Mechanical failures ended the most precise phase of Kepler’s observations about five years ago but the craft continued its searchNasa’s Kepler space telescope has run out of fuel and ended its mission to discover planets around other stars.Launched in 2009, Kepler observed 530,506 stars and discovered more than 2600 confirmed planets. Kepler has also identified thousands more possible planets that are pending further investigation. Continue reading...

A huge reduction in meat-eating is called for. No wonder carnivores are feeling defensiveVeganism, once widely seen as an alternative, if not an extreme, lifestyle, is now in the mainstream. Exactly how many people in the UK have eliminated animal products including dairy and honey from their diets is uncertain. One recent survey suggested there could be as many as 3.5 million vegans in the UK. The Vegan Society offers the much lower figure of 600,000 vegans, which still represents a fourfold increase in four years. But either way, and combined with a big increase in vegetarians and occasional meat-eaters (otherwise known as “flexitarians”), a huge shift in eating habits is under way. This week’s annual food and drink report by the supermarket Waitrose says around a third of people have either cut down on or stopped eating meat altogether.There is more than one explanation for this change in behaviour. More than half of those surveyed by Waitrose said animal welfare was their motivation for changing their diet. The intensive farming and slaughter of livestock has long aroused feelings of regret and distaste in many people who do not object on principle to eating meat. Such feelings, along with concerns around health and sustainability, have led to rising demand for organic and free-range products among those who can afford them. The growing trend towards giving up meat altogether suggests either that the moral objections have spread, that other factors than animal welfare are in play – or, most likely, some combination of both. Continue reading...

International sequencing drive will involve reading genomes of 1.5m speciesAn ambitious international project to sequence the DNA of every known animal, plant and fungus in the world over the next 10 years has been launched.Described as “the next moonshot for biology”, the Earth BioGenome Project is expected to cost $4.7bn (£3.6bn) and involve reading the genomes of 1.5m species. Continue reading...

Materials chemist who perfected nanoscientific techniques and enabled important advances in electronicsIn 1995 the leading British materials chemist Paul O’Brien, who has died aged 64 after suffering from brain cancer, began to use chemical synthesis to make quantum dots, which are tiny semiconductor particles, only nanometres across, that can be made to emit light of varying colours according to their size. Up to that point quantum dots had been difficult to produce, requiring the use of hazardous metal alkyl precursors at high temperatures. O’Brien’s new method not only allowed them to be mass-produced; it also required much less energy and generated fewer harmful byproducts.As a consequence, quantum dots are now ubiquitous in modern electronics and are used in any number of applications, from lighting and visual display units to solar energy capture and bio-markers, which help doctors to detect disease in the human body. Continue reading...

Posy Simmonds | Universal credit | Village for sale | Surgical education | Free Telegraph | Amazing wordsYour article (Review, 26 October) says Posy Simmonds “has been delighting readers with her exquisitely drawn comic strips and novels since the 1970s, when she began to lampoon the Guardian-reading bourgeoisie in a long-running comic strip that grew into Mrs Weber’s Diary”. But before that, Simmonds drew Bear for Murdoch’s Sun, starting in 1969. Bear (a teddy) was the Philip Green of the nursery. You can still obtain a book of the cartoons secondhand.

Appendix removal early in life linked to a 19% reduced risk of developing the illnessParkinson’s disease could originate in the appendix, according to one of the largest studies of the neurodegenerative illness.The analysis of health records of more than 1 million individuals in Sweden found that having the appendix removed early in life is linked to a 19% reduced risk of developing Parkinson’s disease. The findings are the latest to implicate the gut and immune system in the genesis of the disease, in which the loss of neurons in a brain area that controls movement lead to a tremor and slurred speech. Continue reading...

Two patients can walk short distances on crutches after having pulses beamed into their spinesTwo men who were paralysed in separate accidents more than six years ago can stand and walk short distances on crutches after their spinal cords were treated with electrical stimulation.David Mzee, 28, and Gert-Jan Oskam, 35, had electrical pulses beamed into their spines to stimulate their leg muscles as they practised walking in a supportive harness on a treadmill. Continue reading...

Lots include A Brief History of Time signed with thumbprint and Simpsons scriptPersonal items belonging to Stephen Hawking, including his medals and one of his wheelchairs, are to be sold at an online auction.The British physicist, best known for his research on black holes, died in March, aged 76. Continue reading...

What do we pass on from generation to generation? This deeply researched book explores the murky past of genetic research as well as its fast-moving presentGenealogy is apparently the second most searched subject on the internet … after the obvious. Now that we can map our genes, we want to know where we come from. But heredity is not as simple as the passing on of traits from parents to offspring: mothers can acquire cells from their own children; race “is not a feature of the natural world beyond our social experience”; we can chop up DNA to replace the bits we don’t like; and a lot of those genealogy sites are nonsense.In this painstakingly researched book, the science writer Carl Zimmer takes a long view of heredity. Stories of how discoveries were made often start with farming and plants (Mendel’s peas) and continue via unusual humans (the Habsburg jaw) before being proved or disproved by DNA sequencing, and then potentially rethought as knowledge increases. Mini-biographies paint powerful pictures. Emma Wolverton, born in 1889, was sent away by her impoverished family to the Vineland training school for “feebleminded children”. Henry Goddard, who ran the institution, traced her family tree and found evidence, he thought, that the mental deficiency was hereditary. His popular book The Kallikak Family inspired a young man called Adolf Hitler. The Nazis’ eugenics programme was based on research that turned out to be completely false. Continue reading...

We’ve all had to deal with the person who starts a friendly chat then just … vanishes. Dating apps, Facebook and Google think they have the answers. But why do they care?This Halloween, ghosts aren’t welcome. Two dating apps have announced plans to use the season to crack down on the rudest of social media villains, the ghoster: the person who enthusiastically replies to your messages, starts a friendly chat and then, one day, just … stops.Earlier this week, Bumble, the woman-friendly dating service, announced it had created the post of “ghosting specialist”, bringing the journalist and author Kate Leaver in to hear confessions, dispense advice and be a shoulder to cry on for those whose attempts to find love ended with messages echoing in the void. Continue reading...

‘Something terribly new’ goes bump in data yet to be confirmed by Atlas detectorScientists at the Cern nuclear physics lab near Geneva are investigating whether a bizarre and unexpected new particle popped into existence during experiments at the Large Hadron Collider.Researchers on the machine’s multipurpose Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector have spotted curious bumps in their data that may be the calling card of an unknown particle that has more than twice the mass of a carbon atom. Continue reading...

Northerners aged 25 to 44 more likely to die from causes such as suicide and smokingThere has been a “profoundly concerning” rise in early deaths from accidents, suicide, alcohol misuse, smoking, cancer and drug addiction in the north of England, deepening the north-south divide, research has found.Socioeconomic deprivation has led to a particularly sharp rise in deaths among 25 to 44-year-olds , according to new data analysis from Manchester university. Continue reading...

Researchers map likeliest route using least-cost calculations, line-of-sight sailing and likely sea levelsThe first people to arrive in Australia are likely to have sailed east from Borneo to Sulawesi and island-hopped to New Guinea, according to research.A study led by Australian National University PhD candidate Shimona Kealy and published in the Journal of Human Evolution has modelled the most likely route from southeast Asia to the Australian mainland based on which pathway would have required the least expenditure of energy and resources. Continue reading...

US research shows four weeks’ abstinence improved memory, but not attention skillsAbstaining from cannabis for a month can boost the memory performance of regular users, according to a study of young people who used the drug at least once a week.Researchers found that four weeks without cannabis led to a “modest but reliable” improvement in users’ memory test scores, which could be sufficient to raise students’ grades at school. Continue reading...

Independent investigation criticises closed culture with few women at senior levelThe director of Britain’s leading genetics laboratory has apologised for failures that prompted allegations of bullying and gender discrimination.Sir Professor Mike Stratton, director of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, said that the investigation into complaints by 10 former and current staff members highlighted ways that his own conduct and that of the institute needed to improve. Continue reading...

In pursuit of a peaceful society, it is important that we record all perspectives of our complex human storyBlack History Month, which runs through October, is trying to address a problem. That problem is, how to move the study of black history away from focusing solely on slavery and colonialism so that we don’t end up with an unbalanced knowledge of the past, and inadvertently confirm rather than fight prejudices about black people and people of African descent. This is why films like Black Panther, with its depiction of the fictional state, Wakanda, captured the imagination of so many: it imagined what a sub-Saharan African kingdom free from colonialism could have become.Related: Cheddar Man changes the way we think about our ancestors Continue reading...

Frequency sharing could jam airways, lowering accuracy of forecasts, meteorologist warnsWe might mock weather forecasts, but in reality they have never been better. Be it an approaching storm, the chances of a sunny day, or the likelihood of flooding, most of us have access to reliable forecasts. And much of this improvement is thanks to satellite data. But weather forecasts could be set to go downhill, if US weather satellites give in to commercial pressure to share their bandwidth.Last year during Hurricane Irma, river gauge readings collected by satellites enabled the Florida Department of Transportation to decide which highways were suitable evacuation routes. These readings came from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s new fleet of geostationary satellites, the first of which was launched in 2016. These satellites spot lightning, monitor storms (providing measurements every 30 seconds if needed) and image the entire northern hemisphere every 15 minutes. Continue reading...

Study of nearly 150,000 pregnancies in Canada finds the safest interval between births is 12 to 18 monthsHaving babies less than a year apart poses risks for both mother and child, whatever the woman’s age, according to new research.The authors of a big study of nearly 150,000 pregnancies in Canada say the safest interval between births is 12 to 18 months. They suggest women over the age of 35 who may not want to wait long between one pregnancy and the next should be counselled that waiting 12 to 18 months is safest for both them and their baby. Continue reading...

Virgin Galactic fully recognises its existence and achievements are built on decades of work by thousands of committed individuals and government agencies, writes Virgin Galactic’s commercial director Stephen Attenborough. Plus Margaret Squires expresses reservations about driverless carsMichael Carley (Letters, 22 October) suggests that the private sector is “producing an inferior late substitute for a public achievement”. Virgin Galactic fully recognises its existence and achievements are built on decades of work by thousands of committed individuals and government agencies. The army of talented people now working for the new commercial space companies like Virgin Galactic and its sister satellite launch company, Virgin Orbit, seek to extend that great legacy with new generation space vehicles, creating technology and experiences which will improve our lives on and off this planet.Mr Carley’s reference to the X-15 aircraft is an excellent example of how we’re building on past achievements. Our system design, particularly the “air-launch” concept, took its inspiration in part from that high-risk, experimental flight test programme. By introducing, among other things, 21st-century materials technology and an innovative solution to re-entry, Virgin Galactic will have, for the first time, a privately funded spaceship fit for regular commercial service. Continue reading...

On 12 April 1973 Joan McFarlane, a young mother of 28, arrived at Westminster hospital in London to help save my life. She underwent a procedure to harvest bone marrow and the next day, Friday the 13th, I became the first person in the world to survive a transplant of bone marrow from an unrelated donor. Bone marrow donation was in its infancy then, and agreeing to donate to a stranger was an act of immense courage and compassion.Joan, who has died aged 74, was born in Dublin as one of eight children to William and Elizabeth Stowe. After attending Our Lady’s school in Milltown, Dublin, she worked at Jacob’s cracker factory in the city as a “cracker packer”. She met Bill McFarlane, an RAF serviceman, at a sister’s wedding, and they married in 1971. The couple moved to Cambridge, where Bill was stationed in the RAF, and Sharon, her first child, was born in 1972. Continue reading...

Cacao was in use in South America centuries before its exploitation by civilisations in Mexico and Central America, experts sayThe key ingredient of chocolate was being used in South America centuries before it was exploited by civilisations in Mexico and Central America, according to new research.The cacao tree, and in particular the drinks made from its dried seeds, has long been linked to the Maya and other ancient civilisations in Mesoamerica – a heritage embraced by chocolate companies that produce goods with monikers like Maya Gold. Continue reading...

Study says the animals appear able to identify people infected with the disease even if they are not showing symptomsDogs’ noses could become a powerful weapon in the battle against malaria, according to research suggesting the animals can tell from a sniff of a sock whether someone has the disease.Dogs have previously proved highly accurate at detecting a range of human diseases, including prostate cancer and thyroid cancer, as well as at alerting people with diabetes that they have low blood sugar. Continue reading...

Unless researchers can persuade the public of the importance of their work, academia will never be an investment priorityToday’s budget will set a clear direction for next year’s important comprehensive spending review, in which the chancellor will unveil spending plans for 2020 and beyond. Over the coming months, different sectors will be battling it out for their share of the pie. For the UK’s academic community, our push will be for increased investment in research and development.We have a compelling case. Academic research drives prosperity and can help build a much more resilient and entrepreneurial UK economy, squarely rooted in incubating ideas which we turn into commercial success and skilled jobs. Continue reading...

The Andromeda Galaxy is the furthest thing you can see with the naked eye. But first you must get far away from any light sourceThis week presents a true challenge for naked-eye sky watchers – but a real feather in the cap of anyone who achieves it. The Andromeda Galaxy is a vast collection of stars. Estimates range from a few hundred thousand stars to a trillion. At 2.5 million light years away, it is the most distant thing you can see with the naked eye but you need a dark site, well away from any street lamps. And you need to wait for your eyes to become fully adjusted to the dark. This usually takes about 30-40 minutes during which you must not look at any light source. The chart shows the position of Andromeda at midnight on 2 November 2018. One of the easiest ways to locate the galaxy is to “star hop”. Find Cassiopeia, this is a W-shaped constellation that appears almost directly overhead at this time of year. Of the two V shapes that make up the constellation, one is deeper than the other. The deep V points at the galaxy. Under excellent sky conditions and with some patience, a hazy spot about the size of the full moon will reveal itself. Continue reading...

Beijing-based Landscape says ‘something abnormal happened’ in the third stage of its ZQ-1 rocketA privately developed Chinese carrier rocket failed to reach orbit after lifting off from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre on Saturday, in a blow to the country’s nascent attempts by private companies to rival Elon Musk’s SpaceX.The three-stage rocket, Zhuque-1, was developed by Beijing-based Landspace. The company said in a microblog post after nominal first and second stages that the spacecraft failed to reach orbit as a result of an issue with the third stage. Continue reading...

The eerily beautiful wreck discovered in the Black Sea takes us right back to Homer’s GreeceIn 399BC, Socrates drank hemlock to fulfil the orders of the Athenian law court, which had sentenced him to death for impiety and corrupting the young.His friends begged him to leave Athens instead, accompanying them into banishment. He refused and died as he had lived for 70 years, arguing the ethical superiority of his own decision. The scene was immortalised by Plato in his dialogue Phaedo and later by artists such as Jacques Louis David, whose painting hangs in New York’s Metropolitan Museum. Continue reading...

Rocket scientists tell Nasa a new rover could finally unlock red planet’s secretsAmerican rocket engineers are being urged to push their next Mars mission to the limits of technological performance. Space scientists have told Nasa they want the agency to “dream big” to ensure their new robot rover, scheduled for launch in 2020, visits a maximum number of sites to increase chances of uncovering signs of ancient life on Mars.Rock samples – hopefully bearing fossils – would then be left in caches on the Martian surface, to be collected several years later and returned to Earth in a complex series of robot “sample return” missions costing more than $10bn. Continue reading...

Optimism is more necessary than ever, and understanding how other cultures approach life’s trials and joys may help us achieve contentmentIf you read the paper or look at the news online without becoming depressed about the state of humanity – or make it through your social media feeds before your mood lurches to despair – well done you. You are a beautiful anomaly. For everyone else: huddle in. It’s tough out there and it can be easy to get the idea that the world is getting more miserable by the minute, that we’re all becoming more isolationist and that these are bleak times indeed. Because when things are ticking along nicely, there’s very little to report. Negativity bias means that, as human beings, we experience “bad” events more intensely than we do the “good” – and we also remember them more. So we have to work hard to remain hopeful – or we can’t make things better.Optimism isn’t frivolous: it’s necessary. If we feel hopeless all the time, if we’re always in crisis, the natural response is to give up and stop trying altogether. But we can’t let snark or apathy win. We can be aware of the bad whilst being mindful of how we can make it better. And there are people all around the world finding meaning and happiness every day, both in countries that top the global happiness surveys and in those that don’t. Continue reading...

Those seeking to deceive politicians and the public know distraction works better than outright fraudMost of the recent worries over the spread of propaganda have concentrated on the use of social media: WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have all been rightly criticised for their use in spreading misinformation. Less attention, perhaps, has been given to the content of the messages and the strategy behind their use. The template for many modern campaigns of disinformation was invented by the tobacco industry as it fought against the mounting evidence that it was selling a product that killed its users.The “tobacco strategy” as researchers christened it, relied less on outright lies than on confusion and irrelevant truths. For example, the tobacco industry funded first-class research into the harmful effects of asbestos to produce the impression that all kinds of things gave you cancer – so why worry about the ones that give pleasure as well? Continue reading...

Telescope close to restarting operations after being put out of action by gyroscope failureThe Hubble space telescope is close to resuming full operations after Nasa “jiggled it around”.The telescope was sidelined earlier this month after a gyroscope failed, leaving it unable to point in the right direction during observations. Continue reading...

Telescope close to restarting operations after being put out of action by gyroscope failureThe Hubble space telescope is close to resuming full operations after Nasa “jiggled it around”.The telescope was sidelined earlier this month after a gyroscope failed, leaving it unable to point in the right direction during observations. Continue reading...

To be successful, it seems you need to be available for short, fixed-term contracts all over the worldThis summer I started a short-term postdoc after finishing my PhD. I really like my postdoc advisor, who looks out for my mental wellbeing, as well as my new department and the city I’ve moved to. It’s refreshing to be in such a happy environment after experiencing bullying from other students at my previous institution. I’ve been able to design the research plans for the postdoc, and the grant I’m on will support me comfortably for the next 10 months. It sounds like a dream – and it almost is – but the knowledge that all this is for the short term is dampening my enthusiasm.Related: I've just finished my PhD, and now I feel lost without academia | Anonymous academic Continue reading...

Fifty years ago, the average woman in Botswana had seven children. Now she will have fewer than three. Enabling women to control their fertility has had huge ramifications for their health, education and employment – could President Trump’s ‘global gag rule’ threaten this? Nicola Davis travels to Botswana to investigateFifty years ago, the average woman in Botswana had seven children. Now she will have fewer than three. This marks one of the dramatic reductions in fertility in the world and could hold lessons for addressing one of our biggest challenges – how to grapple with soaring world population?The world’s population is on track to hit 8 billion in 2023, and almost 10 billion by 2050. Sub-Saharan Africa is set to grow faster than anywhere: there were 1 billion Africans in 2010, a number projected to grow to 2.5 billion by 2050. Continue reading...

Three years of research have produced astonishing results, including the remains of 65 vessels, one thought to be ancient Greek. This should be only the startThe seabed produces archaeological wonders. The Mary Rose, which sank in the Solent in 1545, and the Vasa, which capsized in 1633 in the harbour of Stockholm, are just two of the famous ships that have been lifted from the deep. There is a long history of fishermen finding classical bronzes in the Mediterranean: the great statue of Zeus (or Poseidon) in the Athens Archaeological Museum was chanced upon in 1928 off Cape Artemision. Still entrancing and puzzling researchers and the public is the Antikythera mechanism, a remarkable orrery-cum-computer (somewhat resembling Philip Pullman’s “alethiometer”) discovered in a wreck in 1902, now also in Athens. At the British Museum in 2016, crowds came to marvel at the Sunken Cities exhibition, the fruit of investigations of the submerged ancient towns of Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus, which once stood at the mouth of the Nile. Damien Hirst exploited the romance of underwater archaeology in his 2017 exhibition in Venice, Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable, which playfully purported to be the fruit of an actual excavation – according to taste, either a brilliant postmodern conceit or utterly preposterous.Now it is the turn of the Black Sea. The Maritime Archaeology Project (MAP), the largest ever expedition of its type, recently completed three seasons of research off the Bulgarian coast, and has this week been holding a seminar in London on its findings. The team, comprising 70 crew from 15 countries, was led by Professor Jon Adams of Southampton University; each year they were also accompanied by British school pupils, selected as Stem scholars to assist in the work. The primary aim was to try to understand the changes in the level in the Black Sea after the ice age, which have been subject to a wide range of theories (including that the sea experienced a sudden inundation from the Mediterranean that gave rise to the biblical story of the Flood, a theory that the MAP researchers have found no evidence to support). Highly sophisticated surveying techniques were used to map the seabed. And along the way, 65 wrecked ships were discovered, uncannily well-preserved owing to the fact that the deep waters of the Black Sea lack oxygen. Continue reading...

New Caledonian crows have been filmed extracting a piece of food from a puzzle box by piecing together two separate rods. The birds were able to display highly flexible abilities to solve a complex problem without prior training. Until now, the ability to assemble different components had only been seen in great apes and humans Continue reading...

The bio-brick created by students in Cape Town mixes urine with sand and bacteria, which they say is a world firstStudents in South Africa have created the world’s first brick made from human urine.The bio-brick was produced by students from Cape Town, who collected urine from specially designed male urinals at the university’s engineering building and mixed it with sand and bacteria. Continue reading...

Sleeping children three times more likely to wake to voice recording than to loud beeping, research findsIt’s every parent’s worst nightmare: there’s a fire in the house, the alarms are beeping, but the children are sleeping on oblivious. Now scientists say they have found a better way to rouse slumbering youngsters.Researchers in the US have discovered that playing a child a recording of their mother’s voice is about three times more likely to wake them than a traditional alarm. What’s more, it does so faster and is linked to a quicker escape. Continue reading...

Guardian readers respond to our report on the rise in families desperate for educational support for their childrenAn increasingly effective framework of support for some of the nation’s most vulnerable children and their families, young people with special educational needs and disabilities, that has shown steady progress since the groundbreaking 1978 Warnock report, has been destroyed by the policies of Michael Gove and George Osborne (Crisis looms for special needs education, 23 October).As a former local education authority (LEA) senior adviser and higher education lecturer for special educational needs (SEN), I can’t express how angry I feel over the destruction of these services. It is not “looming”; it is a crisis. Fifteen out of every 100 children have these needs, which include a variety of disabilities from the partially sighted and hearing impaired to children with mild and complex learning difficulties. Educational psychology services, speech therapy, home tuition for sick children, teams of highly qualified specialist support teachers and advisers have been reduced to a rump. Specialist integrated units in mainstream schools are closing. Vandalism is too kind a term. For Nadhim Zahawi to parrot cash spending figures in defence adds insult to injury when the evidence of wrecked services is all around. The worry and stress caused to the families of these deserving children denied their right to life-enhancing education is incalculable.

Research shows that when women get a whiff of their partner, it reduces stress hormonesThe smell – and clothes – of a loved one could have a powerfully calming effect. So claims a study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, which tested 96 women, who were asked to randomly smell one of three scents – a male partner’s, a stranger’s or a neutral scent. Those who caught a whiff of their partner tended to experience a reduction in stress hormones, while those forced to sniff a stranger experienced the opposite. The study suggested that sniffing a partner’s used clothing had a calming effect.Does this work for men, too? The psychotherapist and psychologist Peter Klein says not so much: “You often hear of a woman wearing partner’s T-shirt, but you rarely hear of a man wearing his girlfriend’s T-shirt! Research suggests women have a better developed sense of smell and men are more visually stimulated, so men would be more likely to experience stress reduction through seeing their partner’s clothing.” Continue reading...

Largest study of its kind finds incidence of heart attacks is higher on days with air temperatures below freezingCold, cloudy weather could increase your risk of having a heart attack, according to a new study.In the largest study of its kind, scientists examined data from more than 274,000 patients across Sweden who had heart attacks between 1998 and 2013 for which contemporary weather data was available. Continue reading...

Queen Elizabeth Hall, London

Hour-long procedure that stabilises blood sugar levels of sufferers of type 2 diabetes is still effective one year on, study showsA potential medical breakthrough that could put an end to the daily insulin injections endured by people living with diabetes has been unveiled by Dutch scientists.By destroying the mucous membrane in the small intestine and causing a new one to develop, scientists stabilised the blood sugar levels of people with type 2 diabetes. The results have been described as “spectacular” – albeit unexpected – by the chief researchers involved. Continue reading...

The US photographer Brad Goldpaint has beaten thousands of amateur and professional photographers from around the globe to win the Royal Observatory Greenwich’s title of Insight Investment Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018. The exhibition opens at the National Maritime Museum on Wednesday Continue reading...

Researchers say they have developed tiny readers that can detect information in light spiralsA new development in fibre optics could make internet speeds up to 100 times faster – by detecting light that has been twisted into a spiral.The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, can be used to easily upgrade existing networks and significantly boost efficiency, scientists say. Continue reading...

Team at London’s University College hospital performed the surgeries to treat spina bifidaWeeks before they took their first breaths, two babies had their spinal cords delicately repaired by surgeons in the first operations of their kind in the UK.The spina bifida surgeries were successfully performed by a team at University College hospital in London this summer on two babies while they were still in the womb. Continue reading...

An introduction to the brave new world of personal genomics argues that it solves the puzzle of nature v nurture

Nasa tests out the water deluge system for its new Space Launch System (SLS). The Ignition Overpressure Protection and Sound Suppression (IOP/SS) system releases two million litres (450,000 gallons) during take-off to dampen the huge shockwaves and heat of a rocket launch. It has been in place since the Space Shuttle but has been upgraded for the SLS Continue reading...

Wenlock Edge, Shropshire: The appearance and disappearance of these strange forms gives them an uncanniness that seems to have nothing to do with their ecological functionThe fairy bonnets have popped up from the turf and the world is reflected in a million raindrops. Suspended on spindly stalks, the pale flesh of their pointy heads has an ethereal glow. These Marasmius fungi grow in troops or circles in grassland as rotters of organic litter, feeders of grass and stages for supernatural dances.Unable to manufacture its own food, the fungus is a collective body made of hyphae, the filaments that form the mycelium, an intricate lacework expanding outwards in a slow-motion ripple. This questing, hunting body surrounds and infiltrates the food material. Enzymes are secreted that break down complex molecules into smaller compounds to be absorbed into the hyphae, which grow rapidly as proteins and other materials are synthesised and channelled through its streaming cytoplasm. Without these decomposers, the inorganic nutrients necessary for plant growth would be tied up in organic matter and not returned to the soil. Continue reading...

Study finds large variation in shape of birth canals around world – with implications for description of birth used in standard textbooksA focus on western women has skewed our understanding of evolution and twisted ideas of what birth should look like, scientists say.Researchers have found a large variation in the shape of the birth canal between women from different parts of the world – a finding they say has implications both for our understanding of how the pelvis has evolved and our ideas about how babies should move as they leave the womb. Continue reading...

Report suggests link between height and cancer risk could simply be because there are more cells for something to go wrong inTaller people have a greater risk of cancer because they are bigger and so have more cells in their bodies in which dangerous mutations can occur, new research has suggested.A number of studies have previously found a link between a lofty stature and a greater risk of developing some form of cancer, with research suggesting that for every 10cm of height within the typical range for humans, the risk increases by about 10%. A similar link has also been found in dogs, with bigger breeds having a greater risk of such diseases. Continue reading...