Recent polls have found the number of people who believe climate change is real has jumped. What convinced them?For some people, the awakening comes in science class.In the Reddit thread titled “Former climate change deniers, what changed your mind?” the most popular comment comes from chucklesthe2nd (probably not his real name). Chuck, as we’ll call him, essentially inherited his dad’s views on climate change. Continue reading...

A new play recalls the battle in the scientific establishment that denied a cobbler’s son credit for a major discoveryHe was the scientist who made one of the planet’s most significant discoveries: the existence of dinosaurs. Yet Gideon Mantell’s place in history has for two centuries been overshadowed by a rival who stole his thunder. Now, Mantell is finally set to get his moment in the spotlight, in a new play that charts the little-known story of a man that science left behind.Mantell’s discovery, in 1822, of an enormous fossil during a dig in a Sussex quarry would later be classified as the first known Iguanodon tooth. Mantell, the son of a cobbler, had a eureka moment, realising the items he was unearthing belonged to a previously unknown creature. Continue reading...

Deviant behaviour might be seen as evil – but it’s also a force for goodA few years ago I found myself teaching a university class on evil. It was for third-year criminology students to help them contextualise theory and research within controversial current topics. It was a huge success. The debates were heated and interesting. I could see people’s views change within the course of a single lecture.Over the past 13 years, as a student, lecturer and researcher, I’ve enjoyed discussing the science of evil with anyone willing to listen. What I relish most is destroying the lazy clichés of good and evil, and replacing them with nuance and scientific insight. We need a more informed way of discussing behaviour that at first we cannot, or should not, begin to understand. Continue reading...

The reaction to the polar vortex reminds us it is important to have a citizenry who can distinguish between scientific fact and fictionThe winters of the early 1970s were very cold and snowy in the northeastern United States where I grew up – as elsewhere around the US and Europe. I remember snowfalls that came up to my chin (though, of course, I was only a few feet tall back then). We now call those “old-fashioned winters”, precisely because they have grown so rare as a consequence of – yes – global warming.If you’re younger than I am (I became a demi-centenarian three years ago), those winters are likely to be outside the range of your experience. And so it may seem plausible to you that cold snaps, that in reality simply reflect the sort of weather that was commonplace just decades ago, might constitute “record” or “unprecedented” cold. Continue reading...

Mendeleev’s chemical grid system defined our world – and the rarer elements it classifies are vital to modern lifeThis year marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of the first periodic table. This grid-like arrangement of the elements is probably only familiar to most of us from the tatty poster hanging on the wall of the chemistry classroom at school – only slightly less memorable than the faint background of weird smells in the lab. But when the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev laid out his vision for ordering the chemical world in 1869, it was revolutionary.This is because the periodic table is far more than just a list of the elements we know. It’s a way of categorising and sorting them: finding the order in the mess of chemical reactions. The startling realisation was that there is a repeating pattern – a periodicity – in the properties of the elements, such as how they react with each other. (We know now that fundamentally this comes down to how the electrons in an atom, which determine how it behaves, fit into successive shells around the nucleus.) The known elements can be laid out into rows and columns, with those lining up in the same column sharing characteristics, like a chemical family. Neon, argon and xenon, for example, all have similar properties: they are the noble gases and are exceedingly reluctant to be cajoled into any reactions. And when electricity is passed through a tubeful, they emit garish colours; the lights that became synonymous with Las Vegas and other urban centres. Continue reading...

In a world so full of uncertainty it’s little wonder so many of us feel stressed. But understanding it can change how you feelWhy do so many people these days seem so stressed out and anxious? It’s a common question, among mental health professionals and laypeople alike, but there’s a case to be made that it’s exactly upside down. How come there’s anyone who isn’t paralysed by anxiety, every hour of every day? After all, anxiety thrives in conditions of uncertainty – and nowadays the world is full of potential threats we don’t fully understand and can’t control.Most of us just have to take it on trust that planes won’t fall out of the sky, or that the milk in our fridge won’t give us listeria. Sudden, unpredictable movements in the global financial system threaten to ruin anyone’s livelihood at any moment; plus now we have all the many unknowns around Brexit, an unstable liar in charge of America’s nuclear codes, and the omnipresent spectre of climate change. And as if all that weren’t enough, we spend our days marinating in an online environment designed to stoke panic about any remaining threats we might have been managing to ignore. Continue reading...

Participants will observe then record their findings to tackle environmental concernsThousands of people across England will be gazing hopefully up at the stars this weekend – not in an attempt to forecast the next twist of Brexit, but to map out areas of light pollution and genuine darkness.Clear skies are expected over much of the country for the start of the Star Count, which kicks off on Saturday and will run for three weeks, to 23 February. Participants are being asked to concentrate on the constellation of Orion, which graces the UK’s skies in winter and is easily identifiable. Continue reading...

Jo Dunkley is a professor of physics and astrophysical sciences at Princeton University. Hannah Devlin talks to her about what it’s like to work on the Atacama Cosmology Telescope in Chile, where they need to bring oxygen tanks for safety.Astrophysicist Jo Dunkley just published a book titled Our Universe: An Astronomer’s Guide. In it, she reveals the history of our universe, as well as some of the remarkable – and sometimes overlooked – contributions of pioneering female astronomers.Hannah Devlin talks to Dunkley about her career which has seen her join the team looking after Nasa’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, and head to Chile to work on the Atacama Cosmology Telescope. Continue reading...

Offering statins to all over-75s could prevent 8,000 deaths from heart failure and stroke, researchers sayThousands of deaths and the wrecking of many lives by disability could be averted if doctors routinely offered a daily statin pill to older people, scientists say.They blame misinformation about the side-effects of statins, together with society’s ageism, for the low uptake among older people, who are at highest risk of heart attacks, heart failure and stroke. Continue reading...

Researchers in the US create detailed objects using video images and light-sensitive polymerIt is no rival for the replicator that whips up meals on demand on the USS Enterprise, but it can transform gloop into useful objects and even works of art, such as miniature versions of Rodin’s Thinker.The real-world version of the replicator, nicknamed after the handy 24th-century appliance, churns out detailed 3D shapes and components by beaming images of them on to a rotating container filled with a gooey liquid that reacts to light. Continue reading...

Signs of iron age brew, from as far back as 400BC, found during £1.5bn upgrade of A14Evidence of the first beer believed to have been brewed in the UK, dating back more than 2,000 years, has been uncovered by road workers.Signs of the iron age brew from about 400BC were identified in fragments of charred residues from the beer-making process found during the £1.5bn upgrade of the A14 in Cambridgeshire. Continue reading...

MIT researchers develop machine with physical skills needed to master children’s gameThe humble game of Jenga has become the latest human pursuit to fall to machines, scientists have announced.In what marks significant progress for robotic manipulation of real-world objects, a Jenga-playing machine can learn the complex physics involved in withdrawing wooden blocks from a tower through physical trial and error. Continue reading...

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report shows a troubling health divide between rich and poorAustralians living in disadvantaged parts of the country are twice as likely to die from diabetes factors as those in the wealthiest areas, according to new research that also suggests health inequality among men suffering heart attacks has worsened over the past decade.A study by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, released on Thursday, examined how a person’s socioeconomic position impacted their chances of developing or dying from diabetes, chronic kidney disease and cardiovascular disease. Continue reading...

A farmer recently took his lambs to a sanctuary instead of the slaughter – and these sudden turnarounds are not uncommonA farmer was recently on the road to the abattoir when he changed direction and drove his trailer full of lambs 200 miles to an animal sanctuary instead. Sivalingam Vasanthakumar, 60, from Devon, now plans to grow vegetables.Vasanthakumar is not the only farmer to perform this kind of reversal. In 2017, Jay Wilde, of Bradley Nook farm in Derbyshire, took his cattle to a sanctuary and decided to become a vegan farmer (the film telling this story, 73 Cows, has been nominated for a Bafta). In the US, the Illinois-based charity Free From Harm has gathered tales of many farmers who have had epiphanies and switched to veganism. Continue reading...

An infographic endorsed by the Davos set presents the story of coerced global proletarianisation as a neoliberal triumphLast week, as world leaders and business elites arrived in Davos for the World Economic Forum, Bill Gates tweeted an infographic to his 46 million followers showing that the world has been getting better and better. “This is one of my favourite infographics,” he wrote. “A lot of people underestimate just how much life has improved over the past two centuries.”Of the six graphs – developed by Max Roser of Our World in Data – the first has attracted the most attention by far. It shows that the proportion of people living in poverty has declined from 94% in 1820 to only 10% today. The claim is simple and compelling. And it’s not just Gates who’s grabbed on to it. These figures have been trotted out in the past year by everyone from Steven Pinker to Nick Kristof and much of the rest of the Davos set to argue that the global extension of free-market capitalism has been great for everyone. Pinker and Gates have gone even further, saying we shouldn’t complain about rising inequality when the very forces that deliver such immense wealth to the richest are also eradicating poverty before our very eyes. Continue reading...

Review also finds high dropout rates in scholarship programs designed to attract maths and science teachersA lack of accurate data about the subjects teachers are qualified for is contributing to a shortage of maths and science teachers in New South Wales, a new report has found.On Tuesday the NSW auditor general published a review of the supply of secondary science, technology, engineering and maths – or Stem – teachers in the state. Continue reading...

Scans of volunteers who took acid shows it disrupts information pathways in brainA group of volunteers who took a trip in the name of science have helped researchers uncover how LSD messes with activity in the brain to induce an altered state of consciousness.Brain scans of individuals high on the drug revealed that the chemical allows parts of the cortex to become flooded with signals that are normally filtered out to prevent information overload. Continue reading...

Letters from Nick Duffell, author of Wounded Leaders and The Making of Them, and Francis Green and David Kynaston, authors of Engines of Privilege: Britain’s Private School ProblemKate Clanchy’s polished review of David Kynaston and Francis Green’s Engines of Privilege: Britain’s Private School Problem (The unfairness of fee-paying schools affects all our lives. And they are much cannier than this book allows, Review, 26 January) smartly points out the battle-hardened resilience of Britain’s private schools and how difficult they are to budge from their entrenched position in our poor, divided society.Kynaston, Clanchy, and (not to forget) Melissa Benn clearly do good work promoting rational debate on the issue, but all of them consistently ignore the body of work that my colleagues and I have been presenting for the past three decades, highlighting the psychological problems of our private education. Continue reading...

Information on low-dose aspirin as an additional treatment of cancer should be made widely available to patients, write Professor Peter Elwood, Janet Pickering and Dr Gareth Morgan of Cardiff UniversityA recent review of the medical literature shows that low-dose aspirin taken by patients with cancer (Bitter pill: is aspirin really a wonder drug?, G2, 24 January) is associated with a reduction in cancer deaths, and a reduction in cancer spread (metastases). Over 70 studies have been published, together including 120,000 cancer patients taking aspirin and over 400,000 cancer patients not taking aspirin. A meta-analysis shows a 24% reduction in cancer deaths and a 19% reduction in deaths from all causes in patients taking aspirin. That is: at any time after a diagnosis of cancer, about 19% more patients taking aspirin are alive, compared with patients not taking aspirin.An author of each report was contacted and asked about bleeding in their patients: 31 replies were received and only one author reported an excess (11%) in the number of patients taking aspirin who had had a bleed, compared with patients not taking aspirin. Continue reading...

The answers to today’s puzzlesEarlier today I set you the following three problems. Continue reading...

Breakthrough means large sheets of energy-harvesting material can be producedWe have all been there. In a rush to leave the house we grab our phones and head out the door, realising all too late that the battery is dead because we forgot to plug it into the tablecloth.Or perhaps we have not. But this could be the future that scientists hope to usher in with electronic sheets that charge our mobile phones, laptops and other gadgets by harvesting energy from the world around us. Continue reading...

Researchers say children who used screens more did worse in tests, but findings are disputedA study has linked high levels of screen time with delayed development in children, reigniting the row over the extent to which parents should limit how long their offspring spend with electronic devices.Researchers in Canada say children who spent more time with screens at two years of age did worse on tests of development at age three than children who had spent little time with devices. A similar result was found when children’s screen time at three years old was compared with their development at five years. Continue reading...

The artist who once sent a meteorite back into orbit is now looking for the heavenly in Turner’s paintings, in a show that explodes with moonlight and gamma ray confettiThe confetti cannon is set to go off every two weeks, firing out 3,216 pieces of paper, each colour-coded to match the gamma ray bursts that destroy entire galaxies. Nearby, a spinning wheel contains all the colours of the universe – today’s is “cosmic latte”. Elsewhere in Katie Paterson’s new show, there’s a lightbulb that emits “moonlight”, an LP that turns at the speed of the Earth (one rotation a day), and letters of condolence sent to an astronomer mourning for dead stars.Critics have marvelled at Paterson’s ability to blend “the galactic and the mundane”. They have also coined a term for the feeling you get when contemplating her work: ontological vertigo. “I love that expression,” laughs the artist, who is busy installing what will be her largest ever British exhibition, at the Turner Contemporary in Margate. “That’s what I get if I’m thinking about billions of years. It is sometimes dizzy-making, especially if you’ve got that colour wheel spinning.” Continue reading...

The triangle, the ants and the mystery numberUPDATE: Solutions can be read hereToday, three puzzles from Mathigon, a remarkable maths website (about which more later).An easy one to start. Count the number of triangles in the image below. Continue reading...

The three brightest objects in the night sky will line up in the pre-dawn sky later this weekThis week, a beautiful sight awaits those out and about before sunrise. The waning crescent moon slips between the bright red star Antares in Scorpius, before cruising between the two brightest planets in the sky, Venus and Jupiter. The moon and the two planets are the three brightest objects in the night sky, outshone only during the day by the sun. Although considerably less bright, Antares will add a touch of beauty because of its distinctly red colour. Continue reading...

Tony Blair, George Osborne and royals all use ‘estuary English, says Barnaby LenonFormer private school pupils often speak in a mockney accent in adulthood in an effort not to seem posh, the former head of Harrow has said.Many people who went to elite fee-paying schools do not want to seem upper-class because “being posh these days is not a good thing”, according to Barnaby Lenon. Continue reading...

The Endurance sank in the Weddell Sea in 1915, after 10 months trapped by iceAntarctic explorers are to break their way through 75 miles of sea ice in an effort to reach the final resting place of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship, the Endurance, which sank to the bottom of the Weddell Sea in November 1915.Expedition leaders believe they have the best chance yet to find the wreckage of the lost vessel, which became trapped in sea ice for 10 months and eventually went down in two miles of water after the crushing forces of the surrounding ice breached its hull. Continue reading...

Antarctic scientists, avalanche specialists, Alaskan farmers and an industrial deep-freeze manager… Candice Pires talks to five people who have to endure extreme cold to do their jobMadi Rosevear, 27, PhD student, works in Antarctica and lives in Hobart, Tasmania Continue reading...

Heat, cold, vacuum… the microscopic creatures, found recently in a lake in Antarctica, show remarkable resilience to a wide range of normally lethal physical conditionsRemains of the minuscule organisms known as tardigrades have been discovered in a subglacial Antarctic lake. The creatures, ranging in size from 0.1mm to 1.5mm, are often called water bears or moss piglets. The remains were found when scientists drilled a kilometre under the ice; previously, only microbes have been found in these extreme conditions. Continue reading...

Dubai pair plan to blast beans into space in their quest for a flawless roastAs a rival to the Millennium Falcon or the Starship Enterprise, a proposed spacecraft from entrepreneurs Anders Cavallini and Hatem Alkhafaji is low on sophistication and rocket thrust. In fact, it would be built to carry out only one task: to produce perfectly roasted coffee beans – in outer space. Hence the craft’s name: the Coffee Roasting Capsule.The capsule – which could be launched next year – would use the heat of re-entry to roast coffee beans as they float inside it in a pressurised tank. The effect would be to roast the beans all over and produce perfect coffee, Cavallini and Alkhafaji claim in a recent issue of the space journal Room. They say that on Earth, beans tumble around, break apart and are scorched by contact with the hot surfaces of the roaster. “But if gravity is removed, the beans float around in a heated oven, giving them 360 degrees of evenly distributed heat and roasting to near perfection.” Continue reading...

The author of Everything Bad Is Good for You on his new book, and why decision-making is a creative processSteven Johnson is a popular science author of 11 books, including the bestseller Everything Bad Is Good for You. Now 50, he divides his time between California and New York, the decision of where to live being at the heart of his latest book, Farsighted: How We Make the Decisions That Matter the Most. It focuses on long-term and complex decision-making – both political and personal.What made you decide to write about decision-making?

As Brexit debates become ever more fractious, we are trapped in a cycle of anger, disbelief and impotence. Can psychotherapy help us find a way out?Divorce, which is what Brexit is, takes a long time because it is serious. For divorce to work within a family, mediation is recommended. When a family breaks up with this much hostility its members rarely emerge unscathed.The escaping partner may be buoyed up by the hope of new adventures but the remaining partner is bequeathed with anxiety, insecurity and uncertainty.On both sides of what we might term our national trauma, there is fury and hurt. It hasn’t gone away. In many ways it has heightened in the last fortnight, as the clock ticks down. There is fear and a sense of fragility, often masked by aggression and even bullying. It is easy for both parties in this traumatic break to exclude or ridicule the legitimacy of the other’s position. Continue reading...

Paul Davies thinks combining physics and biology will reveal a pattern of information managementAll the brain cells of life on Earth still cannot explain life on Earth. Its most intelligent species has uncovered the building blocks of matter, read countless genomes and watched spacetime quiver as black holes collide. It understands much of how living creatures work, but not how they came to be. There is no agreement, even, on what life is.The conundrum of life is so fundamental that to solve it would rank among the most important achievements of the human mind. But for all scientists’ efforts – and there have been plenty – the big questions remain. If biology is defined as the study of life, on this it has failed to deliver. Continue reading...

Service will be free for patients with serious genetic conditions as health service in England aims to recruit 5 million volunteers

Israeli ambassador Mark Regev, Sebastian Monblat, Hilary and Steven Rose, Naomi Wayne, Karl Sabbagh and Laurel Farrington respond to a Guardian editorial and an article by Simon Baron-CohenThe certainty with which your editorial (If one can kill with impunity then can one lie without consequence?, 23 January) labels the Gaza border violence “protests” is alarming, considering that they are orchestrated by a terror regime with the openly stated goal to “take down the border” with Israel and “tear out their [the Israelis] hearts”. This, while the same radical Islamist regime violently suppresses genuine protest against itself.In expressing concern for Gaza’s youth, you say nothing of the systematic brainwashing of young people to hate and murder, the proactive bussing of them to the border, and the financial incentives for them to storm the fence, though the regime knows full well that Israel must protect its frontier. Given the Guardian’s robust condemnation of terrorists and regimes using children “as combatants and in other roles” (Editorial, 16 January 2017), this omission is striking. Continue reading...

Scientists say rock must have been blasted to moon, buried then uncovered by asteroid impactsWhat may be one of the oldest known rocks from Earth has been found in the material that Apollo 14 astronauts brought home from the moon nearly 50 years ago.It is thought that the rock, made up of quartz, feldspar and zircon, crystallised deep beneath Earth’s surface about 4bn years ago and was catapulted towards the moon in a collision with an asteroid or comet soon afterwards. Continue reading...

Greta Thunberg, a Swedish climate activist, has told world leaders: 'I don't want you to be hopeful, I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day and then I want you to act.' In an impassioned warning to act now on climate change, Thunberg told her audience at Davos: 'Either we choose to go on as a civilisation or we don’t'

Technique could help speed up fluency training and make the effects more permanentPeople who stutter are being given electrical brain stimulation in a clinical trial aimed at improving fluency without the need for gruelling speech training.If shown to be effective, the technique – which involves passing an almost imperceptible current through the brain – could be routinely offered by speech therapists. Continue reading...

Remains of the first explorer to circumnavigate Australia rediscovered after 200 years by HS2 dig

The UK has a problem and it isn’t going to go away anytime soon. But what to do about it? This week Geoff Marsh explores plans to bury the UK’s nuclear waste deep undergroundThe UK was a pioneer of nuclear energy production but the waste that this innovation left behind is now spread across sites all over the country. Along with other nuclear nations, the UK has come to the conclusion that the safest way to deal with this nuclear waste is to bury it deep underground in what is called a geological disposal facility (GDF).This GDF would be filled with the current inventory plus any waste produced by future energy production, and then sealed shut for millennia. But will a community step forward and engage with the government and its proposal? Continue reading...

New Shepard reaches altitude of 67 miles before returning to make soft landing on Earth

Study suggests ‘genetic advantage’ keeps some people slim and healthy

Gentle rocking helps people to nod off and improves memory, say scientistsIf you have trouble getting to sleep, it might be worth investing in a hammock: scientists say a gentle rocking motion not only helps people to fall asleep more rapidly but also improves the quality of sleep and the memory of the sleeper.While parents have long employed rocking as a way to calm babies and send them to sleep, some studies have suggested it helps adults too. Now researchers say they have found evidence to back this up and discovered further benefits to boot. Continue reading...

Charity calls for tech firms to address spread of misleading information pushed by anti-vaxxersHalf of all parents with small children have been exposed to misinformation about vaccines on social media, according to a new report that finds the most common reason not to vaccinate is the fear of side-effects.Related: Is the anti-vaccine movement putting lives at risk? Podcast Continue reading...

We’ve seen off smallpox, polio and measles – so why does a truly reliable flu jab still elude us?

Health secretary Matt Hancock to announce plans at World Economic Forum in DavosThe UK government is promising to incentivise pharmaceutical companies to develop “urgently needed” drugs to fight antimicrobial resistant (AMR) superbugs, with the health secretary warning “we are on the cusp of a world where a simple graze could be deadly”.Under the plans, the inappropriate use of antibiotics would also be cut by 15%, reducing resistant infections and potentially saving thousands of lives in the UK. Continue reading...

Most of carbon and nitrogen that makes up our bodies probably came from passing planet, researchers believeThe cosmic collision that made the moon left a host of elements behind on Earth that were crucial for life to emerge, US scientists have claimed.The impact 4.4bn years ago is thought to have occurred when an itinerant planet the size of Mars slammed into the fledgling Earth, scattering a shower of rocks into space. The debris later coalesced into the moon. Continue reading...

Scientists say computational periscopy program works out hidden scene in under a minuteScience may never tell us what lies round the next corner, but researchers have come up with the nearest thing: a computer program that turns a normal digital camera into a periscope.In a demonstration of “computational periscopy” a US team at Boston University showed they could see details of objects hidden from view by analysing shadows they cast on a nearby wall. Continue reading...

Controversial procedure has huge potential to combat diseases such as malariaA controversial procedure that can spread particular genes through an entire wild species has been demonstrated in mammals for the first time.Researchers in the US showed that a “gene drive” could rewrite the genetic makeup of mice so that the rodents carried DNA that had been designed by the scientists. Continue reading...

New research analysis has found that for some patients the risk from the drug of increased bleeding events outweighs its benefits in preventing heart attacks and strokes