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...

If your partner is upset, do you listen to them or try to cheer them up? Rebecca McGuire-Snieckus on strengthening relationshipsChoose which of the following statements applies to you: a) or b)1 Arguments are

Mortality rates for prostate cancer are rising, but not because of any neurological determinismIt is the crossover moment. For the first time, more men are dying of prostate cancer than women are from breast cancer. Any GP surgery will offer a blood test to check a man’s prostate-specific antigen (PSA) indicating cancer. All men have to do is ask.The trouble is that, as we all know, men are from Mars. They don’t go to GPs, don’t talk about illness and believe in their own invincibility. Men with their compartmentalised brains are inherently greater risk-takers and believe they will beat the odds. In any case, to concede the threat of illness is an acknowledgement of weakness – very unmasculine. Continue reading...

The future now holds hope for children like Sam Ward, and doctors say many other people are set to benefitJillian Hastings Ward gave birth to her second child, Sam, almost four years ago. For the first few months of his life, the boy appeared to be in good health. “Then we realised that he was not making proper visual contact, and discovered he was blind,” Hastings Ward recalls. Subsequent diagnosis also revealed that Sam was not progressing intellectually. “His brain just couldn’t join the dots,” she says. Today Sam has the mental development of a six-month-old child.At the time of his diagnosis, it was not apparent what was affecting him. Then Hastings Ward and her husband Nick, who live in Bristol, were told about a pioneering scheme launched by the Department of Health. The 100,000 Genomes Project involves several teams of scientists, all of whom have been working towards a remarkably ambitious goal: the sequencing of 100,000 genomes of individuals affected by rare disorders and cancers. Later this month, the project – which was given the go-ahead by prime minister David Cameron in 2012 – will reveal that it has reached its halfway point and has sequenced its 50,000th genome. This news will be followed with the announcement later this year of major initiatives aimed at ensuring that the UK becomes a world leader in genomics medicine. Continue reading...

A super blue blood moon wowed the world, while we reported on rebels planning a new internet10.51am GMTRebels working to replace the tech giantsAround the world a handful of visionaries are plotting an alternative online future. Is it really possible to remake the internet in a way that’s egalitarian, decentralised and free of snooping?10.48am GMTAi Weiwei on the refugee crisisThe west has profited from globalisation but refuses to bear its responsibilities to displaced people. We have abandoned our belief in shared humanity, writes the artist Ai Weiwei Continue reading...

Aerial laser mapping detects thousands of hidden structures in Peten region, suggesting its population was millions more than previously thought

Orcas talk! Well, one has, anyway: a study involving a killer whale called Wikie has revealed that orcas can imitate human speech. Researchers have shown that killer whales able to copy words such as “hello”, “one, two” and ‘bye bye’ as well as sounds from other orcas. A great leap for our species, however, is the news that doctors in Newcastle have selected the first patients to undergo treatment which will result in ‘three-person babies’. Both women chosen for the radical therapy carry mutations that cause rare and devastating genetic disease. Another promising advance is the creation of a nasal spray filled soluble nanoparticles of natural painkiller, which could replace addictive opioids. After a successful lab trial, the team are now fundraising for human clinical trials. And finally, two pieces of archaeological excellence. Firstly, a beautiful 1,300-year-old Anglo-Saxon gold and garnet cross – found, intriguingly, on the body of a teenager buried in her own bed – has been given to a Cambridge museum. Secondly (and, indeed, finally) archaeologists believe they may have found a campsite that was home to the architects of Stonehenge. Continue reading...

Posts with alignment matching stone circle are discovered on army land at nearby LarkhillA team of archaeologists believe they may have discovered a spot where some of the architects of Stonehenge gathered and camped. Continue reading...

A stint in space showed the ESA astronaut Earth’s fragility – and convinced him international cooperation is urgently neededAs divisions between them widen on Earth, space must be where countries show they can work together for a common good, France’s best-known astronaut has said in a powerful plea for international cooperation beyond the final frontier.“From up there, the Earth seems so small, so tiny, so … the same,” said Thomas Pesquet, who spent 196 days, 17 hours and 49 minutes in space on the 50th and 51st expeditions to the International Space Station (ISS), returning in June last year.

Exclusive: health experts warn increasing popularity of industrially-made food will lead to negative effects such as obesity and poor healthHalf of all the food bought by families in the UK is now “ultra-processed”, made in a factory with industrial ingredients and additives invented by food technologists and bearing little resemblance to the fruit, vegetables, meat or fish used to cook a fresh meal at home.Research by global nutrition experts reveals the scale of our food evolution, from farm-fresh to factory-manufactured. “Real food” has been replaced by salty snacks and sugary cereals, industrially-made bread and desserts, ready-meals and reconstituted meats alongside sweetened soft drinks. Continue reading...

Money, cultural background and geographic location are crucial in determining survival ratesThis week Cancer Council released new data forecasting cancer survival trends into the future. The statistics, outlining an expected 72% increase in the number of Australians living with cancer or in remission by the year 2040, were startling – but even more concerning are the trends that show the gap between the haves and have-nots when it comes to cancer survival.

Male illness now third most common cause of cancer death behind lung and bowelProstate cancer has become the third most common cause of cancer death in the UK, overtaking breast cancer, despite improvements in survival rates for both.The top cancer killer in the UK is lung cancer, which claimed 35,486 lives in 2015, followed by colorectal cancer, with a toll of 16,067 people.

Space company Energia will offer ‘comfortable’ flights for up to six people onboard the NEM-2 moduleRussia is planning to send paying tourists on the International Space Station out on spacewalks for the first time, an official from the country’s space industry said Thursday.

Painkiller taken by mother in first three months of pregnancy could potentially reduce child’s number of eggs, say researchersIbuprofen taken by women in their first three months of pregnancy might reduce a daughter’s number of eggs, potentially affecting the child’s future fertility, according to research carried out on human cells in the lab.It is generally thought that women are born with a fixed number of eggs, although controversial recent research has challenged the idea that adult ovaries are unable to produce more.

Official figures underestimate how common bites are, say researchers, with odds of men being bitten 81% higher than for womenAnxious people and men are much more likely to be the victims of dog bites, according to new research which indicates bites are far more common than current official estimates suggest.The study, based on a survey of almost 700 people, found that nearly a quarter of people said they had been bitten at least once during their life. Continue reading...

Dismay at south-east Asian outbreaks of malaria resistant to artemisinin drugs, the most powerful drugs currently availableUrgent action must be taken to stop the spread of drug-resistant malaria in south-east Asia and potentially beyond, according to scientists.The outbreak in Cambodia, then Thailand, Laos and most recently Vietnam, of malaria that is untreatable with the newest and best drugs we have has alarmed experts. There have been calls for the World Health Organisation to declare a public health emergency of international concern, as it did with Ebola in west Africa and Zika virus in Brazil. Continue reading...

The animals facing an increasing struggle to find enough food to survive as climate change steadily transforms their environmentPolar bears could be sliding towards extinction faster than previously feared, with the animals facing an increasing struggle to find enough food to survive as climate change steadily transforms their environment.New research has unearthed fresh insights into polar bear habits, revealing that the Arctic predators have far higher metabolisms than previously thought. This means they need more prey, primarily seals, to meet their energy demands at a time when receding sea ice is making hunting increasingly difficult for the animals. Continue reading...

Two women carrying mutations that cause rare genetic disease to undergo radical therapyDoctors in Newcastle have been granted permission to create Britain’s first “three-person babies” for two women who are at risk of passing on devastating and incurable genetic diseases to their children.The green light from the fertility regulator means that doctors at the Newcastle Fertility Centre will now attempt to make healthy embryos for the women by merging fertilised eggs created through standard IVF with DNA from female donors.

Understanding causal inference, one aspect of philosophy of science, is key to making our research reliable

Wikie the orca is more mimic than raconteur, but the potential is awesome. Imagine dolphins tackling politicians on pollutionA bridge in cultures has occurred. A cognitive chasm between intelligent creatures has been crossed. Of all the spectacular times for you to be alive, you happen to have been born in an age when killer whales started talking to the damn dirty apes who were willing to listen. Though this sounds like some sort of sci-fi dream/nightmare, I am here to assure you that this is real. Remain calm, but stay vigilant around all marine mammals at this time. We may be in for a rocky time, as you shall discover.Let us begin by examining the facts. First, it’s true. As you may have heard by now, a captive killer whale called Wikie, housed at Marineland in Antibes, France, is uttering noises that mimic the human sounds “Hello” and “Bye-bye” as well as “One, two, three” plus, apparently, the haunting word “Amy” – the name of its trainer. Predictably, within hours of the release of the scientific paper, Wikie has become something of an online celebrity. Continue reading...

Hannah Devlin explores why 2018 is such a bumper year for seasonal flu and asks how scientists are trying to fight backSubscribe & Review on iTunes, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud & Acast, and join the discussion on Facebook and TwitterLast week, Public Health England announced that this winter three times as many people have died from flu compared to the previous year. Australia saw a doubling in the number of deaths, and figures were also up in Europe and the US. But what is it about this year’s seasonal flu that has proved so aggressive? How do outbreaks of seasonal flu differ from pandemics of the past? And how can science help us fight back? Continue reading...

As campaigns such as Veganuary become more popular could the way westerners categorise what’s edible start to shift?Yesterday marked the end of “Veganuary”, the campaign to encourage people to try a vegan lifestyle for a month. Year on year the trend has grown. Might those one-month vegans change the habits of the rest of us - by changing what an animal is?Vegans shun all animal-derived products – meat, fish and leather obviously, but also eggs, dairy products, honey and wool. Beers refined using isinglass (derived from fish guts) are out, as would the new UK £5 and £10 notes, if they could be. The term itself was coined back in 1944, bringing together the start and end of the word VEGetariAN, as the next step on. Continue reading...

Many parts of the globe caught a glimpse of the moon as a giant crimson globe, thanks to a rare lunar trifecta that combines a total eclipse with a blue moon and super moon. The spectacle, which Nasa has coined a “super blue blood moon,” will grace the pre-dawn skies in the western US as the moon crosses into the shadow of the Earth and turns blood red.

This week’s extravaganza is a nice excuse for a documentary that takes in Apollo 12 astronauts, coral having sex and Pink FloydThe supermoon? Yes, I know this, and why it’s in the news. Now that it seems the president of the United States will be visiting us after all, in October, a supermoon will be our welcome. Protesters will line the street and, when the motorcade passes, they will bow, facing the other way, with their pants around their ankles – #ShowYourRumpToTrump – no, really, look it up. A super blue blood moon, though? Well, that I assume is when Prince Harry joins in, too, from an upstairs window of the palace. Yeah, get a load of this, Meghan says you’re a misogynist, and you’re not coming to the wedding … Oh, that will have already happened. Well, Michelle and Barack are there, top table, so yah boo sucks to you.The first earthling visitors were Soviet tortoises, launched into orbit in 1968. Are they still there, circling? Continue reading...

Garnet and gold cross discovered in 2011 on the body of a teenage girl buried lying in her own bedA beautiful gold and garnet cross, found on the breast of a teenage girl buried lying on her own bed about 1,300 years ago, has been presented to the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge.The girl’s grave was found in 2011 by University of Cambridge archaeologists only a few miles from the museum, on land at Trumpington being developed for housing. The bed on which she lay – probably her own – had rotted into the soil centuries ago leaving only the iron supports, but the cross stitched onto the dress which became her shroud was still gleaming.

Risk of overdose could be far lower, say researchers, as fundraising for human clinical trials begins

In next five years greenhouse gases may push global warming past threshold set by Paris dealGlobal temperatures could break through the internationally agreed upper 1.5C limit within the next five years, according to a forecast by British scientists that raises fresh questions about the world’s efforts to tackle climate change.The Met Office forecasting service said that in the period from 2018 to 2022, annual global average temperatures are likely to exceed 1C above pre-industrial levels and could top the 1.5C threshold set as an aspiration by the global Paris climate change deal in 2015. Continue reading...

Women in their early thirties have a 1% chance of early birth, with the risk rising to 1.2% for those over 40, analysis showsMothers in their early 30s have the lowest chance of having a premature baby, new research has found, with the risk rising significantly once the mother passes 40.Records of more than 165,000 pregnant women were analysed, showing that the likelihood of having a baby more than three weeks early among women aged over 40 was 20% higher than those in their early 30s. However, the actual risk remained low, increasing from 1% to 1.2%. Continue reading...

Codeine is old hat yet still widely used in the community. We need better informed consumers with better educated and supported GPs and pharmacistsCodeine restriction is in keeping with our evolving understanding of pain and its best management.

Blue moon, super moon and blood moon will all coincide in 2018 for the first time since 1866

Playthings or formative figures? A closer look at the children’s books, films and plastic tat that kickstarted palaeontology careersI remember watching an episode of Noel’s House Party, a Saturday night prime time family friendly TV show with an elaborate set based in the fictional village of Crinkley Bottom. Part variety show, pantomime, talk show, game show with puppets and candid camera skits that aired on British television in the 1990s. One segment of the show involved children undertaking a challenge to win some sort of 90s prize – probably a PlayStation or a lifetime supply of Sunny Delight or something.The challenge in the episode that sticks in the mind is one where a boy who was really into dinosaurs had to identify a bunch of dinosaur models correctly to win. Each dinosaur was under a cover on a plinth and were unveiled in turn for the boy to have a go at identifying. As a precocious young dinosaur fan myself I was glued to the TV under the expectant gaze of my family, waiting for me to deliver the right answers at home. As each one of the dinosaur models was unveiled I knew the correct identifications, as did the hopeful young contestant. He won the prize and everyone on the set proclaimed him as some kind of child genius (as I remember it). Continue reading...

A terrific book by a consummate storyteller and scientific expert considers the past and future of the body’s ability to fight disease and heal itselfNature wants to destroy you. Evolution has been driven by aggressive forces in which organisms will enact their livelihood at the expense of yours. Any top 10 list of the greatest killers in human history will not include war or famine, or guns or drugs. Of the voracious beasts that might feed off your flesh, lions and tigers and bears (oh my!) wouldn’t even scrape into the top 20. It is the smallest things in the living world that have had the biggest impact on humankind: malaria, plague, Spanish flu, cholera, tuberculosis, HIV/Aids and smallpox. These diseases are all caused by entities unseen until modern history. From smallest to largest, Aids, smallpox and flu are triggered by viruses, which are tiny compared with the bacteria that cause cholera, plague and tuberculosis, which themselves are dwarfed by the single celled Plasmodium organisms that give us malaria – probably the single most lethal agent in our history.These instruments of death have in effect directed the development of one of the most underappreciated parts of human biology: our immune system. Daniel Davis’s terrific book attempts to redress this understandable oversight. There’s no gentle way of saying this: immunology is hard. Among the many ways we scientifically scrutinise ourselves, it doesn’t have the visceral and artistic merit of anatomy, the mysteries of the mind of psychology or the scientific sex appeal of genetics. The study of the immune system is complex, intricate, meticulous and fiddly. A couple of years of immunology at university was painful enough, and as a grown-up science writer and broadcaster, I confess that I have quietly avoided immunity-related research as much as is polite. Continue reading...

Climate experiment shows trees release water but stop absorbing carbon in extreme heatAustralian researchers growing trees in climate change conditions have found the leaves “sweat” to survive extreme heatwaves.The year-long experiment showed that trees continue to release water through their leaves as an evaporative cooling system during periods of extreme heat, despite the carbon-fixing process of photosynthesis grinding to a halt. Continue reading...

Study drawing on data from the Netherlands is the first to show how admissions to treatment centres rise and fall in line with cannabis strengthResearchers have found fresh evidence to suggest that more potent strains of cannabis are at least partly to blame for the number of people seeking help from drug treatment programmes.Scientists at King’s College London drew on data from the Netherlands to show that admissions to specialist treatment centres rose when coffee shops sold increasingly more potent cannabis, but fell again when the cannabis weakened. Continue reading...