Rock singer Steve Ludwin has been injecting himself with snake venom for 30 years. In a strange twist, his bizarre habit could now save thousands of lives. His former partner Britt Collins tells his outlandish storySometime in 2006, when my ex-boyfriend failed to show up for dinner, I assumed something was wrong or perhaps he’d forgotten. About a week later, calling to apologise, he told me he’d had an overdose, accidentally injecting a lethal cocktail of venom from three snakes. A lot has been written about Steve Ludwin, widely known as the man who injects snake venom, and lately his life has turned into a non-stop frenzy of international journalists and film crews revelling in the seeming sheer insanity of it.Steve was once my great love; an animal lover, vegan and musician who wrote songs for Placebo and Ash, and played the Reading festival with Nirvana. In between tours and recordings he dabbled with snake venom. In his latest incarnation as a self-taught snake expert, moulding himself into the role of a lifetime, he appears as a kind of living specimen and star in a short film at the Natural History Museum’s new exhibition, Venom: Killer and Cure. Continue reading...

Rocket Lab entrepreneur Peter Beck’s recent launch into orbit of Humanity Star drew a barrage of flak. But he remains undauntedLast month, from its base in New Zealand, Peter Beck’s space company, Rocket Lab, conducted its first successful attempt to put satellites in orbit. The launch vehicle, the Electron, carried a payload including the Humanity Star, a very shiny, 65-sided, carbon-fibre satellite whose only function is to reflect the sunlight as it spins. Scientists didn’t approve: astronomers claimed it would interfere with their observations, others called it “space graffiti”, while the Scientific American described it as “satellite vermin”.Were you taken aback about the reaction your Humanity Star geodesic sphere satellite project got from some scientists?

The trick is to find a good balance between self restraint and spontaneityHere is a list of statements. Choose the response, a) or b), that best applies to you:I more often

Experts say rocket emissions affect our climate and cause ozone loss, yet too few people seem to careDavid Attenborough’s Blue Planet series raised our awareness of rubbish tips traversing our oceans and choking some of our most beloved marine species.This has led to a global debate about how we manufacture and dispose of plastics. The Scottish government announced that it is to host an international conference in 2019 to discuss action on marine litter. It’s ideal territory for any government seeking to be regarded as edgy and cool on this year’s fashionable cause. No one could disagree with its aims and purpose and, more importantly, nothing that emerges from it will commit anyone to spending money or risking the growth of emerging industries. Continue reading...

Entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk hold the key to exciting and important possibilitiesThe sight of the giant Falcon Heavy rocket roaring into space after its launch last week will have brought, if nothing else, a nostalgic tear to the eyes of many experienced space hands who had gathered to witness the blast-off.From the same Kennedy Space Center launch pad that saw Apollo rockets soar towards the moon, a new launcher, built by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company and currently the most powerful in the world, made its dramatic maiden flight. Hopes that the great pioneering days of US space flight, in the 1960s and 1970s, would soon return were suddenly rekindled. The fact that Falcon Heavy’s cargo was ferrying an electric sports car, built by a different Musk company, Tesla, to Mars only added spice to an already extravagant event. Continue reading...

The study of a 10,000-year-old man surprised people when it revealed his blue eyes and dark skin – and few predicted he would reshape our view of our genetic heritageIn 1903 workmen digging a drainage trench in Gough’s Cave in the Cheddar Gorge, in Somerset, uncovered the remains of a young man, sealed under a stalagmite. The figure, feet curled up underneath him, was small, at about 5ft 5in, and would have weighed around 10 stone when he died in his early 20s. The cause of death has still not been determined by palaeontologists.The skeleton’s antiquity was revealed when fossil experts dated his bones and realised that Cheddar Man, as he quickly became known, was almost 10,000 years old. This is still the oldest virtually complete skeleton that has been unearthed in the British Isles, although it is unclear whether the young man died in the cave or was brought there by fellow tribesmen and was then buried there. Continue reading...

Sharon’s world is regularly reversed by a rare brain malfunction. Now neurologists, and Wonder Woman, have come to the rescueIn 1952, when she was a child, Sharon was playing in the front garden. She was blindfolded while her friends ran around her, laughing, trying not to be caught in a game of blind man’s buff. Sharon grabbed hold of someone’s sleeve and whipped off the scarf that covered her eyes. “You’re it!” she shouted.Then she blinked and looked around her. She panicked. The house and the street looked different. She had no idea where she was. Sharon ran into the back garden and discovered her mother sitting in a lawn chair. Continue reading...

Zapping his brain and taking ‘smart pills’, Adam’s fascinating history of how we define intelligence raises intriguing questions about our futureThe old myth that you only use 10% of your brain is obviously rubbish. If an iron spike went through the 90% you never use, why would you care? But what might be true is that we only typically use a small part of our brain’s potential function. What if you could zap your head or take a pill, like Bradley Cooper in the film Limitless, and become insanely clever? Over the last decade, this sci-fi possibility has started to approach reality, and David Adam’s book is a timely prologue to the brave new world that might await us.On the internet you can now buy gizmos to stimulate your brain with low doses of electricity. There is some evidence that this helps with depression and other disorders, but – as is usually the case with new therapies – it is already being used by healthy people just to get better at video games. (Zapping seems to make the affected brain areas more malleable, readier to form new connections, when the electrotherapy is combined with a course of cognitive behavioural therapy, or with deliberate practice of a physical skill.) Another big industry is that of “smart pills”, whereby medicines originally conceived to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, say, are being sold on the grey market to students and others who want a pharmaceutical boost to their powers of concentration. Continue reading...

UK weather group’s influence continues to be felt in everything from space missions to farmingFrozen ducks’ feet and the flight paths of midges: the uses of forecasts by the Met Office over the 160 years that it has quietly underpinned the fabric of the nation are many and varied. They played a crucial role in D-day and still serve our military today; they keep planes in the sky and space missions on course. Should a mountain ever fall off the side of the Canary Islands, they will warn us of a tsunami. As unlikely an event as the latter should prove, be assured the Met Office has our backs.In March, however, this long-established British institution will part company with another. After 95 years, the BBC will drop the national weather service in favour of an international private forecasting company, MeteoGroup, a move that the broadcaster says will save it millions of pounds.

Exclusive: breaches investigated involve dengue virus, anthrax and other deadly pathogensSafety breaches at UK labs that handle harmful bacteria, viruses and fungi have spread infections to staff and exposed others to potentially lethal diseases, the Guardian has learned.The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has investigated a series of mistakes over the past two years that led to scientists falling ill at specialist labs run by hospitals, private companies, and even Public Health England (PHE), the government agency which exists to protect and improve the nation’s health and wellbeing.

Some doctors say this is the worst flu season they have seen in decades. Some people are saying that, tooThe flu has further tightened its grip on the US This season is now as bad as the swine flu epidemic nine years ago.A government report on Friday shows one of every 13 visits to the doctor last week was for fever, cough and other symptoms of the flu. That ties the highest level seen in the US during swine flu in 2009. Continue reading...

Stonehenge tunnel | Ants and acid | Lost from the Guardian | Yorkshire pudding | Elon MuskWould it be possible to have a free gamble on which major public work will be completed first: the Stonehenge tunnel or Heathrow’s third runway (First proposals for Stonehenge’s £1.6bn road tunnel revealed, 8 February)?

The launch of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket into deep space has fired dreams of a new era of 21st-century discoveryScientists and aerospace veterans, many of them still in awe at the cascade of smoke and fire, the roar of a 20-story machine hurtling into the sky, and the sight of a billionaire’s electric car floating past Earth, welcomed Elon Musk to the podium in Cape Canaveral this week.

It really is good that he is out in natureSpending time in nature, as you’re surely aware by now, is good for your mental health. Like, really, really good. People criticise Donald Trump for whiling away so many hours on golf courses, but they’re wrong: imagine the damage he’d wreak if his rage and repressed self-loathing weren’t offset by the restorative benefits of all that greenery! So there’s nothing intrinsically surprising about a new study, led by Viren Swami of Anglia Ruskin University, in Cambridge, suggesting that natural environments improve people’s body image; after all, they improve everything. What remains debatable is why. One of the most beguiling answers – first given three decades ago by the US academics Rachel and Stephen Kaplan – is also maybe the most pleasingly named concept in psychology. In a world of relentless, aggressive demands on our attention, the Kaplans argued, nature does something different: it exerts “soft fascination”.Soft fascination has two crucial components. First, it’s effortless: you don’t need to “try to focus” on the wind in the trees, or a moor top blanketed in heather. Second, it’s partial: it absorbs some attention, but leaves some free for reflection, conversation or mind-wandering. The result is what the Kaplans called “cognitive quiet”, in which the muscle of effortful attention – the one you use to concentrate on work – gets to rest, but without the boredom you’d feel if you had nothing to focus on. This helps explain why nature’s benefits aren’t restricted to, say, trips to the Grand Canyon or Great Barrier Reef. Those places seize your whole attention, whereas your local park may seize just enough of it to let the rest of your mind relax. Continue reading...

Where to even begin this week? Could it be with the news that human eggs have been developed in the lab for the first time? Or that researchers think they may have spotted a link between asparagine – a compound found in asparagus and other foods – and the spread of breast cancer? Maybe that archaeologists have discovered an exciting new Neolithic monument in Windsor? All of those things are certainly exciting, but really the two most thrilling stories this week are certainly Cheddar Man and Falcon Heavy: not a crimefighting duo but an exciting double-header of science and archaeology. Cheddar Man is Britain’s oldest complete skeleton, and a groundbreaking analysis of his 10,000-year-old DNA has revealed that he had blue eyes, dark skin and dark curly hair, rather than the pale skin and fair hair that had always been assumed. By contrast, the incredible technological leap that has been made with the launch of Elon Musk’s giant SpaceX rocket, and the safe return to Earth of at least two of three reusable rockets, promises a new new chapter in humankind’s existence. Continue reading...

We look at some of the articles provoking reader conversation today, including the single market, space exploration and single-pilot planes

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...