To doubt one’s every move as a doctor would compromise patient care but to never question it at all would be follyAfter many years of a firm and faithful association, the predictable has occurred. Her cancer has progressed, and she has gone from being a robust mother and devoted wife to a mere shadow of her former self, confined to her bed, in turn lamenting over and bewildered by how it has come to this. In hospital, my hand reaches out to her in sympathy and she clutches it as tears stream down her face. “Why, why, why?” The conclusions of scientific research whisper in my ears, “because it’s bad biology” but the consolation falls flat amid the visible devastation of illness. Our journey together has been difficult with the wins competing with the setbacks.Related: To treat or not to treat: find out what really matters to the patient | Ranjana Srivastava Continue reading...

Species which use the most energy in their daily lives die out quicker than less energetic animals, say evolutionary biologistsIt is the perfect comeback for those who are admonished for not pulling their weight. Never mind that work is piling up, being lazy is a winning evolutionary strategy that postpones the extinction of the species.That, at least, is one interpretation. Researchers who studied nearly 300 forms of mollusc that lived and died in the Atlantic over the past five million years found that a high metabolism predicted which species had gone the way of the dodo. Continue reading...

Patients in study had ‘exhausted all other options’ but new combination halted their cancer for an average of 5.8 monthsA new treatment for patients with advanced ovarian and lung cancer could give them months longer to spend with their loved ones, early trial results suggest.The combination of targeted drug vistusertib and paclitaxel chemotherapy stopped the growth of cancer for nearly six months and caused the tumours of some to shrink, according to the study published in Annals of Oncology. Continue reading...

Usually frozen waters open up twice this year in phenomenon scientists described as scaryThe oldest and thickest sea ice in the Arctic has started to break up, opening waters north of Greenland that are normally frozen, even in summer.This phenomenon – which has never been recorded before – has occurred twice this year due to warm winds and a climate-change driven heatwave in the northern hemisphere. Continue reading...

Calls grow for ban on fully autonomous weapons, following NGO coalition reportThe use of fully autonomous weapons in a theatre of war would breach international law, campaigners and experts say, as longstanding calls for a ban on “killer robots” intensify.These AI-powered guns, planes, ships and tanks could fight future wars without being subject to any human control, as high-tech nations step up investment in the weapons and inch towards full autonomy. Continue reading...

I found myself posting images of toned tummies. I was now complicit in an industry built on the exploitation of people’s insecuritiesIt was only seven months of my life, but a year on I still find myself unsettled by the experience of working for a plastic surgeon.We were a strange alliance from the outset – a midlife career change had left me with few employment options, and I’m certain my naturally lined face was not in keeping with his clinic’s aesthetic. But I had a background in digital marketing, and this plastic surgeon wanted in on the action online. Continue reading...

Large-scale cemetery in Africa points to shared workload without social hierarchyHerders in east Africa 5,000 years ago lived in peaceful communities that shunned social hierarchies, communicated intensively and worked together to build massive cemeteries, new research by archaeologists has revealed.

Patches of frost around moon’s north and south poles could provide a source of water for humans, say astronomersAstronomers have found patches of frost scattered around the moon’s north and south poles which could one day provide a source of water for human visitors.The scientists spotted the telltale signature of frozen water in infrared measurements taken by Nasa’s moon mineralogy mapper, an instrument that flew on India’s Chandrayaan-1 mission to the moon a decade ago. Continue reading...

The digital age will free us up not only for leisure activities but also to take on caring roles that can only be filled by humansSo we are doomed. Robots will steal our jobs. Algorithms will capture our children. Artificial intelligence will corrupt our free will. We are to be slaves to machines.The Bank of England economist Andy Haldane warns today that “large swathes” of current labour will disappear as AI takes over. For a man who lives and breathes statistics, large swathes is a poor percentage. These jeremiads attended the invention of computers, combine harvesters, spinning jennies and probably iron-age axes. But no one gets on the Today programme for predicting that AI might be good news. Continue reading...

Rising arctic temperatures mean we face a future of ‘extreme extremes’ where sunny days become heatwaves and rain becomes floods, study saysSummer weather patterns are increasingly likely to stall in Europe, North America and parts of Asia, according to a new climate study that explains why Arctic warming is making heatwaves elsewhere more persistent and dangerous.Rising temperatures in the Arctic have slowed the circulation of the jet stream and other giant planetary winds, says the paper, which means high and low pressure fronts are getting stuck and weather is less able to moderate itself. Continue reading...

The PM had seemed to recognise that you can’t have an energy policy without a plan to cut emissions. No longerA note to our prime minister: you can’t have an energy policy that assumes that climate change does not exist. By dumping the commitment to take emissions targets to the federal parliament the PM is signalling climate change is not real. This leaves the rest of us paying the price for another political capitulation on cleaning up our power sector.Some parts of the government don’t believe in climate change. Their ideological ties to the coal-based power systems built 40 to 50 years ago has scuttled every attempt to develop credible climate change energy policy over the past 10 years, leaving us where we are now. Continue reading...

The idea that lifestyle changes have made the disease more common is a gross exaggeration – but increasingly prevalent. We separate fact from fictionCancer is not up there with the most likely explanations for what caused the mass extinction 66m years ago of the T rex and the triceratops. That said, at least one species of dinosaur suffered from blood-vessel tumours – and a 1.7m-year-old toe with bone cancer was discovered in 2016 at a South African world heritage site.Cancer may have been more common in ancient times than we will ever know, because fossilisation will have obliterated most evidence of the disease. However, misinterpretations of some small studies and claims by self-styled wellness gurus that cancer is “a man-made disease” have fed the belief that cancer is modern. While that does not mean anyone concerned about cancer should visit their local natural history museum for information, thinking of cancer as a result of modern life causes unnecessary fear. Here are some modern myths about cancer. Continue reading...

The rapidly disintegrating ‘agreement’ to the Neg yet again sees the Coalition refusing to face up to the threat of climate changeHumanity has a big decision to make very soon about its future on warming planet, but the federal Coalition is still in denial that human-induced climate change even exists, let alone that the climate end-game is upon us.The national energy guarantee (Neg) is the latest manifestation of that denial. A third-rate complex, over-engineered policy that will most likely fail to contribute to meeting all three of its main objectives, namely increased reliability of electricity supply, lower energy prices and a long way third, reducing carbon emissions. A compromise upon compromise designed to placate the scientifically and economically-illiterate Coalition rightwing, which ignores the first priority of any government, to ensure the security of the people. For climate change is now the greatest threat to that security. Continue reading...

Research finds vitamin D deficiency was a widespread phenomenon 2,000 years agoRickets is mostly seen as a 19th-century disease, but research has revealed that the Romans also had a big problem with getting enough vitamin D.Researchers from Historic England and McMaster University in Canada examined 2,787 skeletons from 18 cemeteries across the Roman empire and discovered that rickets was a widespread phenomenon 2,000 years ago. Continue reading...

Find both Saturn and the moon above the “teapot”, the most familiar asterism in the the constellation of the ArcherThis Tuesday, keep an eye open for a nice conjunction of Saturn and the moon. They will be visible in the southern sky as twilight turns into night. Saturn was at its closest approach to the earth in June but remains a bright yellowish light in the sky. It is located in the constellation of Sagittarius, just above the topmost star of the so-called “teapot”. This grouping of stars, called an asterism, contains the central stars of the full constellation and resembles – you guessed it – a teapot. The chart shows the view looking south for 21:00BST on 21 August 2018. The moon will be in a waxing gibbous phase, heading towards full. This maximum illumination will take place on Sunday. Because of its proximity, the moon is the only celestial object whose features can be seen with the unaided eye. The most prominent features are the lunar maria or “seas”. These are the dark patches on the moon. Not water – the seas are in fact basaltic plains that cover just over one-third of the Moon’s surface. They are solidified lava and are immensely old, having formed around 3–3.5 billion years ago. Continue reading...

Report predicting spiralling global temperatures has been downloaded 270,000 times in just a few daysThe scorching temperatures and forest fires of this summer’s heatwave have finally stirred the world to face the onrushing threat of global warming, claims the climate scientist behind the recent “hothouse Earth” report.Following an unprecedented 270,000 downloads of his study, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, said he had not seen such a surge of interest since 2007, the year the Nobel prize was awarded to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Continue reading...

Whatever Tim Peake thinks, human bodies are so flawed we’re lucky to be here at allTake a look in the mirror and examine your eyes. Are they blurry? Bloodshot from last night’s alcoholic excess? Or perhaps they remain clear, bright and healthy? Whatever their state, our optic organs can tell us a great deal – not just about our wellbeing but about the nature of our species and our place in the universe. Are we the product of billions of years of evolution or the handiwork of a divine creator? The eyes have it when we seek answers, it transpires.Such issues are again making headlines following last week’s remarks by the astronaut Tim Peake, who said he thought the universe could be the result of divine creation. “I’m not religious [but] it doesn’t necessarily mean that I don’t seriously consider that the universe could have been created from intelligent design,” he said. Continue reading...

After being told disease would destroy her vision, Paola Peretti wrote a children’s novel – and found a template for lifePaola Peretti is losing her eyesight and she wouldn’t have it any other way. When she was 14, she became very short-sighted, virtually overnight. Three years later came the diagnosis of Stargardt macular dystrophy, a degenerative disease that destroys central vision, damages colour perception and results in blindness. Two years ago, finding herself in a place of both “desperation and hope,” the 32-year-old Italian language teacher and debut novelist decided to step out from the shadow of her hereditary condition, which she only ever aired with her family, and confront her fear of the dark.The Distance Between Me and the Cherry Tree is the result: a captivating, wise and highly visual children’s novel about living in the face of fear. Its heroine, nine-year-old Mafalda, also has Stargardt disease. A bewitching, brave little girl, she will lose her sight completely within six months, as Peretti was expecting to do at some unspecified point in her own life when she began the novel. Continue reading...

Continued emissions could reach a tipping point that will drive the planet into an irreversible, self-reinforcing hothouse stateAchieving “cut through” is a nightmare for climate change science. It’s notoriously hard to get the mainstream engaged by changes in the concentration of an atmospheric gas, even if they’re life-or-death matters. So hats off to the crack team of Earth scientists, led by climate change professor Will Steffen, whose peer-reviewed report on how emissions are driving the Earth into an irreversible hothouse state has been downloaded more than 270,000 times to date.Wow. Academics are on holiday, so this means that people are probably reading this stuff on the beach. At this rate, the report could make the Altmetric Top 100. This is the list of the most discussed journal articles of the year and is usually dominated by research on grabby subjects such as the possibility of life on other planets, but definitely not emissions-generated feedback loops. Until now. Continue reading...

The key to feeling cheerful lies not in our inner wellbeing but in the world around usYour work gives me a feeling of joy,” one of the professors said. The others nodded. I should have been happy. Nine months before, I had left my career as a brand strategist to pursue a graduate degree in a field in which I had no experience: industrial design. Many times over the course of the year I had felt overwhelmed by the new skills I needed to learn, from drawing to colour-mixing to woodworking. But today I had passed the assessment, and I did feel relieved to know that my career shift hadn’t been a giant mistake.And yet, as I looked at those nodding faces, my heart sank in my chest. I wanted to be a designer because I believed design could solve serious problems. I volunteered with a non-profit organisation designing low-cost reflective backpacks to prevent roadside injury among schoolchildren in Ghana. Late at night, I pored over books on renewable materials and environmentally friendly manufacturing strategies. I had hoped the professors would see in my work a commitment to using design to build a safer, fairer, more sustainable world. Instead, they saw joy. Continue reading...

From the Voyager mission to detecting the merging of black holes over a billion years ago, an argument for the pleasures of theoretical thinkingA physicist friend of mine once had a terrible spate of misfortune. Her flat was burgled, her cat was run over, and her grandfather died, all in the same week. Needing a bit of TLC, she went to see her professor, who offered three words of advice: “Do some physics.” For most people who are in need of consolation, I suspect physics is among the last things they would consider. Tim Radford, a former Guardian science editor, wants to persuade them that the branch of science so many people find soulless and intimating can offer much spiritual balm. He makes his case in what he calls a “love letter to physics”.Radford is a much-admired journalist: graceful, witty and adept at squeezing human interest from the driest maths. I remember once hearing him declare on stage that the public are most interested in science that’s “either exceptionally useful or totally useless”. He focuses on the latter in this book, an appreciative survey of the vast canvas on which physicists do their creative work – the entire observable universe, from the beginning of time to its end (assuming there is one). Continue reading...

A physics PhD’s experience of a week at the largest science meeting in Europe.When I received an email last December stating that the EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF) was now accepting poster abstracts from early career researchers, I had no idea what EuroScience was nor what an ‘open forum’ was all about. Since it was described as a “great opportunity to network with scientists in research and business and raise your profile” I decided to investigate. Buzzwords like ‘networking’ make my hair stand on end – so much so that I have issued *trigger warnings below - but I also realise it is an inevitable path to walk for a young scientist like me, on the brink of finishing my PhD in physics and looking for my next job.Related: Life, Physics and Everything Continue reading...

Exhibition on how the sun has influenced humans to include a Carter White House solar panel Continue reading...

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...

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...

Genome able to be used to produce hardier wheat varieties as greater food security needed

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...

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...

Scorching summer reveals hidden sites, including neolithic monuments

Ancient farms, burial mounds and neolithic monuments among fascinating finds in Britain and Ireland

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...

Thérèse Coffey’s ill-judged tweet shows we have still work to do to rid the planet of the glyphosateOn a summer Sunday afternoon, Thérèse Coffey, parliamentary-under secretary of state at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), was, it would appear from her Twitter feed, about to do some gardening. Unremarkable, you might think. Parliament is in recess, and parliamentarians are entitled to their leisure like anyone else.But this was political gardening, for before doing so she put out a quite remarkable message: “Getting ready to deploy the amazing Roundup!” it said, with a picture of the bright green bottle of a weedkiller by Monsanto – a multinational company with a toxic reputation (as even Bayer, which has recently taken it over, acknowledges). The tweet came just hours after a US jury gave a terminally ill retired groundskeeper $289m in damages for his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which it attributed to glyphosate – the active chemical in Roundup. 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 “grief”. 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...