What happened before the Big Bang? This is one of the hardest questions scientists are trying to answer, but Prof Hiranya Peiris is not daunted by the challenge. Hannah Devlin invited Peiris on the podcast to discuss the origins of our universe Continue reading...

Mature crickets better at luring females – but struggle to live up to expectationThe sweet singing charms of an old male appear to be irresistible to a younger female – if you are a field cricket in a Spanish meadow.Researchers studying wild crickets have found older males are better than younger, more immature rivals at attracting females back to their burrows with their song. Continue reading...

Archaeologists hail iron age object a ‘marvellous, internationally important find’An “astonishing and unparalleled” 2,300-year-old shield made of tree bark has been discovered in Leicestershire, the only example of its kind ever found in Europe.Archaeologists say the discovery of the shield, made between 395 and 250BC, has completely overturned assumptions about the weapons used in the iron age, sparking breathless reactions among experts of the period. Continue reading...

Average size of wild animals predicted to fall by a quarter in 100 years through extinctionsHumanity’s ongoing destruction of wildlife will lead to a shrinking of nature, with the average body size of animals falling by a quarter, a study predicts.The researchers estimate that more than 1,000 larger species of mammals and birds will go extinct in the next century, from rhinos to eagles. They say this could lead to the collapse of ecosystems that humans rely on for food and clean water. Continue reading...

It’s good for our mental and physical health, lowering blood pressure and boosting the immune systemSex is the most talked-about, joked about, thought-about issue in our culture. Every grown adult is expected to know how to do it, but beyond the basic mechanics we’re not taught about it and fiction is coy. We are not short of information on sexual practices – thank you, Fifty Shades of Grey – but there is a general absence of accurate detail of what happens to our bodies during, and as a result of, the act.Yet sex is good for our mental and physical health. It lowers the heart rate and blood pressure. It may boost the immune system to protect us against infections and it certainly lowers stress. The NHS even recommends it, in a section tucked away on its website, where few are likely to find it, that advises: “Weekly sex might help fend off illness.” Continue reading...

Fungus is half a billion years older than previous record holder found in WisconsinTiny fossils found in mudrock in the barren wilderness of the Canadian Arctic are the remains of the oldest known fungus on Earth, scientists say.The minuscule organisms were discovered in shallow water shale, a kind of fine-grained sedimentary rock, in a region south of Victoria island on the edge of the Arctic Ocean. Continue reading...

NHS staff, patients and visitors shun nutritious snacks in favour of crisps, sweets and cakesResearchers have called for radical restrictions on junk food in UK hospitals after an audit of NHS health centres found that people overwhelmingly bought unhealthy snacks and drinks on the premises.Three-quarters of the best-selling snacks in hospital cafes and canteens were rated as unhealthy, along with half of the most popular cold drinks, according to a report by the audit’s authors. Continue reading...

His ego knew no bounds … but nor did his operas that feature camels, helicopters and giant pencil sharpeners. As his epic Donnerstag aus Licht comes to the UK for the first time in 34 years, we separate the cult from the culture of Karlheinz StockhausenMatched in musical-myth-mania perhaps only by Richard Wagner, Karlheinz Stockhausen is the ultimate conundrum for those of us who believe keenly in shifting classical music culture away from its alpha-male genius complex – but are still enthralled by the music. Do we get to have it both ways?The German-born composer was the self-mythologiser extraordinaire who had entrancing charisma, bullish intelligence, no shortage of game-changing opinions, nor shortage of confidence with which to assert them. A guru with disciples and rivals, he fostered a personality cult that went way beyond his music to encompass fashion, spirituality, even a galactic origin story. Isn’t this precisely the artist-as-hero narrative we need to dismantle? Continue reading...

Jordan Adlard Rogers inherits 1,536-acre Cornwall estate after proving owner was his fatherA former care worker has inherited a £50m country estate after a DNA test proved he was the son of its deceased owner.Jordan Adlard Rogers, 31, found out his father was the aristocrat Charles Rogers after his death in 2018 and has now moved into the 1,536-acre Penrose estate in Cornwall, which his family has lived in for generations. Continue reading...

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific conceptsDuring our visits to Mars, what, if anything, are we doing to prevent our bacteria, viruses and other earthly life escaping from our vehicles and contaminating the pristine environment of the red planet?Ejay Continue reading...

The solution to today’s teaserIn my puzzle column earlier today I set you these problems about slicing through a square grid:1) What is the least number of straight lines you need to draw across a 3x3 square grid so that every cell in the grid has at least one of the lines passing through it. Continue reading...

High-ranking mothers lead sons to groups of females and keep guard while they mateTheir mothers are so keen for them to father children that they usher them in front of promising partners, shield them from violent competitors and dash the chances of other males by charging them while they are at it.For a bonobo mother, it is all part of the parenting day, and analysis finds the hard work pays off. Males of the species that live with their mothers are three times more likely to father offspring than those whose mothers are absent. Continue reading...

Swordplay with lines and squaresUPDATE: To read the solution click hereToday you’re going to get the chance to prove a theorem no one has ever proved before. Continue reading...

There will be two celestial encounters to savour this weekWhereas our first lunar conjunction of the month (with Mars two weeks ago) took place when the moon was very young, this pairing with Jupiter takes place when the moon is just past full. Our natural satellite has begun this month’s waning phase but will still be 94.5% illuminated on Monday night, when the conjunction takes place. The chart shows the night sky on 21 May 2019 at 03.00 BST, looking due south. To see the pairing, observers will need a clear southern horizon as it takes place at low altitude. The moon and Jupiter will be nestled between the southern zodiacal constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius, and they will be bookended by two other celestial objects of note. To the west of Jupiter, slightly lower, is the red star of Antares in Scorpius. To the east of the moon, on the other side of Sagittarius, is Saturn. On the evening of 23 May, the moon will pass close to Saturn, giving skywatchers another celestial meeting to enjoy. Continue reading...

The star of ER and The Good Wife is back – as a doctor fighting to save humanity. She gives her bodyguard the slip to talk about our imperilled planet – and her love of Sussex A-roadsBefore I meet Julianna Margulies, I spend three days staring at her bodyguard. He’s impossible to miss: one of those men whose every attempt to blend in flounders. Margulies and I are in Lille, judges at the Series Mania television festival, although our experiences differ a little. My cloak of anonymity allows me to roam the city unpestered. Margulies, however, has been a TV mainstay for 25 years, with roles in two juggernaut shows, ER and The Good Wife. Everybody knows who she is, hence Muscles.He’s even there at the start of our interview, looming in the doorway of our room at the Chamber of Commerce. As I ease past and close the door, I ask if it isn’t a pain being constantly tailed. She smiles and says: “Three years ago, I was the guest of honour when they held this festival in Paris. When I get there, they say, ‘We have detail for you.’ I say, ‘Guys, I don’t need a bodyguard.’ But they won’t budge. We get to the hotel and I say to my bodyguard, ‘My husband and I are going out to lunch. You go home, please.’ So we left the hotel and I’ve never seen anything like it. People were everywhere. We backed into the hotel and my husband called the bodyguard and said, ‘We made a mistake!’ He said, ‘I know – I’m just around the corner.’” Continue reading...

3D printed soil, urban farming and artificial intelligence will all make an appearance at this year’s eventWeed is not a word often associated with the immaculate gardens of the Chelsea flower show. But with hydroponics and urban farming making grand appearances at this year’s event, it will be on a lot of visitors’ lips.“With the right lights you can grow whatever you like, even if you’re inside a dark, north-facing flat in London or Birmingham,” said Jody Lidgard, one of Chelsea’s most decorated designers. “It’s almost like marijuana,” he chuckled. “It’s funny, but it’s true. They’ve been leading the way.” Continue reading...

They say cleaning is detoxing – it’s not, but it was part of my recovery from addictionIf you’ve ever done a real detox off drugs and alcohol to get clean, the whole notion of cleaning your flat as a way to some sort of psychological Nirvana seems suspect. Yet this is exactly what the new cleaning gurus, like Marie Kondo, Mrs Hinch (2.4m Instagram fans and counting) and Lynsey “Queen of Clean” Crombie, would have us believe.They say that chucking everything out and sterilising what is left is a way to put order back into our messy lives. An abundance of videos featuring confessional cleaning tutorials show bright-eyed and often beautiful young women extolling the virtues of cleaning in the reverent terms usually reserved for religious conversions, spiritual awakenings or the moment you receive your yoga name in India. Eat, Pray, Clean. They have seen the light – and it smells like Ecover. Continue reading...

Fifty years after the first moon landings, a new generation of space travellers, from Xi Jinping’s taikonauts to Jeff Bezos, are racing to colonise our nearest neighbour. Is reality catching up with sci-fi?The moon is rising again above the horizon of the imagination, waxing into worldly relevance. Fifty years after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin first stepped on to what Aldrin called the “magnificent desolation” of the Sea of Tranquility, the possibility of a human return to their dusty stamping ground is greater than it has been at any time since the Apollo programme reached its end just three years later.The robot vanguard has already set forth. Later this year India will attempt to become the fourth nation to land a probe on the moon; an Israeli attempt to get there failed in April, but its backers plan to try again. China has landed two robot rovers on the moon’s surface in the past five years. One visited the near side, the familiar pockmarked face seen from Earth; the other went to the overflown-but-never-before-visited far side. The Chinese space agency has talked of sending humans in their wake, perhaps in the early 2030s. Continue reading...

Bristol distances itself from academic who claims to have solved century-old mysteryA university that breathlessly declared one of its academics had cracked the code of the celebrated Voynich manuscript has been forced into an embarrassing climbdown after medieval experts poured scorn on his theory.Bristol University said this week Dr Gerard Cheshire had “succeeded where countless cryptographers, linguistics scholars and computer programs have failed” by identifying the language and purpose of the mysterious and apparently coded 15th-century text. Continue reading...

How do protein substitutes compare with the real deal? Graihagh Jackson investigates by speaking to dietician Priya Tew, the Guardian’s Fiona Harvey and author Isabella Tree.

From now, house style guide recommends terms such as ‘climate crisis’ and ‘global heating’The Guardian has updated its style guide to introduce terms that more accurately describe the environmental crises facing the world.Instead of “climate change” the preferred terms are “climate emergency, crisis or breakdown” and “global heating” is favoured over “global warming”, although the original terms are not banned. Continue reading...

Soil Association calls for pupils in England to get ‘healthier and more climate-friendly’ mealsAll state schools in England should offer pupils a compulsory plant-based menu one day a week, under new recommendations to the government that aim to make school meals more environmentally friendly and reflect changing dietary advice.Given wide acceptance that diets need to change to address the climate crisis – including by eating less meat and more beans and pulses – the Soil Association is urging the Department for Education to replace a non-mandatory recommendation for a weekly meat-free day with a statutory menu once a week offering only plant-based proteins and foods. Continue reading...

The space agency says it intends to send both a woman and a man on Artemis programme’s first missionNasa needs an additional $1.6bn next year if they are to stand any chance of getting humans to the moon again by 2024, as the US president, Donald Trump, has requested.The money would be on top of the $21.5bn already agreed by the agency. Most of the additional funding is needed to begin developing the lunar landing systems that will ferry astronauts to and from the lunar surface. Work on the lander was not expected to begin for another three years. Continue reading...

Huge range of objects little seen for decades will be exhibited in facility near Swindon from 2023A site under development by the Science Museum will give the public a chance to see hundreds of thousands of items that have been in storage for decades.Among highlights is a 1947 passenger aircraft that was used as an Australia and Asia tour plane by the Rolling Stones in 1973 and a year later was transporting cattle to Libya. Continue reading...

New research shows affected areas are losing ice five times faster than in the 1990s, with more than 100m of thickness gone in some placesIce losses are rapidly spreading deep into the interior of the Antarctic, new analysis of satellite data shows.The warming of the Southern Ocean is resulting in glaciers sliding into the sea increasingly rapidly, with ice now being lost five times faster than in the 1990s. The West Antarctic ice sheet was stable in 1992 but up to a quarter of its expanse is now thinning. More than 100 metres of ice thickness has been lost in the worst-hit places. Continue reading...

Lilium says electric jet-powered five-seater aircraft could be in service by 2025A new “flying taxi” has been unveiled by German start-up Lilium, which claims the vertical take-off craft could be the basis for an on-demand air service within six years.The electric jet-powered five-seater aircraft is designed to travel up to 300km, a journey that would take it an hour at top speed. Continue reading...

Scientists say antivenom exists for only 60% of all the snakes in the worldNew drugs for snakebite are desperately needed, say scientists, to replace the current 100-year-old treatment made by injecting snake’s venom into a horse and harvesting antibodies – which is very expensive, may not work and can cause lethal allergic reactions.Snakebite, says the Wellcome Trust, is the cause of the world’s biggest hidden health crisis – and it is investing £80m in the hope of solving it. The World Health Organization will this month also launch a snakebite strategy aiming to halve deaths by 2030. Every five minutes, on average, 50 people are bitten by a snake. Between 81,000 and 138,000 people die from snakebite every year and about 400,000 are permanently disabled. Continue reading...

Scientists want to ‘take away the fear’ by halting mutation of cells, even in advanced casesLeading scientists are embarking on a new war against cancer, aimed not necessarily at curing it but at turning it into a condition that people can live with.The world-renowned Institute of Cancer Research is launching what it calls the first-ever “Darwinian” cancer programme. Just as with antibiotics, they say, cancers can evolve to become resistant to the drugs used to treat them. Cancer cells that are not killed off by chemotherapy or even immunotherapy will eventually mutate and adapt to form new tumours. The cancer returns in metastatic or advanced form, often elsewhere in the body, and is usually fatal. Continue reading...

Researcher claims to have solved mystery of 15th-century text but others are scepticalSome say it is a medieval medical manual written in abbreviated Latin and aimed at well-to-do women. Not true, say others: it was written in Hebrew by an Italian physician and clearly shows Jewish women having ritual baths.Nonsense, others believe: the text was written in Old Turkish, in a poetic style. Or it may have origins in Old Cornish. Or in the Aztec language of Nahuatl, or in Manchu. Continue reading...

Development could transform ability of hearing-impaired to cope with noisy environmentsA mind-controlled hearing aid that allows the wearer to focus on particular voices has been created by scientists, who say it could transform the ability of those with hearing impairments to cope with noisy environments.The device mimics the brain’s natural ability to single out and amplify one voice against background conversation. Until now, even the most advanced hearing aids work by boosting all voices at once, which can be experienced as a cacophony of sound for the wearer, especially in crowded environments. Continue reading...

Researchers create altered synthetic genome, in move with potential medical benefitsScientists have created the world’s first living organism that has a fully synthetic and radically altered DNA code.The lab-made microbe, a strain of bacteria that is normally found in soil and the human gut, is similar to its natural cousins but survives on a smaller set of genetic instructions. Continue reading...

Clive Stafford Smith says Sats are irrelevant to his son’s life and Mary Bousted defends Labour’s proposed assessment reforms, while Ann Moore and Richard Wetherell highlight the negative effects of testsAmanda Spielman may be warning the wrong people about exam anxiety, certainly as far as younger kids are concerned (Ofsted chief says teachers can cause ‘subliminal’ exam anxiety, May 14). My 10-year-old is not worried because I have told him Sats are irrelevant to his life. His secondary school will determine how best he will fit in, based on its own testing, when he gets there in September. I did ask him to do his best in sympathy with the people who are sweating it out this week: his excellent teachers, whose lives – and the rating of the school – depend on how he does at rote nonsense.Meanwhile, the true quality of his education is illustrated by the year 6 leavers’ scrapbook year after year, which always tells the same story: the stellar moments each child remembers are extracurricular experiences such as acting in plays, spending a week together on Exmoor or learning about Mary Anning in Lyme Regis. We parents can also play our part – as a lawyer, I have supervised the trial of three teachers for “murdering” the headteacher, with the local police arriving to oversee the investigation. (They were all acquitted by exemplary 10-year-old jurors, I am glad to say.) Continue reading...

Progress rate ‘disheartening’, says expert as 2014-17 figure is small improvement on 2006-09Women are listed as authors of just 30% of academic research from British universities, according to a major new ranking of higher education institutions.Although the number of women named as authors is gradually increasing, the slow pace was described by one expert as “disheartening”. The 30% figure is for studies published between 2014 and 2017, which is an improvement from an average of just under 26% between 2006 and 2009. Continue reading...

Spinraza to be made available to spinal muscular atrophy patientsA drug that could prolong the lives of children with a rare muscle-wasting disease has been approved by the NHS in England after lengthy negotiations with the manufacturer over the high price.Spinraza could help between 600 and 1,200 children and adults in England and Wales who have the genetic condition spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). It affects the nerves in the spinal cord, making muscles weaker and causing problems with movement, breathing and swallowing. It can shorten the life expectancy of babies and toddlers. Continue reading...

People increasingly see the environmental crisis as a national priority. This is an opportunity for bold action from governmentLast week a small campaign group in the staunchly conservative town of Shrewsbury called a public meeting about climate change. The organisers were delighted when 150 people turned up. Even they were surprised, though, when people unanimously said they were prepared to give up flying, change their boilers and cars, eat less meat and even overthrow capitalism to get a grip on climate change.But this was just a straw in the political wind whipping through middle England. Shrewsbury joins more than 100 other councils across the country in declaring a climate emergency, and has pledged that it will be carbon-neutral within 11 years, with more following every week. Continue reading...

Peruvian archaeologists decry new airport that would carry tourists directly to already fragile Inca citadelAmong the Inca archeological sites that abound in Peru, none draw nearly as many tourists as the famed citadel of Machu Picchu. There were more than 1.5 million visitors in 2017, almost double the limit recommended by Unesco, putting a huge strain on the fragile ruins and local ecology.Now, in a move that has drawn a mixture of horror and outrage from archaeologists, historians and locals, work has begun on clearing ground for a multibillion-dollar international airport, intended to jet tourists much closer to Machu Picchu . Continue reading...

Algae milk, insect protein and nutrients consumed through a patch or pill may become norm, report saysThe food of the future could come in the form of stick-on patches and pills or be delivered by intravenous drip, according to a report that predicts what and how we could be eating as far ahead as 150 years from now.Jellyfish suppers washed down with algae milk and bread made from insect protein may eventually become the norm, while shoppers will be able to pick up “lab-grown” meat kits from dedicated supermarket aisles – or get them delivered by drone. Continue reading...

Rightwing populists to launch attack on climate science in vote drive before EU electionsGermany’s rightwing populists are embracing climate change denial as the latest topic with which to boost their electoral support, teaming up with scientists who claim hysteria is driving the global warming debate and ridiculing the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg as “mentally challenged” and a fraud.The Alternative für Deutschland party (AfD) is expected to launch its biggest attack yet on mainstream climate science at a symposium in parliament on Tuesday supported by a prominent climate change denial body linked by researchers to prominent conservative groups in the US. Continue reading...

Thousands of women could be spared pain and long-term health problems, trial suggests

Ambassador for amphibians who warned of global declineThe recent shocking UN report on the threatened extinction of one million species has focused global attention on the crucial role of biodiversity in the health of the planet. Almost exactly 30 years ago, the first warning sounded that amphibian species were already in potentially catastrophic freefall. Tim Halliday, who has died aged 73, was one of the leading figures in a worldwide initiative to raise the alarm, and to understand the reasons for the decline. The current chief scientist of the Amphibian Survival Alliance, Phil Bishop, called him “the leading champion and ambassador for all things amphibian”.In 1989 Halliday was one of the prime movers in organising the First World Congress of Herpetology (herpetology is the study of amphibians and reptiles) at the University of Kent, Canterbury. While studying the courtship and mating of British newts in the wild, he had noticed over the years that the numbers in his study ponds had been falling. As participants at the congress compared notes, they realised that the same was happening all over the world. Many of these declines were described as “enigmatic”, because frogs, toads, newts and salamanders were dying in supposedly protected habitats. Continue reading...

There’s a long history of phrases being garbled as they cross from one language to another – and some of them stickGame of Thrones is known for its linguistic inventiveness. The TV adaptation of George RR Martin’s fantasy cycle has gone way further than the original novels ever did, with linguist David J Peterson fleshing out the languages of Essos and Westeros, Dothraki and Valyrian, from one or two phrases into grammatically coherent “conlangs” or constructed languages.The latest piece of vocabulary to come out of the show has nothing to do with him, however. In fact, it wasn’t purposely designed by anyone. I’m tempted, because of the genre we’re dealing with, to call it an epic fail. But it’s probably not as bad as leaving a Starbucks cup in shot. And it’s actually pretty fascinating. Continue reading...

Scott Morrison says government took reef ‘off the endangered list’ – despite no such list existingScott Morrison has credited his government with having “saved” the Great Barrier Reef, a claim rejected as “ridiculous” by scientists, environmental groups and the Queensland government.At the Liberal party’s campaign launch in Melbourne on Sunday, Morrison thanked the former environment ministers Greg Hunt and Josh Frydenberg for their work on reef issues. Continue reading...

The full moon on Saturday gives an opportunity (weather permitting) to study the “seas” that form the dark markings on the moon’s surfaceThe moon will reach full on 18 May. This is a good opportunity to take the time to really look at its bright disc. The dark markings are called lunar maria, named after the Latin word for seas because early astronomers thought they were seeing bodies of water. We now know that the moon is largely dry and the maria are actually solidified lava plains, deposited in volcanic eruptions on the moon some 3–3.5 billion years ago. The maria are not uniformly distributed across the lunar surface; they cover more of the west than the east, and that’s not the only difference. Mare Imbrium (sea of rain) and Oceanus Procellarum (ocean of storms) are slightly lighter in colour than the eastern maria because of differences in their chemical composition. This month’s full moon is a seasonal blue moon, meaning that it is the third out of four full moons to happen in an astronomical season, counted between equinox and solstice. There are usually only three full moons per season. Continue reading...

Proposal calls for wilderness protection as startup space miners look to the starsGreat swathes of the solar system should be preserved as official “space wilderness” to protect planets, moons and other heavenly bodies from rampant mining and other forms of industrial exploitation, scientists say.The proposal calls for more than 85% of the solar system to be placed off-limits to human development, leaving little more than an eighth for space firms to mine for precious metals, minerals and other valuable materials. Continue reading...

Brexit party leader defends ‘breaking point’ poster and remarks about global warmingNigel Farage has said private health companies should “relieve the burden” on the NHS, the UK ought to limit efforts to curb global warming, and defended anti-immigrant posters, as the rapid rise of his Brexit party led to his personal beliefs being scrutinised.In an often testy BBC interview, Farage also tried to justify his decision to shift from praising Norway-type deals before the EU referendum to advocating a no-deal departure, saying this was needed because Theresa May had botched the process. Continue reading...

A psychotherapist explains the sense of danger she felt growing up as the daughter of war-traumatised parentsIn the spring of 2016, I sat on the beach on the far east side of the island of Cyprus not far from where my father lives, and looked across to Syria. I imagined, in that moment, that I had lost my home, that everything was lost. It was quiet on the shore, just a few miles from the border that divides the island. There were few tourists at that time of year and the seascape before me was a shimmering, turquoise paradise. A mere boat ride away, bombs were falling and people dying. The level of destruction was, and is, incomprehensible: devastation and damage so absolute that beautiful towns and cities no longer exist.I felt compelled to help in any way I could. I couldn’t go to Syria, of course, so I decided to volunteer at the Hope Centre in Athens, a place of safety for women and children, that offered a play area, showers, a sofa where new mothers could nurse their babies and, in the absence of a food licence, have tea and biscuits. Each day, about a hundred refugees would come in from the camps. Continue reading...

What purpose does anger serve? Are men angrier than women? Can it affect our mental wellbeing? Science is beginning to uncover some of the answersAnger is the flash of fire that sparks in your brain when you feel you have been shortchanged. Perhaps a stranger has nipped into the parking space that you had been about to occupy, or a lazy work colleague has landed you with a thankless task. Or maybe you have been confronted with a deep, hurtful betrayal by someone you love.Anger is one of the most primitive emotions we experience – animals are equipped with the same basic neural circuitry. It operates on a spectrum from mild frustration to absolute fury, and the intensity with which we feel anger and how we act on it is very personal. Science is beginning to provide new explanations about the ways that personality, age, gender and life experiences shape the way we feel this emotion. Continue reading...

Arthur Eddington’s photograph of the 1919 solar eclipse proved Einstein right and ushered in a century where gravity was kingA hundred years ago this month, the British astronomer Arthur Eddington arrived at the remote west African island of Príncipe. He was there to witness and record one of the most spectacular events to occur in our heavens: a total solar eclipse that would pass over the little equatorial island on 29 May 1919.Observing such events is a straightforward business today, but a century ago the world was still recovering from the first world war. Scientific resources were meagre, photographic technology was relatively primitive, and the hot steamy weather would have made it difficult to focus instruments. For good measure, there was always a threat that clouds would blot out the eclipse. Continue reading...

It is possible to provide both compassion and justiceAs someone closely involved in parliamentary campaigning to secure the infected blood inquiry for the Labour MP Diana Johnson, I read Kieran Walshe’s article with interest (“The infected blood inquiry reminds us we need a less painful way to deal with health failures”, Comment).I agree with his concerns and would like to offer my thoughts on some further reforms: whenever inquiries are set up, they fall under the sponsorship of implicated parties. In the case of infected blood, this was the Department of Health. It took campaigners 18-plus months to get responsibility transferred to the Cabinet Office. Future inquires need to be sponsored and funded independently. Continue reading...

In her new book, the scientist examines the role of fate in our lives, how our politics are formed and sniffing out Mr RightDr Hannah Critchlow is a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge. Her debut book, The Science of Fate, examines how much of our life is predetermined at birth and to what extent we are in control of our destiny.How has the slow march of scientific research affected our concept of fate? On one hand, we know more about how genetics drives our lives, yet we also have more good evidence for things that we can do to shape our own outcomes.