Scientists studying corn seedlings believe that they send signals under the soil, advising each other of the proximity of other plantsPlants use their roots to “listen in” on their neighbours, according to research that adds to evidence that plants have their own unique forms of communication.The study found that plants in a crowded environment secrete chemicals into the soil that prompt their neighbours to grow more aggressively, presumably to avoid being left in the shade. Continue reading...

Scientists have reconstructed the skull of an Ichthyornis dispar, a very early bird species that still had the sharp teeth of a dinosaurIt was one of the fossils Darwin hailed as evidence of evolution. Now scientists have unveiled four skulls of an ancient toothed seabird in a study experts say reveals the face of early birds.Thought to have lived between 66 and 100m years ago the gull-like bird, known as Ichthyornis dispar, was first written about in the 19th century by American palaeontologist Othniel Marsh after fossil remains were unearthed in the US.

Shortly before he died the eminent physicist completed his final theory of the cosmos, and it’s simpler than we thoughtReality may be made up of multiple universes, but each one may not be so different to our own, according to Stephen Hawking’s final theory of the cosmos.The work, completed only weeks before the physicist’s death in March, paints a simpler picture of the past 13.8 billion years than many previous theories have proposed.

Carmen Tarleton was so badly beaten and burned by her ex-husband that she needed 38 operations and a face transplant. Yet she found a path back to happiness. What helps her – and others like her – retain their essential optimism?On 10 June 2007, Carmen Tarleton, then 38, was at home with her young daughters in Thetford, Vermont in the US, when her estranged husband broke into the house. Herbert Rogers was looking for a man he supposed she was seeing, but finding no man there, he attacked Carmen. “I just lost it,” he told police later. He beat Carmen with a baseball bat so violently that he broke her arm and eye socket. Then he doused her in industrial-strength lye – a sodium hydroxide solution used in cleaning. One ear, her eyelids and much of her face was burned away. She suffered burns on 80% of her body.I met Bohdan Pomohač, one of her surgeons, at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “In terms of injuries inflicted by another human being, it’s certainly one of the worst I’ve ever seen,” he told me. Her face was almost completely destroyed; her family were able to recognise it was Carmen only by her teeth. Continue reading...

As curator of the Geological Museum in London in the 1970s and 80s, Fred Dunning, who has died aged 89, was responsible for moving that institution away from orderly display cases of rocks, minerals and fossils and towards something much more engaging.Fred became curator of the museum in 1970 and immediately showed that he was eager to share the magic and mystery of geology not just with existing museum-goers but with a whole new audience. He wanted to make geological research accessible to visitors by using eye-catching displays, and so appointed the designer James Gardner to help him in his mission. Continue reading...

Michael Marshall attended the UK’s annual gathering of people who share the unshakeable belief that the Earth is flatThere was the three-hour presentation which contended that the universe is a giant egg. There was the Manchester musician who posited that the Earth is the shape of a diamond. And another who believes that the moon is a projection.Welcome to the Flat Earth UK Convention, a raucous departure from scientific norms where people are free to believe literally anything. Continue reading...

We all recognise the names of some time periods such as Jurassic or Devonian - but how many us of actually understand how geologists divide up the earth’s past?I’m sure you all remember where you were when you found out that the statistical correlation of magneto-biostratigraphic calcareous nannofossils with M-sequence magnetic anomalies approximated new boundaries for Tethyan Kimmeridgian of Sardinia (Muttoni et al. 2018). I was on my laptop at the time.I’ll confess, I struggle to even begin to understand what this new paper is about, beyond the broad principle that a chunk of the rock record as it relates to geological time is being slightly tweaked. Continue reading...

The idea that intelligence can differ between populations has made headlines again, but the rules of evolution make it implausibleThe idea that there may be genetic differences in intelligence between one population and another has resurfaced recently, notably in the form of a New York Times op-ed by the Harvard geneticist David Reich. In the article, Reich emphasises the arbitrary nature of traditional racial groupings, but still argues that long periods of ancestry on separate continents have left their genetic marks on modern populations. These are most evident for physical traits like skin and hair colour, where genetic causation is entirely uncontroversial. However, Reich asserts that all genetic traits, including those that affect behaviour and cognition, are expected to differ between populations or races.

Research suggests MDMA could reduce symptoms when combined with talking therapiesMDMA, the main ingredient of the party drug ecstasy, could help reduce symptoms among those living with post-traumatic stress disorder, research suggests.Post-traumatic stress disorder is commonly treated with drugs, psychotherapies or both. However, some find little benefit, with certain talking therapies linked to high dropout rates. Continue reading...

Philip Nitschke says Perth doctors believe Goodall ‘a danger to himself and not fit to travel’• Sign up to receive the top stories every morning

German scientists propose using basalt and dunite to soak up carbon from the atmosphereThey might seem solid, but rocks gradually erode. Wind, rain, ice and snow all contribute to weathering; nibbling away at mountains, sea cliffs, limestone pavements and even solid granite tors.Freshly exposed rock surfaces react with carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to make bicarbonate ions, which flow down to the ocean (hitching a ride on rivulets of rainwater) and are used by ocean critters to make limestone. This natural process helps to keep the Earth cool by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and locking it up in rocks underground for a few million years. Continue reading...

The sum is part of a £25m boost in funding by Cancer Research UK for brain cancer over the next five yearsBrain tumour research is to get an £18 million injection of funding to aid projects ranging from exploring how such cancers begin to developing new ways to treat them.More than 250,000 people worldwide, including 11,400 people in the UK alone, are diagnosed with a brain tumour every year and often the prognosis is bleak. According to Cancer Research UK figures, just 14% of those diagnosed survive for 10 years or more, while less than 1% of brain tumours are preventable.

Amazon employees sit in silence – while Tesla boss Elon Musk advocates walking out if you aren’t adding value. But how can you stop wasting your life in pointless meetings? Here’s an expert guideSome human inventions flash into being, get a little polish and then are pretty much left alone, their users generally satisfied, or at least not so dissatisfied that they attempt to come up with an alternative. No one tries to build a better hankie, a more comforting cuddle or a dinner plate “that really works”. Yet the search for the perfect business meeting seems never-ending. The caravan instead of the boardroom, the rubber chicken that bestows the right to speak: you name it, it has been tried and generally found to suck. Now Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon, has had a go, creating what he calls “the weirdest meeting culture you will ever encounter”.Weird? Maybe, though other words that spring to mind include “anal” and “stultifying”. As Bezos told the audience at the George W Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, he has banned the PowerPoint presentations that dominate most commercial meetings. Instead, some poor devil must spend a week or more preparing “a six-page, narratively structured memo” full of “real sentences” rather than bullet points. Everyone else must then spend the first half-hour of the meeting silently – and publicly – pondering it, before moving on to a debate. Bezos calls this “a kind of study hall”. Continue reading...

The new home secretary was the latest politician to strike a power pose on Monday. But what does the science say about this odd stance?Standing like Wonder Woman doesn’t get you any actual superpowers, but various members of the British government are doing it anyway. The latest politician to join the ranks of the power stance team is Sajid Javid, whose promotion to home secretary was accompanied by a photo call in which he stood with his legs so far apart he practically reinvented manspreading. His colleagues have also been pictured doing this stance, which is known in lifestyle and management coaching circles as the “power pose”. It’s known to me, however, as “a bit of nonsense”.The power pose was popularised by a 2012 TED talk (which to date has 46m views, making it one of the most popular on the site) in which social psychologist Amy Cuddy claims standing like you’re showing off a golden codpiece (my words, not hers) could “significantly change the way your life unfolds”. Continue reading...

Fragment linked to pope martyred almost 2,000 years ago found after rubbish collection run in central LondonA small leather case containing a fragment of bone claimed to be a relic of St Clement, a pope who was martyred almost 2,000 years ago, has been found in rubbish collected from central London.The waste disposal firm is now appealing for suggestions from the public for a more suitable final resting place for a saint than a bin.

The internet is full of content championing introverts, but extroverts are getting a bad rep by extension. In this ‘us versus them’ mentality, nobody winsWhen Carl Jung first introduced the concepts of introversion and extroversion as human personality traits back in the 1920s, he probably never thought that nearly 100 years later his theory would form the basis of a very quiet – but nonetheless persistent – battle of wills.Type “being an introvert/extrovert” into Google and you get a plethora of emotive and divisive article headlines: listicles, op-eds, motivational blog posts – even scientific journals – all waxing lyrical about the benefits or downfalls of being one or the other. It’s true that Jung’s theories are pretty old by now and certainly not without their criticisms and weaknesses, but they’re essentially the basis around which this introvert v extrovert narrative has formed. Continue reading...

Mark O’Connell’s To Be a Machine, about humanity’s attempts to conquer death through technology, wins £30,000 prizeIrish debut author Mark O’Connell has won the Wellcome book prize for his exploration of transhumanism, a movement that seeks to use technology to solve “the modest problem of death”, as O’Connell puts it. Continue reading...

Water beetle species found in Malaysia was named after the Titanic star for his environmental activismA new species of water beetle found clinging to a sandstone rock in a fast-flowing stream that leads to a waterfall in Malaysian Borneo has been named after the actor Leonardo DiCaprio.The tiny black insect, which has a partially retractable head and slightly protruding eyes, was named after the star of Titanic and The Revenant for his environmental activism. Continue reading...

British and US scientists are to examine the risk of the Thwaites glacier collapsing, which is already responsible for a 4% sea-level rise

Major study calculates effect on lifespan of habits including healthy eating and not smokingPeople who stick to five healthy habits in adulthood can add more than a decade to their lives, according to a major study into the impact behaviour has on lifespan.Related: Loneliness isn't inevitable – a guide to making new friends as an adult Continue reading...

Dig in for the long haul, folks. Research on Brexit voting habits shows an intrinsic conservatism against liberalismThe Cambridge Analytica scandals have made it obvious that some people’s votes can be predicted and manipulated by knowing their emotional triggers. But new research suggests that the way people think, in apparently unemotional ways, is also a reliable predictor of political attitudes, and in particular, of nationalism and enthusiasm for Brexit.Related: Brexiters tend to dislike uncertainty and love routine, study says Continue reading...

Less invasive procedure, often for osteoarthritis, used in only 9% of cases, researchers findMany more people facing surgery for knee problems would be better off with a partial rather than total knee replacement, which should allow them to recover faster, say experts.

Early risers can see a fine grouping in the southern sky, and southern observers should also see shooting starsThroughout the early hours of 5 May, a nice grouping of solar system objects will be visible in the southern sky. Continue reading...

Anthony Tucker’s obituary for Patricia Lindop mentioned that she helped found the Society for Education in the Applications of Science. Thanks to Lord (Brian) Flowers and Patricia, I was a grateful beneficiary of a grant from the society in 1976, to study for a PhD on the Technologies of Political Control at Lancaster University. It wasn’t a smooth journey.In April 1977, Special Branch raided the university and took my research, as I had inadvertently stumbled across aerials at the back of the university feeding into the US’s Echelon monitoring programme via Menwith Hill in north Yorkshire. Lawyers were needed to get it back. Continue reading...

Creaking knees, stiff back, dodgy shoulders… Age is no friend to the human body. So how are veteran athletes like Roger Federer and Jo Pavey still at the top of their game? And what can you do to keep up?Slow down, that used to be the mantra for middle age. The dread half-century reached, fiftysomethings were expected to take up less challenging physical activities – if they were physical at all. A gentle stroll around the golf course, perhaps, rewarded with a gin and tonic at the 19th hole; or membership of the local bowling club, blazered crown green rather than 10-pin.Physical decline as the body aged was inevitable, something to be grumbled about, accepted and dealt with. That fundamental law has not changed, but the way we manage ageing has. Getting older need not mean getting weaker, at least not until the end is truly nigh. Continue reading...

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Animals that sacrifice their lives, for their homes or offspring – or just because they’re in the wrong place at the wrong timeEarlier this month, a group of scientists described a newly discovered ant species, Colobopsis explodens, in the journal ZooKeys. As the name suggests, the worker ants of the species, which is found in south-east Asia, are known to explode when attacked, releasing sticky, toxic fluid from their abdomens. The explosion kills the ant, which sacrifices itself to protect its nest mates. Continue reading...

The discovery of genes that are linked to the crippling condition throws up exciting new possibilities for its successful treatmentDepression runs in families, we know. But it is only very recently, and after considerable controversy and frustration, that we are beginning to know how and why. The major scientific discoveries reported last week by the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium in Nature Genetics are a hard-won breakthrough in our understanding of this very common and potentially disabling disorder.If your parents have been depressed, the chances that you have been or will be depressed are significantly increased. The background risk of depression in the general population is about one in four – each of us has a 25% chance of becoming depressed at some point in our lives. And if your parents have been depressed, your risk jumps by a factor of three. Continue reading...

Mission to find source of methane detected in atmosphere may have an answer in months, researchers believeScientists have begun an experiment aimed at solving one of astronomy’s most intriguing puzzles: the great Martian methane mystery.In the next few months they hope to determine whether tantalising whiffs of the gas that have been detected on the red planet in recent years are geological in origin – or are produced by living organisms. Continue reading...

The neuroscientist and author of The Idiot Brain on the difficulty of trying to explain happiness and what he learned from Charlotte ChurchDean Burnett, 35, is a Cardiff-based neuroscientist, blogger and occasional standup comedian who writes the Guardian’s science blog Brain Flapping. His bestselling book The Idiot Brain, published in 2016, portrayed the human brain as an extraordinary organ that is also messy, fallible and disorganised. In his follow-up, The Happy Brain, Burnett delves into our grey matter once more to explore the slippery notion of happiness, asking: what causes it, and why? What makes our brain like certain things so much, but not others? Can eternal happiness actually exist – and would it be desirable anyway?How did the book come about?

Researchers believe the 140 children were sacrificed 550 years ago by the Chimú civilisation as floods ravaged the coastlineArchaeologists in northern Peru say they have found evidence of what could be the world’s largest single case of child sacrifice.The burial site, known as Las Llamas, contains the skeletons of 140 children who were aged between five and 14 when they were ritually sacrificed during a ceremony about 550 years ago, archaeologists said on Friday. Continue reading...

Environment secretary’s vision for UK agriculture post-Brexit sees farmers playing a vital role in improving public healthMeat is a crucial part of a balanced diet, the environment secretary has said, as he told farmers about his “health and harmony” vision for food.Michael Gove’s new vision for British agriculture post-Brexit envisages farmers playing a critical role in improving public health. Continue reading...

This week: Nicola Davis investigates the death by fowl play of one of the world’s most famous dodo specimens. So what do we know about the dodo as a species? And what questions does this murder case raise?Subscribe and review on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom and Mixcloud. Join the discussion on Facebook and Twitter

Natural History Museum takes down picture, but Marcio Cabral is adamant he did not fake itThe dramatic photograph of an anteater approaching a glowing termite mound in the dead of night was originally considered a worthy winner of a Wildlife Photographer of the Year award. The prize has now been withdrawn after judges noticed a problem: the anteater pictured is almost certainly a stuffed animal kept outside a visitor centre.

The brains, which are not conscious, are kept alive through the circulation of an oxygen-rich fluid through the organsResearchers in the US say they have managed to keep the brains of decapitated pigs alive outside of the body for up to 36 hours by circulating an oxygen-rich fluid through the organs.While the scientists, led by Yale University neuroscientist Nenad Sestan, say the brains are not conscious, they add the feat might help researchers to probe how the brain works, and aid studies into experimental treatments for diseases ranging from cancer to dementia.

Exclusive: Campaigners’ legal challenge could restrict development at heritage sitesArchaeologists fear English Heritage’s plans to build a visitor centre in the mound of the 13th-century Clifford’s Tower in York will cause “substantial harm” to one of England’s most significant monuments.Legal action is being pursued in a test case that could have a major impact on the power of developers to build on heritage sites. Continue reading...

Australian Academy of Science launches 10-year plan to document hundreds of thousands of unknown speciesWith an estimated 70% of Australian organisms still undocumented and funding for species discovery declining, the national science academy will head to parliament on Friday to argue that a rapid reversal is needed to avoid extinctions and reveal unimagined health and biosecurity solutions.The Australian Academy of Science and its New Zealand counterpart, the Royal Society Te Apārangi, are launching a 10-year plan to study and name unknown species, warning that a sound understanding of biodiversity is critical in the face of a global extinction crisis. Continue reading...

Prominent pharmacologist whose pioneering work on how the body stops bleeding improved the detection of thrombosisIn 1945, Gustav Born, a young and recently qualified doctor serving with the Royal Army Medical Corps, was among the first allied staff to witness the medical aftermath of the atomic bomb blast in Hiroshima. Among the horrific injuries he encountered, one struck him particularly forcibly: the tendency of the survivors to suffer from severe bleeding disorders. This, he surmised, was attributable to a lack of blood platelets caused by radiation damage. It was evidently a decisive experience, for it set the course of his future research and, indeed, his entire career.After the war, Gus, who has died aged 96, began postgraduate research at Oxford University with Howard Florey (who developed penicillin for pharmaceutical use), gaining his DPhil in 1951. He subsequently researched various other topics, including histamine and acid secretion in the stomach, neonatal physiology, smooth muscle and catecholamine pharmacology. But he was soon lured back by the fascination of platelet biology. Continue reading...

Health service chief calls for affordable access to CAR-T, which modifies immune system to destroy cancer cellsThe NHS is preparing to fast-track a “game-changing” cancer treatment into hospitals, its chief executive has said, calling for the manufacturers to help by setting an affordable price.

Horses are wary of people who were angry-looking if they meet them again, and more positive to people who they last saw smiling

A 200-strong team of researchers from across the globe have mapped the genetic variants that increase the risk of depressionScientists have raised hopes for more effective treatments for depression, a condition that affects over 300 million people globally, after mapping out the genetic foundations of the mental disorder in unprecedented detail.

Cancer Australia data prompts calls for governments to help develop early detection testsMost Australians with lung and bowel cancers are being diagnosed too late, data released by Cancer Australia shows, prompting renewed calls for governments to make developing early detection tests a priority.Just 18% of lung cancer cases recorded in 2011 were caught early, at either stage 1 or stage 2, the research shows. For two out of five patients (42%), the disease had already spread to other organs in the body. And less than half (46%) of colorectal cancer cases were diagnosed at an early stage. Continue reading...

Buruli ulcer funding will be matched by Victorian government and two local councilsMore than $1m will be spent tackling a mysterious flesh-eating bug and reducing its spread in Australia.The federal government on Thursday announced it is investing $1.5m into researching the Buruli ulcer, which has spread throughout Victoria and far north Queensland. Continue reading...

Scientists say doctors should consider weaning patients with depression, Parkinsons or bladder problems off anticholinergic drugsSome antidepressants and bladder medicines could be linked to dementia, according to a team of scientists who are calling for doctors to think about “de-prescribing” them where possible.Tricyclic antidepressants such as amitriptyline, which are also prescribed for pain and to help with sleeping, and one of the SSRI class, paroxetine (also known as Seroxat), are implicated by the largest ever study to look at this possible risk. Continue reading...

My mentor, research supervisor and friend, the physicist WGP (Percy) Lamb, who has died aged 97, was a member of the celebrated King’s College London team that contributed to the unravelling of the structure of DNA in the early 1950s. His PhD work at King’s was supervised by John Randall and as a result Percy joined the team led by Randall and Maurice Wilkins, which also included Rosalind Franklin, who was responsible for the famous “photo 51” that revealed the structure of a double helix.Percy specialised in the use of light and electron microscopes to study the nature of cell nuclei. He worked closely with others including Rene Bovey, Marlene Friedlander and Angela Martin during the formative period of the research. Continue reading...

Experts argue that experiments have edged so much closer to the possibility of consciousness that guidelines are needed“I have never seen so many brains out of their heads before!” declares Dr Michael Hfuhruhurr, the world-renowned neurosurgeon played by Steve Martin who has a love affair with a brain in a jar in the 1983 movie, The Man with Two Brains.Thirty five years on, the prospect of falling for a disembodied brain is still looking slim, but researchers have made such progress in growing and maintaining human brain tissue in the lab that a group of scientists, lawyers, ethicists and philosophers have called for an ethical debate about the work. Continue reading...

A spectacular pileup of 14 galaxies soon after the Big Bang has been seen and recorded for the first timeThe colossal merger of 14 galaxies more than 12 billion years ago has been captured by astronomers who used the world’s most powerful telescopes to peer 90% of the way across the observable universe.The cosmic pileup occurred 12.4 bn years ago and the resultant gigantic galaxy will have continued to snowball in size ever since. Calculations suggest that by the present day, hundreds more galaxies would have been swallowed up by the cluster, propelling it to a mass equivalent to 1,000 trillion suns, which would make it the largest known object in the universe. Continue reading...

Instead of medicalising loneliness and calling it an epidemic, we need to find better ways of engaging with ourselvesLoneliness – the sense of isolation, accompanied by the feeling of alienation – has always been a feature of the human condition. References to the unhappy state of loneliness are scattered throughout the Bible. As the 17th century poet John Milton reminded us: “Loneliness is the first thing which God’s eye named not good.” However, it was only in the early modern era that people started talking about loneliness as a standalone problem. Until the 19th century, loneliness tended to be associated with the physical state of being apart from society or company. During the 19th century, loneliness became associated with people’s inner state, and philosophers such as Kierkegaard were preoccupied with the fear of loneliness.Related: Loneliness linked to major life setbacks for millennials, study says Continue reading...

Move to boost AI research amid concerns Europe is losing ground to US and ChinaBrussels has called for a €20bn (£14bn) cash injection for artificial intelligence research, while pouring cold water over controversial plans to give robots human rights.The European commission wants governments and private companies to boost research and innovation spending on AI, amid rising concern that Europe is losing ground to the US and China, where most leading AI firms are based. Continue reading...