Brought to prominence twenty years ago by a controversial test, the concept is now essential to our understanding of racismIn the ranking of taboos, racism and sexism come close to the top of the list. So it is perhaps unsurprising that the concept of unconscious or implicit bias has gripped the popular imagination to a greater degree than any other idea in psychology in recent decades.Spearheaded by a team of social psychologists at the University of Washington and Yale, the Implicit Association Test (IAT) promised to lift the veil on people’s subconscious attitudes towards others. Upon publishing their landmark paper in 1998, the team described “a new tool that measures the unconscious roots of prejudice” that they said affected 90-95% of people. Continue reading...

He Jiankui’s work on Crispr babies has been condemned. But the beneficial possibilities in his work are endlessLast week, the Chinese scientist He Jiankui announced the birth of the first Crispr baby (actually, twins). His claim is unverified, but if true, it would signal a landmark moment in human genome editing. It has also been widely condemned by scientists and ethicists worldwide.Crispr-Cas 9 is a technique that allows researchers to cut DNA at a specific point and then to edit the genome. It holds great promise in the battle against many diseases and disorders, but our understanding of the technique is still in its infancy. Continue reading...

Specialists are using public-access DNA databases to track down violent criminals such as the notorious Golden State Killer. But the technique raises a host of legal and ethical questionsDNA sleuth CeCe Moore recalls the moment that the pieces came together, in May, in the hunt for her first suspected killer – the man now thought to be responsible for the brutal 1987 murders of a young Canadian couple on a trip to Seattle. While Moore is used to uncovering secrets – she’s helped hundreds of adult adoptees to identify their biological parents – finding someone who might be guilty of murder was shocking. “It is hard to even put into words. It was a very surreal feeling,” she says. Moore, a genetic genealogist known in the US as an expert on the PBS television series Finding Your Roots, runs DNA Detectives, a Facebook group of 100,000-plus members, which helps people find their biological parents.Since May, she has also headed a forensic genealogy unit at the DNA tech company Parabon, which helps police find perpetrators of violent crimes – mostly unsolved murders and rape. She uses a controversial method called genetic, or forensic, genealogy that is becoming indispensable to police forces while raising legal and ethical questions. To date, the work of Moore and her team has led to identifications in 21 US cases and she says that there will be more soon (no case has yet come to trial, so all those identified are for now suspects only). Continue reading...

Therapy helps in a crisis. But when it comes to lessons in life, music has most of the answersWhen my marriage dissolved a decade ago, I went to a cognitive therapist to see if I could make sense of it. I sat in a small room with a kindly old lady who was not my mother, but who may as well have been, as we discussed love and sex as best we could. Although delivering my opinion about what had happened out loud without shouting was an enjoyable relief, I can’t say I truly learned much. We decided I wasn’t such a bad person. We decided my ex-wife wasn’t a bad person either. Then I paid my £60 and arranged to return the following week.Eventually, I stopped making those arrangements to return. What was I learning there, in those meetings, that I hadn’t heard a thousand times already listening to Pain in My Heart by Otis Redding, Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division, or You Can Leave, But it’s Going to Cost You by Marvin Gaye? I hadn’t spent my entire teens in my bedroom with the door closed playing records, to not have those hard-won insights to fall back upon in times of romantic trouble. Therapy helps lift the weight from your chest, which is useful in times of crisis. But music can illuminate the way forward. Continue reading...

Official minimize warnings and say government report considers only the highest possible levels of greenhouse gas emissionsThe Trump administration has a new strategy for deflecting concerns about the warming planet.Related: Why no US region is safe from climate change Continue reading...

British armed forces will not get access to Galileo, a rival to the US GPS system, after BrexitThe UK may never claw back £1.2bn of investment in Galileo, the EU’s satellite navigation system, as Theresa May officially pulled the plug on UK defence and security participation in the system after Brexit.Galileo, developed as a rival to the US GPS system, is due to be launched in 2020 with civilian and military variants. The UK’s continued involvement, given the extent of British funding of the system, has been at the centre of some of the bitterest rows of the Brexit negotiations. Continue reading...

Dundee University researchers receive $1m funding boost from Bill and Melinda Gates FoundationResearchers at a Scottish university hope to make a breakthrough in the long hunt for a male pill, thanks to a grant of more than $900,000 that will allow them to screen thousands of existing drugs to see if they have potential.Related: Male pill could be on horizon as trials yield positive results Continue reading...

Vibrations off Madagascar baffled experts but now they believe they have the answerIt is the kind of mystery scientists relish. On 11 November, something stirred near the French island of Mayotte off the west coast of Madagascar and sent a rumble around the world. Travelling at 9,000mph, the deep hum hurtled past earthquake detection systems unnoticed. No one appears to have felt a thing.The event came to light on Twitter when seismology enthusiasts posted weird signals they had spotted in recordings made by seismic stations from Kenya to Hawaii. Having ruled out the violent lurches of an earthquake, educated guesses gave way to more fanciful theories. Was it a landslide? A meteorite exploding in the atmosphere? The awakening of some long-dormant sea monster? Continue reading...

Red fody, beached whales and wildlife rescued from an Australian heatwave in this week’s gallery Continue reading...

The three leading regulatory bodies for the counselling and psychotherapy profession have created a new competence framework as a response to the mental health crisisSuzanne Moore is right (We can talk about self-care, but this mental health crisis is political, 26 November) that counselling and psychotherapy is about talking and that “it is better to talk about things rather than not”. Addressing the mental health crisis is one of the most challenging tasks faced by us all and counselling and psychotherapy have an important role to play in providing a solution. As the three leading regulatory bodies for the counselling and psychotherapy profession, representing over 50,000 counsellors and psychotherapists, we take this role very seriously. We have registers accredited by the Professional Standards Authority, accountable to parliament, and have in place robust professional training and conduct procedures.To ensure that we continue to offer consistent training requirements and practice standards across the three professional bodies, we are mapping and defining common professional competencies for our professions. The Scope of Practice and Education for the counselling and psychotherapy professions (SCoPEd) is a collaborative project being jointly undertaken and will enable us to produce a common, evidence-based competence framework. Continue reading...

Windfarms supplied third of UK’s electricity this week, with output hitting 14.9GW highStorm Diana brought travel chaos to road, rail and airports, but the clouds did have a silver lining: the strong winds helped set a renewable energy record.Windfarms supplied about a third of the UK’s electricity between 6pm and 6.30pm on Wednesday, a time of peak energy demand. Output hit a high of 14.9GW, beating a previous record of 14.5GW. Continue reading...

You can’t beat gestural slang, which is why the late Baroness Trumpington’s two-fingered salute spoke to our heartsGestural slang has given us the best in communication for at least 2,500 years. The Roman poet Martial and the historian Suetonius both noted the use of the impudent or infamous digit. Nowadays, that classic middle finger decorates territorial claims from playgrounds to motorways. Whether in good-humoured repudiation or less nuanced acts of aggression, the origins of this essentially European gesture are apparently phallic. That finger you may have just flipped in response to these words represents a penis in a state of some excitement.On the other hand, the signature gesture of confrontational British slang uses twice as many fingers. We may use a single digit when it suits us, but a V-sign says it better. The gesturer’s palm faces inward, the index and middle fingers are raised, spread, and often jerked upwards. This week the gesture had another moment as tributes were paid to Baroness Trumpington following her death – many recalled the casual élan with which she once flicked the V at a patronising peer in the House of Lords. Continue reading...

Tim Peake beat 8,172 applicants for a spot on the European Space Agency’s astronaut training programme. Ian Sample talks to him about the selection process and the intensive training he went throughHave you got what it takes to be an astronaut? Major Tim Peake did. He beat 8,172 applicants for a spot on the European Space Agency’s astronaut training programme. He began his intensive training in 2009, which involved living in extreme environments such as semi-submerged caves and at sea.Six years later, Tim was launched into space and he began his stint on the International Space Station (ISS). In his 2,720 orbits of the Earth, he ran the London Marathon from the ISS treadmill, completed his first space walk and much more besides. Continue reading...

Medical research enters a new era to find ways to eradicate HIV from infected populationsMore than 50 years after it jumped the species barrier and became one of the most devastating viruses to affect mankind, HIV remains a stubborn adversary. Treatment has improved dramatically over the past 20 years, but people who are infected will remain so for the rest of their lives, and must take one pill daily – at one time it was a cocktail of 30.But now, as another World Aids Day pulls into view, scientists are beginning to ask if the biggest breakthrough – an out-and-out cure for the tens of millions who have contracted the virus – could be in sight. Continue reading...

Stars have radiated 4x10 photons since the universe begun with formation peaking 11bn years agoAll the light from all the stars that have ever existed. It is a quantity of unimaginable magnitude, but now astronomers have put a number on it.From the earliest, faintest stars, to the largest galaxies, an international team has managed to measure the total amount of starlight emitted over the entire 13.7bn-year history of the universe. Continue reading...

Capsules being developed to act as taxis between Earth and International Space StationNasa and its commercial partners, Boeing and SpaceX, are nearing the end of their programme to develop new crew capsules that will act as taxis between Earth and the International Space Station (ISS).Two final uncrewed test flights have been confirmed for next year, which will be followed by the first astronauts in the summer. Continue reading...

Delegates at UN biodiversity conference turn to Beijing to avoid point of no returnChina must play a leading role if the world is to draw up a new and more effective strategy to halt the collapse of life on Earth, according to senior delegates at the close of this week’s UN biodiversity conference.With the US absent, Europe distracted and Brazil tilting away from global cooperation, the onus has shifted towards Beijing, the diplomats said after two weeks of slow-moving talks on how to maintain the natural infrastructure on which humanity depends. Continue reading...

Epidemiologist whose research led to a breakthrough in bowel cancer screening programmes worldwide“Breakthrough” is an overused word when applied to medical advances. But in the case of the 2010 trial of a new screening test for bowel cancer led by Wendy Atkin, professor of gastrointestinal epidemiology at Imperial College London, who has died of acute myeloid leukaemia aged 71, it is fully deserved. Its impact will be felt by millions. The trial was the first in the world to show that bowel cancer – the second biggest cancer killer in the UK – could be prevented with a simple, five-minute test.The examination – where a sigmoidoscope (a camera mounted on a thin, flexible tube) is inserted into the rectum to detect polyps, which are then ablated (burnt) or snipped off – is now being offered to all 55- to 60-year-olds in England after a follow-up study showed it reduced deaths from bowel cancer by 43% for as long as 17 years after screening, making it the most effective of all cancer screening tests. In the lower bowel, the test prevented half of potential cancers from developing in that area. Continue reading...

Vice-minister condemns work of He Jiankui, but Chinese regulations are vagueChinese authorities have declared the work of He Jiankui, a scientist who claims to have created the world’s first gene-edited babies, a violation of Chinese law and called for the suspension of all related activity.“The genetically edited infant incident reported by media blatantly violated China’s relevant laws and regulations. It has also violated the ethical bottom line that the academic community adheres to. It is shocking and unacceptable,” Xu Nanping, a vice-minister for science and technology, told the state-owned CCTV on Thursday. Continue reading...

World running out of time to combat climate change, warns meteorological organisationGlobal temperatures have continued to rise in the past 10 months, with 2018 expected to be the fourth warmest year on record.Average temperatures around the world so far this year were nearly 1C (1.8F) above pre-industrial levels. Extreme weather has affected all continents, while the melting of sea ice and glaciers and rises in sea levels continue. The past four years have been the hottest on record, and the 20 warmest have occurred in the past 22 years. Continue reading...

The administration tried to bury the assessment, but as residents flee wildfires and wade through flooded streets, let’s hope decision-makers get the messageTalk about cognitive dissonance. Just two days before 13 federal agencies released a report laying out the devastating human and economic toll that climate change already is taking in the United States, Donald Trump tweeted: “Whatever happened to global warming?” The tweet was based on a spurt of cold weather in the north-east, never mind that the rest of the world was experiencing higher than normal temperatures.The administration was so concerned about what the report, called the National Climate Assessment (NCA), would reveal – including the fact that the president’s thinking on climate change is hopelessly flawed – that it chose to release it on Black Friday, hoping no one would pay attention. A member of Trump’s transition team, Steven Milloy, was candid about this strategy, saying: “Do it on a day when nobody cares, and hope it gets swept away by the next day’s news.” Fortunately for the Earth and its residents, news coverage about the report continued over the weekend and into the following week. Continue reading...

I’m an accidental killer – and thousands of Americans share this secret shame. How can you recover from the trauma of accidentally killing someone?

More than 90% of cases are diagnosed, on treatment and virally suppressed, Public Health England saysThe UK has hit a significant UN target on the way to ending the HIV epidemic by succeeding in diagnosing and effectively treating more than 90% of people with the virus.Public Health England said there were an estimated 102,000 people with HIV in the UK last year, of whom 8% – 8,200 – were believed to be unaware of their infection. Continue reading...

Tim Peake beat more than 8,000 applicants to the job. Here, he shares some images of the training he underwent, as seen in his new hardback, The Astronaut Selection Test Book Continue reading...

Cambridge team develops organoids or mini placentas to advance knowledge of stillbirth and pre-eclampsiaScientists have grown “mini placentas” in a breakthrough that could transform research into the underlying causes of miscarriage, stillbirth and other pregnancy disorders.The tiny organoids mimic the placenta in the early stages of the first trimester and will be used to understand how the tissue develops in healthy pregnancies, and what goes wrong when it fails. Continue reading...

He Jiankui uses Hong Kong summit to reply to critics of his Crispr-Cas9 trials altering baby DNA for HIV resistanceThe Chinese scientist who claims to have altered the DNA of twin girls before birth – without going through the usual scientific channels – said he was proud of his work, and claimed another woman enrolled in his trial was pregnant with a similarly modified baby.The scientist, He Jiankui, spoke to hundreds of colleagues and journalists on Wednesday at the International Human Genome Editing Summit at the University of Hong Kong. Continue reading...

Aliens exist and global warming is a hoax – these unbelievable beliefs are symptoms of people feeling threatenedWho believes in conspiracy theories, and why? That is the question asked in a five-year study at Cambridge University, which commissioned three surveys from YouGov (2015, 2016 and 2018) to get a sense of the phenomenon.It turns that out 60% of British people believe in at least one of the 10 conspiracy theories we put to them. So, for instance, 8% think humans have made contact with aliens at Roswell but the US government is hiding it from us; 7% believe that global warming is a hoax invented to deceive people; and 10% agree that the truth about the harmful effects of vaccines is being deliberately hidden from the public. Continue reading...

Brutal range of revenge killings and fatal scuffles recorded by coroners in early 1300sIt kicked off at a urinal in Cheapside, and ended in a bloody and brutal murder. Poor aim has been responsible for many unexpected deaths, but perhaps none more so than that of Philip of Ashendon.One of a brutal range of fatal scuffles, revenge killings and infanticides recorded by London coroners in the early 1300s, Philip’s demise is among those to feature in a new interactive map that uses death to breathe life into medieval London. Continue reading...

Aust Cliff, South Gloucestershire: We are after fossils from the upper strata, inaccessible until chunks are torn off by winter’s teethAust Cliff is half a hill, sliced open like a birthday cake by the River Severn’s slow knife, exposing two ornamental layers of pink and blue-green mudstone. Right here, about 200m years ago, a red desert was overwhelmed by a balmy ocean. Today, a cold northern sea mingles with a slowly churning river of mud, crossed at this point by the old Severn Bridge, once the longest single-span bridge in the world. The scale of this place, in time, space and ambition, is magnificent. Continue reading...

Reversal comes two months after country agreed to host COP25 conference in 2019 – and one month after far-right climate sceptic won electionBrazil has abandoned plans to host crucial UN climate talks in 2019 amid growing signs of the anti-internationalism of the new government being formed by president-elect Jair Bolsonaro.The foreign ministry announced the reversal in a message to Patrícia Espinosa, executive secretary of the UN Convention on Climate Change, according to the O Globo news website. Continue reading...

In part two of our series on the climate report Trump tried to bury over Thanksgiving, we look at its arguments for lowering emissions

Video art has never been more celebrated – and after taking the £10,000 prize for the best artist using moving images, the intriguing filmmaker is in the vanguardFor Daria Martin, making art is a dream come true – literally. Her films involve restaging the dreams, nightmares or altered states of consciousness of friends and relatives. For one forthcoming project, Tonight the World, she’s recreated several of her grandmother’s nocturnal visions. She fled the Nazis in 1938 and spent the rest of her life dreaming about the family home she was forced to abandon.Even when Martin is not turning dreams into real life, her films have a dreamlike quality: crudely made robots dance away next to naked people; retro-futurist figures in white leotards strike poses among transparent plastic shapes. These investigations into the unconscious can be mesmerising – and no doubt cast a spell over the judges of the Film London Jarman awards, who crowned her the winner of this year’s £10,000 prize for art using moving images. Continue reading...

New method of freeze-drying IPV maintains its potency in hot conditionsA polio vaccine that can be stored as a dried powder at room temperature could offer a new way to help eradicate the disease, according to researchers.While existing vaccines have led to polio being eliminated in many countries around the world, including the UK, the highly contagious virus still circulates in the populations of countries including Nigeria and Pakistan, where it can cause paralysis or even death. Continue reading...

InSight probe reveals desolate landscape as dust settles after its arrival on Martian surfaceThis is the view across Elysium Planitia, the vast lava plain near the equator of Mars, where Nasa’s InSight lander touched down after a hair-raising descent on Monday. The probe snapped the image of the desolate landscape as the dust thrown up by its arrival was still settling around it.Over the coming days, InSight will take more photos of the landing site and send them back to Earth, where scientists will use them to decide where the probe should place its instruments. Continue reading...

Exclusive: staff at Johnson & Johnson had concerns it could harden in body, emails show• Revealed: how faulty implants harm patients worldwide

Rapid emissions turnaround needed to keep global warming at less than 2C, report suggestsCountries are failing to take the action needed to stave off the worst effects of climate change, a UN report has found, and the commitments made in the 2015 Paris agreement will not be met unless governments introduce additional measures as a matter of urgency.New taxes on fossil fuels, investment in clean technology and much stronger government policies to bring down emissions are likely to be necessary. Governments must also stop subsidising fossil fuels, directly and indirectly, the UN said. Continue reading...

A scientist claims to have created genetically modified humans. This should be of grave concernThe fierce global controversy over whether to alter the genes of future children and generations just got fiercer. On the eve of a high-profile scientific meeting in Hong Kong on human gene editing, the Chinese researcher and biotech entrepreneur He Jiankui announced he had already created genetically modified humans, twin girls born a few weeks ago.The reckless actions of one scientist cannot and should not pre-empt the global public conversation over whether to proceed with reproductive germline editing, as the procedure is known. In fact, the conversation is now more urgent and necessary than ever. There’s a huge amount at stake for all of us. Continue reading...

Chinese geneticist He Jiankui’s claim to have altered embryos prompts outcry from scientistsScientists have expressed anger and doubt over a Chinese geneticist’s claim to have edited the genes of twin girls before birth, as government agencies ordered investigations into the experiment.A global outcry started after the genetic scientist He Jiankui claimed in a video posted on YouTube on Monday that he had used the gene-editing tool Crispr-Cas9 to modify a particular gene in two embryos before they were placed in their mother’s womb. Continue reading...

Researchers from Australia and UK swallow Lego heads in the ‘noble tradition of self-experimentation’A team of doctors who swallowed Lego and timed how long it took to pass through their bowels say the results of their research should reassure concerned parents.In a paper published in the Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, six researchers from Australia and the UK swallowed the head of a Lego figure – roughly 10mm by 10mm – in the “noble tradition of self-experimentation”. Continue reading...

Small firms spot an opportunity in emerging industry of microgravity experimentationIn a cramped office hidden within the poorly lit corridors of a shopping mall in Israel, sits the equivalent of Nasa’s mission control in Houston.Yet there are no rows of scientists and flight controllers wearing headsets, all of their faces fixed on a large screen charting spacecraft. And no astronauts telling them they have a problem. Continue reading...

A team of doctors who swallowed Lego pieces and timed how long they took to pass through their bowels say the results of their research should reassure concerned parents (although in one case it did take more than two weeks). One of the report's authors, Grace Leo, said: “If it’s a small Lego head, you don’t need to go poking through [the child's] stool. That should save parents some heartache, unless that Lego head is dearly loved.” Continue reading...

As experts cast doubt on supposed breakthrough, China’s National Health Commission orders an ‘immediate investigation’A Chinese scientist’s claim that he has created the world’s first genetically edited babies has prompted global outcry and an investigation by Chinese health authorities.In a video posted on Sunday, university professor He Jiankui announced the birth of twin girls whose DNA had been edited to prevent HIV infection. He said the twins’ DNA was modified using CRISPR-Cas9, a technique that allows scientists to remove and replace a strand with pinpoint precision. Continue reading...

Jewellery and grooming items found during summer excavation in LincolnshireArchaeologists have uncovered lavish burial sites for women in Lincolnshire from the fifth and sixth centuries, which illustrate how women of the time made themselves resplendent.Items recovered from the previously unknown Anglo-Saxon cemetery include jewellery made from amber, silver and glass as well as personal grooming items such as tweezers. Continue reading...

Joy and cheering at Nasa as Insight lander touches down on the red planet: ‘Touchdown confirmed!’

Flight controllers at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, leap out of their seats and erupt in applause as news comes in that InSight, the spacecraft designed to explore Mars’s interior, successfully landed on the planet

Nail-biting descent achieved after spacecraft slams into Martian atmosphere at 12,300mphAfter a seven-month, 300m-mile journey, Nasa’s Mars InSight probe has reached its destination and touched down near the red planet’s equator.The lander came to a rest on the dusty surface shortly before 8pm GMT on Monday after a nail-biting descent that started when the spacecraft slammed into the Martian atmosphere at 12,300mph and ended minutes later with the probe settled on the ground, its thrusters quiet. Continue reading...

Plastic discs that also moved in some patients were only tested on 30 people in six monthsA UK company’s spinal implants that allegedly moved and eroded in patients, and which are at the centre of legal action, have highlighted potential weaknesses in the way in which some medical devices enter the market, an investigation has revealed.Documents seen by the Guardian show the plastic discs were approved for sale by the British Standards Institution (BSI) after tests on 30 people over six months Continue reading...

Team says study of 55,000 individuals could potentially lead to new drugs and reduce stigmaScientists have uncovered genetic variants that increase the risk of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in research that experts hope could lead to a better understanding of the condition.ADHD is thought to affect about 2.5% of adults and about 5% of children worldwide. Concerns have been raised that the neurodevelopmental disorder is under-diagnosed and under-treated in the UK. Continue reading...

Online resource picked the word over ‘disinformation’ where other dictionaries had opted for ‘toxic’ and ‘single-use’“Misinformation”, as opposed to disinformation, is Dictionary.com’s word of the year. It followed “toxic”, picked for the same honor by Oxford Dictionaries, and “single-use”, picked by Collins.Related: 'Single-use' named 2018 word of the year Continue reading...

Digging alongside the bulldozers of the £1.5bn road diversion, archaeologists have discovered tonnes of ancient bones. Is there a find so important that it could stop the whole project?A small crowd of workers gathers outside a temporary office plonked in a muddy field in Cambridgeshire. Bill Boismier flips down the back door of his pickup truck and reaches inside. Earlier this morning, the American-born archaeologist, who has steeped himself in British soil for more than 40 years, was up to his knees in a nearby pit to retrieve the find he is now unwrapping. “What is it?” asks a site cleaner who, like everyone else here, is dressed head-to-toe in hi-vis safety gear. “Is it … a dinosaur?”“Not quite,” Boismier, who is 65, tells the group. His grey ponytail is tied back with a rubber band and his face reveals a life spent outdoors. “But it is an ancient species. It could be more than 130,000 years old.” The leg bone, still caked in mud and roughly the height and weight of a five-year-old child, belonged to a woolly mammoth. The elephant-sized beast once roamed the land that is now just south of the Fenstanton Travelodge, at junction 27 of the A14. Continue reading...