Normally antisocial sea creature becomes friendly and tactile after being given the drug, scientists sayWhat happens when you give an octopus MDMA? It sounds like a question that might flit through the meandering mind of someone who had been dabbling in psychedelics. But now the matter has become the focus of an unlikely-sounding scientific experiment to uncover the ancient origins of social behaviour.By showing that the normally antisocial sea creature became friendly and tactile after being given MDMA, also known as ecstasy, scientists believe they have made a link between the social behaviours of humans and a species from which we are separated by more than 500m years of evolution. Continue reading...

Barriers could halt slide of undersea glaciers and hold back sea level rises predicted to result from global warmingBuilding walls on the seafloor may become the next frontier of climate science, as engineers seek novel ways to hold back the sea level rises predicted to result from global warming.By erecting barriers of rock and sand, researchers believe they could halt the slide of undersea glaciers as they disintegrate into the deep. It would be a drastic endeavour but could buy some time if climate change takes hold, according to a new paper published on Thursday in the Cryosphere journal, from the European Geosciences Union. Continue reading...

New exhibition at Royal College of Physicians highlights 500 years of women’s struggle to get their foot in the door of the medical professionMedicine is not a welcoming world for women, even in 2018. Women hold a tiny proportion of Britain’s professorial medical posts, while the NHS has a 23% gender pay gap. Just last month Tokyo Medical University admitted it had tampered with female students’ exam scores to stop them getting in, fearing they would put their careers on hold to get married and have children.This pernicious culture of sexism and scaremongering is nothing new. It has been deployed for centuries to bar women from the profession and to trivialise their contributions as doctors. Continue reading...

It was devastating at the time, but I met amazing people who helped me pursue a career in medical scienceI was 14 years old when I was told I had cancer. It was just before Christmas in 2009 and I’d had terrible pain in my side for several weeks. After being seen at four different hospitals, I ended up at Birmingham children’s hospital. It was there that I was told I had alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, words that meant absolutely nothing to me at first. I soon realised they meant cancer.Before my diagnosis, I was far more concerned with schoolwork and my friends – normal things 14-year-olds have to deal with. But my world had suddenly been turned upside down. I now had to deal with countless hospital tests and appointments, doctor visits and treatments. I lost all my hair – I even lost my eyebrows and eyelashes, which was especially hard to come to terms with. Continue reading...

Experts warn against switching to a gluten-free diet because that may reduce intake of fibre, iron and B-vitamins

Researchers say that when they swept away the senescent brain cells in mice, the outwards symptoms of their dementia vanished

CBD oil is being treated as the option of last resort. This is simply no good to my four-year-old and many othersBefore I took the decision to try treating my daughter Indie with medicinal cannabis she was on a trial of a “traditional” pharmaceutical drug. My four-year-old has Dravet syndrome, a severe form of epilepsy. It was the eighth different drug that we had tried, none of which had reduced her seizures. We refer to the trial as Indie’s “zombie phase”. For those five harrowing months, Indie spent every waking moment laid on the floor, distressed and “body-rocking”. She would have periods of insomnia lasting up to 40 hours. The stress and worry were indescribable. Our doctors insisted it was the condition causing these symptoms, not the medication. But as a family we had reached our limit. I’d been researching medicinal cannabis over a three-year period, so earlier this year we uprooted our family to Holland.Indie was treated with a particular type of cannabis oil (CBD oil) that did not contain the psychoactive component THC. The results were striking. Her seizures reduced significantly. We had every intention of staying abroad and extending the medicinal cannabis trial to encompass cannabis oil containing small amounts of THC. Results from other families suggested that the addition of this THC offered the promise of even more dramatic reductions in seizures. But with funds running low, we were forced to return to the UK. Continue reading...

European Space Agency’s seven-year, €1bn mission will investigate the effects of the sun on satellite technologyA new space mission will carry telescopes closer to the sun than ever before, capturing detailed images of its surface landscapes and taking measurements of its atmosphere.Once it reaches its destination – the sun’s orbit – the spacecraft will be able to investigate the origins of the solar wind – the stream of ionised gas emanating from the sun – and of fierce explosions on its surface called solar flares, as well as taking pictures of the polar regions of the sun for the first time. Continue reading...

While they are still a healthier choice than a chocolate bar or a biscuit, flavoured yoghurts are packed with sugarChildren’s yoghurts are packed with sugar, experts have found, warning that manufacturers and retailers need to do more to tackle the problem.Although yoghurt has long been considered a healthy food, experts warn that many of the products sold in supermarkets could contribute to child obesity, tooth decay and other health problems due to their high sugar content. Continue reading...

Risk in over-50s increases by 40% where highest nitrogen oxide levels exist, study showsAir pollution may increase the chance of developing dementia, a study has suggested, in fresh evidence that the health of people of all ages is at risk from breathing dirty air.People over 50 in areas with the highest levels of nitrogen oxide in the air showed a 40% greater risk of developing dementia than those with the least NOx pollution, according to the research, based on data from London. Continue reading...

Proportion of children being immunised down to 91.2% as experts warn of measles riskThe proportion of children in England getting immunised for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) has fallen for the fourth year in a row, as uptake for a further nine out of the 12 routine vaccinations has dropped, figures show.Related: Resurgence of deadly measles blamed on low MMR vaccination rates Continue reading...

Fashion entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa could be the first private passenger to make lunar tripElon Musk plans to launch the Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa on a rocket around the moon, the embattled SpaceX CEO has announced.Maezawa, a 42-year-old art collector and entrepreneur who founded Zozo, Japan’s largest online fashion retailer, could be the first private passenger to make the trip around the moon. The Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) has not yet been built. Continue reading...

Researchers are asking people who have suffered from depression and anxiety to provide DNA samples so they can look for common genesGenetic links to anxiety and depression are to be explored in the largest ever study into the issue, experts have announced.Researchers are calling on people in England to sign up to the Genetic Links to Anxiety and Depression (Glad) study. It is hoped that 40,000 volunteers aged 16 and over will agree to be part of a database which will be used in future research studies to better understand the genetic aspects of mental health conditions. Continue reading...

Sites should do more to inform users about potentially unwelcome results, says HfeaThe fertility regulator has called for DNA testing websites to warn customers about the risks of uncovering traumatic family secrets and underlying health traits.Sites such as Ancestry.com, 23andMe and DNA.com offer customers the chance to discover long-lost relatives by having their DNA analysed, typically after providing a saliva sample. The services usually cost less that £100. Continue reading...

Eating for two is a myth, say researchers, with weight gain linked to insulin resistance

Gene therapists have developed a stem cell implant that could help overcome addiction and prevent overdosesA radical gene therapy for drug addiction has been shown to dampen down cravings for cocaine and protect against overdoses of the substance that would normally be lethal.The therapy uses implants of stem cells which have been genetically engineered to release a powerful enzyme that removes the class A drug from the bloodstream. Continue reading...

As we delegate technology more responsibility to diagnose illness or identify suspects, we must regulate itRobert Jones was driving home through the pretty town of Todmorden, in West Yorkshire, when he noticed the fuel light flashing on the dashboard of his car. He had just a few miles to find a petrol station, which was cutting things rather fine, but thankfully his GPS seemed to have found a short cut – sending him on a narrow winding path up the side of the valley.Robert followed the machine’s instructions, but as he drove, the road got steeper and narrower. After a couple of miles, it turned into a dirt track, but Robert wasn’t fazed. After all, he thought, he had “no reason not to trust the satnav”. Continue reading...

New Zealand has ruled the practice illegal after mounting public pressure – but it can be a valuable and effective conservation toolEarlier this month the New Zealand court of appeal ruled that shark cage diving is illegal, and as a result cage diving tourism will soon cease in the country.But is a ban an appropriate course of action when shark population numbers are declining globally? Continue reading...

The moon rises early this week, with Mars, still bright and conspicuously red, sharing the evening sky by mid-weekThe moon passes close to Saturn on Monday night. Look for it low in the south just after sunset. The chart shows the view at 20:00 BST. As the week progresses, the moon moves eastwards, heading past Mars on Wednesday and Thursday. This will be easy to spot as Mars is the brightest object to the moon on those nights, and the planet will be conspicuously red in colour. Also, during the week, notice how the moon changes phase. It is currently just passing its waxing first quarter phase (colloquially called a half moon). In the next seven days or so, it will rise later and later in the evening until by full moon, on 25 September, it will rise as the sun sets. The waxing half moon is termed first quarter because it occurs when the moon has completed one quarter of its orbit around Earth. After a full moon, the illumination decreases, known as waning. It will pass through another half moon phase, known as last quarter, on 2 October. A week later it will become a new moon and the cycle will begin again. Continue reading...

Researchers say drug has little benefit when taken by healthy people aged over 70Millions of healthy people who take aspirin to ward off illness in old age are unlikely to benefit from the drug, a trial has found.While a daily dose of the blood-thinning medicine can protect older people who have previously experienced heart attacks, strokes and angina, researchers found the drug did not extend the lifespan of healthy people over the age of 70. Continue reading...

A dig in the castle’s grounds has uncovered the walls of a ‘showy’ late medieval houseArchaeologists believe they have identified the exact site of Henry VII’s birth in 1457 after excavations in the grounds of Pembroke Castle in Wales uncovered the remains of a massive medieval mansion worthy of one of the most famous kings of England.Just days into an initial dig, archaeologists have uncovered up to half a metre of the building’s walls – and they are yet to reach the main floor levels. One wall is a metre thick. Continue reading...

New research shows direct evidence that toxic air – already strongly linked to harm in unborn babies – travels through mothers’ bodiesScientists have found the first evidence that particles of air pollution travel through pregnant women’s lungs and lodge in their placentas.Toxic air is already strongly linked to harm in foetuses but how the damage is done is unknown. The new study, involving mothers living in London, UK, revealed sooty particles in the placentas of each of their babies and researchers say it is quite possible the particles entered the foetuses too. Continue reading...

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is used by firms worldwide to test their employees. In her new book, Merve Emre looks at the system’s curious originsMerve Emre was 22 when she found out she was an ENTJ, though she was yet to understand what an impact it would have on her life.Emre had recently graduated from Harvard University and was working as an associate consultant at Bain & Company, one of the “big three” management consultants. Two weeks in, she and the rest of her intake went to a luxurious offsite facility. Here a career counsellor told them to work through an “instrument” – decidedly not a “test” – called the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. The MBTI is the world’s dominant personality questionnaire: more than 50 million people around the globe are estimated to have taken it. It has been administered since the 1940s (though its origins date to 1917) and now consists of 93 questions to which you answer A or B. At the end, you are assigned one of 16 different types. Many consider this “score” to be meaningless, no more scientifically valid than your star sign. But others – including companies such as Bain, the BBC and many universities – clearly do not. Continue reading...

Scientists have been surprised to find three new kinds of snailfish thriving deep in the Atacama trench

Rare, mummified animals discovered by gold miners in Yukon territoryThe Klondike region of Canada is famous for its gold, but now other remarkable ancient treasures have been unearthed from the melting permafrost.Two mummified ice age mammals – a wolf pup and a caribou calf – were discovered by gold miners in the area in 2016 and unveiled on Thursday at a ceremony in Dawson in Yukon territory. Continue reading...

Calls for a mass cull of wild boars to protect pork industry after disease is found in two animals in GaumeAn outbreak of African swine fever terrorising pig farmers in Europe has dramatically escalated with the confirmation that the deadly infectious disease has spread to Belgium.The discovery of the highly contagious disease in two wild boars found dead near the town of Étalle, in Gaume, has sparked calls for a mass cull of that species to protect western Europe’s pork industry. Continue reading...

Victoria Miro Gallery, London

Number of girls and women with the condition in UK may be vastly underestimated, leading neuroscientist saysHundreds of thousands of girls and women with autism are going undiagnosed due to it being viewed as a “male condition”, according to one of the UK’s leading neuroscientists.Prof Francesca Happé, director of the Social, Genetic & Developmental Psychiatry Centre at King’s College London, warned that the failure to recognise autism in girls and women was taking a stark toll on their mental health. Continue reading...

Study reveals Britain acquired regions when struck by land bearing what is now FranceWith what can only be described as unfortunate timing, researchers have discovered that there is a corner of Britain that will forever belong to mainland Europe.Analysis of rock from deep beneath the ground reveals that the UK only acquired Cornwall and parts of south Devon when it was struck by the landmass bearing what is now France some hundreds of millions of years ago. Continue reading...

From making violins sound beautiful, to beer and bread, to creating life-saving medicine, fungi have an array of very useful attributes. This week, a report demonstrates just how little we know about this kingdom of life and what we are set to gain if we tap into fungi as a resource. Hannah Devlin investigates.Join the discussion on Facebook and TwitterThe more mycologists study fungi, the more they’re beginning to realise what an intriguing kingdom of life it is. Life-saving drugs like statins, penicillin and the immunosuppressants used in organ donation are all derived from fungi, as is the yeast used in bread and beer. Lesser known is that one researcher from Switzerland is making fungal-treated violins, and their sound is said to match that of a multimillion dollar Stradivarius. Hannah Devlin discusses why Stradivari’s violins are so hard to re-create and why fungi might help with Dr Francis Schwarze from the Swiss research institute, Empa. Continue reading...

Self-colonoscopies, useless instruction manuals, and kidney stones on rollercoasters also among subjects awardedNever mind the protests from health and safety. A research paper that describes how employees can overcome workplace injustice by torturing a voodoo doll that resembles their boss has landed one of the most coveted awards in academia: an Ig Nobel prize.The study, which sought to understand why disgruntled staff retaliate against bad superiors – despite the risk of making matters worse – found that tormenting a doll with pins and other implements helped restore their sense of fairness in the world. Continue reading...

Cultural touchstones and being treated with dignity can make all the difference when choosing an aged care facility

Nearly two-thirds of aged care residents are prescribed psychotropic drugs regularly. Questions that must be urgently asked

Briefing paper notes UK would no longer be part of EU space tracking programmeOne decidedly unexpected effect of a no-deal Brexit would be the UK potentially getting less warning about space debris plummeting towards Earth.The warning comes in a briefing paper on space and satellites, which notes the UK’s involvement in the EU space surveillance and tracking (EUSST) programme. Set up in 2014, it tracks orbiting debris that could pose a risk to satellites and issues “re-entry warnings”. Continue reading...

24-year-old who reduced her medication while swimming weekly in open water was drug-and symptom-free within four monthsA year ago, a 24-year-old woman with depression was given an unusual prescription by her doctor: a weekly swim in cold water.The patient, Sarah, was filmed as part of the BBC documentary series The Doctor Who Gave Up Drugs, presented by Christoffer van Tulleken, a doctor and researcher at University College London. Continue reading...

From my office next door to the scanner, I heard how traumatic the procedure was. I found a solution in the latest technology

Those who take on the global industry that traps research behind paywalls are heroes, not thievesNever underestimate the power of one determined person. What Carole Cadwalladr has done to Facebook and big data, and Edward Snowden has done to the state security complex, the young Kazakhstani scientist Alexandra Elbakyan has done to the multibillion-dollar industry that traps knowledge behind paywalls. Sci-Hub, her pirate web scraper service, has done more than any government to tackle one of the biggest rip-offs of the modern era: the capture of publicly funded research that should belong to us all. Everyone should be free to learn; knowledge should be disseminated as widely as possible. No one would publicly disagree with these sentiments. Yet governments and universities have allowed the big academic publishers to deny these rights. Academic publishing might sound like an obscure and fusty affair, but it uses one of the most ruthless and profitable business models of any industry.The model was pioneered by the notorious conman Robert Maxwell. He realised that, because scientists need to be informed about all significant developments in their field, every journal that publishes academic papers can establish a monopoly and charge outrageous fees for the transmission of knowledge. He called his discovery “a perpetual financing machine”. He also realised that he could capture other people’s labour and resources for nothing. Governments funded the research published by his company, Pergamon, while scientists wrote the articles, reviewed them and edited the journalsfor free. His business model relied on the enclosure of common and public resources. Or, to use the technical term, daylight robbery. Continue reading...

BBC Two’s science show says in age of Netflix and Amazon it should not be taken for grantedThe BBC has “supersized the scale” of the experiments in its veteran science show Horizon to help attract new audiences to the programme, which is in danger of being “taken for granted”.Thought to be television’s longest-running strand, the 54-year-old Horizon is experiencing a new dawn with “the scaling up” of some of its scientific trials and its most diverse lineup of presenters, according to the BBC’s science and natural history head Tom McDonald. Continue reading...

US states, cities and businesses forge ahead with strategies to cut carbon emissions to 24% below 2005 levels by 2025 despite Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris accordAmerica’s governors, mayors and CEOs are forging ahead with climate change initiatives despite the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and commitment to reviving the coal industry. But a report published today sets out a roadmap that could quicken that pace and cut carbon emissions to 24% below 2005 levels by 2025 in the absence of federal leadership.Related: Climate change activists defy Trump’s inaction with their own summit Continue reading...

Researchers believe the pattern on the fragment of rock is 73,000 years old, but are perplexed as to what it might representIt lacks the grace of Leonardo and has none of the warmth of Rubens, but the criss-crossed pattern on the chunk of rock is remarkable all the same. According to researchers who unearthed the piece, it is the earliest known drawing in the world.Archaeologists found the marked stone fragment as they sifted through spear points and other material excavated at Blombos cave in South Africa. It has taken seven years of tests to conclude that a human made the lines with an ochre crayon 73,000 years ago. Continue reading...

International Agency for Research on Cancer says a third of new cases are likely to be caused by smoking and obesityOne in five men and one in six women around the world develop cancer during their lifetime, according to the latest figures from the from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). One in eight men and one in 11 women die from the disease.The rising toll of cancer is clear from the latest global estimates which predict there will be 18.1 million new cases this year and 9.6 million deaths. Four years ago, when the IARC last did the same exercise, there were 14.1 million cases and 8.2 million deaths. Continue reading...

Key tenet of UK’s Brexit plan dismissed along with proposals for rival to Galileo satelliteJean-Claude Juncker has ruled out the central plank of Theresa May’s Chequers proposals and scorned the British government’s plans to build a rival to the EU’s Galileo satellite project, in a downcast reading of the Brexit negotiations in his annual state of the union speech.The European commission president said Brussels would not let the UK enjoy the benefits of an internal market on goods, and that if negotiators failed to find an agreement on a deal it would not be the fault of the commission. Continue reading...

Age at time of freezing is key to whether fertility treatment will succeed, says UK regulatorFor women intending to undergo IVF treatment using frozen eggs, the younger they are when they are frozen the greater the chance of a successful pregnancy, according to a report by the UK’s independent fertility regulator.Most IVF treatment cycles use fresh eggs, but a very small number use eggs that have been frozen and thawed. It can, for example, be especially beneficial for cancer patients who decide to freeze their eggs before undergoing chemotherapy. Continue reading...

Fungi are vital to life on Earth but little studied – new species of mould were found on baby-carrier backpack and an oil paintingNew species of porcini, chanterelle and portobello mushrooms were among 2,000 new species of fungi discovered in 2017, which scientists say shows how little is known about the organisms.More than £30bn of edible fungi are sold each year, according to the State of the World’s Fungi report published on Wednesday by scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew in the UK. But the lifeforms are even more vital to plants – 90% rely on fungi to thrive – and many human medicines such as penicillin derive from fungi. Continue reading...

Smart trousers could dramatically change lives of people with mobility problemsSmart trousers with artificial muscles have the potential to improve the lives of people with mobility problems, say researchers.Inspired by the Wallace and Gromit clay animation The Wrong Trousers, the garb has been dubbed “the right trousers”. Continue reading...

Works featuring in this year’s Design Museum show tackle some of today’s biggest issuesFrom the first plastic-free shopping aisle to a library made from ice-cream containers and gender-fluid clothes, designers are coming up with increasingly innovative responses to today’s biggest issues, say the curators of the Beazley Designs of the Year awards.The Design Museum in London announced 87 nominees for the 11th annual exhibition and awards on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Do whole grains prevent diabetes? Is moderate drinking good or bad for you? Nutritional studies are more complex than you are told

John Glen given 2018 Lasker award for discovery of propofol, now used in 90 countries, enabling millions of surgical operations every yearA British veterinarian has won America’s top biomedical research prize for his discovery of a new way to knock people out. Continue reading...

Words matter. The spluttering over Chuku Umunna’s use of a common phrase shows what happens when we detach language from meaningIt is raining cats and dogs. Fat cats and aggressive dogs; filthy capitalists and canine lackeys on the left. There are dog whistles and righteously offended people who, when Chuka Umunna calls on Jeremy Corbyn to “call off the dogs”, point out that Labour members are not actual dogs. Who knew? On the right, Borisconi spews forth about suicide vests, offending people who have seen the results of suicide bombings in Helmand and Manchester.The great metaphor war of 2018 reeks of “sound and fury, signifying nothing”. It is terrifying. That language is now so untethered from meaning is a consequence of our crumbling polity. If we cannot agree that “call off the dogs” is a common idiom, then we are falling off a cliff into a void where language becomes inflexible. Continue reading...

Sergey Prokopyev posts video on social media of repaired leak to ‘dispel rumours’A cosmonaut showed off a hole in the International Space Station on Monday that caused loss of oxygen, after Russia suggested the leak could have been caused deliberately.Sergey Prokopyev posted a video on social media where he revealed the small sealed hole in the wall of a Russian-made Soyuz space capsule docked onto the ISS. Continue reading...