Science | The Guardian

There are stabs of the same fear that made The Beast fascinating, but this tale of a bored teenager in a scary, affectless future is too unfocusedProminent French film-makers are supported by their national industry and even their lockdown projects have been received with respectful attention. Earlier this year Olivier Assayas's autofiction Hors du Temps, or Suspended Time, premiered in Berlin - a dreamy Covid-era indulgence that he just about got away with. Now we have a chance to see Bertrand Bonello's musing sketch Coma: a lockdown essay that preceded his brilliant futurist film The Beast, with many of the same ideas and tropes.Coma broods on a scary, affectless future in which humanity will evolve away from the primacy of love and selfhood, and in which sexuality and violence will then be prominent as a symptom of the need to feel something, anything. As so often, Bonello sees human beings as mere dolls or puppets; stuffed mammal-shapes whose supposed individuality is a preposterous fiction. Here, a teenage girl (Louise Labeque) mopes impassively in her bedroom, driven half-mad by lockdown boredom; the film's title hints at the inert hibernation we all went through. Continue reading...

Last week, five supporters of the Just Stop Oil climate campaign who conspired to cause gridlock on London's orbital motorway were sentenced to lengthy jail terms by a judge who told them they had crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic'. Columnist and campaigner George Monbiot tells Ian Sample why the sentences are so significant, how they fit into a crackdown on protest in the UK in recent years, and what impact they could have on future climate activism in the UKClips: ITV, Just Stop Oil, BBC, The SunRead more reporting on this story Continue reading...

Charged metallic lumps found to produce oxygen in total darkness in process akin to how plants use photosynthesisIn the total darkness of the depths of the Pacific Ocean, scientists have discovered oxygen being produced not by living organisms but by strange potato-shaped metallic lumps that give off almost as much electricity as AA batteries.The surprise finding has many potential implications and could even require rethinking how life first began on Earth, the researchers behind a study said on Monday. Continue reading...

Young people are evaluating good and bad life decisions on a scale and seeking input from others. To philosophy experts, it sounds familiarYou can count calories, steps, streams of your favorite song - and now, you can assign a number to how cool you are. See: aura points, a way to calculate your rizz. (That's what the kids call charisma, and if you didn't know that, you just lost 100 aura points.)Ask someone out and get a yes? That's 100 aura points for you. Still on Snapchat past the age of 19? Gross and suspect ... dock 1,000 aura points. Confidently answered a question in class, but got it wrong? You're in the red now. Continue reading...

The answers to today's puzzlesEarlier today I set you these three problems from Parabola, a wonderful magazine from Australia that was first published 60 years ago this month. Here they are again with solutions. Continue reading...

Study got dog owners to either take a maths test or do something relaxing and observed effect on pets' emotionsThe ability of dogs to sniff out stress levels in humans has been known for some time.But the relationship between woman and man's four-legged best friend is two-way, and scientists now believe they have discovered that when a dog senses a person in distress, it has a knock-on effect in the behaviour of the animal - most notably, it makes them pessimistic. Continue reading...

Analysis of thousands of wild chimp gestures in east Africa found striking similarities to human conversationsHumans might be the masters of quick-fire banter, but it seems chimpanzees have their own rapid back-and-forths, albeit in the form of hand signals.Researchers analysed thousands of gestures made by wild chimps in east Africa and found striking similarities with the turn-taking seen in human conversations, in particular how swiftly the apes responded to one another. Continue reading...

Brain scans reveal evidence of five subtypes, raising prospect of tailored approaches to improving sleepThe sluggish start to the day, the struggle to concentrate on everyday tasks and the lethargy that comes with just a few hours sleep, these are the symptoms that will be familiar to anyone who suffers with insomnia.But according to research, not all sleepless nights are the same. Brain scans have revealed evidence for distinct forms of insomnia, each with an associated pattern of neural wiring. Continue reading...

Rosemary Fowler discovered the kaon particle during her doctoral research in 1948 but gave up PhD to have a familyA trailblazing physicist who gave up her PhD 75 years ago to have a family has received an honorary doctorate from her former university.Rosemary Fowler, 98, discovered the kaon particle during her doctoral research under Cecil Powell at the University of Bristol in 1948, which contributed to his Nobel prize for physics in 1950. Continue reading...

Ripsnorting riddles from Down UnderUPDATE: Read the solutions here.Parabola, a wonderful Australian maths magazine for secondary school pupils, celebrates its 60th birthday this month. Today's puzzles are taken from a recently published compilation of its best problems. Continue reading...

Co-lead says rapamycin can be repurposed to slow ovaries from ageing and is safe for younger women

In laboratories worldwide cages are filled with mice who share a striking similarity: they are all male, say experts

Botanical gardens lost 400 trees during 2022 drought, prompting research into potential loss in coming decadesMore than half of the tree species at Kew's Royal Botanical Gardens are at risk of death because of climate breakdown, a study by the public body has found.Founded in 1840, Kew Gardens says it houses the largest botanical collection in the world. During the drought of 2022, the botanical gardens in south-west London lost 400 of its trees. Scientists at Kew decided they should map and chronicle the climate risk to the trees to see how many could feasibly be lost to the changing weather in the coming decades. Continue reading...

Many men are socialised to prioritise independence and stoicism, making it difficult for them to open up and form emotional connections

Research inspired by a rescue dog may allow breeders to avoid using canines with progressive retinal atrophyA mountain rescue dog whose duties ended after her eyesight failed has helped scientists create a test that could eradicate the genetic eye condition in her breed for good.Shola the English shepherd has an inherited eye disease called progressive retinal atrophy (PRA) that causes the light-sensitive cells at the back of the eye to deteriorate, eventually leading to blindness. Continue reading...

It's easy enough to get lured into adopting a brittle persona, but there are other ways to live your lifeMy work used to land in the form of harsh clacking on a titanium-reinforced MacBook, but these days I prefer to write in a pale blue suedette notebook that was given to me by a relative a few Christmases ago. It is an object that until recently I had kept at the back of a drawer, fearing it would seem too sappy a thing for a serious writer to own.It forms part of a new tendency in my life towards softness - the quality of being gentle to the touch, sensual and pliable, but also receptive, yielding and adaptive. As an antidote to our digitally enhanced lives, which can appear to be cold and hyper-real, softness seems to be on the rise. There is the girlhood aesthetic", which is the nostalgic use of bows, frills and smock dresses. In literature, Arrangements in Blue by Amy Key chronicles the author's journey to creating a soft and cosseting home environment, while the hugely popular Milk Fed by Melissa Broder is a love letter to fleshiness and abundance. Continue reading...

The evolutionary expert discusses the triumphs and challenges of the groundbreaking research on Galapagos Islands finches she undertook with her husband, PeterStudying Darwin's finches has been the life's work of the renowned British evolutionary biologists Rosemary and Peter Grant. For several months every year for 40 years, the husband-and-wife team visited the Galapagos Islands in the eastern Pacific to meticulously track the fate of thousands of finches on two small islands there. The Grants demonstrated that evolution by natural selection can be observed in the wild in real time: they were the first to see and measure it in action in nature. One Step Sideways, Three Steps Forward is Rosemary Grant's new memoir. It reflects on her far-from-straight path to becoming a biologist, living with a family on the Galapagos - for 10 years the scientists' two daughters accompanied them - and the joy of sharing ideas with her partner. Rosemary, 87, is senior research biologist, emeritus at Princeton University in New Jersey. The book comes ahead of a new edition of 40 Years of Evolution - the Grants' classic account of their study of the finches - due out later this year.The Galapagos are famous for their unusual and unique species including giant tortoises, marine iguanas and flightless cormorants. But what's the Charles Darwin connection?

Don't put your faith in the 10,000-hour rule - some athletes are born with talents the rest of us will never haveStefan Holm was told he was too short to be a high jumper. But by the time he won Sweden a gold medal in the 2004 Olympics, he had honed himself into the perfect projectile. It was the result of a 15-year obsession: his whole life had been pulled into alignment with this goal. If he wanted to stop on page 225 of a book, he would push himself to page 240, in order to train his mind to overshoot. It's all about your 10,000," he told David Epstein, author of The Sports Gene. There had been jumpers who had beaten him when he was young, and where were they now?But in 2007, entering the world championships in Japan as the favourite, he faced an unknown opponent: Donald Thomas, from the Bahamas. Thomas had begun jumping just eight months previously, on a whim after a bet, and admitted he found the high jump kind of boring". He had slacked off training - his form was all over the place - and his coach couldn't even persuade him to wear the right kind of shoes. But he had one big advantage: an achilles tendon that could store just a bit more elastic energy than everyone else's. That year, Thomas sprang awkwardly over the bar to victory. Continue reading...

Research helping mice reach a ripe old age is of little use to humans if it boosts longevity but not healthspansProspects for extending lifespans have generated some striking headlines in recent weeks. Tantalising drug lets mice live longer but retain youthful looks," the Times announced. Anti-ageing drug is holy grail' of cancer fight," claimed the Telegraph.Nor is the agent of this media adulation - antibodies that block the action of the inflammatory chemical IL-11 - the only wonder anti-ageing medication to make news over the past few months. In March, researchers announced that, by properly balancing two types of immune cells, they had managed to improve the ability of elderly mice to fight off viral infections and so live longer. This came on top of research last year from another group revealing they had used injections of the drugs dasatinib and quercetin to rejuvenate the hearts of mice and make them less frail. Continue reading...

Offensive term to be replaced as first step towards more changes in unprecedented reform of nomenclature rulesScientists have voted to eliminate the names of certain plants that are deemed to be racially offensive. The decision to remove a label that contains such a slur was taken last week after a gruelling six-day session attended by more than 100 researchers, as part of the International Botanical Congress, which officially opens on Sunday inMadrid.The effect of the vote will be that all plants, fungi and algae names that contain the word caffra, which originates in insults made against Black people, will be replaced by the word affra to denote their African origins. More than 200 species will be affected, including the coast coral tree, which will be known as Erythrina affra instead of Erythrinacaffra. Continue reading...

Researchers call on the government to settle dispute, which they say is impeding groundbreaking researchResearchers have called on the government to step in to settle a dispute preventing them from fully exploiting the world's largest store of human genetic data. The scientists say they are unable to access patients' data, held by British GPs, despite a decade of requests, and that the refusal is impeding the development of new diagnoses and treatments.Prof Naomi Allen, chief scientist of UK Biobank, told the Observer it had sequenced genomes of more than 500,000 volunteers and collated a host of other data about them. However, it was still prevented from accessing their primary health care data held by their GPs. Continue reading...

Habitat built to replicate the red planet's conditions when astronauts land - ambitiously set for the late 2030sAsk Anca Selariu what it was like living on Mars for a year, and there is no hesitation in her answer: absolutely exhilarating".The US navy microbiologist is one of four Nasa crew members who returned to Earth earlier this month after becoming the first humans to reside on the red planet, or at least the closest thing the US space agency currently has to it. Continue reading...

Scientists have long known the mental and creative benefits of the flow state, in which total absorption in an activity banishes anxiety. But what causes it, and how can we achieve it?As a professional ballet dancer, Julia Christensen knew the flow state well: a total absorption in her body's movements, without the constant chatter that typically accompanies our waking lives. The hours could fly by without her even registering the time that had passed.A back injury put an end to her career, and alongside the many other life changes that this brought on, she found herself missing the mental calm that had accompanied her practice and performances. I became aware that I couldn't control my thoughts," she says. And I'd never had to deal with that before." Continue reading...

Researchers unsure why animals turn up with items such as socks and gloves - but agree pilfered items are not presentsThe thieves went for particular items. Day after day, they roamed the neighbourhood and returned home to dump their loot. Before long they had amassed an impressive haul: socks, underpants, a baby's cardigan, gloves and yet more socks.It's not unusual for cats to bring in dead or petrified mice and birds, but turning up with random objects is harder to explain. Researchers suspect a number of causes, but tend to agree on one point: the pilfered items are not presents. Continue reading...

The best of this week's wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...

Citizens were failed by a lack of planning, and Lady Hallett wants a better system to be built fastCitizens of all four nations of the UK were failed by politicians and officials who neglected to prepare properly for a pandemic or other civil emergency. Former UK health secretaries Jeremy Hunt and MattHancock did not update or improve an inadequate pandemic strategy from 2011, that was geared towards flu rather than a novel virus. Resources that did exist were constrained" by funding and, after 2018, redirected towards Brexit planning. Ministers were guilty of groupthink and did not make effective use of external experts or challenge scientific advice. The possibility of a lockdown was never seriously considered. Nor was enough attention paid to the likelyimpact of a pandemic on vulnerable groups.These highly critical conclusions from the first module of the Covid inquiry are a landmark moment in the process of national reckoning being overseen by Heather Hallett. This is the first time that relatives of the 230,000 people who died of Covid have seen their anger about official failures, both before and during the pandemic, endorsed in such an authoritative way. Continue reading...

Research argues tremors occurred as Vesuvius erupted in AD79, causing buildings to collapse on to peopleVictims who perished in Pompeii after the devastating AD79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius may have been killed by a simultaneous earthquake, research has suggested.Scholars have debated for decades whether seismic activity occurred during the eruption of Vesuvius in southern Italy nearly 2,000 years ago, and not just before it, as reported by Pliny the Younger in his letters. Continue reading...

The UK must never succumb to such shocking complacency again. Planning for the next pandemic must start nowIn 2002, Sars, a dangerous coronavirus, spread across the world with a fatality rate of around 10%. Although it was contained relatively quickly, east Asian countries learned from this experience and updated their pandemic preparedness plans. Their governments wanted to be ready if the virus returned. On the other side of the world, the UK didn't react or adapt. Complacency was at play, especially with the assumption that Britain was one of the most prepared countries in the world for a pandemic.The consequence, as Lady Hallett's first report from the Covid inquiry notes, is that the UK government failed in its basic responsibility to its citizens of keeping them safe. The UK had too many preventable deaths, not only from Covid, but also from the shutdown of health services and a long lockdown that would have been unnecessary had public health systems been in place.Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh Continue reading...

Multivitamins are cheap, convenient, and provide a little bit of reassurance if our diet isn't quite as healthy as we'd like. But a recent study of nearly 400,000 people spanning 20 years found they didn't help users live longer, and in fact appeared to show a 4% increased mortality risk. Ian Sample hears from JoAnn Manson, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, to find out what the evidence tells us about the overall health benefits of multivitamins, and how consumers can navigate this large and sometimes confusing marketClips: Good Morning America, CBSDaily multivitamins do not help people live longer, major study finds Continue reading...

The dinosaur remains, which measure 3.4 metres tall and 8.2 metres long, show evidence that it had arthritisThe largest and most complete stegosaurus fossil ever discovered sold for $44.6m at Sotheby's in New York on Wednesday to become the most valuable fossil sold at auction.The dinosaur remains, nicknamed Apex", exceeded its pre-sale low estimate by more than 11 times. Continue reading...

Separate teams find evidence of phosphine and ammonia, potential biomarkers on planet whose surface reaches 450CHot enough to melt metal and blanketed by a toxic, crushing atmosphere, Venus ranks among the most hostile locations in the solar system. But astronomers have reported the detection of two gases that could point to the presence of life forms lurking in the Venusian clouds.Findings presented at the national astronomy meeting in Hull on Wednesday bolster evidence for a pungent gas, phosphine, whose presence on Venus has been fiercely disputed. Continue reading...

Remembering the Pre-Fab Four | Longer days and more growth | Royal Mail elastic bands | Moon cave | Search for the Tory soulRe John Lennon saying the Beatles were bigger than Jesus" (Letters, 16 July), I am reminded of the row over the Rutles' Ron Nasty and his interview with a slightly deaf journalist who misquoted him as having said: We're bigger than God." He'd actually said bigger than Rod [Stewart]". This led to outrage and a rise in Pre-Fab Four record sales. People were buying them just to burn them," the Rutles' film All You Need Is Cash revealed.

Researchers shed light on how psychedelic compound in drug can distort sense of space, time and self during a tripThe psychedelic compound found in magic mushrooms not only gives people a day trip - it can influence the brain for weeks, researchers have found.Experts say the study helps explain why taking psilocybin - the active ingredient in the drug - can result in a distorted sense of space, time and self during a trip, as well as shed light on the mechanism by which it can help in the treatment of severe depression. Continue reading...

The FDA's recent rejection of MDMA isn't surprising. Too many advocates are trying to frame psychedelics as a miracle drugEarlier this month, an advisory panel rejected MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD, possibly dooming US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of the drug commonly called ecstasy. In a public meeting alongside FDA staff, panel members said that the research neither adequately accounted for abuse risks nor proved the drug's efficacy in combination with psychotherapy.This decision dealt a major blow to Lykos Therapeutics, the for-profit public benefit corporation of the non-profit Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (Maps), which sponsored the trials. More broadly, the rejection has been described as a drastic setback for the psychedelic movement as a whole. For several years now, it seemed that greater acceptance and new legal spaces for psychedelics were a certainty. Then, scientists appeared at the FDA hearing and everything went dark. Continue reading...

A new report suggests self-declared night owls tend to have higher cognitive scores. So please can we now ditch the lazy and undisciplined stereotypes?My fellow night owls, grab a strong cup of coffee and gather around: I have great news. For a long time, our kind has been unfairly maligned. Stereotyped as lazy and undisciplined. Told we ought to be morning larks. Advised to go to bed early so we can wake before 5am and run a marathon before breakfast like all high-flyers seem to do. Now, however, we are having the last laugh. Science has officially crowned us superior to our early-rising brethren.OK, it may be a tad more complicated than that. A study published last week, which you may have already seen while scrolling at 1am, suggests that staying up late could be good for brain power. Is this study a thinly veiled PR exercise conducted by a caffeine-pill company? Nope, it's legit. Research led by academics at Imperial College London studied data on more than 26,000 people and found that self-declared night owls' generally tend to have higher cognitive scores". And we are talking quite a lot higher. Evening types ... scored about 13.5% higher than morning types in one group and 7.5% higher than morning types in another group", according to a write-up of the study. Continue reading...

Yes, with the help of AI, I could play Juliet or go on Naked Attraction. But wouldn't something be lost in the process?In my long life, I have had to get my head around massive technological changes. When I was young, I relied on my knowledge of the times tables, and counting on my fingers, to add up. It took me weeks to master the revolutionary Amstrad word processor. The only phone was in the hall, calls strictly rationed by my father. Over the years, I have braved the exasperation of my grandchildren, and now Google, Zoom and unmute with the best of them.But the latest incomprehensible technical revolution has me flummoxed. I seriously fear I will not have mastered artificial intelligence before passing on to a world where, hopefully, the most I will have to cope with are some old-fashioned golden gates, and there will be a nice angel to explain how they work.Sheila Hancock is an actor and a writer Continue reading...

Subjects' performances of songs by Adele, Mariah Carey or from Frozen shown to peers to assess responsesWere scientists to concoct an experiment that was all but guaranteed to unleash full-on, cheek-reddening embarrassment, then filming adolescents singing Let It Go from Frozen and playing back their performance might well do the job.And so to researchers at the University of Amsterdam who invited dozens of young volunteers into the lab before breaking the news as to what was required. In front of a camera, and without the benefit of a shot or two, they were asked to sing the Arendelle anthem or another choice track, before they and others watched the rendition back from inside a brain scanner. Continue reading...

Pharmacologist whose research into tamoxifen helped many women with breast cancer to live longerIn the 1970s only 40% of women diagnosed with breast cancer could expect to survive for 10 years or more. Today that figure is over 75%. Screening and early diagnosis have played a part, but one of the key reasons for the improvement is the drug tamoxifen, which massively reduces the risk of cancer recurring after surgery.The British-American pharmacologist Craig Jordan, who has died aged 76, was the first to show that tamoxifen could stop tumours growing by blocking the female hormone oestrogen from locking on to cells in the breast at specific sites called oestrogen receptors. Continue reading...

Recordbreaking low pressure due to extreme weather meant water was boiling at 98C in Reading on day of stormMillions of Britons were forced to drink subpar cups of tea last November due to the record-breaking low pressure caused by Storm Ciaran.The low pressure caused the boiling point of water to drop below the 100C temperature some experts recommend to extract the full flavour from tea leaves. Continue reading...

Giant publishers are bleeding universities dry, with profit margins that rival Google's. So we decided to start our own

Ramses mission to study 99942 Apophis when it passes closer to Earth than GPS and TV satellites in 2029In 2029 an asteroid larger than the Eiffel Tower will skim past Earth in an event that until recently scientists had feared could foreshadow a catastrophic collision.Now researchers hope to scrutinise 99942 Apophis as it makes its close encounter in an effort to bolster our defences against other space rocks. Continue reading...

Savor, backed by Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates, says product has lower carbon footprint as it doesn't need cowsButter made from air instead of cows? A California-based startup claims to have worked out a complex process that eliminates the need for the animals while making its dairy-free alternative taste just as good.Savor, backed by the Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates, has been experimenting with creating dairy-free alternatives to ice-cream, cheese, and milk by utilising a thermochemical process that allows it to build fat molecules, creating chains of carbon dioxide, hydrogen and oxygen. The company has now announced a new animal-free butter alternative. Continue reading...

For children with ADHD, getting the help they need depends on being correctly diagnosed. As a doctor, I have seen how tricky and frustrating a process that can beLate last summer, in the waiting room of a children's mental health clinic, I found Daniel, a softly spoken 16-year-old boy, flanked by his parents. He had been referred to the clinic for an assessment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). As we took our seats on the plastic sofas in the consulting room, I asked him to tell me about the difficulties he was having. Tentatively, his gaze not leaving the floor, he started talking about school, about how he was finding it impossible to focus and would daydream for hours at a time. His exam results were beginning to show it too, his parents explained, and ADHD seemed to run in the family. They wanted to know more about any medication that could help.I had just begun a six-month placement working as a junior doctor in the clinic's ADHD team. Doctors often take a temporary post before they formally apply to train in a speciality. Since medical school I had always imagined I would become a psychiatrist, but I wanted to be sure I was making the right choice. Continue reading...

Artificial intelligence companies have lofty ambitions for what the technology could achieve, from curing diseases to eliminating poverty. But the energy required to power these innovations is threatening critical environmental targets.Madeleine Finlay hears from the Guardian's energy correspondent, Jillian Ambrose, and UK technology editor, Alex Hern, to find out how big AI's energy problem is, and whether it can be solved before it is too late Continue reading...

As part of the annual Beaker Street festival, a celebration of science and art in Tasmania, finalist images in the festival's annual science photographic competition will be on show at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery from 6 August to 23 August Continue reading...

Researchers find evidence for cave accessible from surface - which could shelter humans from harsh lunar environmentResearchers have found evidence for a substantial underground cave on the moon that is accessible from the surface, making the spot a prime location to build a future lunar base.The cave appears to be reachable from an open pit in the Mare Tranquillitatis (Sea of Tranquility), the ancient lava plain where the Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin first set foot on the moon more than half a century ago. Continue reading...

More than sadness, hatred or grief, rage is something that we shut away or flee. That endangers our relationships, our happiness - and our safetyI have wanted to write about anger for some time. As I sat down to begin this column, a recent psychoanalysis session came to mind. I was telling my analyst about something that might have made me angry - but instead, as I spoke to her, I experienced a sudden wave of irresistible sleepiness. I described this sudden onset of fatigue, as I felt the overwhelming weight of my eyelids and gave up trying to keep them open, so losing the thread of what I had just been talking about. Perhaps you are sending your anger to sleep," my analyst said.The more patients I treat in psychotherapy, and the more psychoanalysis I receive as a patient, the more I think that anger is often the hardest feeling to feel. More than sadness, more than love, more than hatred, more than grief, anger is repressed, or acted out, or drunk or drugged away, or killed off, or sent to sleep. Anything, it can seem, but allowed into our minds and felt. Continue reading...

Tess, a 40-year-old female at Houston zoo, has been given a trial mRNA vaccine to help combat the virus, a leading killer of calves in captivityAn Asian elephant at Houston zoo in the US has received the first mRNA vaccine against herpes, which is the leading killer of Asian elephants calves in captivity.Tess, a 40-year-old Asian elephant, was injected with the trial vaccine at the Texas zoo in June, after a spate of deaths in juveniles in zoos around the world from the elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV). Continue reading...

Political violence is not OK but what about snails are they OK?