Lander is on a mission to map the planet’s interior, but first it has to get there intact

Chemist and biophysicist who won the Nobel prize for developing crystallographic electron microscopyOne of the mildest, most broad-minded and most cultured of scientists, Aaron Klug was once seen as a radical too dangerous to be permitted access to the US. The state department’s denial of his visa not only ensured he would make his research career in Britain, but also set the stage for his meeting with the X-ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin that would define his scientific future.Klug, who has died aged 92, won a Nobel prize in chemistry for his inventive approach to understanding how some of the key components of the living body assemble into its working parts. He was never a headline-grabber; his understated leadership of two of Britain’s foremost scientific institutions, the Medical Research Council’s (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge and the Royal Society, steered the scientific community’s response to major upheavals such as the Human Genome Project (HGP), the BSE crisis and the row over genetically modified food. Continue reading...

Unconfirmed scientific breakthrough sparks ethical and moral concernsA scientist in China claims to have created the world’s first genetically edited babies, in a potentially ground-breaking and controversial medical first.If true, it would be a profound leap of science and ethics. This kind of gene editing is banned in most countries as the technology is still experimental and DNA changes can pass to future generations, potentially with unforeseen side-effects. Continue reading...

Activists targeting motorists need to think bigger. They need to persuade Labour to make climate a part of every campaignThe Extinction Rebellion (XR) is a headline machine. In blocking roads and bridges, protesters have brought a momentary stop to the pump and snarl of city motorists – and annoyed any number of drivers in the process. In doing so, not only does the group signal a willingness to shut down cities to hammer home the scale of the crisis but draws attention to cities’ addiction to petrol. The rationale for this kind of action – and I’ve blocked many a road in my time – is that the situation is so serious that peaceful obstruction is necessary to bring wider attention and demand change, inconvenience be damned.Related: I was arrested at a climate change protest – it was worth it | Gavin Turk Continue reading...

Without Jones, the world might have lost the Mauritius kestrel, the pink pigeon, the echo parakeet and more – but the biologist’s methods are controversialThe last surviving bird of prey on Mauritius seemed doomed. In 1974, there were only four Mauritius kestrels left in the wild and attempts to breed them in captivity were failing. Extinction was “all but inevitable”, in the words of Norman Myers, one of the world’s leading environmental scientists.Carl Jones, a biologist who arrived on the island in the 70s as an idealistic 24-year-old, remembers his employers, the charity that became BirdLife International, instructing him to “pull out elegantly” and leave the kestrel-saving to Mauritius government officials. “That actually meant closing it down, because the Mauritians didn’t have the resources or capacity for doing it,” he says. Continue reading...

Trevor Paglen’s giant artwork was designed purely to be gazed at – from anywhere on the planetSatellites are usually designed either to look back at Earth or look out into the universe. What if, wondered the American-born, Berlin-based artist Trevor Paglen, there was a satellite whose sole purpose was to be looked at itself?At 10.32am on Wednesday, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to blast off from Vandenberg air force base, north of Santa Barbara, California, carrying Paglen’s Orbital Reflector, a kinetic sculpture in the form of a satellite that – all being well – will orbit the Earth for a couple of months before burning up as it re-enters the atmosphere. Continue reading...

DePuy recalled metal-on-metal system in 2010 and has covered cost of corrective surgeries

Team will collect samples in the Antarctic to prove role of mammal in function of the oceansMost people go out of their way to avoid even the faintest whiff of excrement, but a team of scientists is now preparing to voyage for seven weeks to the Antarctic so they can collect blue whale faeces and examine its impact on biodiversity and climate change.“The most detailed whale poo expedition ever,” as the participants have dubbed it, aims to test a theory that waste from the world’s biggest mammal plays a far more crucial role in maintaining the productivity of southern oceans than previously believed. Continue reading...

The celestial fish is composed of faint stars and the best way to find it is to approach from the square of PegasusThis week is a good time to spot one of the fainter zodiacal constellations, Pisces. The chart shows the view facing south at 20:00 GMT on 26 November. The V-shaped constellation represents a pair of fish dangling from a cord (although the fish point diagonally upwards from our northern vantage point). The constellation is composed of only faint stars and can most easily be located by first finding the body of Pegasus, which is represented by a large square of four stars. Pisces then follows around the eastern and southern sides. This grouping of stars has long been associated with fish, although it has also been seen as a goddess, a bird and, rather unglamorously, a fence around a pig enclosure. It is one of the twelve zodiacal constellations, which means that it lies on the path that the sun takes through the sky during the year. This path is known as the ecliptic and the sun happens to be in Pisces during March, which means that in the autumn the sun is far away on the opposite side of the sky, and we see Pisces in the darkest possible sky. Continue reading...

Jan Faulkner, a mother of five, says she suffered loss of bladder control and mobility after having the Essure contraceptive device implanted. Speaking after it was removed, she explains how she got her life back with the help of other women on Facebook who have experienced a similar ordeal

Burkino Faso malaria test raises stakes at UN biodiversity conferenceThousands of genetically modified mosquitoes are to be released in Burkina Faso as a step towards the world’s first field test of “gene-drive” technology.The trial, which has been funded by organisations linked to the Gates Foundation, Facebook, and – indirectly – the Pentagon, is part of a project to eradicate malaria, but it has prompted concerns among local civil society organisations, who say their country is being set up as a laboratory for “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” technology before the risks are fully understood. Continue reading...

From Cary Fukunaga’s Maniac to Julia Roberts’ new Amazon show, television is exploring its darkest subject yet – the human brain – and it all started with Tony Soprano on a horseIn an early episode of the Julia Roberts show Homecoming, a soldier is brought back from Afghanistan to live in a rehabilitation centre in Florida, where he will learn to reintegrate into civilian life. At dinner in the hall, he begins to question the food on the plate in front of him. The pineapple cobbler the men are served every night is “really laying it on thick”, he announces, served to make them believe they are in Florida. But how do they know where they really are? Could they leave the facility, from which they are supposedly free to go, to have a beer in a local bar? Are we watching a soldier grapple with PTSD, or are his questions about his reality actually pointing towards the series’ central mystery, tantalisingly about to unravel?In Homecoming, Roberts stars as Heidi Bergman, a case worker at the facility. When we meet her four years later, she seems not to remember much at all about her work there. There is layer on layer of uncertainty and unreliability, a sense that the floor is shifting underneath us. That suits Sam Esmail, the creator and director of the series, just fine. He created the similarly perception-bending Mr Robot. “I never consciously made the choice when I wrote Mr Robot or signed on to Homecoming,” he says, over the phone from Los Angeles, “but what ties those projects together is something that resonated with me about our relationship with reality, and whether we can trust it, or not.” Continue reading...

When we embarked on research into conspiracism five years ago, it seemed a fringe concern. Now, with Trump in office, it’s mainstreamConspiracy theories have generally had a bad press. They conjure up images of eccentrics in tinfoil hats who believe that aliens have landed and the government is hushing up the news. And maybe it’s statistically true that most conspiracy theories belong on the harmless fringe of the credibility spectrum.On the other hand, the historical record contains some conspiracy theories that have had profound effects. Take the “stab in the back” myth, widely believed in Germany after 1918, which held that the German army did not lose the First World War on the battlefield but was betrayed by civilians on the home front. When the Nazis came to power in 1933 the theory was incorporated in their revisionist narrative of the 1920s: the Weimar Republic was the creation of the “November criminals” who stabbed the nation in the back to seize power while betraying it. So a conspiracy theory became the inspiration for the political changes that led to a second global conflict. Continue reading...

Nasa braced for attempt to slow spacecraft from 12,000mph to 5mph for soft touchdownNasa engineers will on Monday initiate a manoeuvre that is their least favourite activity in space: they will attempt to land a robot spaceship on Mars.In this case they will attempt to set down their probe, InSight, gently on to an area known as Elysium Planitia where it is intended to analyse seismic activity on the red planet. Continue reading...

The ruthless behaviour of corporations gives us some idea of what we need to avoid in a future run by machinesIn 1965, the mathematician I J “Jack” Good, one of Alan Turing’s code-breaking colleagues during the second world war, started to think about the implications of what he called an “ultra-intelligent” machine – ie “a machine that can surpass all the intellectual activities of any man, however clever”. If we were able to create such a machine, he mused, it would be “the last invention that man need ever make, provided that the machine is docile enough to tell us how to keep it under control”.Note the proviso. Good’s speculation has lingered long in our collective subconscious, occasionally giving rise to outbreaks of fevered speculation. These generally focus on two questions. How long will it take us to create superintelligent machines? And what will it be like for humans to live with – or under – such machines? Will they rapidly conclude that people are a waste of space? Does the superintelligent machine pose an existential risk for humanity? Continue reading...

Legal action over non-disclosure of father’s Huntington’s disease could lead to huge changes in patient confidentialityLawyers are bringing a case against a London hospital trust that could trigger major changes to the rules governing patient confidentiality. The case involves a woman who is suing doctors because they failed to tell her about her father’s fatal hereditary disease before she had her own child.The woman discovered – after giving birth – that her father carried the gene for Huntington’s disease, a degenerative, incurable brain condition. Later she found out she had inherited the gene and that her own daughter, now eight, has a 50% chance of having it. Continue reading...

Opening up to past trauma is difficult, but self-awareness is key to addressing issues that leave us vulnerableWhat’s your poison, people sometimes ask, but Gabor Maté doesn’t want to ask what my poison is, he wants to ask how it makes me feel. Whatever it is I’m addicted to, or ever have been addicted to, it’s not what it is but what it does – to me, to you, to anyone. He believes that anything we’ve ever craved helped us escape emotional pain. It gave us peace of mind, a sense of control and a feeling of happiness.And all of that, explains Maté, reveals a great deal about addiction, which he defines as any behaviour that gives a person temporary relief and pleasure, but also has negative consequences, and to which the individual will return time and again. At the heart of Maté’s philosophy is the belief that there’s no such thing as an “addictive personality”. And nor is addiction a “disease”. Instead, it originates in a person’s need to solve a problem: a deep-seated problem, often from our earliest years that was to do with trauma or loss. Continue reading...

After the unearthing of a Neanderthal-Denisovan fossil, UK scientists are using groundbreaking techniques to learn more of the species’ complex bonds with humansOf all the ancient peoples that have been studied by scientists, none has set puzzles quite so profound as those left behind by the Denisovans. Only a few tiny pieces of bone and teeth have ever been found of this long extinct species – fragmentary remains that would all fit snugly inside a cigarette packet.Yet these fossil scraps suggest that Denisovans had a considerable influence on people today. Up to 6% of the genes now found in modern New Guineans and 3-5% of the DNA of aboriginal Australians is made up of Denisovan DNA, scientists have discovered. The gene that allows Tibetan people to survive high altitudes is also believed to have been inherited from them. This information tells us one thing: tens of thousands of years ago, modern humans encountered Denisovans – and had sex with them. It is a startling discovery that raises many basic questions. Just who were the Denisovans? What did they look like? And what were their relations with the Neanderthals, their closest evolutionary cousins? Did they have tools and art like the Neanderthals? Continue reading...

The Royal Institution’s scientific talk series was first broadcast by the BBC in 1936 – but 31 episodes are missingSir David Attenborough is appealing for help to find missing episodes of the Christmas Lectures, the first science show broadcast on national television.People are being urged to help unearth past series of the lectures from the Royal Institution (RI), described by Attenborough and other previous lecturers as “national treasures from a golden age of broadcasting”. Continue reading...

The British space pioneer on what it takes to pass the toughest job interviewThe astronaut selection process at the European Space Agency is unforgiving from the start. On day one, candidates assemble in Hamburg for six rounds of tests that run back to back, with 10-minute breaks in between. All are designed to expose weaknesses in people’s “hard skills”: their mental arithmetic, visual perception, working memory, pattern recognition, concentration, and more. Most are abilities that cannot be taught.“On the first day of testing you are so exposed. There is no hiding place,” says Tim Peake, an army major and former helicopter test-pilot who became Britain’s first ESA astronaut in 2009. “They are analysing your brain and you’ve either got it or you haven’t. I was more nervous about that stage than anything else.” Continue reading...

Academics ask New York University to use its Abu Dhabi campus to press the UAE government for the release of Matthew HedgesAround 200 academics from New York University have called on their institution to publicly condemn the life imprisonment of the Durham PhD student accused of spying by the United Arab Emirates.In a letter addressed to NYU president, Andrew Hamilton, the academics said the university, which has a campus in Abu Dhabi, should use its ties with the UAE government to press for the release of Matthew Hedges, whose detention they describe as unjustified and “tantamount to torture”. Continue reading...

Resist the urge to over-explain yourself, says Annalisa Barbieri – you have nothing to apologise forI’m a middle-aged woman, and many women I meet ask if I have children. I do not. They often ask why not, but I cannot tell them. The real reason is because I am a failure, both personally and professionally, and have been for most of my life. There are many causes – a mental health condition that it would be immoral to pass on, a date rape, an abusive relationship, a promising career destroyed by both the economy and my own poor decisions. I have discussed some of these issues with the couple of women I have known for many years. Hopefully you will understand why I do not wish to discuss them with those of short acquaintances, but I do want to make friends with them (I lack a regular, nearby support network). How do I tell them to get their noses out of my private business while still saying, hey, let’s be friends?You need to be kinder to yourself. You are not a failure. Living with a mental health condition and surviving a date rape and an abusive relationship does not make you a failure – how could it? I can’t comment on whether you have made wrong decisions in your career, but if you have, that wouldn’t make you unusual. Some great conclusions have been reached on a path of bad choices. So the reason for you not having children, I would argue, is because you are a survivor, not a failure. You chose not to have them. That is commendable. Every day I receive letters highlighting the damage wrought on children by people who went into parenthood without such cogent thought. Continue reading...

My university is making cuts to improve its rankings performance, but the pressure on staff is making things worseIn the past few years, universities across the UK have launched so-called “voluntary” severance programmes aimed at shedding hundreds of staff. The programme at my institution, though, explicitly threatens compulsory redundancies if too few staff “volunteer”. The alleged objective of the exercise is to create cost savings that can be redeployed in unnamed ways and improve individual institutional rankings in national league tables. This feels unfair when those rankings have no official status as a reliable measure of institutional and departmental success or failure.This policy has damaged staff morale. The threat hangs over all my colleagues’ discussions, departmental or otherwise. Our line managers reassure us that we will not suffer a direct hit, but the promises feel meaningless because the decision-making process is happening higher up. The intention of these tactics is clear: avert a panic or strike among staff until whenever the compulsory redundancies begin. Continue reading...

Minority ethnic staff are stuck on the lowest rungs of the career ladder. They need more opportunities to rise upWould you be surprised to read that women may earn more on average than men in higher education? If you’ve followed gender pay gap reporting over recent years, it’s an improbable statement. Yet one of the findings of our research on pay differences in universities is that white women earn more than black men.This is not a statistical magic trick, but the results of an intersectional analysis of pay, which looks at gender and ethnicity together rather than in isolation. With ethnicity pay gap reporting on the horizon, organisations could be required to shine a light on differences in the pay of minority ethnic and white staff in a similar fashion to gender pay gap reporting. The numbers will not be pretty, but at least they will encourage ongoing work to improve the situation. Continue reading...

Talking about genes and biology in relation to gender entrenches the idea that gender is fixed and rigidA study looking at a possible genetic marker for gender dysphoria has sent off alarm bells in the trans community.A team from the Hudson Institute of Medical Research investigated a set of gene variations that appeared more frequently in the DNA of trans women than of cisgender men. This study was looking at the relationship between these genes and the possibility that they are a factor in what causes gender dysphoria. Continue reading...

Urgent planting of wildflowers will attract pollinators and boost farmers’ food crops, expert to tell UNThe collapse in bee populations can be reversed if countries adopt a new farmer-friendly strategy, the architect of a new masterplan for pollinators will tell the UN biodiversity conference this week.Stefanie Christmann of the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas will present the results of a new study that shows substantial gains in income and biodiversity from devoting a quarter of cropland to flowering economic crops such as spices, oil seeds, medicinal and forage plants. Continue reading...

Liar liar, pants on fire? In this collaboration between the Guardian’s Science Weekly and Chips with Everything podcasts, we explore whether it will ever be possible to build intelligent machines to detect porky piesHow good are you at lying? Could you fool a friend? How about a machine? We’ve recently learned that the EU is about to start trailing an artificially intelligent machine, or as the bloc calls it “deception detection”, which is supposed to be able to detect if someone is lying at border control.This got us wondering about lying – and about how we learn to lie. Could an intelligent machine pick up on subtle clues and cues, and if so, can we trust its judgment? Continue reading...

Parts of the replicas rely on ‘respectable guesstimate’ of what the original looked likeExperts working on the Staffordshire hoard have recreated one of its great treasures, a rare gold helmet, revealing for the first time the spectacular impression its original wearer would have made.The hoard, discovered by a metal detectorist in a field near Lichfield in 2009, is the largest collection of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork ever found. But while the quality of its workmanship was exceptional, most of its items were deliberately bent or broken into more than 4,000 pieces before being buried in the ground in the seventh century. Continue reading...

Spreading particles in stratosphere to fight climate change may cost $2bn a yearCooling the Earth by injecting sun-blocking particles into the stratosphere could be “remarkably inexpensive”, according to the most detailed engineering analysis to date.The fear of a rogue nation or military force unilaterally taking control of the global climate is unfounded, the researchers added, as the many thousands of high-altitude flights needed to affect global temperatures could not escape detection. Continue reading...

Leavers more likely to doubt immigration figures and think there is a plot to make Muslims the majority in UKSixty per cent of British people believe at least one conspiracy theory about how the country is run or the veracity of information they have been given, a major new study has found, part of a pattern of deep distrust of authority that has become widespread across Europe and the US.In the UK, people who supported Brexit were considerably more likely to give credence to conspiracy theories than those who opposed it, with 71% of leave voters believing at least one theory compared with 49% of remain voters. Continue reading...

The flight represents a breakthrough in 'ionic wind' technology, which uses a powerful electric field to generate charged nitrogen ions, which are then expelled from the back of the aircraft, generating thrust. The plane has a propulsion system that is entirely electrically powered, almost silent, and with a thrust-to-power ratio comparable to that achieved by conventional systems such as jet engines

Famously the home of Nasa’s Mission Control, Houston is struggling how to stay relevant to modern spaceflight. Is a new spaceport the answer?Houston has a long and proud connection with space exploration. It is home to the Johnson Space Center, the Nasa hub best known for hosting Mission Control. But as the US government squeezes Nasa’s budget and cedes much of its work to private industry, high-profile tycoons such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Sir Richard Branson are generating most of the buzz around the future of American spaceflight. And they are elsewhere.In an attempt to stay relevant, Houston is transforming its 101-year-old Ellington airport into a major spaceport. “It keeps the city at the cutting edge of space and maintains it as Space City USA,” said Mario Diaz, director of aviation for the Houston Airport System, which manages Ellington and the city’s two major passenger airports, George Bush Intercontinental and Hobby. Continue reading...

New figures reveal huge rise in children and young people with diabetes linked to obesityNearly 7,000 children and young Britons under 25 have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, the chronic condition linked to obesity that can lead to amputations and blindness.Type 2 diabetes used to be virtually unknown in young people. It usually develops over the age of 40 in white Europeans, or after the age of 25 in people who are African-Caribbean, black African, or south Asian. Continue reading...

Two cases, which emerged close to each other, are thought to be first such cases in the worldResearchers say they have found two patients in Hong Kong who contracted a strain of hepatitis carried by rats, in what appears to be the first known human cases in the world.The finding surprised the researchers, though it wasn’t immediately clear whether there were significant implications for human health. Continue reading...

Flight represents breakthrough that could lead eventually to carbon-neutral air travelThe first ever “solid state” plane, with no moving parts in its propulsion system, has successfully flown for a distance of 60 metres, proving that heavier-than-air flight is possible without jets or propellers.The flight represents a breakthrough in “ionic wind” technology, which uses a powerful electric field to generate charged nitrogen ions, which are then expelled from the back of the aircraft, generating thrust. Continue reading...

Two decades ago, the Zarya module lifted off from Kazakhstan, ushering in a new era of high-tech cooperation in space Continue reading...

Diet tested on mice proves more beneficial in some cases than restricting calories

Millions worldwide may be unable to access the drug by 2030, scientists predictAbout 40 million people who will need insulin to manage their type 2 diabetes in 12 years’ time will not get it unless access to the drug is significantly improved, according to new research.Diagnoses of type 2 diabetes are soaring worldwide, linked to the obesity epidemic. Not all of those diagnosed will need insulin, which is essential to keep people with type 1 diabetes alive, including UK prime minister Theresa May. But a study in the Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology journal shows that 79 million people with type 2 will need it by 2030 and that half of them will not be able to get it. About 33 million people who need insulin currently do not have access to the drug. Continue reading...

Analysis finds toxic air trims lifespans by 1.8 years, making it main threat to human healthAir pollution cuts the average lifespan of people around the globe by almost two years, analysis shows, making it the single greatest threat to human health.The research looked at the particulate pollution produced by the burning of fossil fuels by vehicles and industry. It found that in many parts of the worst-affected nations – India and China – lifespans were being shortened by six years. Continue reading...

The solutions to today’s puzzlesEarlier today I set you five puzzles from More Geometry Snacks. Here are the questions each followed by two methods of solution. Sometimes the simple action of drawing in a few extra lines reveals the solution clearly.1. A point inside a square is connected to its four vertices. What fraction of the square is shaded? Continue reading...

Genetic selection for intelligence has hit the market – and proper regulation has become more critical than everIn his new book Blueprint, the psychologist Robert Plomin explains that it is now possible from our individual genome data to make a meaningful prediction about our IQ. When I discussed the topic with Plomin last month, we agreed on the need for urgent discussion of the implications, before genetic selection of embryos for intelligence hits the market. We’re too late. A company called Genomic Prediction, based in New Jersey, has announced that it will offer that service. New Scientist reports that it has already begun talks with American IVF clinics to find customers. They won’t be in short supply.Before we start imagining a Gattaca-style future of genetic elites and underclasses, there’s some context needed. The company says it is only offering such testing to spot embryos with an IQ low enough to be classed as a disability, and won’t conduct analyses for high IQ. But the technology the company is using will permit that in principle, and co-founder Stephen Hsu, who has long advocated for the prediction of traits from genes, is quoted as saying: “If we don’t do it, some other company will.” Continue reading...

Shine your inner light bulb on these geometrical gemsUPDATE: Read the solutions hereHi guzzlers.Today’s puzzles are about the shade, by which I mean the shaded areas in the geometrical diagrams below. The images are to be studied and contemplated, until the pleasurable moment of insight arrives… Continue reading...

Billionaire entrepreneurs are trying to create rockets fit for human travel, while government agencies spend billions furthering their explorations. But we are still a long way off from making our way to the red planetSpace flight is now a venerable industry. Humanity’s first space explorer, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, orbited around the globe on 12 April 1961, more than half a century ago, when Britain remained a colonial power and people were still using halfpennies to buy their fish and chips. Continue reading...

Researchers investigate why excrement emerges in awkward-shaped blocksOf all the many mysteries that surround the common wombat, it is hard to find one as baffling as its ability – broadly acknowledged as unique in the natural world – to produce faeces shaped like cubes.Why the pudgy marsupials might benefit from six-faced faeces is generally agreed upon: wombats mark their territorial borders with fragrant piles of poo and the larger the piles the better. With die-shaped dung, wombats boost the odds that their droppings, deposited near burrow entrances, prominent rocks, raised ground and logs, will not roll away. That, at least, is the thinking. Continue reading...

Scientists think treatment in which children take increasing doses of peanut protein will be approved next yearThe first medical treatment for children with peanut allergies is likely to be approved next year but there are concerns about its affordability, even though it consists essentially of peanut flour.A study in the US and at the UK’s Evelina children’s hospital shows that gradually increasing a tiny initial dose of peanut protein over six months enabled two-thirds of children eventually to eat two peanuts without ill effects. The paper, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, follows a similar, smaller trial in Cambridge, UK, four years ago. Continue reading...

You will not be able to see it, no star marks its position. But exercise your intellectual curiosity this week by locating one of the points on the celestial sphere farthest from the galactic planeFinding the south galactic pole (SGP) is not spectacular but it is an intellectually satisfying piece of celestial geography. Many of us are familiar with the Milky Way, that misty band of starlight that girdles the sky. It represents the plane of our galaxy, which comprises a giant whorl of billions of stars that includes the sun. The SGP is straight “down” from that plane, looking out of the galaxy. Given clear skies and an unencumbered southern horizon, you can locate it this week. The chart shows the view at 21:00GMT on 19 November. First find the moon, which is 86% illuminated, heading towards full on Friday, and about 40° in altitude. Then look straight down, and stop three quarters of the way to the horizon. The SGP will be at its maximum altitude of around 10°. No star marks the position. It sits in the faint southern constellation of Sculptor, the sculptor’s studio, hence its identification is intellectual rather than sensorial, but there are other things to see. Mars will be shining red over in the south-west, and half way between the moon and SGP, lie the stars of Cetus, the whale. Continue reading...

Forget the neutral ‘glamping’ and ‘vape’ – Oxford Dictionaries’ new words of the year are products of our heightened politicsIn the space of a single week I have, without overly noticing at the time, accused someone of “gaslighting” me for being excessively cheerful on the phone when I thought sobriety was required; described to someone else an intention to do a “hard reset on my boundaries” after I was kept waiting and didn’t adequately protest; complained about the “toxic” atmosphere introduced after an argument; and outlined what I considered to be the problematic “centring”, within a conversation, of certain issues at the expense of other, more important issues.The takeaway from this, apart from the fact that I am a very fun person to be around, is that none of these descriptors are words I would have used even five years ago – a fact born out by the Oxford Dictionaries’ announcement this week of their most popular words of the year. “Toxic” came out top for the sheer breadth of its usage – starting, as noted in the New York Times, with the widespread uptake of “toxic masculinity” in the wake of #MeToo, and from there spreading outwards to encompass every shade of dysfunctional relationship. Continue reading...

Sisters Hilde and Ylva Østby, a neuropsychologist and a novelist, have written a book exploring the true nature of memory. What can their findings tell us?Of all the mysteries of the mind, perhaps none is greater than memory. Why do we remember some things and forget others? What is memory’s relationship to consciousness and our identities? Where and how is memory stored? How reliable are our memories? And why did our memory evolve to be so rich and detailed?In a sense there are two ways of looking at memory: the literary and the scientific. There is the Proustian model in which memory is about meaning, an exploration of the self, a subjective journey into the past. And then there is the analytical model, where memory is subjected to neurological study, psychological experiments and magnetic resonance imaging. Continue reading...

Life expectancy is rising but Britons are being encouraged to retire early. That’s both ridiculous and costly, says an expertSarah Harper has a personal take on early retirement. “My father stopped work at 54,” says Professor Harper, founder of the Institute for Population Ageing at Oxford University. “His employers, IBM, offered him early retirement. He was really excited at the prospect.”But the voluntary work and further education that Robert Harper had lined up for his later years dwindled and eventually disappeared and he was forced to become increasingly self-reliant in trying to find ways to pass the time. Continue reading...

There’s no genetic reason women should be disadvantaged in the workplace – unless someone is looking for itIn a week of dismaying news, there was a ray of sunshine: a scientific breakthrough with the potential to change lives. Men and women’s brains have finally been proved, by actual scientists, in a massive study, to be completely different! This, you gathered, was the substance of a prominently reported new study that made the front page of the Times: “Men and women really do think differently, say scientists.”In another paper, the headline specified how: “The sex divide: female empathy vs male logic”. Dr Varun Warrier, of the research team, was widely quoted, saying: “These sex differences in the typical population are very clear.” Continue reading...