Exclusive: former Time Team presenter and anthropologist Alice Roberts says we ‘overegg the uniqueness of humans compared with other animals’Who are we? It’s a fundamental question that has nagged at thinkers as diverse as Descartes, Aristotle and Simone de Beauvoir, and the conundrum is set to take centre stage this Christmas at Britain’s most prestigious public science lectures.Alice Roberts, physical anthropologist and professor of public engagement in science at the University of Birmingham, will unpick our story, from how humans evolved to how gene editing is putting our fate into our own hands. She will join an illustrious list of Royal Institution lecturers including Michael Faraday, David Attenborough and Sophie Scott. Continue reading...
Spectral pleasure gardens and the ancient routes of hunter-gatherers are only some of the forgotten gems coming to lightWe buckle in, the engine roars to life, and we begin creeping across the airfield; wings wobble alarmingly with acceleration, then that stomach-dropping lurch pulls us away from the ground. Rising skywards, nervousness distils to anticipation for the priceless views of the great Clun-Clee ridgeway in south-west Shropshire. It’s 2003, deep in AE Housman country and my first experience of aerial archaeology. My undergraduate dissertation was exploring the meagre record for the last prehistoric hunter-gatherers of the region, and I wanted to see the lie of the land. Flying over swelling hills I’d pored over in cartographic form and trudged across on foot was exhilarating, even though we didn’t discover any new sites that year.If we’d gone up this summer, it might have been a different story. Right across the country, hundreds of archaeological sites are literally transpiring from the soil, as grass and crops become desiccated after months without rain. Deeper soils hold on to moisture longer, so plants growing over buried features such as ditches, walls or even old flowerbeds will dry out at different rates. Archaeologists have quietly spent decades developing a whole gamut of “remote-sensing†methods that allow us to visualise the skin-thin layer of sediments covering Britain’s bedrock. Its wrinkles and lumps contain our deep history written across fields, meadows and hills. Continue reading...
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore’s studies of the adolescent brain have won her awards. So when she says GCSEs are damaging to teens’ health, perhaps we should listenAnnual media coverage of August’s exam results has traditionally conformed to an unwritten rule that all photos must show euphoric teenagers celebrating multiple A*s. This year, the images may tell a different story. Radical reforms to GCSEs are widely predicted to produce disappointment, and many teenagers are bracing themselves for the worst.Parents may be unsympathetic, however, if their 15- or 16-year-old spent the exam year ignoring all their wise advice to revise, and instead lay in bed until lunchtime and partied all night with friends. Even if the exam results turn out to be good, many will wonder why their teenager took so many risks with their future. Continue reading...
Nazneen Rahman resigned from post before disciplinary action could be takenOne of Britain’s leading cancer scientists has had £3.5m in grant money revoked after allegations of bullying by 45 current and former colleagues.
Government urged to rethink ban on vaping in public places and reduce taxesThe government is missing an important opportunity to cut deaths from smoking, says a committee of MPs who are calling for a cut in the tax on e-cigarettes. They are also urging the government to allow more advertising and to rethink the ban on vaping on buses, trains and in other public places.A hard-hitting report from the all-party select committee on science and technology says the risk to smokers who continue with their habit far outweighs the uncertainty around the possible harms of vaping. Public Health England has said e-cigarettes are 95% safer than smoking. Continue reading...
by Produced and presented by Graihagh Jackson on (#3WZD3)
Heatwaves have ravaged much of the northern hemisphere, causing wildfires, destruction and death. Some are blaming heat stress for an increase in chronic kidney disease in Central America. Graihagh Jackson investigates the causes and health effects of heatwavesSubscribe and review on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom and Mixcloud. Join the discussion on Facebook and TwitterHeatwaves have hit many parts of the northern hemisphere this summer, ravaging landscapes and causing death and destruction in their wake. Wildfires have broken out in the Arctic Circle, as well as in California, Sweden and Greece. People are dying from the heat in Japan, where temperatures have risen to over 40C (104F). Continue reading...
Eating a moderate amount of carbohydrates best for healthy lifespan, say researchersEating either a low-carb diet or a high-carb diet raises the risk of an early death, according to a major new study which will dismay the many people who have ditched the likes of bread, rice and potatoes for weight loss or health reasons.Related: Moderation in all things – so don’t ditch the biscuits just yet | Julian Baggini Continue reading...
Pregnant women are incubating something that could prove hugely valuable to modern medicine and the global economy – and 99% of the time it’s being thrown away
With the Science Blog Network closing, Mark Carnall reflects on his contributions to the Guardian’s Lost Worlds RevisitedAt the end of August, the Guardian Science Blog Network closes down. Taking a leaf from fellow Guardian science bloggers Jon Butterworth and Dean Burnett, consider this blog a wrap up of my short time writing with the Lost Worlds Revisited team. You know, like one of those filler episodes of sitcoms made up of clips from older episodes.Alongside fellow Lost Worlders, Elsa Panciroli, Susannah Lydon and Hanneke Meijer I formally joined Dave Hone in February 2016, after answering a call for contributing writers and submitting an ‘audition piece’. Impressively, until then Dave had been single-handedly holding it down on Lost Worlds and one constant challenge throughout my time writing for the blog was to steer around topics Dave had already exhaustively covered. Continue reading...
Anglo-Saxon capitalism’s drive to maximise profits in the short term won’t save the planet. Perhaps the Chinese model can?This summer’s heatwave has provided a glimpse of the future, and it is not a pretty one. On current trends, the years to come will see rising temperatures, droughts, a fight to feed a growing population, and a race against time to reduce dependency on fossil fuels.The struggle to combat climate change brings out the best and worst of capitalism. Decarbonisation of the economy requires alternatives for coal and cars that run on diesel, and that plays to capitalism’s strengths. Innovation is what capitalism is all about, and there has been staggeringly rapid progress in developing clean alternatives to coal, oil and gas. The cost of producing solar- and wind-powered electricity has collapsed. Great advances are also being made in battery technology, which is vital for the new generation of electricity-powered vehicles. Humans are endlessly creative. In the end, they will crack climate change. Continue reading...
NSW oysters are shrinking and fewer in number, and academics fear the cause is climate changeThe famous Sydney rock oyster is shrinking as oceans become more acidic, new research has found.In news that will rock seafood lovers, a study released overnight by academics in the UK found oysters in New South Wales have become smaller and fewer in number because of coastal acidification. Continue reading...
Between 1982 and 2016, the number of ‘marine heatwaves’ doubled, and likely will become more common and intense as the planet warms, study findsEven the oceans are breaking temperature records in this summer of heatwaves. Off the California coast near San Diego, scientists in early August recorded all-time high seawater temperatures since daily measurements began in 1916.“Just like we have heatwaves on land, we also have heatwaves in the ocean,†said Art Miller of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Continue reading...
by Hannah Devlin Science correspondent on (#3WW0K)
The temperature on Kelt-9b is 4,000C and its atmosphere contains iron and titanium vapours, say astronomersNew observations of the hottest known planet have revealed temperatures similar to those typically seen at the surface of a star, as well as an atmosphere of vaporised iron and titanium.The findings add to the diverse and, in some cases, extreme conditions seen on planets far beyond our own solar system. Continue reading...
If successful, India would be fourth country to conduct manned space missionIndia will send an astronaut into space by 2022, the country’s prime minister has claimed during an annual independence day speech.Narendra Modi announced the target from the ramparts of the 370-year-old Red Fort in Delhi on Wednesday morning. “We have decided that by 2022, when India completes 75 years of independence, or before that, a son or daughter of India will go to space with a tricolour [Indian flag] in their hands,†he said. Continue reading...
No more ‘speak when you’re spoken to’. Science shows discussions boost kids’ brain power – even if they talk nonsenseThe Journal of Neuroscience has published a study revealing the benefit of allowing children to discuss things with adults. MRI images of 40 children between the ages of four and six showed greater development of white matter linking Wernicke’s area and Broca’s area – the parts of the brain responsible for language comprehension and production – in those who had engaged in more back-and-forth conversations with adults.Effectively, and this is a slight generalisation, the study suggests that kids do better if you actually talk to them. It’s one of those moments where common sense tends to collide into full-blown dread. Continue reading...
Researchers are encouraged to embrace the media to communicate their science. But are the sexy headlines at the expense of telling stories of real significance?Recently, I got into a heated discussion with a colleague who felt I’d written about a fossil discovery that was not worthy of attention. They believed the author was only interested in self-promotion and the fossil was of no scientific importance. My reasons for covering it were simple: I thought it was a story the public would find interesting, and more importantly it provided an opportunity to broaden out the subject for readers.In my colleague’s opinion, however, these were the wrong reasons. They explained the story was not worthy of attention, no matter what the public thought. It is up to us as scientists to tell the public what they should find interesting.
Australian researchers examine whether plants can be grown with characteristics of man-made materialsThe dream of a cotton shirt that does not need ironing could one day materialise into a reality, with CSIRO scientists on the case.Related: How to run a race: emotions may be more crucial than training says study Continue reading...
Planning go-ahead for Coul Links development, Sutherland, ‘threatens unique habitat and last stronghold for wild plants’One of the last unspoilt coastal dunes in Scotland is under threat from plans for a championship golf course, which the developers say will be environmentally friendly. Coul Links, near Embo, Sutherland, north-east Scotland, is considered very special – a complete, undisturbed dune system, on a stunning coastline, that has a unique mosaic of habitats. The dunes are internationally recognised and a legally protected conservation area.Related: Highland fury as Trump rival drives golf course plan forward Continue reading...
Morris Traveller in the Alps | What’s the point of Sats? | DNA ancestry tests | A dog called Trevor | Lolly sticksIn the early 60s, I drove a Morris Traveller (Letters, passim) laden with three friends and a month’s worth of camping gear to Yugoslavia. We stalled on a 1:2.5 gradient up the Julian Alps from Villach in Austria to the border. We set about unloading all my passengers and possibly the luggage with a view to them humping everything to the pass. Fortunately, an Austrian army jeep came swooping down, swung round and threw out a tow rope, and dragged us up to the top. Angels! We then rolled down cheerfully into Slovenia.
Competition aims to encourage a ‘more diverse view of what research and health means’A new international photography prize for pictures that tell stories about health, medicine and science has been launched by the charitable foundation Wellcome.
Cyclical natural phenomena that affect planet’s climate will amplify effect of manmade global warming, scientists warnThe world is likely to see more extreme temperatures in the coming four years as natural warming reinforces manmade climate change, according to a new global forecasting system.Following a summer of heatwaves and forest fires in the northern hemisphere, the study in the journal Nature Communications suggests there will be little respite for the planet until at least 2022, and possibly not even then.
The Perseid meteor shower has been spotted across Europe, the US and Canada. Darker skies have created a spectacular show. The annual occurrence can be seen until the 24 August, but peaked on 11-13 August Continue reading...
When we interpret animal behaviour as humanlike, we risk simply seeing ourselves – which demeans us and themAnd so, the killer whale known as J35 is back to her old self. She is no longer carrying the dead body of a calf she held aloft in the water for more than two weeks. Her so-called tour of grief has ended, to the relief of a global audience who had become wrapped up in this heart-wrenching animal drama. Great news, right? Sure. Yet I have a strange feeling in my stomach. It’s a familiar one. The pedant in me is stirring, eager to get us to consider what we know about animals and what we don’t – and may never – know about their lives. It isn’t my aim to belittle J35 and her apparent pain, far from it. It’s rather to make sure we don’t accidentally dilute the emotions of a killer whale by making it all about us.First, I have form on this issue. A while ago, I published a book called Death on Earth and episodes of apparent animal grief was one of the areas upon which I focused. During my research, I drew up a list of all sorts of anecdotes about animals labelled (by respectable researchers) as evidence of “mourning†and “griefâ€. These included police dogs pawing at their master’s coffins, macaques resuscitating fallen loved ones and turtles appearing on beaches to mourn at makeshift graves made by humans for the turtles that didn’t make it. I was told by members of the public on Twitter about dogs going off food after losing kennel-mates and horses burying dead stablemates in hay and I was reminded regularly of those BBC documentaries featuring elephants in apparent (but I would argue edited) tears at the loss of a loved one. Continue reading...
Calls for rethink on childbirth pain relief as research shows remifentanil works better than pethidineA new drug to relieve pain during labour works better than pethidine, which has been in widespread use since the 1950s even though it has long been known it does not help all women, say researchers.Pethidine is given as an injection, but a new study funded by the National Institute for Health Research shows that remifentanil, which women control by pressing a button when they feel pain, appears to be more effective. Women using remifentanil were half as likely to end up asking for an epidural, which blocks all pain and sensation and often leads to a forceps delivery. Continue reading...
The solution to today’s puzzleUpdate: Several readers spotted a mistake in the setting of the puzzle. Apologies. (Prem, who set the puzzle, responds below the line). This is the first time in more than three years that I’ve set a puzzle with such an issue. In order to stop this happening again, if anyone would like to be a ‘puzzle-tester’ for this blog please get in touch with me on the email address below.In my puzzle blog earlier today, I set you the following “common knowledge†puzzle: Continue reading...
When the Guardian’s science blog network closes, Life & Physics will have been here for eight years. Physics has come a long way in that time, but there is (as always) more to be done...On 31 August 2010 the “Life and Physics†blog moved here, to the Guardian Science pages from a newish blog on wordpress. Exactly eight years later¹, at the end of this month, it will move back, as the Guardian closes its Science Blog Network. Following the lead of my fellow blogger Dean Burnett, here is a closing review, complete with a Douglas Adams inspired headline².Related: So long and thanks for all the clicks | Dean Burnett Continue reading...
A logic puzzle about knowledgeUpdate: Several readers spotted a mistake in the setting of the puzzle. Apologies. (Prem, who set the puzzle, responds below the line). This is the first time in more than three years that I’ve set a puzzle with such an issue. In order to stop this happening again, if anyone would like to be a ‘puzzle-tester’ for this blog please get in touch with me on the email address below.Hi guzzlers Continue reading...
Solipsistic novels, a study of narcissism, a biography of a Michelin starred chef ... here are some of the best, from Dostoevsky to Karl Ove KnausgaardA level of self-absorption is a necessity for most writers. Every novel is ultimately about its author, and I like my non-fiction self-obsessed, too. Then there are the works that combine the two.Norwegian author Karl Ove Knausgaard specialises in semi-fictional self-obsession. A Death in the Family, translated by Don Bartlett, charts a period of his life centring around his alcoholic father’s death. Knausgaard has a spectacular gift for finding profundity in the mundane details of his existence. In other books, his fascination with himself can sometimes become too much, but the balance between intimate detail and story is pretty much perfect here. Continue reading...
Britain is right to take a more cautious approach than the US, but we should be prepared to fund a range of treatmentsImagine a neurological condition that affects one in 20 under-18s. It starts early, causes significant distress and pain to the child, damages families and limits the chances of leading a fulfilled life as an adult. One in 20 children are affected but only half of these will get a diagnosis and a fifth will receive treatment. If those stats related to a familiar and well-understood illness, such as asthma, there would be little debate about the need to improve intervention rates. But this is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and the outcry is muted. If anything, we hear warnings that too many children are being labelled this way, and too many given prescriptions.In the United States, ADHD is diagnosed at more than twice the incidence in Britain. The true prevalence is likely to be the same on both sides of the Atlantic. So what’s the story? Is the US too gung-ho, or is the UK dragging its heels? Are American doctors too quick to medicate children, or British doctors too slow? Continue reading...
The giant planet appears close to the moon on Friday in the constellation of Libra, where you might also see Libra’s alpha star ZubenelgenubiThere is a pretty pairing of celestial objects to be seen this Friday at sunset. The Moon will draw close to the bright planet Jupiter. The chart shows the view on 17 August, looking south-west at 21:00 BST. Giant Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun, and the first of the gas giants. It is around twelve times the diameter of the Earth and has a dense atmosphere, with storms as large as our entire planet. The Moon will be one day away from first quarter, and so half will appear to be illuminated. In another week’s time, the Moon will be nearing full. The conjunction happens in the faint constellation of Libra. If you keep watching that evening for another hour, you will see that Jupiter approaches the horizon and the sky gets noticeably darker. Those with a clear horizon may also be able to spot Zubenelgenubi, one of the brightest stars in Libra. Jupiter will be close to it that evening but much brighter. The star’s name means “southern claw†in Arabic, and indicates that it was once thought to be part of the neighbouring constellation Scorpius, rather than in Libra. Continue reading...
Researchers say patients are scared into invasive treatments for conditions unlikely to do harmThe word “cancer†should be dropped from some medical diagnoses because the term can scare people into invasive treatments they do not need, Australian and US researchers say.An analysis published by the British Medical Journal on Monday described “cancer†as particularly problematic when used to describe some thyroid cancers less than 1cm in size, some low and intermediate grade breast cancers, and localised prostate cancer. Continue reading...
Panama hats | Denis Healey | Lilith | Parker Solar Probe | A cat called MavisSam Wolfson’s article on summer hats for men (G2, 9 August) curiously makes no mention of the obvious solution for those going thin on top: the Panama. It is dateless, comes in a range of styles and prices, copes with occasions from garden parties to weeding the allotment, keeps your head cool and shades your eyes from the sun. (The Eyewitness photo in the same Guardian shows that Kim Jong-un agrees with me.)
By studying frogs’ eggs, researchers have measured the rate at which cells kill themselves off for an organism’s greater goodName: The speed of death.Age: Not sure that is entirely relevant. Continue reading...
Nasa has launched a probe that will get closer to the sun than any other spacecraft before it.The Parker solar probe, a robotic spacecraft the size of a small car, launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Sunday, embarking on a seven-year mission during which it will fly into the sun's corona – the outermost part of its atmosphere – within 3.8m miles (6.1m km) of its surface.Scientists are aiming to collect data about the inner workings of the highly magnetised corona, to better understand the causes of solar wind.The launch had been delayed by a last-minute technical problem on Saturday
Probe launches after technical delay, on mission to get nearer to sun than anything sent beforeA Nasa spacecraft is rocketing towards the sun on a quest to get closer to our star than anything ever sent before.The Parker solar probe will fly straight through the wispy edges of the corona, or outer solar atmosphere, which was visible during last August’s total solar eclipse. It eventually will get within 3.8m miles (6.1m km) of the sun’s surface, staying comfortably cool despite the extreme heat and radiation, allowing scientists to explore the sun in a way never before possible. Continue reading...
Before I nearly died I suffered from acute anxiety – but there’s been no sign of it sinceA few weeks ago, the TV and radio presenter Richard Bacon was in the news for having spent seven days in an induced coma in Lewisham Hospital in south London after becoming ill with a lung infection on a flight from Los Angeles. Doctors told him afterwards that he had nearly died. My first reaction to this was: how dreadful for him and his family. My second reaction, more or less on top of the first, was: seven days? That’s nothing.In 2012, I spent three weeks in an induced coma at King’s College Hospital, a few miles down the road from Lewisham, and 51 days in intensive care overall. Often, when I tell people I had pneumonia they are shocked and ask how I caught it. In fact, pneumonia is relatively common and, although still dangerous for the elderly or anyone with a compromised immune system, is usually easily treated with antibiotics. In my case, it was not so straightforward. Like Bacon, for a time I was close to death. At one point one of the consultants told my family I was “the sickest man in Londonâ€. Continue reading...
The science writer and Yale professor on intelligence, the promise and dangers of gene editing, and how we get heredity wrongCarl Zimmer is a rarity among professional science writers in being influential among the scientists on whose work he writes and comments – to the extent that he has been appointed as professor adjunct in the department of molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale University. Zimmer has just published his 13th book, She Has Her Mother’s Laugh, a survey of “the power, perversions and potential of heredityâ€.What is the book’s main message about our attitudes to heredity?
Technical hitch strikes with less than two minutes remaining on countdown at Cape CanaveralAs the first rays of dawn reached Cape Canaveral on Saturday, the rocket that Nasa hopes will reveal the sun’s secrets remained very much earthbound.A last-minute technical hitch forced controllers at the Florida space centre to cancel the night-time launch of the Parker Solar Probe, announcing that they would try again on Sunday. Continue reading...
With Inferior, Angela Saini counters long-held beliefs that biology stands in the way of parity between the sexes. Now her message is set to reach thousands of schoolsWhen young men and women come up against sexist stereotypes masquerading as science, Angela Saini wants them to be armed with the facts. “I call my book ammunition,†she says of her 288-page prize-winning work Inferior: The True Power of Women and the Science that Shows It. “There are people out there who insist that somehow the inequalities we see in society are not just because of historic discrimination, but also because of biology – the idea that there are factors within us that will cause men or women to be better at some things than others.â€She wrote Inferior to demonstrate that “actually, science doesn’t support that point of view. I think it’s important we understand these scientific facts. We need that ammunition to counter the weird mistruths that are circulating within and outside science about sex differenceâ€. Continue reading...
Dubious results, emotional fallout, privacy concerns: inside the £7.7bn industry that promises to tell you who you really areLast year, I did what 12 million people from all over the world have done and surrendered my spit to a home DNA-testing company. I hoped a MyHeritage test would bring me the peace I needed; my Irish mother had never been able to give me any information about my biological father. Raised by her and my white dad, I’d always longed for a country to attribute my blackness to, or for help answering the ubiquitous “Where are you from?†question. I’d spent years making up exotic-sounding combinations to justify my appearance (some days Jamaican-Spanish-Swedish; other days half Brazilian, or half Iranian). But, at 24, I was done with occupying a box of black ambiguity. Could I finally get a clear answer?The results arrived by email on a summer’s day last year. I clicked on the “ethnicity estimate†link, which offers an analysis of DNA by country, my heart pounding as I scanned the digital map. Continue reading...
Clinical malaria cases in Burkina Faso drop by 12% after trial of nets treated with new chemical combinationA bed net designed to kill insecticide-resistant mosquitoes could prevent millions of cases of malaria across sub-Saharan Africa, scientists have found.A two-year clinical trial in Burkina Faso showed that dousing bed nets with a combination of chemicals resulted in a 12% reduction in clinical malaria cases, compared with conventional bed nets. Continue reading...
Mike Pence announced on Thursday a new military branch dedicated to fighting wars in space – but what is Space Force?In a speech Thursday, the vice-president, Mike Pence, outlined plans to create Space Force, billed as a brand new branch of the US military dedicated to fighting wars in space. The idea has prompted plenty of enthusiasm from Star Wars fans and serious defense wonks alike, but also plenty of head-scratching from critics who question the need for the United States to shift the battlefield to the heavens.Related: Space Force: Mike Pence launches plans for sixth military service Continue reading...