series The Science of DiscworldThe biologist Jack Cohen, who has died aged 85, worked on animal reproduction and the development of feathers and hair; his Living Embryos (1963) became a standard university text. He also co-authored popular science books and science fiction, and designed alien creatures and ecosystems for science fiction writers. But he will be best remembered for the bestselling four-book series The Science of Discworld, which he wrote with Terry Pratchett and me.I first met Jack in 1990, when he phoned me at Warwick University. “Hello, I’m Jack Cohen. I have a question about your book on chaos theory. Can we meet?” We had lunch at a pub in Kenilworth, and four hours later we were still there, having discovered that a mathematician and a biologist could have far more in common than they expected. Continue reading...

New research casts doubt on idea that a quantum jump is instant and unpredictableSchrödinger’s cat might not only be dead or alive, but also brought back from the brink, according to scientists who said they have discovered a warning sign for quantum transitions once thought to be instantaneous and unpredictable.The upshot is that the fate of Schrödinger’s cat can not only be predicted shortly in advance but even reversed once under way, the scientists said. Continue reading...

The solution to today’s puzzleEarlier today I set you the following puzzle:Four dogs are in four corners of a square of side length 1. Each dog starts running towards the dog immediately anti-clockwise to it. The dogs start at the same time, they all run at the same speed, and at every moment each dog is running directly towards the neighbouring dog. Continue reading...

No more parents’ evenings, PTA meetings and tedious texts about rules – I can’t wait for my youngest to leave next week

China accuses gene-edit scientist of chasing fame as US research links mutation to shorter life expectancyA genetic mutation that a Chinese scientist tried to create in twin girls born last year, in the hope of protecting them against HIV, has been found to raise the risk of an early death.He Jiankui at the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen sparked an international outcry in November when he announced the birth of twin girls, Lulu and Nana, after he edited the DNA in their embryos. Continue reading...

A quick mental run-aroundUPDATE: The solution can now be read by clicking here.Today’s problem is a classic puzzle and an excuse to post this picture of Melbourne’s annual sausage dog race, the Running of the Wieners.Four dogs are in four corners of a square of side length 1. Each dog starts running towards the dog immediately anti-clockwise to it. The dogs start at the same time, they all run at the same speed, and at every moment each dog is running directly towards the neighbouring dog. Continue reading...

Nobel prize winner warns UK science will suffer unless it can gain access to Horizon EuropeOne of Britain’s leading researchers has warned of a “major blow” to national science if ministers cannot secure access to a massive research programme that is being drawn up by the EU.The Horizon Europe programme will fund €100bn in research projects, making it one of the largest science funds in the world. British researchers will be locked out unless the government negotiates an access deal in the coming months. Continue reading...

High consumption of coffee no worse for arteries than drinking less than a cup a dayCoffee lovers who drink up to 25 cups a day can rest assured the drink is not bad for their heart, scientists say.Some previous studies have suggested that coffee stiffens arteries, putting pressure on the heart and increasing the likelihood of a heart attack or stroke, with drinkers warned to cut down their consumption. Continue reading...

One of the leading particle physicists of the 20th centuryMurray Gell-Mann, who has died aged 89, was the leading figure in the study of elementary particle physics in the middle years of the 20th century. His work transformed the way that physicists conceive matter at the smallest length scales.In 1950 the world of atomic and nuclear physics was relatively straightforward: atoms consisted of positively charged nuclei formed of protons and neutrons, with negatively charged electrons orbiting around them like planets round the sun, held together by photons, the quanta of quantum electrodynamics (QED). By 1975 the subject had changed beyond recognition, largely due to Murray’s work. Protons and neutrons were no longer elementary particles: instead they themselves were composite structures formed of three quarks held together by gluons, the quanta of quantum chromodynamics (QCD). Continue reading...

We are used to saying yes to please others but it can be harmful not to be more assertive. And imagine what you can do with all that free timeWhen you ask someone how they are, 95% of the time they will answer with some version of “busy”, “good, but busy” or even, sometimes, “crazy busy”.Busy has become a badge of honour, a signifier of success – a humble brag that implies we are important and in demand. But if you really are “too busy”, chances are, you are not saying no enough. Continue reading...

The psychiatry professor on the polyvagal theory he developed to understand our reactions to traumaStephen Porges is professor of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina and “Distinguished University Scientist” at Indiana University, where he has created the Traumatic Stress Research Consortium. He is best known for developing polyvagal theory, which describes how visceral experiences affect the nervous system and our resulting behaviour. On Monday 10 June, he will be giving a talk at Love vs Trauma, the Body & Soul charity’s day-long symposium in London, which aims to tackle issues surrounding childhood adversity and trauma. Other participants include Peter Fonagy and Lemn Sissay.Can you explain polyvagal theory in layperson’s terms?

He was often on the verge of giving up such gruelling challenges, but eventually Adharanand Finn found that ultrarunning led him to a meditative stateI never wanted to run an ultra marathon. I’ve always loved running, the freedom of it, the childish abandon, but I was a 10K and half-marathon runner, a “real” runner (in my eyes), someone who pushed the pace and gunned for fast times. Ultrarunning, with all its backpacks, poles and food, was not really running. It was running with all the joy bludgeoned out of it.So when a magazine editor asked me to run the 165km Oman Desert Marathon to write an article about it, I said no: 100 miles across sand, in the heat of Oman. It sounded like hell. Continue reading...

Award-winning writer and former mental-health nurse Nathan Filer redefines our understanding of the illnessIn 1980s Ireland, Brigid becomes obsessed with a photo of a statue of the Virgin Mary and things spiral devastatingly from there. Erica is a hardworking fashion journalist in her 20s who believes the contraceptive coil she has had fitted is actually a camera planted by MI5. James is training at Sandhurst when he finds himself on parade in his pyjamas.Each of these vignettes forms part of an instructive case study in Nathan Filer’s intelligent, absorbing narrative exploration of schizophrenia, The Heartland: Finding and Losing Schizophrenia. Filer, you may recall, deservedly won just about every major fiction award in 2013 (including the Costa book of the year) for his debut novel, The Shock of the Fall, which told the story of a young man dealing with mental illness and grief. Both that novel, and this, his first full-length nonfiction book, are informed by his earlier career as a mental-health nurse. Continue reading...

Monsanto’s own emails and documents reveal a disinformation campaign to hide its weedkiller’s possible links to cancer

“From the first moment I saw a piece of space dog ephemera I was hooked,” says the photographer and avid collector Martin Parr in the foreword to a new book featuring his canine-themed Soviet memorabilia. In the 1950s, before man was sent into space, the USSR dispatched dogs up there (first a stray called Laika – meaning “barker” – then Belka and Strelka), which kickstarted a huge industry in collectibles featuring canine cosmonauts, from painted plates and clocks to Russian dolls and cigarette cases. Parr has spent 20 years scouring the internet and Moscow flea markets to source his beloved space dogs. “A useful way to understand the impact that they had on Russian society,” he says, “is to draw a parallel with the Beatles or Mickey Mouse, those western icons that generated huge quantities of memorabilia.”

Combining ribociclib with hormone therapy found to cut risk of death by up to a thirdYounger women with breast cancer have been given the hope of living longer after what is described as “one of the greatest advances in breast cancer research in recent decades”.Adding ribociclib, a targeted drug that disrupts cancer cells, to standard hormone therapy was found to boost survival among premenopausal patients who have an advanced form of the disease. Continue reading...

Dead stars from Whitney Houston to Maria Callas are going on tour again. As Miley Cyrus explores the issue in a new Black Mirror, we uncover the greatest identity crisis in music todayMiley Cyrus Q&A: ‘My personal experiences helped craft the episode’In the star-making Disney Channel switcheroo Hannah Montana, Miley Cyrus played a teenage girl who is able to metamorphose from regular eighth grader to pop icon, simply by donning a streaked blonde wig. Most of the show seems quaintly dated now, but one moment taps into a very 2019 pop anxiety. On The Other Side Of Me. a featherweight single from the programme’s soundtrack album, Cyrus sang: “I flip the script so many times I forget / Who’s on stage, who’s in the mirror.”Cyrus has shifted her image from foam-finger humper to wholesome cowgirl since, but her new acting role centres again on the self-searching theme of that forgotten 2006 pop classic. In the new season of Black Mirror, Cyrus plays Ashley, a tween-friendly pop star whose latest marketing gimmick is “Ashley Too,” a miniature talking robot toy that replicates both her Pepto-Bismol hairdo and platitude-spouting persona. The episode’s trailer ends with Ashley Too acquiring potty-mouthed sentience, screaming for her owner to “get this [USB] cable out of my ass! Holy Shit!” Specifics are under wraps, but the episode seems centred around a big, knotty question: if someone’s essence can be transplanted into a mechanised clone, where do we end and robots begin? Continue reading...

New research shows a single 19th century tree in southern Queensland gave rise to the world’s dominant plant varietyThe small Queensland town of Gympie has been identified as the origin of 70% of the world’s macadamia nuts.New research into the fatty seed has revealed the world’s dominant commercial cultivar – grown in Hawaii – originated from a single tree in southern Queensland from the 19th century. Continue reading...

Being older, male and having multiple health problems found to heighten risk factorsSepsis survivors are at a heightened risk of death in the years after their illness if it has been critical, research has shown.Of those discharged from hospital in England after a critical care admission, 15% died within 12 months, according to a study published in the journal Jama Network Open. Continue reading...

Male animal bias is unjustified and can lead to drugs that work less well for womenThe male mind is rational and orderly while the female one is complicated and hormonal. It is a stereotype that has skewed decades of neuroscience research towards using almost exclusively male mice and other laboratory animals, according to a new study.Scientists have typically justified excluding female animals from experiments – even when studying conditions that are more likely to affect women – on the basis that fluctuating hormones would render the results uninterpretable. However, according to Rebecca Shansky, a neuroscientist at Northeastern University, in Boston, it is entirely unjustified by scientific evidence, which shows that, if anything, the hormones and behaviour of male rodents are less stable than those of females. Continue reading...

The education secretary wants to ‘toughen up’ pupils, but that means less structure, not moreDon’t tell the Conservative leadership candidates, but the education secretary, Damian Hinds, is holding a brainstorming session. He wants ideas on how we can toughen up British schoolchildren. Clearly he knows something we don’t about the future.“To truly prepare for adult life we need to make sure our young people build character and resilience,” he announced last week as he launched a new C&R initiative – as it will doubtless be shortened to in education circles. Yes, GCSEs and A-levels are important, Hinds said – but in 10 years’ time, exam results will be a “distant memory”. (Presumably Sats and Pisa rankings, too : the whole quasi-mathematical surveillance matrix that Hinds and his predecessors have painstakingly constructed for our children these past few decades?) Continue reading...

Scientists have genetically modified a fungus to make it produce the same lethal toxin as is found in the funnel web spiderA genetically modified fungus that kills malaria-carrying mosquitoes could provide a breakthrough in the fight against the disease, according to researchers.Trials in Burkina Faso found that a fungus, modified so that it produces spider toxin, quickly killed large numbers of mosquitos that carry malaria. Continue reading...

Science Weekly joins forces with our sister technology podcast, Chips with Everything, to look at the future of weather forecasting. Graihagh Jackson finds out how accurate predictions currently are, while Jordan Erica Webber discusses how street cameras and connected cars could improve the forecast further Continue reading...

From workplace food fights to disputes with the neighbours, the humble yellow sticky note comes into its ownIn Sydney and London, two communities are at war. Both alike in dignity – one, an office of journalists, the other a residential Brixton street – and bound together by the humble Post-it note.In Sydney, the offices of SBS (Special Broadcasting Service) have been torn apart by one person’s quest to protect their cheese. In London, the issue of communal flowers has sparked a passive-aggressive neighbourhood row. Continue reading...

Maxar wins $375m deal to build the Lunar Gateway’s power and propulsion elementNasa has contracted Maxar Technologies to develop the first element of its Lunar Gateway space station, an essential part of its plan to return astronauts to the moon by 2024.Astronauts arriving from Earth in the Orion crew capsule will dock at the gateway, which will be in orbit around the moon, before transferring to a lunar landing module and descending to the surface. It will also double as a research outpost for astronauts who do not become moonwalkers. Continue reading...

Magician John Nevil Maskelyne captured the moon passing in front of the sun while in the USThe first moving picture of a solar eclipse, captured by a British magician-turned-film-maker more than a century ago, has been rediscovered in the archive of the Royal Astronomical Society.The shaky footage, recorded by John Nevil Maskelyne using a specially-adapted camera, shows the moon passing in front of the sun while he was on a British Astronomical Association expedition to North Carolina in the United States. Continue reading...

Study aims to discover whether gut microbes play a part in development of the conditionScientists have induced the hallmarks of autism in mice by giving them faecal transplants from humans with the condition.The experiments were designed to test whether the communities of gut microbes found in people with autism have a role in their symptoms, an idea that is gaining ground among researchers. Continue reading...

New study confirms natural cycles play little role in global temperature trends and tackles discrepancies in previous modelsEmissions from fossil fuels and volcanoes can explain nearly all of the changes in Earth’s surface temperatures over the past 140 years, a new study has found.The research refutes the popular climate denial myth that recent global warming is merely a result of natural cycles. Continue reading...

The technology will be labeled and subject to stringent health and environment review in the EU, but not in the US, where produce could be radically changedSoon, soybeans will be bred to yield oil without dangerous trans fats. Lettuce will be grown to handle warmer, drier fields. Wheat to contain less gluten. And pigs bred to resist deadly viruses. Someday, maybe even strawberry plants whose delicate berries can be picked by machine instead of by hand.Ten years ago, such genetic changes would have been considered science fiction – or so far off into the future of breeding as to be almost unimaginable. But gene editing, particularly with a tool called Crispr-Cas9, has made it much easier and more efficient to tinker with the genomes of plants and animals. The first Crispr-edited products will begin reaching the market this year, and researchers believe it’s only a matter of time before US grocery shelves could be filled with gene-edited produce, grains and meat. Continue reading...

Human activity has transformed the Earth – but scientists are divided about whether this is really a turning point in geological history. By Nicola DavisonIt was February 2000 and the Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen was sitting in a meeting room in Cuernavaca, Mexico, stewing quietly. Five years earlier, Crutzen and two colleagues had been awarded the Nobel prize in chemistry for proving that the ozone layer, which shields the planet from ultraviolet light, was thinning at the poles because of rising concentrations of industrial gas. Now he was attending a meeting of scientists who studied the planet’s oceans, land surfaces and atmosphere. As the scientists presented their findings, most of which described dramatic planetary changes, Crutzen shifted in his seat. “You could see he was getting agitated. He wasn’t happy,” Will Steffen, a chemist who organised the meeting, told me recently.What finally tipped Crutzen over the edge was a presentation by a group of scientists that focused on the Holocene, the geological epoch that began around 11,700 years ago and continues to the present day. After Crutzen heard the word Holocene for the umpteenth time, he lost it. “He stopped everybody and said: ‘Stop saying the Holocene! We’re not in the Holocene any more,’” Steffen recalled. But then Crutzen stalled. The outburst had not been premeditated, but now all eyes were on him. So he blurted out a name for a new epoch. A combination of anthropos, the Greek for “human”, and “-cene”, the suffix used in names of geological epochs, “Anthropocene” at least sounded academic. Steffen made a note. Continue reading...

Two major studies add to body of evidence against foods made with industrial ingredientsPeople who eat large amounts of heavily processed foods, from breakfast cereals and ready meals to muffins and ice-cream, have a greater risk of heart attack, stroke and early death, according to two major studies.The findings, from separate teams in France and Spain, add to a growing body of evidence that foods made in factories with industrial ingredients may have a hand in an array of medical disorders such as cancer, obesity and high blood pressure. Continue reading...

Anti-abortion activists know that you don’t need to outlaw abortion outright if you can make getting a safe, legal one nearly impossibleBy the end of the week, women in Missouri may live in a state without a single abortion clinic. While restrictive laws in states like Alabama have made headlines, Missouri shows the other side of the anti-abortion strategy: steadily shave away at abortion rights. You don’t need to outlaw the procedure outright if you can make getting a safe, legal one nearly impossible.The reason there’s only one remaining clinic in Missouri in the first place is because the state has tried to regulate abortion out of existence. A series of unnecessary rules and regulations makes it harder both for women to access abortions and for medical professionals to provide them. Missouri’s misogynistic laws already don’t trust women to make their own decisions – they mandate that any woman seeking an abortion in the state has to come to a clinic, request the procedure, and then go home and think about it for three days before it can be legally proffered. They also require that young people under the age of 18 notify both parents and get the notarized consent of at least one parent before they can terminate a pregnancy – a serious hardship for girls who live with abuse, or who don’t have a good relationship with their parents, or who don’t want to be mothers but want to keep their medical decisions private. Continue reading...

You can outsource pretty much every aspect of irritation in your life. But you can’t outsource lonelinessUber has launched a quiet ride service in the US, which means that passengers can request that a driver refrain from talking to them during their trip. The quiet ride feature is available in Uber’s premium Black service.If you’re reading this thinking, “Great, now rich people have even less reason to talk to people outside their bubble of wealth,” then you’re not alone. Uber passengers will be exposed to even fewer diverse experiences, and will stop hearing stories that reach into their hearts and knock on the door of their empathy. Continue reading...

Conservative donors and fossil fuel companies have the most to lose from large-scale decarbonization – and they know it