Full moon marks the midway point of the moon’s cycle, and this month it will be a supermoon – the third supermoon of the yearSpring arrives this week in the form of the vernal equinox. This marks the moment when day and night are of approximately equal length. From here on, there will be more daylight hours in the northern hemisphere than night time ones. This situation continues until the next equinox (in October) when the situation reverses. The moment of the equinox takes place at 21:58 GMT on 20 March and by coincidence the moon reaches full illumination approximately four hours later at 01:43 GMT on 21 March. Also by coincidence, this moon is a “supermoon”. A supermoon takes place when the full moon occurs close to the moon’s perigee, its closest approach to Earth. In the early hours of 21 March, the moon will be 224,173 miles or 360,772km away, roughly 20,000km closer than average. Although the difference in the moon’s appearance will be unnoticeable to the naked eye, it will raise the tides a few inches higher than usual in most places. The full moon marks the mid-point of the lunar cycle. Earth is now between the moon and the sun, and so we see the visible surface of the moon fully illuminated. Continue reading...

Public health campaign triggers surge in numbers attending cervical screenings at ‘worst possible time’Women could be forced to wait months for cervical cancer screening results because the planned closure of dozens of laboratories has left the service in “meltdown”, the Guardian has been told.The crisis has been triggered by a surge in numbers of women attending smear tests following a government public awareness campaign launched earlier this month. The campaign coincides with an exodus of biomedical scientists due to a restructuring process that will reduce nearly 50 hospital screening laboratories to nine this summer. Continue reading...

When Elma van Vliet decided to start asking her mother about her life, the results were remarkableIt wasn’t until Margreeth van Vliet-Smit was diagnosed with inoperable cancer in 2001 that Elma van Vliet realised how much she didn’t know about her own mother. She didn’t know what dreams and adventures Margreeth had had when she was a young woman. She didn’t know what her mother had done on Saturday afternoons as a small girl. She didn’t even know how to make the chicken soup Margreeth had always made when her daughter was ill. “And she was the only person in the world who knew how to make that soup,” said Elma.So Elma began jotting down questions for her mother, to tease out who she was – and why. “As soon as I started writing, the questions kept coming. I realised that when we had talked, it had always been about my life, not hers,” she said. Elma’s questions ranged widely, from “What kind of parents did you have: were they progressive or old-fashioned?” to “Were you an easy-going or rebellious teenager?” and “What changed in you when you had children?” Continue reading...

Greek historian’s description of ‘baris’ vessel vindicated by archaeologists at sunken city of Thonis-HeraclionIn the fifth century BC, the Greek historian Herodotus visited Egypt and wrote of unusual river boats on the Nile. Twenty-three lines of his Historia, the ancient world’s first great narrative history, are devoted to the intricate description of the construction of a “baris”.For centuries, scholars have argued over his account because there was no archaeological evidence that such ships ever existed. Now there is. A “fabulously preserved” wreck in the waters around the sunken port city of Thonis-Heracleion has revealed just how accurate the historian was. Continue reading...

US archaeologists trace roots of woman to modern-day Sierra Leone as part of ongoing ancestry researchArchaeologists used DNA taken from a broken clay pipe stem found in Maryland to build a picture of an enslaved woman who died around 200 years ago and had origins in modern-day Sierra Leone. One researcher called the work “a mind-blower”.Related: El Norte review: an epic and timely history of Hispanic North America Continue reading...

Born poor and nonconformist, Mary Anning’s contributions to the birth of palaeontology had been forgotten. But not any longerA few months ago a stylish set of rooms were opened in London’s Natural History Museum. They include a restaurant, a study and a floor-to-ceiling cabinet displaying biological treasures and curiosities. Here, patrons of the museum gather to relax and contemplate nature’s wonders in a setting named after one of the most remarkable of all explorers of Earth’s ancient marvels: Mary Anning.“We could have named the rooms after many ‘greats’: Alfred Waterhouse, who designed the museum, or David Attenborough. But in the end there was really only one choice. The Anning Rooms it had to be,” said museum executive Christina Heap. Continue reading...

Teeth and tongues make the sounds of our speech, but our humanity makes its meaningsBabies have an astonishing talent that adults entirely lose. By the age of one, they can recognise the significant noises in the babble around them and group them into a language. When we have lost this capacity as adults, it becomes enormously difficult to distinguish between sounds that are glaringly different to a native speaker. It all sounds Greek to us, or, as the Greeks would have it, barbarous. This is because the range of possible sounds that humans use to convey meaning may be as high as 2,000, but few languages use more than 100 and even then the significant noises – the phonemes of a language – each cover a range of sounds and so blur distinctions which would change the meaning of a word in other languages.But where do these phonemes come from and why do they shift over time? New research suggests that the apparently arbitrary distribution of some sounds around the world may be partially explained by diet. This is unexpected. We’d rather think of language as the product of our thought, rather than of the arrangement of our teeth. In reality, though, any given language must be both. Continue reading...

The school climate strikes show how we are trying to save the world and change it for the better. Everyone can helpSince we made headlines in February with the UK’s first school strike, we’ve seen an outpouring of support from our peers, parents, carers, politicians and other people from all walks of life. It seems that most people know we’re in a mess, but they just didn’t know what we can to do to get out of it.This is where the UK Student Climate Network (UKSCN) stepped in, not necessarily out of choice, but necessity. There’s no time left for the “adults in the room” to solve the climate crisis. The politicians and powerful actors have failed us. Youth is rising up all around the world and here in the UK we’re emerging as one of the most powerful forces, demanding urgent and radical change. Continue reading...

Fertility laws compel clinics to destroy frozen eggs after a decade, irrespective of a woman’s ageA woman who is fighting for her chance to start a family is bringing the first legal challenge in the UK against fertility legislation that places a 10-year time limit on the storage of frozen eggs.The woman paid to freeze her eggs in 2009 because she was not in a relationship, but hoped to have a baby in the future. However, fertility laws compel clinics to destroy frozen eggs after 10 years, irrespective of a woman’s age or wishes. Continue reading...

To tackle the oil and gas giants driving climate change, young people of all nations must act togetherBrexit is reversible. Article 50 can be juggled, delayed, and bounced around until the government decides to reboot and restart the process. In the meantime, another meaningless “meaningful vote” could happen in the next few days – while we ignore the only threat that truly matters.The effects of climate change are irreversible. That’s why it’s a crisis. The UN’s warning last year lays bare the dangers of this emergency. And these are dangers that we can only attempt to predict, because Earth has never faced a disaster of this nature before: the future is volatile on an unprecedented scale, with famines, floods, and droughts looming over us. Continue reading...

Nothing is possible without action, and almost anything is when we rise up together, as you are today

The children on climate strike are right: their lives should not be sacrificed to satisfy our greedThe young people taking to the streetsfor the climate strike are right: their future is being stolen. The economy is an environmental pyramid scheme, dumping its liabilities on the young and the unborn. Its current growth depends on intergenerational theft.At the heart of capitalism is a vast and scarcely examined assumption: you are entitled to as great a share of the world’s resources as your money can buy. You can purchase as much land, as much atmospheric space, as many minerals, as much meat and fish as you can afford, regardless of who might be deprived. If you can pay for them, you can own entire mountain ranges and fertile plains. You can burn as much fuel as you like. Every pound or dollar secures a certain right over the world’s natural wealth. Continue reading...

As young people walk out of classrooms for a global climate strike, a panel of campaigners share their reasons for actionWe strike for the Earth, to protect and save it from what the human race has done. As indigenous youths we have a close connection to the Earth. We know that without it we have nothing, we are nothing. Our community is directly affected by the Cold Lake oil sands, which is a large deposit of tar sands. Some of the tar sands can be extracted through drilling, which is incredibly dangerous to land, animals and people, and affects the water and air quality in negative ways. We must think of the future generations: what we do today, tomorrow and the next day will impact the next seven generations. We must change our ways from burning natural resources, from releasing so much carbon, from poisoning what we need to live. We cannot survive by drinking oil. Continue reading...

As thousands of pupils strike over the catastrophe facing the planet, we demand a state of emergency be calledWe’re the UK Student Climate Network. We’re young, we’re students and we’re calling for change. Our movement started in February when tens of thousands of young people took to the streets in towns and cities around Britain, in an unprecedented emergence of a youth climate justice movement.We’ve joined a movement that’s spreading rapidly across the world, catalysed by the actions of one individual in taking a stand in August last year. Greta Thunberg may have been the spark, but we’re the wildfire and we’re fuelled by the necessity for action. Continue reading...

Happy International Pi Day. To celebrate, Hannah Devlin is joined by the mathematician and comedian Matt Parker to discuss maths anxiety, how much today’s world relies on number crunching and what happens when we get it wrongHappy International Pi Day! On 14 March, the world celebrated this mathematical constant because 3/14 matches the first three digits of pi – 3.14. To mark the occasion, Hannah Devlin invites the mathematician and comedian Matt Parker to talk about Pi, maths and his new book, Humble Pi: A Comedy of Maths Errors. They discuss maths anxiety, how much today’s world relies on number crunching and what happens when we get it wrong. Continue reading...

Diet of porridge and gruel shaped human faces, which diversified English languageThe texts of the 16th century were first to record the F-word for posterity. It appeared in William Dunbar’s poem A Brash of Wowing in 1503 and later, thanks to an angry monk, in a note scrawled in the margin of a 1528 copy of De Officiis, Cicero’s moral manifesto.But according to researchers, the English language might never have enjoyed a richness of F-words had it not been for early farmers and the food processing they favoured. Dairy products and other soft foods, such as gruel, porridge, soup and stews, helped shape our faces, the researchers claim, and allowed us to form the sounds “f” and “v”, known as labiodental fricatives. Continue reading...

Bone analysis adds to evidence that Tudor England was a melting pot of ethnic diversityAnalyses of skeletons from the Mary Rose are fleshing out the crew’s past, offering further evidence that Tudor England was a bustling scene of ethnic diversity.Researchers say studies on the human remains recovered from the warship, which sank in the Solent during a battle with the French in 1545, have revealed at least two of the crew might have had heritage from as far afield as north Africa. Continue reading...

Memory does not work like a video tape – it is not stored like a file just waiting to be retrieved. Instead, memories are formed in networks across the brain and every time they are recalled they can be subtly changed. So if these memories are changeable, how much should we trust them? With experts Dr Julia Shaw and Prof Elizabeth Loftus, the Guardian's Max Sanderson explores the mysterious world of human memory, how false memories can be implanted – and how this can be harnessed for good and ill Continue reading...

Study says condition can cause physical symptoms and behaviour problems in class

Crispr ‘tops list’ of recent scientific discoveries with massive consequences for humanity, says lead proponentLeading scientists have called for a global moratorium on the use of powerful DNA editing tools to make genetically modified children.The move is intended to send a clear signal to maverick researchers, and the scientific community more broadly, that any attempt to rewrite the DNA of sperm, eggs or embryos destined for live births is not acceptable. Continue reading...

Japanese firm’s vehicle would allow astronauts to travel on moon without space suitsToyota is to build a self-driving lunar rover that will enable astronauts to travel on the surface of the moon without space suits, as Japan raises the stakes amid renewed international interest in lunar exploration.The Japanese carmaker and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa) hope the vehicle will be included in a mission to the moon between 2029 and 2034, according to Kyodo news agency. Continue reading...

Chancellor promises a global Britain and announces funds for science and digital projectsThe chancellor outlined a package of measures at the spring statement designed to prepare Britain for life outside the EU, as well as for the hi-tech digital jobs of the future.Alongside the central update on the economy, other announcements made by Philip Hammond included: Continue reading...

Ageing population and stretched care services leave poorest most vulnerableA landmark report on the state of ageing in Britain has warned that a significant proportion of people are at risk of spending later life in poverty, ill-health and hardship.Britain is undergoing a radical demographic shift, with the number of people aged 65 and over set to grow by more than 40% in two decades, reaching more than 17 million by 2036. The number of households where the oldest person is 85 or over is increasing faster than any other age group. Continue reading...

Method actors were trained to take on role of Romeo or Juliet and then respond to questions“Acting is the least mysterious of all crafts,” Marlon Brando once said. But for scientists, working out what is going on in an actor’s head has always been something of a puzzle.Now, researchers have said thespians show different patterns of brain activity depending on whether they are in character or not. Continue reading...

Tentative link found between genetic variant and faster breakdown of hormoneAn unintended pregnancy while using hormonal contraception may not always be down to the woman’s mistake, according to research that suggests for some genetics could play a role.Millions of women use hormonal contraceptives such as different types of the pill, contraceptive implants or hormone-releasing intrauterine systems (IUS) or vaginal rings. These devices release hormones to prevent the release of an egg, as well as triggering other changes in the body to prevent a pregnancy. Continue reading...

Astrobatrachus kurichiyana lurks in leaf litter and is sole member of an ancient lineageAn orange-bellied frog with a brown back, covered in tiny spots that resemble a starry sky, has been discovered in a mountain range in India, surprising researchers who said its ancestors branched off on the evolutionary tree from other members of the same frog family tens of millions of years ago.The frog, which is about 2cm to 3cm long, has been named Astrobatrachus kurichiyana, although some might prefer its more rock-star sobriquet: “starry dwarf frog.” Continue reading...

Patricia Dowdy deemed not fit to practise over multiple misconduct chargesOne of Stephen Hawking’s former nurses has been struck off after the Nursing and Midwifery Council ruled she “failed to provide the standards of good, professional care that we expect and Professor Hawking deserved”.The NMC said Patricia Dowdy, 61, had faced multiple misconduct charges in relation to the care she was providing to the eminent physicist, including financial misconduct, dishonesty, not providing appropriate care, failing to cooperate with the NMC and not having the correct qualifications. Continue reading...

Decades of studying primates has convinced me that animal politics are not so different from our own – and even in the wild, leadership is about much more than being a bully. By Frans de WaalIn July 2017, when Sean Spicer, then the White House press secretary, was discovered hiding in the bushes to dodge questions from reporters, I knew Washington politics had become truly primatological. A few weeks earlier, James Comey had intentionally worn a blue suit while standing at the back of a room with blue curtains so as to blend in. The FBI director hoped to go unnoticed and avoid a presidential hug. (The tactic failed.)Making creative use of the environment is primate politics at its best, as is the role of body language such as sitting on a throne high above the grovelling masses, descending into their midst with an escalator or raising one’s arm so underlings can kiss your armpit (a pheromonal ritual invented by Saddam Hussein). The link between high evaluations of debate performances and the candidates’ heights is well known – taller candidates have a leg up. This advantage explains why short leaders bring along boxes to stand on during group photos. Continue reading...

Printer ink, paint and arsenic found in some drugs sold to treat life-threatening illnessesDoctors have called for an urgent international effort to combat a “pandemic of bad drugs” that is thought to kill hundreds of thousands of people globally every year.A surge in counterfeit and poor quality medicines means that 250,000 children a year are thought to die after receiving shoddy or outright fake drugs intended to treat malaria and pneumonia alone, the doctors warned. Continue reading...

Experts worry that injecting sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere could put some regions at riskA new study contradicts fears that using solar geoengineering to fight climate change could dangerously alter rainfall and storm patterns in some parts of the world.Related: Geoengineering may be used to combat global warming, experts say Continue reading...

Discovery raises questions about emergency plans in place for severe space weatherTraces of an enormous solar storm that battered the atmosphere and showered Earth in radioactive particles more than 2,500 years ago have been discovered under the Greenland ice sheet.Scientists studying ice nearly half a kilometre beneath the surface found a band of radioactive elements unleashed by a storm that struck the planet in 660BC. Continue reading...

My friend Michael Wilks, who has died of prostate cancer aged 69, was a forensic physician. His professional achievements were underpinned by his courage and honesty in confronting his problems with alcohol and he made an outstanding contribution to changing attitudes towards addiction.Michael was born in Paddington, west London, to Dennis, a GP, and Bridget (nee Chetwynd-Stapylton), a nurse. After attending St John’s school in Leatherhead, Surrey, he graduated in 1972 from St Mary’s hospital medical school in London, where we met in 1967. Afterwards he became a GP and soon became a principal at practices in Kensington and then Richmond upon Thames (1975-92). Continue reading...

The answers to today’s Jedi language puzzleEarlier today I set you the following puzzle about the peculiar grammar of Yoda, Star Wars’ pointy-eared Jedi master.Yoda inverts pairs of phrases before speaking. If Yoda says “Believe you I don’t”, we know what he means is “I don’t believe you.” Continue reading...

A Jedi language puzzleUPDATE: The solutions can be read hereToday the British linguistics community is launching a campaign to make language analysis – the study of patterns in language – part of mainstream school education.To celebrate this campaign, about which more below, here’s a puzzle about Yoda, the cuddly Star Wars Jedi Master. Ready are you? Continue reading...

The result of 11 years of research suggests that human habitation could stretch to 120,000 yearsExtensive archaeological research in southern Victoria has again raised the prospect that people have lived in Australia for 120,000 years – twice as long as the broadly accepted period of human continental habitation.The research, with its contentious potential implications for Indigenous habitation of the continent that came to be Australia, has been presented to the Royal Society of Victoria by a group of academics including Jim Bowler, the eminent 88-year-old geologist who in 1969 and 1974 discovered the bones of Mungo Lady and Mungo Man, the oldest human remains found in Australia. Continue reading...

As the moon moves into its second phase, it can help star watchers locate the faint constellation of the crabThis week the moon passes through its first quarter phase, when half of the visible surface is illuminated. It occurs on 14 March and marks the moment when the moon stops being a waxing crescent and becomes a waxing gibbous moon. In another week’s time, it will be full. The chart shows the moon’s position in the southern sky on 17 March at 20:00 GMT. Its visible surface will be 85% illuminated and it will be sitting smack in the middle of the faint constellation Cancer, the crab. This is one of the 12 zodiacal constellations, which were some of the first to be defined thousands of years ago. Ironically the bright moon will make it even more difficult to see the faint stars of Cancer but it will mark the constellation’s location in the sky. Remember it. It is well worth being able to identify Cancer because just to the right of the central stars is a prize for naked eye observers: a faint star cluster called the Beehive, or Praesepe. To look for this star cluster, you must be far from city lights as it will only appear as a faint smudge. Continue reading...

Philip Hammond will use spring statement to support hi-tech industry in Cambridge, Edinburgh and OxfordshirePhilip Hammond will boost public spending on genetic research and laser technology by £200m in this week’s spring statement to support some of Britain’s fastest-growing industries as they prepare for Brexit.The chancellor said the extra spending on projects in Cambridge, Edinburgh and Oxfordshire, would ensure the UK was “at the forefront of science and technology innovation” and maintain its reputation as a “pioneering nation as it leaves the EU”. Continue reading...

From wild dogs to horned frogs, all manner of animals are still capable of keeping out of our sight, some for over 100 yearsThis week, scientists in South America spotted a rare frog previously thought to be extinct. The Tropical Herving research group found a colony of horned marsupial frogs in a recent expedition into the Chocó rainforest. The species had last been seen in Ecuador in 2005. The frogs’ natural habitat is in the high canopy of the rainforest, threatened by deforestation. Continue reading...

Top surgeon hails fast procedure that saves a lifetime using eye dropsLasers should become the principal method in the UK for treating patients with the debilitating eye condition glaucoma. That is the stark conclusion of a three-year study published on Sunday.The report, which appears in the Lancet, says the laser technique – known as selective laser trabeculoplasty or SLT – should replace the prescribing of eye drops, the current favoured way to treat glaucoma. The study has revealed that SLT is not only more effective and safer, but should also save the NHS £1.5m a year in tackling the condition. Continue reading...

Isolation in Greenland helped stop constant worrying about my daughter’s safetyIn recent years I’ve often felt on top of the world, but I also know what it’s like to teeter on the edge of the precipice, unsure whether I could save myself. Six years ago, I was an author with two conspiracy thrillers under my belt; both were bestsellers in Denmark and my path as a writer seemed set. But a few short moments, out walking with my 11-year-old daughter on an ordinary summer’s day, changed everything.We would often take a stroll past an abandoned sawmill near our house – something we’d been doing all my daughter’s life. Our house was built more than a century ago by the owner of the sawmill, and even though it didn’t come with the house when we bought it, we would laugh about it being ours. Continue reading...

I try to avoid writing about Brexit. But one question has become too pressing to ignoreLike everyone else at this point, I have many questions about Brexit, starting with “why” and going from there. For example: are concerns about how Britain is going to cope merely “project fear”, as some Brexity folk still have it? Is it going to be like the blitz, as other Brexity people have promised enthusiastically? Such people include someone called Ant Middleton from Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins, who said last year in a tweet (since deleted): “A ‘no deal’ for our country would actually be a blessing in disguise. It would force us into hardship and suffering which would unite & bring us together, bringing back British values of loyalty and a sense of community!” Truly, there are few things as touching as a grown man playing soldiers by waxing nostalgic for a time he didn’t live through. And by “touching” I mean “nauseating”.I try to avoid writing about Brexit for the same reason I avoid eating my hair: you just end up choking on the pointlessness of it all. But one question has become too pressing to ignore: just how self-centred do you have to be to think the risk of making it harder for people to get necessary medications is an irrelevant niggle while you achieve your masturbatory fantasy of “sovereignty”? Sure, talk of insulin supplies, say, is a bummer when you are entertaining dreams of sailing victoriously back from Brussels beneath a St George’s flag, like George Washington crossing the Delaware in Emanuel Leutze’s painting, only less American (although, given that our supermarkets may soon be stuffed with chlorinated chicken from the US, maybe not). But for those who have long been dependent on certain drugs, these niggly questions make a no-deal Brexit less of a blessing in disguise. Continue reading...

In 1979, a cult book by Douglas Hofstadter explored consciousness via a mathematical idea found in art and music. Now, in the AI revolution, that concept could solve a vital questionThis year is the 40th anniversary of the publication of one of the cult books of my generation: Gödel Escher Bach by Douglas Hofstadter. This Pulitzer prize-winning tome was essential reading in the 1980s for emerging geeks like me. But, despite its name, it is not a book about the composer Bach, the artist Escher or even the mathematician Kurt Gödel. It is about consciousness and Hofstadter’s belief that this elusive concept is related to the idea of what he calls “a strange loop”.To celebrate the anniversary, I am staging a triptych of events at the Barbican in London called Strange Loops, looking at the impact of technology on what it means to be human. I believe that the ideas in the book are now more relevant than at any point over the past four decades. The strange-loop concept may be the key to understanding when and whether the fast-evolving AIs we are creating might become conscious. Continue reading...

In centres like Griffith and Wagga Wagga, locals fear there may be something in the water

Increasing activity in 40s and 50s lowers risk of early death just like staying fit from teensGetting active in midlife could be as good for you as starting young when it comes to reducing the risk of an early death, researchers have suggested.But experts say the study, which looked at people’s patterns of exercise as they aged and their subsequent death records, also shows it does not do to rest on your laurels: the benefits fade once exercise declines. Continue reading...

Nasa’s quest to resume manned space flight from the US moves a step closerThe SpaceX commercial astronaut capsule has splashed down successfully in the Atlantic Ocean, marking a significant step in Nasa’s quest to resume manned space flight from the US.The Crew Dragon capsule, whose lone occupant was a test dummy named Ripley, spent a week docked at the International Space Station (ISS) before returning to Earth on Friday morning. Continue reading...

SpaceX's new crew capsule returned to Earth on Friday, ending its first test flight by splashing down successfully in the Atlantic Ocean. The Dragon undocked from the International Space Station six hours before the capsule carrying a test dummy glided down into the Atlantic off the Florida coast Continue reading...

Scientists say procedure showed improvements but larger clinical experiment needed to confirm benefitsPatients with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder have shown remarkable improvements after undergoing an experimental procedure in which electrodes are placed inside the brain.The first UK trial of deep brain stimulation for OCD involved six people who were extremely severely affected by the condition. The patients each had four electrodes surgically inserted through the skull into the brain. These are used to electrically stimulate brain circuits with the aim of bringing the illness under control. Continue reading...

Women are still underrepresented in leadership positions in universities – this has to change“Science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated.” Those were the words uttered by pioneering British scientist Rosalind Franklin, who firmly believed that the pursuit of science should be accessible to all.As a woman working in the first half of the 20th century, Franklin’s contributions to some of the greatest scientific discoveries of our time – including the structure of DNA – were sadly overlooked in her lifetime. One of my proudest moments in my role as universities and science minister was being able to go some way to redress this injustice last month, by unveiling the new Mars rover named after this brilliant British scientist. Continue reading...

We are having fewer children and living longer than ever before – we need to talk about the fertility crisisIt’s a long road from playing with baby dolls as a small child, fighting with your twin sister over the name of your future first born, to being sedated and wheeled into an operating theatre for your eggs to be retrieved and frozen. That’s where I found myself a few years ago. A woman in her mid-30s, highly educated with a successful and rewarding media career, injecting herself daily with a bespoke cocktail of hormones, and parting with thousands of pounds in a heart-wrenching bid to preserve her chances of motherhood.Nothing quite prepares you for the emotional rollercoaster of fertility treatment. There’s the grief for the children you might never have; the raking over every personal relationship and career progression, the “what ifs” pounding you like hailstones in a freak storm. Continue reading...

Today is International Women’s Day, and so Science Weekly teams up with the Guardian’s tech podcast, Chips with Everything. Nicola Davis and Jordan Erica Webber look at the repercussions of a male-orientated world – from drugs that don’t work for women to VR headsets that give them motion sicknessToday is International Women’s Day, so Science Weekly is teaming up with the Guardian’s tech podcast, Chips with Everything. Together, they examine the gender data gap and the dangerous repercussions of a world built for men.Jordan Erica Webber speaks to Caroline Criado-Perez, the author of Invisible Women, about how women are underrepresented in the tech industry and what the consequences are for consumers, from VR headsets that make women experience motion sickness to health apps that do not have period trackers. Continue reading...