DNA tests suggesting man who lived 10,000 years ago had dark skin and blue eyes cause a stir

Dr Alastair McAlpine asked some of young patients what gave them joy and meaning – their answers surprised himAs a pediatric palliative care physician, I spend my days working with children who have life-threatening or life-limiting illnesses and their families.Although many people think of us as the harbingers of death, in reality, doctors like us aim to maximize quality of life, especially when that life is likely to be shortened. We recognize that these children are so much more than just their illness and that they are part of a family. We focus not just on their medical needs but also on their psychosocial and spiritual ones as well. Continue reading...

Diplodocus skeleton that graced Natural History Museum begins new life on Jurassic CoastFor more than a century Dippy the dinosaur amazed and inspired visitors to the Natural History Museum (NHM) in London.On Friday, the diplodocus skeleton cast was unveiled 130 miles away near the Jurassic Coast at the Dorset County Museum in Dorchester on the first stage of an eight-stop tour of the UK. Continue reading...

Anaesthesia remains a mysterious and inexact science – and thousands of patients still wake up on the operating table every year. By Kate Cole-AdamsWhen Rachel Benmayor was admitted to hospital, eight and a half months pregnant, in 1990, her blood pressure had been alarmingly high and her doctor had told her to stay in bed and get as much rest as possible before the baby came. But her blood pressure kept rising – this condition, known as pre-eclampsia, is not uncommon but can lead to sometimes-fatal complications – and the doctors decided to induce the birth. When her cervix failed to dilate properly after 17 hours of labour, they decided instead to deliver the child by caesarean section under general anaesthetic. Rachel remembers being wheeled into the operating theatre. She remembers the mask, the gas. But then, as the surgeon made the first incision, she woke up.“I remember going on to the operating table,” she told me. “I remember an injection in my arm, and I remember the gas going over, and Glenn, my partner, and Sue, my midwife, standing beside me. And then I blacked out. And then the first thing I can remember is being conscious, basically, of pain. And being conscious of a sound that was loud and then echoed away. A rhythmical sound, almost like a ticking, or a tapping. And pain. I remember feeling a most incredible pressure on my belly, as though a truck was driving back and forth, back and forth across it.” Continue reading...

The space rock 2018 CB is up to 40m long and will come within 64,000km of the planet’s surfaceAn asteroid is headed our way – the second this week – but there’s no need to worry.The newly discovered space rock will pass within 39,000 miles (63,000km) of Earth on Friday evening GMT. That’s less than one-fifth the distance to the moon. Continue reading...

There are times I really hope that intelligent life from outer space is NOT observing usMaybe it’s because Robert Lepage is touring The Far Side of the Moon to the Adelaide Festival. Or that a new Star Trek is on TV. Or maybe it’s because I feel like the only person alive who really – really – liked Luc Besson’s Valerian, but space, fantasies of the final frontier, and the real voyages that human beings may yet dare to make into it are very much on my mind.This week saw a number of news items concerning our tentative outreach to the stars that, for all their frustrating revelations, might yet prick the aspiration for space missions back into the popular policy consciousness. One; an extraordinary piece by American astronaut, Mark Kelly, appeared in the New York Times pleading that the Trump administration desist on plans to defund the International Space Station. Continue reading...

Developing eggs from earliest stages to maturity could open the door to new approach to fertility preservationWomen at risk of premature fertility loss might have cause for new hope as researchers reveal that human eggs can be developed in the lab from their earliest stages to maturity.While the feat has previously been achieved for mouse eggs, and has given rise to live young after fertilisation, the process has proved tricky in humans. Continue reading...

Two people had approached the company about a flight around the moon 50 years after Apollo 8The successful maiden flight of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket on Tuesday should have paved the way for an audacious mission to send a pair of tourists around the moon later in the year.But Elon Musk, SpaceX’s chief executive, said on Monday that the company would delay such endeavours in favour of developing a larger rocket. Continue reading...

Scientists expect to uncover entire circuit of causewayed enclosure at Berkshire quarryA Neolithic monument has been discovered less than two miles from Windsor Castle. Dating from 5,500 years ago, it is one of the earliest known examples of monument-building in Britain.A ceremonial gathering place known as a causewayed enclosure has been revealed with the discovery of a series of encircling ditches, artificial boundaries with gap entrances, at a vast site in Berkshire. Continue reading...

People tend to be misinformed about stammering. Here’s why finishing my sentences or telling me to ‘slow down’ doesn’t helpI’ve heard the misconceptions for most of my life.“Just slow down,” a stranger told me as a child. “You’re talking too fast – that’s why you stutter!” Later on, as my stutter carried on into adolescence and adulthood, strangers and loved ones alike offered up their own judgments of my speech –usually incorrect. Some have good intentions when it comes to sharing their opinions about my stutter. Others ... not so much. But everyone shares one defining characteristic: they’re misinformed. Continue reading...

Sprayed with Vantablack Vbx2, a pavilion at the Winter Olympics in South Korea absorbs 99% of light. We talk to its British architect Asif Khan, who also invented the ‘selfie-building’The pistes of Pyeongchang may be blinding white with snow as the Winter Olympics kicks off in South Korea, but among the ice rinks and bobsleigh tracks stands something completely different: the darkest building on the planet. Lurking between the competition venues like an angular black hole, it looks like a portal to a parallel universe, waiting to suck unsuspecting ski fans into its vortex. But this is not the latest high-tech defence against North Korean attack. It’s a temporary pavilion for car giant Hyundai, designed by British architect Asif Khan, using a material developed in Surrey.Described as the world’s largest continuous “nanostructure”, the building has been sprayed with a coating of Vantablack Vbx2, a super-black material that absorbs 99% of the light that hits its surface, creating the illusion of a void. Continue reading...

As US studies reveal worrying disparities in trauma treatment based on patient ethnicity, one surgeon urges more research into inequalities in UK emergency careTen years ago, when Dr Adil Haider, a trauma surgeon at Harvard Medical School, began investigating disparities in emergency centre outcomes based on information recorded in the US National Trauma Data Bank, he discovered a striking trend.

Babies in trial put on more weight in first three weeks and parents were less stressedPremature babies do better if their parents are allowed to help care for them in hospital alongside the nurses, rather than being treated as visitors and left on the sidelines, a new study shows.Many parents feel acutely anxious, stressed and out of control when their child is in a newborn intensive care unit and there seems to be nothing they can do for her. Inspired by the example of a hospital in Estonia that brings in parents to help with basic care of their baby, doctors in Canada organised a major study in three countries – Canada, Australia and New Zealand – to see what the effect is on the baby. Continue reading...

Figures released by charity – one of the world’s biggest funders of biomedical research – make ‘uncomfortable reading’, says directorWomen working at Britain’s largest charity earn 21% less on average than men, gender pay gap figures reveal.The Wellcome Trust, one of the world’s biggest funders of biomedical research, is the latest major institution to make public its record on gender and pay under new government rules. Continue reading...

Using drugs or diet to reduce levels of asparagine may benefit patients, say researchersBreast cancer patients could be encouraged to cut asparagus and other foods from their diets in the future to reduce the risk of the disease spreading, scientists say.Researchers are investigating whether a change in diet could help patients with breast tumours after studies in mice showed that asparagine, a compound first identified in asparagus but present in many other foods, drives the spread of the disease to other organs. Continue reading...

The onboard Tesla Roadster grabbed the headlines, but the real success of this week’s space adventure was the Falcon Heavy launch vehicleSpaceX has made history: the rocket company, founded in 2002 by billionaire playboy Elon Musk, has launched his cherry-red Tesla Roadster into space, on course to the asteroid belt after overshooting its intended Mars orbit.As with so much Musk does, the event was a hybrid of genuine breakthrough and nerd-baiting publicity stunt. The presence of the car – replete with spacesuit-wearing crash test dummy, David Bowie playing from the speakers and a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy quote on-screen – may not have any real point beyond generating good press pics, but the same can’t be said for the Falcon Heavy it was launched in. Continue reading...

What role might culture play in intelligence? And how does human culture differ from culture found in other animals? Nicola Davis explores our evolutionary historySubscribe and review on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloudand Acast, and join the discussion on Facebook and TwitterIn 1921, residents of the small town of Swaythling in southern England were shocked to find the milk bottles on their doorsteps had been vandalised, with the foil caps pierced and the valuable cream gone. Fingers were pointed at possible culprits, but as the cream theft swept across the country – and eventually Europe – it was discovered that birds were in fact the thieves. Fast-forward to 2014 and researchers found that different populations of great tits showed different variations of this kind of feeding behaviour, leaving scientists to conclude that these birds were able to transmit cultural behaviours. But how does this kind of cultural transmission differ from that found in humans? What what does this tell us about general intelligence? And, fundamentally, how important is culture to our own evolutionary history? Continue reading...

Elon Musk is right: silly and fun things are important. But some of them are an indefensible waste of resourcesOn Wednesday, two things happened. In Syria, 80 people were killed by government airstrikes. Meanwhile, in Florida, Elon Musk fired a sports car into space. Guess which story has dominated mainstream news sites?The much-anticipated launch of Musk’s Falcon Heavy rocket, the most powerful ever launched by a private company, went off without a hitch. Musk successfully sent his cherry-red Tesla roadster hurtling toward Mars, launching what a CNN commentator called “a new space age”. Continue reading...

Since his confrontation with Cathy Newman, the Canadian academic’s book has become a bestseller. But his arguments are riddled with ‘pseudo-facts’ and conspiracy theoriesThe Canadian psychology professor and culture warrior Jordan B Peterson could not have hoped for better publicity than his recent encounter with Cathy Newman on Channel 4 News. The more Newman inaccurately paraphrased his beliefs and betrayed her irritation, the better Peterson came across. The whole performance, which has since been viewed more than 6m times on YouTube and was described by excitable Fox News host Tucker Carlson as “one of the great interviews of all time”, bolstered Peterson’s preferred image as the coolly rational man of science facing down the hysteria of political correctness. As he told Newman in his distinctive, constricted voice, which he has compared to that of Kermit the Frog: “I choose my words very, very carefully.”The confrontation has worked wonders for Peterson. His new book 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos has become a runaway bestseller in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, Germany and France, making him the public intellectual du jour. Peterson is not just another troll, narcissist or blowhard whose arguments are fatally compromised by bad faith, petulance, intellectual laziness and blatant bigotry. It is harder to argue with someone who believes what he says and knows what he is talking about – or at least conveys that impression. No wonder every scourge of political correctness, from the Spectator to InfoWars, is aflutter over the 55-year-old professor who appears to bring heavyweight intellectual armature to standard complaints about “social-justice warriors” and “snowflakes”. They think he could be the culture war’s Weapon X. Continue reading...

We look at some of the articles provoking reader conversation today, including Ireland and Brexit, Musk’s rocket launch and groundbreaking DNA analysisIreland weighing in on the Brexit customs union debate, an article on SpaceX’s successful rocket launch and discussion on a new DNA discovery have got you talking today.

Elon Musk's Starman can be seen sitting in $100,000 Tesla Roadster navigating Earth. Musk's plan is for the car, with the message 'don't panic' on the dashboard and David Bowie playing through the speakers, to cruise through high-energy radiation belts that circuit the planet, towards deep space

A Starman sitting in a tin can is currently navigating the heavens, soundtracked by David Bowie. How did it – and we – get there?

From the smart drug modafinil to oxygen chambers, interest in cognitive enhancement is growing. But can it actually make you cleverer? I tried to find out

Scientific disagreements are rife but rarely vicious – even over something as radical as a shakeup of dinosaur relationshipsIn 2017 a startling paper suggested that the conventional view of the fundamental relationships between different groups of dinosaurs was incorrect. A huge new analysis including many early dinosaurs and their nearest relatives suggested that a rearrangement of the dinosaurs was in order – two groups previously separated (the theropods and ornithischians) were brought together in a group now called Ornithoscleida. This naturally came as something of a shock in palaeontological circles and beyond as the established order had been in place for a century and was well supported by a lot of data. Various comments immediately sprang from various researchers and a formal response (and counter) has appeared in the literature.Form the outside this may have seemed like – and has been reported as – a bitter war. This discussion is “tearing palaeontology in two” according to one site, but this is really a gross overstatement. First of all, let’s be honest, outside of the dinosaur researchers, few palaeontologists will have that much of an interest in the field and will hardly be taking sides. Secondly, scientific discourse, in the public forum of papers or online discussions is generally pretty polite and respectful, and that’s often the case too in private. Finally, in a small field like dinosaur palaeontology, all of the protagonists know each other and each other’s work and that means there can be a lot of additional dialogue behind the scenes which is friendly in nature.

The genome of Cheddar Man, who lived 10,000 years ago, suggests that he had blue eyes, dark skin and dark curly hairThe first modern Britons, who lived about 10,000 years ago, had “dark to black” skin, a groundbreaking DNA analysis of Britain’s oldest complete skeleton has revealed.The fossil, known as Cheddar Man, was unearthed more than a century ago in Gough’s Cave in Somerset. Intense speculation has built up around Cheddar Man’s origins and appearance because he lived shortly after the first settlers crossed from continental Europe to Britain at the end of the last ice age. People of white British ancestry alive today are descendants of this population. Continue reading...

Turkey’s Ilisu dam will flood hundreds of ancient sites, including the city of Tušhan, but there is now a rich record of what will be lostIt’s a sad fact of archaeological life that we can often only find things when they’re about to be lost forever, but such is the unhappy marriage between rescue archaeology and infrastructure development. Construction of the Ilisu dam, on the river Tigris in southeast Turkey, is now complete and the flooding of 300km of land behind it may begin as early as this spring. The dam will provide water security and electricity to the local region, as well as further restrict the diminishing flow of water downstream to Iraq, displace at least 70,000 people and flood up to 500 archaeological sites.Related: Turkey's 12,000-year-old Hasankeyf settlement faces obliteration Continue reading...

Herd immunity is essential. If parvovirus vaccination rates fall below 70%, cats are in troubleA deadly feline disease is now spreading between cats after hiding for nearly 40 years. Multiple cases of feline parvovirus, also known as cat plague, or panleukopenia, have been reported in stray kittens in the greater Melbourne area this week.Feline parvovirus was a common disease in the 1960s and 1970s. Australia was one of the first countries to develop an effective vaccine. Once widespread vaccination became routine, the disease was pushed back into nature. Continue reading...

Bombardier beetles observed causing audible toxic explosions inside toads stomachs causing them to vomit their lunch to freedomThe toad’s reaction to the explosion deep in its stomach is not instantaneous. But in time the body shakes, the mouth opens, and the culprit is expelled: a mucus-covered beetle that will live to fight another day.Japanese scientists captured footage of the great escape during lab tests that pitted the walking powder kegs that are bombardier beetles against hungry toads of different species and sizes. So effective were the beetle’s defences against being eaten alive that even the researchers were taken aback.

SpaceX launch Falcon Heavy, the world’s most powerful rocket, into space from its launchpad in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The successful liftoff makes it the most powerful in operation and second only to the Apollo era

A heavy-duty rocket from Elon Musk’s private company launches for the first time and aims to make spaceflight cheaper and easier

Recently discovered fossil worm burrows reveal that, in the right sediment, life can survive far deeper than imaginedBlue Planet II gave us a glimpse of the weird and wonderful life that swims and floats in the deep ocean, but what about the creatures that live beneath the ocean floor? Present day surveys suggest that shrimps and worms inhabit the top tens of centimetres of seabed, but it was assumed that life couldn’t survive much beyond 2m of sediment. However, recently discovered fossilised burrows show that, given the right kind of sediment, life can survive far deeper. Have we been looking in the wrong places for seabed critters? Continue reading...

Liverpool FC’s popularity in China a key factor in attracting ancient treasures to Merseyside

A survey has observed a spike in the average speeds of those who had just seen one of the franchise’s films. But it might be best to cover the brakes before leaping to any hasty conclusionsThe next time you get a speeding ticket, it might be worth arguing that the movies are to blame. A research paper by Dr Anupam Jena of Harvard medical school has suggested films in the Fast and Furious franchise may be responsible for drivers hitting the accelerator too hard.Jena unearthed details from 200,000 US speeding tickets that had been posted online, and studied those issued in the week following the release of films in the franchise. The research didn’t find any increase in the number of tickets issued, but did find that the average speed listed on the tickets increased markedly. Continue reading...

SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy will be the most powerful to leave Earth since the Saturn V in the 1970s – and will hurl a Tesla electric car into space

When families split, men get left behind emotionally and lose out on bonding with their children to the detriment of both, says the renowned family therapistFrom the age of seven Gill Gorell Barnes found herself mixing with a louche 1950s crowd in a cafe run by her father in London’s Soho. The experience left her entirely non-judgmental, she reflects, teaching her to respect actors, musicians and prostitutes alike as she served them tea and toast and, later, the exotic new offering of frothy coffee. Her father was bisexual and her mother frequently absent, as an editor in the film industry, making her childhood less traditional. Summers were spent with a grandmother in Margate, where she spent long hours alone on the beach. Nothing much she has encountered since in a distinguished career as one of the UK’s leading child and family social workers and therapists has come as a great surprise.Gorell Barnes, now 74, has specialised in fractured and reformed families, learning to see divorce and repartnering from the child’s point of view. In a new book, Staying Attached: Fathers and Children in Troubled Times, she focuses on men and children who live apart, their relations often complicated further by mental health difficulties – an issue largely neglected in family therapy, she argues. Continue reading...

Lack of government-funded services means growing numbers have nowhere else to turnThousands of people dependent on prescription drugs are desperately turning to online help groups and calling up charity helplines because of a lack of government-funded services.A growing number of people struggling with addiction to painkillers, benzodiazepines and antidepressants are guiding each other through the process of withdrawal on Facebook groups and websites. They say they have nowhere else to turn. Continue reading...

More could be done to get people to switch to products that are safer than smoking cigarettes, say Public Health EnglandVaping should be widely encouraged as a way to help people quit smoking, and e-cigarettes should even be offered for sale in hospital shops, the government’s public health body has said.At least 20,000 people a year could be giving up cigarettes thanks to vaping, according to Public Health England’s (PHE) latest review, which said more could be done to get people to switch to products that are far safer than smoking. Continue reading...

Combined with excess alcohol consumption, scaldingly hot tea raises relative risk fivefold, says Chinese researchersVery hot tea combined with heavy alcohol consumption can increase the risk of oesophageal cancer by five-fold, research suggests.The cancer, which starts in the oesophagus, was already known to be linked to drinking alcohol and smoking, but those risks are heightened by the addition of daily cups of “burning hot” tea, scientists discovered. Continue reading...

If Jonathan Bryan can communicate we should celebrate, but hard evidence is needed before we change how severely disabled children are cared forThere has been much coverage lately – including in the Times, the Mirror, the Daily Mail, and tonight’s CBBC documentary special – of the story of 11-year-old Jonathan Bryan and his remarkable ability to write poetry, keep a regular blog, and communicate with his parents, in spite of his severe and debilitating cerebral palsy. Now Jonathan – who communicates via a spelling board with the help of a facilitator who carefully watches the movement of his eyes – is campaigning for other severely disabled children to be taken out of special educational needs classes and taught in regular classes, just as he is.

UK makes up 22% of global sales of the highly addictive anti-anxiety drug on the dark web‘My personality changed’: Johnny, 16, on Xanax addictionThe UK is the second-largest market for untraceable online sales of Xanax in the world, research has found, prompting warnings from doctors, MPs and youth workers of an “emerging crisis”.Data revealed to the Guardian shows that the UK accounts for 22% of all global trades of the highly addictive anti-anxiety medication on the dark web or darknet, the collective name for hidden and anonymised websites. Continue reading...

Fossil hunters find preserved remains of 100-million-year-old arachnids with tails longer than their bodiesIn what can safely be assumed to be horrifying news for arachnophobes around the world, scientists have discovered the beautifully-preserved remains of prehistoric “proto-spiders” that sported tails longer than their bodies. Continue reading...

Current treatments for alcohol dependence often fail. So researchers are investigating more unusual interventionsJanuary 2018 has come to an end and with it the month that people increasingly use to abstain from alcohol. It is still unknown whether Dry January has a lasting effect on drinking behaviours, and people with an alcohol dependency problem should always seek support from their GP before going through detox. Nonetheless, Dry January undoubtedly drives a critical conversation about alcohol use and provides an opportunity for us to reconsider our relationship with alcohol (one of the main goals of the charity Alcohol Concern, who support the challenge).While overall alcohol consumption in the UK is falling, alcohol abuse still represents the fifth biggest risk factor for illness, death and disability across all ages. With current treatments often failing to prevent relapse in the long term, researchers are investigating the possibility of using ketamine combined with psychological therapy to help people stay dry, and not just for January. Despite its often cited use as a recreational drug and “horse-tranquilizer” ketamine is also the most widely used anaesthetic in humans. Administered appropriately in a controlled and safe medical environment, ketamine may also have benefits in the treatment of drug problems. Continue reading...

Industry figures question research that ‘pathologises’ compulsive gaming, while scientist involved defends move to address addictionThe World Health Organization (WHO) has included “gaming disorder” in its draft for the next edition of its diagnostic manual, the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), which is due for final release this year. The disorder is characterised by behaviours such as impaired control of time spent playing video games and prioritisation of gaming above other activities, in a way that negatively affects other areas of a person’s life such as their education, occupation and relationships.Games industry bodies the US Entertainment Software Association (ESA) and UK Interactive Entertainment (Ukie) have expressed doubts about the classification. “We are very concerned about the inconclusive nature of the research and the evidence that WHO is using to base this potential classification on,” says Ukie’s chief executive, Jo Twist. Continue reading...

Large filter feeders, such as baleen whales and basking sharks, could be particularly at risk from ingesting the tiny plastic particles, say scientists

Plans for A303 could spell loss of Blick Mead site, where humans may have lived since the Ice AgeThe construction of a tunnel past Stonehenge could spell the loss of a unique site that can trace the presence of people back to the last Ice Age, experts have said.Perfectly preserved hoofprints of wild cattle known as aurochs have recently been found at excavations a mile and a half from the Wiltshire stone circle, David Jacques, and archaeologist at the University of Buckingham, said. Continue reading...

The urge to belong is universal. So would a better understanding of it help tackle loneliness – and explain why stalkers, spree killers and jihadists turn their pain on others?

Mars and Antares will be close together in our skies this week, but are separated in space by hundreds of light yearsAll week, the planet Mars will be close to the bright star Antares in the constellation Scorpius. Both will appear to the naked eye as red dots of approximately the same brightness in the pre-dawn sky. Mars gets its colour from the dust on its surface that reflects sunlight. Antares on the other hand is a red giant star, 700 times the diameter of the Sun and vastly further away. Whereas the light from Mars takes just over 13 minutes to cross the space between us, from Antares it takes around 604 years. This means Mars appears as it did just a quarter of an hour ago, whereas the light from Antares began its journey across space in the year 1414. At the end of the week, early risers are in for a special treat. The chart shows the situation at 05:00 GMT on 9 February, when Mars and Antares will be joined low in the southern sky by a waning crescent moon. Continue reading...