Predators hunt out their victims, like pigs sniffing out truffles. Knowing what narcissistic behaviour to look out for can preempt dangerTwenty people have now made allegations of inappropriate behaviour against Kevin Spacey, the majority from his time as the Old Vic’s artistic director. Fourteen of the allegations are so serious that complainants have been advised to go to the police.Managers at the Old Vic say they are sorry they did not create an environment in which people felt they could speak out if they were receiving unwanted attention. This failure has been put down to a “cult of personality” around the actor. Continue reading...

The visualization shows spring coming earlier and the Arctic ice caps receding over timeNasa has captured 20 years of changing seasons in a striking new global map of planet Earth​.The data visualization, released this week, shows Earth’s fluctuations as seen from space. Continue reading...

A Nasa oceanographer explains how the US space agency successfully captured 20 years of changing seasons to form a striking new global map. The projection of the Earth and its biosphere is derived from two decades of satellite data from September 1997 to September 2017 Continue reading...

Twelve Montseny newts – one of world’s rarest amphibians - hatched as part of joint breeding project with Catalan authoritiesConservationists at Chester Zoo have successfully bred one of the world’s rarest amphibians – the Catalan newt – in an attempt to save it from extinction.

Night after night, elaborately crazy stories plant themselves in your mind through no choice of your own. Don’t tell me something intriguing isn’t going onWhat are dreams for? It’s one of those bottomless questions where the answer tells you mainly about the person doing the answering. Those who pride themselves on being hard-headed and scientific will say they’re meaningless nonsense or, at best, some kind of boring but essential process for consolidating the memories of the day. Those who think of themselves as spiritual, meanwhile, will insist they’re messages from beyond. Yet the hard-headed answer isn’t much more plausible than the kooky one. If dreams are random brain-firings, how come they have coherent narratives? And if they’re just a dull retread of everyday events, how come they’re so often wildly inventive, haunting or surreal? (Don’t worry, I won’t bore you with any of my own, though the famous fact that “nothing is more boring than other people’s dreams” is, in itself, rather interesting.) As James Hollis, a Jungian psychotherapist for whom dreams are far from meaningless, writes: “Who would make this stuff up?” Night after night, you go to bed and elaborately crazy stories plant themselves in your mind through no choice of your own! Don’t tell me something intriguing isn’t going on.Membership Event: Guardian Weekend Live Continue reading...

Neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero is in the news again, claiming to have performed the first successful human head transplant. But even cursory analysis reveals that he hasn’t. And scientific logic suggests he never willIn February 2015, Sergio Canavero appeared in this very publication claiming a live human head will be successfully transplanted onto a donor human body within two years. He’s popped up in the media a lot since then, but two years and nine months later, how are things looking?Well, he’s only gone and done it! As we can see in this Telegraph story from today, the world’s first human head transplant has been successfully carried out. Guess all those more timid neurobods who said it couldn’t be done (myself included) are feeling pretty foolish right now, eh? Continue reading...

Shetland: famous for its irascible ponies, snuggly jumpers and now, perhaps, space exploration. UK Space Agency research has identified Unst, the Shetland Islands’ most northern isle as the best site in UK for spaceport to launch satellites into orbit. Which, teamed with the news that a potentially habitable world, Ross 128b, has been found just 11 light years away means exciting times could well be ahead. In the here and now, however, scientists have made their first ever attempt at gene editing inside the body. It’s a somewhat nerve-wracking experiment: Brian Madeux, who has Hunter syndrome, has been intravenously given copies of a corrective gene and a genetic tool to cut his DNA in a precise spot. It will permanently alter his DNA, with no way to alter any mistakes editing may cause. Also raising hopes for new treatments, this time of age-related disorders, is the discovery that some members of a small Amish community in Indiana, US, carry a rare genetic mutation which appears to protect against biological ageing. So new treatments plus dog ownership (which cuts your risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, apparently) could make us healthier than ever. Great, because in my fave news of the week, it seems we’ve been making and drinking wine for much longer than anyone thought, which probably needs balancing out. Continue reading...

I was 22 and fascinated by fish behaviour. But when scientist Amanda Vincent showed me this strange creature I became convinced that my future lay in conservation — not in the labLike many of the most important occasions in my life, the moment that changed me involved fish. Holding the desiccated carcass of a sea moth while talking to my heroine, the fish biologist and conservationist Dr Amanda Vincent, altered the course of my life.I was 22, and had just finished my biology degree. For my dissertation research I had spent a couple of months following butterflyfish in the Ras Mohammed national park in the Egyptian Red Sea. I had grown to recognise them by their individual markings and, by snorkelling at a discreet distance, I had mapped their territories and recorded their daily routine. Continue reading...

Health benefits of a pet dog are greatest for those who live alone, lowering the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease by 36%, say scientistsNever mind the chewed slippers, the hair on the sofa, and the inexplicable barking at 3am. Having a dog in the home substantially reduces the risk of heart attacks and other fatal conditions, a major study has shown.Researchers found that dog ownership had a dramatic effect on people who live alone, cutting the risk of death from cardiovascular disease by 36%. In households with more people under the same roof, dogs had less of a positive impact, but still lowered deaths from heart disease by 15%, the work reveals.

My friend Frederick Kurzer, who has died aged 95, was reader in chemistry at the Royal Free hospital school of medicine and a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry for more than 70 years.The son of Jacques Kurzer, a dealer in oriental rugs, and his wife, Rosa (nee Löwy), Frederick was born in the spa town of Carlsbad (now Karlovy Vary) in the German-speaking area of what was then Czechoslovakia. With one sister, Dorothy, he lived in Carlsbad and went to the local school until 1939, when the family fled to London to escape the Nazis. He attended Clark’s college, Cricklewood, and from there went to Regent Street Polytechnic (now part of the University of Westminster), where he studied for a chemistry degree. In 1940, like many German-speaking Jewish men, he was interned by the British government on the Isle of Man. Continue reading...

There are good reasons to be cautious about a new study claiming computer-based training can reduce the risk of dementia. But what does work?More than 30 million people worldwide live with Alzheimer’s disease, and while researchers are pushing hard to find a cure, their efforts so far have met with failure. With no effective treatment on the horizon, prevention has become the only game in town. But what can be done to reduce the risk of dementia, now the leading cause of death in England and Wales?In research published on Thursday, US scientists claim that a form of computer-based brain training can reduce the risk of dementia by 29%. The training was designed to speed up people’s visual information processing, for example by having them spot a car on a screen, and a truck on the periphery of their vision, at the same time. Those who are claimed to have benefited trained for an hour, twice a week, for five weeks, and some went on to have booster sessions at the end of the first and third years. To see if the training made any difference, the participants sat tests up to 10 years later.

In our new normal, experts are dismissed and alternative facts flagrantly offered. This suspicion of specialists is part of a bigger problemWe often defer to others’ expertise, and for good reason. The entire edifice of modern society only exists thanks to the division of labour, from construction to machine operation to medical treatment. The system works as long as we have trust in others’ knowledge, skills and intentions.This trust is often tested, most notably of late in relation to those who specialise in politics. People-powered movements from anarchism to populism want to see equality of participation in political decision-making. Indeed, this is at the heart of all versions of democracy. It raises the question of whether we should trust political insiders. Continue reading...

A look at the barrage of recent articles about how millennials can buy a home on a modest income reveals how unhealthy these pieces – and the expectations around them – really areLife in the modern world is hard. Even without all the Nazis and climate change, there are still countless things to pile on the stress. Obviously, those of us in the first world have it much better than those elsewhere; our lives aren’t one long gruelling struggle for survival, we have things very easy on that front. But that’s not quite how the brain works. Our normal lives, no matter how objectively privileged they may be from an outside perspective, provide the “baseline” for our expectations, and stress is experienced by things that challenge or disrupt that. As a result, while we may never have to worry about where the next glass of clean water is coming from, we still have a plethora of psychological stressors to choose from, many of which stem from the demands and expectations of the society around us.One modern societal pressure, in the UK at least, is that of owning property. It’s supposedly the done thing, buying a house or whatever, and often with a view to making a profit on it later, so much so that, in London particularly, people’s homes can earn more than they do. However, in recent years this expectation has been hit by countless obstacles, many of which have culminated in younger people simply not buying homes. This, obviously, threatens the status quo, which is something those with power and influence would rather avoid. Continue reading...

Politicians question report that found no evidence hormonal pregnancy tests taken in 1960s and 1970s caused birth defectsMPs have attacked a report into controversial hormone pregnancy tests including Primodos as “a whitewash, an injustice, a betrayal”.Campaigners believe the drugs caused serious disabilities in babies, but a report by an expert working group set up by the Commission on Human Medicines (CHM) concluded there was no “causal association” between the disabilities and Primodos. Continue reading...

It’s difficult to imagine the voracious and predatory great white shark as prey. Could orcas really be overpowering them and removing their livers?The great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias, is considered the most voracious apex predator in temperate marine ecosystems worldwide, playing a key role in controlling ecosystem dynamics.As a result, it is difficult to imagine a great white as prey. And yet, earlier this year the carcasses of five great whites washed ashore along South Africa’s Western Cape province. Ranging in size from 2.7 metres (9ft) to 4.9 metres (16ft), the two females and three males all had one thing in common: holes puncturing the muscle wall between the pectoral fins. Strangest of all, their livers were missing. Continue reading...

Ten years ago, there was excitement about the prospects for science and innovation across the Islamic world. Was this optimism misplaced?Last week, almost 3,000 scientists and policymakers from 120 countries gathered on the shores of the Dead Sea in Jordan for the 2017 World Science Forum. It was a landmark moment for Jordanian science, and a tribute to the vision of Princess Sumaya bint El Hassan, president of Jordan’s Royal Scientific Society, who is in the vanguard of a new generation of leaders championing science and innovation in the region. Jordan is also home to the Middle East’s first advanced light source facility – the Synchrotron-Light for Experimental Science and Applications, or Sesame – which was inaugurated earlier this year as a shared resource for researchers from Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Pakistan, the Palestinian Authority and Turkey.In its final declaration, the World Science Forum called for more scientific cooperation to promote peace and address regional challenges. But the meeting also provided an opportunity to take stock of the state of science across the Middle East and wider Islamic world. And while the symbolism of the Sesame project was rightly celebrated, there was little of the outright optimism that characterised these debates ten or fifteen years ago. Continue reading...

Annually, 8,000 women in England with previously untreatable advanced breast cancer will have access to drugs shown to slow disease’s progressionThousands of women with previously untreatable breast cancer will have access to two “breakthrough” drugs that have been approved for NHS use.

Discovery of mutation which appears to protect against biological ageing raises hopes for new treatments to prevent age-related disordersThe discovery of a rare genetic mutation that prolongs human life has raised hopes for new treatments to combat ageing and prevent age-related disorders from heart disease to dementia.Researchers spotted the mutation in an Amish population in Indiana where carriers were found to have better metabolic health, far less diabetes, and tended to live a decade longer than others in the community. Continue reading...

Forgotten home of Bradford Park Avenue, abandoned when club folded in 1974, hailed as ‘Angkor Wat of football’In his 40-year career as an archaeologist, Jason Wood has travelled the world, searching for Roman remains in Jordanian citadels and helping to restore royal palaces in Nepal. But his recent project was a little less exotic: digging up a patch of grass by some woods in Bradford.Ever since he was a small boy, Wood had been thinking about the site on Horton Park Avenue, across the road from the ornate Grand Mosque. He remembered his dad pointing out the overgrown grass where a football club had once stood, wondering for decades how a ground that could hold 37,000 fans could be left to the worms and the weeds. Continue reading...

Fossils from China show that evolution found an alternative – and ultimately overly-complicated – way to increase the size of the earliest tree trunksIn the world of knee-high land plants 400m years ago, the battle to grow tall was won by plants which found biomechanical solutions to fight gravity. Vascular plants had already evolved a plumbing system, allowing them to transport water, and the food produced by photosynthesis, around the plant. The water-conducting cells in the xylem – dead, hollow and stiffened by the polymer lignin – also afforded them some structural support. But there are limits to the height that a plant can grow with a stem of fixed girth. Continue reading...

The journalist and screenwriter answered your questions on everything from how he’d change Twitter to hanging out on porn-film sets for his podcast The Butterfly Effect3.15pm GMTThank you so much for your questions. I'm sorry I didn't answer all of them. But thank you!3.14pm GMTLiam Quane asks:What was it like working on Okja with Bong Joon-Ho?The film really filled up my senses!I loved it - director Bong was amazing. Incredibly talented and incredibly generous. Continue reading...

Traditional farming strategies could protect humanity against global warming and prevent deadly wildfires. Yet scientists seem determined to ignore themPrejudice against indigenous people is visible and ingrained in cultures everywhere, from US football team names (the Washington Redskins for example) to Hindu folk tales where the forest peoples are rakshasas, or demons.But it’s arguable that these prejudices also influence our science and policy. Take, for example, the specialised method of rotational farming used by many indigenous farmers all over the world but particularly in the global south. Farmers use seasonal fires to clear and farm parcels of natural landscapes and rotate their crops while the previously farmed parcel is allowed to regain fertility and natural vegetation – a method known as swidden agriculture. This technique helps preserve the soil quality and creates variation that helps counter the dominance of a few species and promotes biodiversity. It also helps prevent larger wildfires of the type that ravaged California recently, leaving 41 people dead and causing financial losses worth $30bn (£22.7bn). After decades of neglect, the US Forest Service is now embracing the Native American methods of fire management. Continue reading...

Ross 128 b has been discovered effectively on our cosmic doorstep. It will become a prime target in the search for life beyond the EarthA potentially habitable world, termed Ross 128 b, has been discovered just 11 light years away. It is roughly Earth-sized and orbits its parent star once every 9.9 days.Astronomers calculate that its surface temperature could lie somewhere between –60° and 20°, making it temperate and possibly capable of supporting oceans, and life. Continue reading...

Ian Sample looks to the future and asks what might the technologies of tomorrow look like? And how might they change our world?Subscribe & Review on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud & Acast, and join the discussion on Facebook and TwitterIn 1974, science fiction writer and futurist Arthur C Clarke went on Australian television and was asked to predict the future. He came up with something eerily similar to what we today call the internet. As far as futurists’ predictions go, it was a rare success. Forty years later are we any better at crystal ball-gazing? What emerging technologies might change the world as we know it today? And what clues are scientists giving us in the here and now? Continue reading...

New therapy will permanently alter DNA, with no way to alter mistakes editing may cause – but offers chance to tackle currently incurable metabolic diseasesScientists have tried editing a gene inside the body for the first time, in a bold attempt to tackle an incurable a disease by permanently changing a patient’s DNA.On Monday in California, 44-year-old Brian Madeux intravenously received billions of copies of a corrective gene and a genetic tool to cut his DNA in a precise spot. Continue reading...

BBC Radio 4 listeners (and John Humphrys) are fuming over an ‘unwelcome linguistic epidemic’. In fact, it goes back as far as BeowulfAnother day, another linguistic bugbear held up for ridicule. This time, it’s the harmless, modest, blink-and-you-miss-it word “so”. What has this innocent syllable done to offend the British public? If you have been struggling to get through to the BBC recently it’s because their switchboard has been jammed with complaints about it.Here’s Robert from Wakefield: “I have been increasingly irritated over the last couple of years by the increasing use of the word ‘so’ when prefacing a sentence.” (I know how you feel Robert, I’ve been increasingly irritated by the increasing use of the word increasing). And Kay from Belfast: “I don’t think ‘so’ is an appropriate word with which to begin a sentence.” Continue reading...

Every day millions of internet users ask Google life’s most difficult questions, big and small. Our writers answer some of the commonest queriesInevitably, yes. The question is, how deep is your love? Narcissism is seen by some as a matter of layering. For Freud, there is primary and secondary narcissism – primary narcissism meaning the drive for self-preservation, and secondary narcissism meaning seeing yourself as if from the outside and thinking, you are great. You’re pretty much born with the first one (although it can get eroded), and then the second one comes along later. If you’re a basically nice person, your well-balanced narcissism won’t get in the way of your capacity to love other people.Related: This narcissism epidemic is harming women far more than it harms men | Madeleine Bunting Continue reading...

New genetics research settles questions about the peoples of Newfoundland and Labrador – and helps highlight what genetics can’t tell usGenetics research has transformed our understanding of human history, particularly in the Americas. The focus of the majority of high profile ancient DNA papers in recent years has been on addressing early events in the initial peopling of the Americas. This research has provided details of this early history that we couldn’t access though the archeological record.Collectively, genetics studies have shown us that the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas are descended from a group that diverged from its Siberian ancestors beginning sometime around 23,000 years before present and remained isolated in Beringia (the region of land that once connected Siberia and North America) for an extended period of time. When the glaciers covering North America melted enough to make the Pacific coast navigable, southward travel became possible, and patterned genetic diversity across North and South America reflects these early movements. Continue reading...

Leadership is ‘sorely lacking’ in key areas such as robotics and climate change, parliament’s spending monitor warnsBritain risks losing its reputation as a scientific research powerhouse as a result of Brexit, the head of parliament’s spending watchdog has warned.Related: The government wants a Brexit deal on science and research, says Jo Johnson Continue reading...

Unst, which has a population of only 600, is identified in UK Space Agency research as best site in UK for spaceport to launch satellites into orbitFor the 600 residents of the most northern island in the Shetlands, it could be the most exciting thing since Unstfest – the annual shindig that this year offered, among its attractions, a scything demonstration over-16s could join.The proposals are at an early stage, but if the Shetland Space Centre Ltd gets its way, Unst could become the UK’s premier spaceport with a local economy revitalised by blasting satellites into orbit. The company was set up on the island, a breathtaking fragment nearer Norway than Edinburgh, after it was identified as the most promising launch site in Britain, in a study supported by the UK Space Agency. Continue reading...

First image from camera newly installed at the Palomar Observatory, California hints at the ‘treasure trove of discoveries’ to come from its survey of the skiesThe turbulent cosmic cloud known as the Orion nebula has been captured by astronomers with a powerful robotic camera freshly installed at the Palomar Observatory near San Diego in California.Related: Astronomers discover a giant world – but is it a planet? Continue reading...

A new study claims a link between screen time and increased rates of depression and suicide in US teens. But what do the data actually say? And how can we move towards a more rational debate about digital technology?Screen time is one of the more divisive contemporary issues in psychological science. In a sense, this is no surprise – smartphone use, particularly among children and adolescents, has consistently increased in recent years. And as with any new form of disruptive technology, there are questions around what constitutes healthy and maladaptive use, both at an individual and societal level.The problem with the debate about screen time, however, is that very often the arguments devolve into overly-simplistic scaremongering claims. This peaked back in August, with the publication of an opinion piece in the Atlantic by Jean Twenge, professor of psychology at San Diego State University. Under the headline Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?, Twenge argued that teenagers are on the verge of a catastrophic mental health crisis, and the culprit was the smartphone. Continue reading...

As more drug companies prevent sales of their products for execution, some US states have seized on new, untried drug combinations – raising big ethical issuesToday, Scott Raymond Dozier was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection in Nevada’s Ely State Prison. However, the execution has been postponed over concerns around the untested drug combination proposed as the method of death. The postponement is the latest incident in a series of controversial state executions carried out in the United States this year, and brings to the foreground many concerns and ethical issues around state execution – not least the use of the death penalty itself.In Dozier’s case, a completely new three drug combination has been proposed for Dozier’s execution. The mixture of diazepam (a sedative), cisatracurium (a muscle relaxant), and fentanyl (a powerful pain-relieving opioid) has raised many concerns – principally because it is completely untried. Continue reading...

It’s not just MPs who are out of touch – I’ve seen how many people live, work and socialise in ways that mean we rarely encounter people unlike ourselves

Find out the link between schoolchild type and health and wealth as an adultIs it really true that the geeks, as they say, will inherit the earth? Or that the nerdy kids in school will go on to find fame and fortune (think Bill Gates, and most musicians and artists), while the good-looking, popular kids end up in their home towns, and quickly start large families? Or is that just a stereotype? Take the test to find out.Q1 At school, were you (a) a jock or jockette: good looking, popular, on the sports teams, grades not so great, or (b) a nerd: hard- working, good grades, not so good looking, not popular with the cool kids? Continue reading...

Overuse of antibiotics on farms is major cause of growing resistance in humans, as campaigners name Lidl as worst performerMost of the UK’s biggest supermarket chains are falling short on measures to reduce the use of antibiotics in the production of the meat and animal products they sell, campaigners have warned, with potentially harmful impacts on human health.Lidl performed worst of the nine supermarket chains examined by the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics, a pressure group made up of several NGOs. Continue reading...

The US administration’s attempt to portray fossil fuels as vital to reducing poverty and saving US jobs is ridiculed in BonnThe Trump team was heckled and interrupted by a protest song at the UN’s climate change summit in Bonn on Monday after using its only official appearance to say fossil fuels were vital to reducing poverty around the world and to saving jobs in the US.While Donald Trump’s special adviser on energy and environment, David Banks, said cutting emissions was a US priority, “energy security, economic prosperity are higher priorities”, he said. “The president has a responsibility to protect jobs and industry across the country.” Continue reading...

Humans made grape wine hundreds of years earlier than previously believed, according to analysis of clay pottery dating back to 6,000 BCA series of excavations in Georgia has uncovered evidence of the world’s earliest winemaking, in the form of telltale traces within clay pottery dating back to 6,000BC – suggesting that the practice of making grape wine began hundreds of years earlier than previously believed.While there are thousands of cultivars of wine around the world, almost all derive from just one species of grape, with the Eurasian grape the only species ever domesticated.

Online ad campaigns based on smallest expressions of preference reveal effect of ‘mass psychological persuasion’Online ad campaigns created by academics in Britain and the US have targeted millions of people based on psychological traits perceived from a single “like” on Facebook – demonstrating, they say, the effect of “mass psychological persuasion”.More than 3.5 million people, mostly women in the UK aged 18-40, were shown online adverts tailored to their personality type after researchers found that specific Facebook likes reflected different psychological characteristics.

Study examining the impact of breastfeeding support programmes shows 54% reduction in eczema for children involvedBreastfeeding could reduce the risk of eczema in children, according to new research into the impact of programmes designed to support new mothers in feeding their babies.The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that babies should be fed just breast milk for six months to help protect them from infection, prevent allergies and provide nutrients and energy. Continue reading...

Gradable adverbs such as ‘rather’, ‘quite’ and ‘awfully’ are disappearing from our speech, according to linguistics professor Paul Baker. Is it a frightful shame – or are we just getting better at saying what we mean?Name: understatement.Age: not all that new. Continue reading...

Promising supervised flats, nursing homes and levelled streets, Valdivia’s Gerontological Hub project is tackling Chile’s ageing crisis head-on. Can it offset the country’s shockingly low privatised pensions?

Technology now exists to create autonomous weapons that can select and kill human targets without supervision as UN urged to outlaw themThe movie portrays a brutal future. A military firm unveils a tiny drone that hunts and kills with ruthless efficiency. But when the technology falls into the wrong hands, no one is safe. Politicians are cut down in broad daylight. The machines descend on a lecture hall and spot activists, who are swiftly dispatched with an explosive to the head.

Astronomers using the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope on Maui identified 1I/‘Oumuamua as it passed 24m km from EarthAstronomers finally have a name for the first known object from interstellar space to visit our solar system. The International Astronomical Union announced last week that it is to be called 1I/‘Oumuamua where “1I” designates it as the first interstellar object and ‘Oumuamua is a Hawaiian word that is said to reflect the way that this is akin to a scout or messenger reaching out to us from the past. Continue reading...

Spirituality, in its purest form, is not an escape from the world but a richer engagement with itSpirituality enables people to see more within the world and within others. It’s no surprise that this leads to a greater sense of fulfillment. A new survey from the Public Religion Research Institute has found that higher levels of spirituality are strongly correlated with higher life satisfaction.As a person of faith, my experience with organized religion has ebbed and flowed throughout my life. Yet I have always appreciated how spiritualities across a variety of traditions animate expansive visions and compassionate ethics. Even as the religious landscape in the United States rapidly changes, the importance of spirituality won’t necessarily go away. Now, there’s more evidence to flesh this out. Continue reading...

It bonds workers, sheds light on the brain and pacifies us. Emma Byrne on the uses and paradoxes of swearingWhen I was about nine years old, I was smacked for calling my little brother a “twat”.I had no idea what a twat was – I thought it was just a silly way of saying “twit” – but that smack taught me that some words were more powerful than others and that I had to be careful how I used them. Continue reading...

Life is strong in people – we didn’t get to be wreckers of the planet without a mighty life force in us. But accepting death is one of the contentments of ageWhen I was 16, I was given a wonderful anthology, Poetry of the English-Speaking World, as an English prize. I recommend it to this day, since I have returned to it often between 1952 and now. And early in it occurs a poem which brought me up short then, at demented 16, and speaks still, at a somewhat differently demented 81.When I say “demented” I do not yet mean the aphasia which has disassembled the splendid cerebral mechanisms of some of my contemporaries. I mean just “demented” in the plain old sense of an animal whose end is not far off and who knows it. Continue reading...

Apollo 12 astronaut thwarted in his ambition to walk on the moonOf the 24 astronauts Nasa sent to the moon, only a dozen actually landed there. Richard Gordon, who has died aged 88, was one of the 12 who did not, and in some ways the one whose frustration might have been the highest. Gordon piloted the space module Yankee Clipper on the Apollo 12 mission, orbiting above the moon while his fellow astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean landed the lunar module. He was the backup command pilot for Apollo 17, and was scheduled to command Apollo 18 and finally land on the moon; but that mission was cancelled due to lack of funding, and there have been no further lunar landings.If Gordon was disappointed at how things turned out, he took it in his stride: “The name of the game, as far as I was concerned, was to walk on the moon ... but I had a job and a function to perform.” Bean described Gordon as “a happy guy” and the “best possible crew mate”, recalling that Gordon made him and Conrad remove their spacesuits covered with moon dust before re-entering the space module. Once, when asked if he had regrets, Gordon quipped “Hell no. If you knew those guys you’d be happy to be left alone.” But the view from 60 miles above the lunar surface inspired him. “It makes you think about the fragility of our Earth, and the things we do to it,” he said. Continue reading...