There are more than 50m prescriptions for proton pump inhibitors in the UK, though they have previously been linked to side-effects and increased risk of deathA drug commonly used to treat acid reflux is linked to a more than doubled risk of developing stomach cancer, researchers have claimed.Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) reduce the amount of acid made by the stomach and are used to treat acid reflux and stomach ulcers. Continue reading...

When I posed this question on Twitter, the stories poured out and patterns emerged. Real regrets are about bad choices in love, learning and loss, being held back by fear – and self-blame

It glows and burns and is associated with glowing skulls, graveyard ghosts and spontaneous human combustion – not to mention painful and fatal illnessI would like to tell you about phosphorus, my favourite element in the periodic table. Phosphorus is an excellent candidate for a poison blog as there are a surprising number of ways it can kill you. It is also the most appropriate element for a Hallowe’en blog as it is easily the spookiest member of the periodic table and associated with stories of alchemists, glowing skulls, graveyard ghosts and spontaneous human combustion.

Having changed location earlier this year to avoid being cut off, the Halley VI station will close again over fears that the ice shelf it stands on may breakA British research station in Antarctica is being shut down for the second winter in a row following concerns over growing cracks in the 150-metre thick ice shelf on which it stands.The Halley VI station, which is parked on the Brunt ice shelf, will be shut down between March and November 2018, with the 14-strong staff who had been gearing up for the winter stint redeployed elsewhere in Antarctica or brought home to the UK. Continue reading...

We tend to recall more memories from our youth than other times in our life. And recent work suggests that this reminiscence bump might help to explain one of Trump’s much-loved slogansIn 2016, as Donald Trump was busy securing the Republican nomination by promising to “Make America Great Again”, a survey of Americans asked a seemingly simple question: in which year was the country great in the first place? Unfortunately, the results were not so straightforward and instead of a consensus, respondents’ choices were spread out across the last 70 years. But an analysis by the Atlantic found one factor that seemed to influence people’s responses: their age. The younger a participant was, the more recent the year they tended to choose.

Doctors have revealed that millions are already suffering the effects, in the spread of infectious diseases, uneven crop yields and longer allergy seasons• Christiana Figueres is chair of the Lancet Countdown advisory boardWhen the doctor tells you that your cholesterol is too high, you tend to listen and change your diet. When the world’s climate scientists tell us that temperatures are rising to dangerous levels, we should heed their advice. It’s time to give up climate change, it’s bad for our health.I’m not talking about the health of our planet or the health of species such as the polar bear, so often associated with climate change – though they are suffering. I’m talking about human health. The health of you, your family, your neighbours – each and every one of us. Continue reading...

Enigmatic ocean giants, giant squid and colossal squid are the largest living invertebrates but even larger suckered giants may have lived in the pastWe’ve already looked at ghosts and zombies in the fossil record but if you fancy your Halloween horrors a little more Lovecraftian then I’ve got some ancient suckered creatures from the depths of the ocean and time for you. Tenuous seasonal segue over, let’s look at giant cephalopods from the fossil record.Cephalopods are a class of molluscs that includes octopuses, “squid”, cuttlefish, vampire squid, nautilus and extinct forms such as ammonoids and belmnites. We’ve covered cephalopods in Lost Worlds Revisited before, in particular the difficulty in interpreting fossils of animal which lack hard parts. Octopuses have a very limited fossil record, there are still a lot of questions about what ammonites looked like in life, and living nautilus are sometimes unfairly labelled “living fossils”. Continue reading...

Comparatively little is known about exploding head syndrome and sleep paralysis, so we’re launching the first large-scale survey into both disordersOf all the sleep disorders, “exploding head syndrome” (EHS) has arguably the most intriguing name. EHS has been described as “a sensory parasomnia characterised by the perception of loud noises and/or a sense of explosion in the head when transitioning to or from sleep. These noises are not associated with significant pain, but lead to abrupt arousal and feelings of fright”.

Ignoring the body’s natural rhythms can affect our physical and mental wellbeing – and even the outcome of surgeryOur bodies have many clocks that control sleep, health and performance. If we do things at the wrong times, there can be dangerous consequences. This year’s Nobel prize was awarded to the three scientists who discovered the key genes in circadian (24-hour) body clocks. Their discovery enabled other scientists to discover the thousands of circadian times that control our health, our genes and even when we should have treatments: it can make the difference between life and death.Major heart surgery is common, but fraught with dangers. The most significant is the magnitude and duration of interrupting and restarting the body’s oxygenated blood supply. On Friday a study was published on the complications arising from morning and afternoon heart surgery. The time of surgery made a significant difference: 54 (out of 298) patients who had surgery in the morning experienced complications (18% of all patients) compared to 28 (of 298) patients who had surgery in the afternoon (9%). Heart surgery appears to be safer in the afternoon. Continue reading...

UN warns that drastic action is needed to meet climate targets set in the Paris agreementThe concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased at record speed last year to hit a level not seen for more than three million years, the UN has warned.

According to Age UK, half of adults over 55 have experienced common mental health problems. The good news is the stiff-upper-lip approach to problems is breaking down – now all we need are widely available treatments and facilitiesI’m getting increasingly frightened lately. About anything and everything, whether it’s happening or not, because I’m sure it will. Especially when I’m awake at night, feeling sick and sweaty and knowing for certain that the worst will happen. Perhaps my mental health is a bit dicey. Why not? I’m getting on and, according to Age UK, half of adults over 55 have experienced common mental health problems, often depression and anxiety.No surprise there, then. We have plenty to be browned off or petrified about. Here I am, 75, with numerous chums going down like ninepins, struck with horrible illnesses, or, if we manage to keep going, there’s the looming possibility of dementia, or relegation to a nursing home, like the two friends I visited last week. Or nuclear war. Or I may drop dead, just like that. Continue reading...

Expert interrogators know torture doesn’t work – but until now, nobody could prove it. By analysing hundreds of top-secret interviews with terror suspects, two British scientists have revolutionised the art of extracting the truth• Read the text version hereSubscribe via Audioboom, Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Mixcloud, Acast & Sticher and join the discussion on Facebook and Twitter Continue reading...

Psychiatric diagnosis must serve an ethical purpose: relieving certain forms of suffering and disease. Science alone can’t do that

What to look out for in the coming month, including Jupiter and Venus at their brilliant best in the pre-dawn twilight and the annual Leonids meteor showerIn a month that has the Milky Way stretching almost overhead during most of Britain’s hours of darkness, the highlights are a conjunction in our pre-dawn twilight between the two brightest planets, Venus and Jupiter, and a return of the Leonids meteor shower under moonless skies. Continue reading...

If you like sitting in window seats, believe in God and go to the gym, science says you’re probably a self-centred monsterIn these trying times, when everything seems awful, it’s worth remembering that people are fundamentally good. Except, actually, they aren’t. According to a swath of recent studies, the world is full of terribly self-centred people, and I’m afraid you’re probably among them. Indeed, you probably think this article is about you, don’t you? Well, perhaps you don’t. Not all men are created equally awful and some people are more self-absorbed than others. For purely charitable reasons, I have carefully collated some of the latest selfishness science to help you quantify just how much of an egomaniac you are. Continue reading...

Family of weapons expert who killed himself in 2003 asked for his grave to be dug up owing to fears it was being desecratedThe body of Dr David Kelly, the government chemical weapons expert who killed himself in 2003 after being outed as the source of a BBC story, has been exhumed, police have confirmed.The scientist’s family reportedly had his remains cremated after asking for the grave to be dug up because they were upset it was being “desecrated” by conspiracy theorists who believe Kelly was murdered. Continue reading...

The US astronaut spent 11 months aboard the ISS, shaving 13 milliseconds off his Earth age in the process. He talks spacewalking, recovery and the scientific value in sending an identical twin into spaceScott Kelly is a 53-year-old American astronaut and a veteran of four space flights. He retired last year after spending 11 continuous months on the International Space Station. During his time on board the ISS, he orbited the Earth 5,440 times and made three space walks. He was also part of a study with his identical twin and fellow astronaut, Mark Kelly, to examine the genetic effects of spaceflight. As Mark was on Earth and Scott in space, they made for perfect comparative analysis, though it was not the reason Kelly was chosen for the mission. He has just published a memoir, Endurance: A Year in Space, a Lifetime of Discovery.What do you think has been the most important achievement of manned space travel?

Experiencing awe helps us to feel more human, says Caspar Henderson. We would do well to seek it outMy daughter recently had to make a rainstick for school, so she pulled a cardboard tube out of the recycling, found some dried beans to create the sound of rain when it’s shaken, and taped up the ends. The noises from her new creation were underwhelming compared to those from a model you can buy online for a few quid but they were enough to bring to my mind a simple and beautiful poem by Seamus Heaney. “Upend the rain stick,” he writes, “and what happens next/Is a music that you never would have known/To listen for…”Towards the end of his life in 1970, the psychologist Abraham Maslow, best known today for his theory of the hierarchy of needs, considered putting self-transcendence at its top, above self-actualisation. Beyond the “merely healthy” individual, he suggested, were those who became better human beings for others as well as for themselves. And a key factor in this transition, he suggested, was what he called “peak experience”. By this he meant “rare, exciting, oceanic, deeply moving, exhilarating, elevating experiences that generate an advanced form of perceiving reality”. Continue reading...

As BBC4 film Speechless marks World Stroke Day, documentary producer Nick Fraser reflects on his own recovery following a brain attack in FebruaryI was just finishing a talk about documentaries I was giving in Soho. I’d been asked a question about why so many films are seriously depressing. I remember that I talked about the great neurosurgeon Henry Marsh and the documentary about him, The English Surgeon. The film followed him to Ukraine as he helped and taught the local surgeons, who often resorted to using rusty domestic power tools to work on their patients’ skulls. I’d talked about him for some time, enthusiastically explaining how awed Henry said he felt every time he opened a patient’s head, and about how beautiful the brain is. I wanted to say more – but suddenly I sat down, and couldn’t say or think anything. Something had happened to me. I had gone into a different world of not making sense.Related: Number of strokes in UK predicted to rise by 44% in next 20 years Continue reading...

Report’s author cautions that findings should not be misinterpreted as proof of causal linkCannabis smokers have about 20% more sex than those who abstain from the drug, an American study has shown.Survey participants were asked how many times they had had heterosexual intercourse in the past four weeks and how frequently they had smoked marijuana over the past 12 months.

First up, this just in: astronomers have detected a mysterious space rock hurtling past the sun, and believe it could be the first object that can be traced back to another solar system. It’s not aliens, but it’s pretty exciting. You know what else is exciting? The release of Stephen Hawking’s 1966 PhD thesis online. People really went wild for it: demand was so huge it crashed Cambridge’s repository website. Oops. No less exciting is a fresh breakthrough in DNA base editing, or “chemical surgery”, which brings hope of potential treatment for huge number of diseases that arise as a result of a single genetic “misspelling”. Finally we have not one but two stories involving both skulls and cute animals (it’s been quite the week). First up is the discovery that the medieval love of squirrel fur may have helped spread leprosy. A human skull found in a Suffolk garden has yields new evidence of link between human and animal leprosy – with red squirrel fur traded with Viking Scandinavia thought to be a factor. But that’s as nothing compared to the strange discovery that shrews shrink their skulls and brains to survive winter – and then regrow them in the spring. Ponder that, if you will. Continue reading...

If its origins are confirmed, the asteroid or comet, named A/2017 U1, will be the first object known to come from elsewhere in the galaxy, say astronomersA mysterious object detected hurtling past our sun could be the first space rock traced back to a different solar system, according to astronomers tracking the body.While other objects have previously been mooted as having interstellar origins, experts say the latest find, an object estimated to be less than 400m in diameter, is the best contender yet.

Vasili Arkhipov, who prevented escalation of the cold war by refusing to launch a nuclear torpedo against US forces, is to be awarded new ‘Future of Life’ prizeA senior officer of a Soviet submarine who averted the outbreak of nuclear conflict during the cold war is to be honoured with a new prize, 55 years to the day after his heroic actions averted global catastrophe.On 27 October 1962, Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov was on board the Soviet submarine B-59 near Cuba when the US forces began dropping non-lethal depth charges. While the action was designed to encourage the Soviet submarines to surface, the crew of B-59 had been incommunicado and so were unaware of the intention. They thought they were witnessing the beginning of a third world war.

Heart attacks and heart failure less common in patients having heart operations in the afternoon as opposed to the morning, say researchersPatients undergoing open heart surgery in the afternoon have a lower risk of potentially fatal complications than those undergoing operations in the morning, new research suggests.The study found that events including heart attacks and heart failure were less common among those who had undergone a valve replacement operation in the afternoon. Continue reading...

Blue Origin test-fires rocket engine that scientists expect to take on extra methane made in space – so solving the dilemma of how to return home from the red planetBlue Origin, the US private space launch company, has successfully test fired the world’s most powerful methane-burning rocket engine. Rockets such as this, fuelled by natural gas, will be essential for the first crewed missions to Mars.

Investment of £760m into Richard Branson’s space companies will enable ‘next generation of human spaceflight’Saudi Arabia will plough around $1bn (£760m) into Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin space companies.

Pontiff becomes second pope to speak to astronauts orbiting the Earth with live streamed video call from the VaticanThe Earth is a fragile thing that could even destroy itself, Pope Francis told astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday, saying they had an opportunity to see the planet “from the eyes of God”.The voice of Pope Francis was heard in the heavens when he made a 20-minute video call to six astronauts to talk about life’s biggest questions – including their opinions on love, their sources of joy and how life without gravity changed their view of the world. Continue reading...

Hoard is richest Viking-age collection of precious metal found in UK or Ireland and diverse with objects from across EuropeThe spectacular Galloway Viking Hoard has been acquired by National Museums Scotland after raising almost £2m in just five months.The hoard consists of more than 100 pieces of gold, silver, ingots and jewellery gathered up from across the Viking world and was found more than 1,000 years later by by a metal detectorist in a field in Dumfries and Galloway. Continue reading...

A British supersonic car currently under development has its first public test drive at Cornwall airport in Newquay, south-west England. The Bloodhound reached a speed of around 200mph on the 1.7-mile runway. The team behind the vehicle say it is part fighter jet, part Formula One car and part spaceship. The goal is for it to reach a speed of 1,000mph on a run in South Africa next year Continue reading...

A Tory MP and the Daily Mail have revealed that UK universities are hotbeds of anti-Brexit thinking. A new and improved syllabus will put a stop to all thatUniversities! What are they like? If they’re not taking money from people who don’t even use them like no other public service ever, they’re championing anti-Brexit thinking! Just because they rely on things like knowledge and education and analysis and expertise and study and facts and an awareness of how reality works, they think they can defy the will of some of the people at a particular point in time from over a year ago? Such arrogance! Such elitism! This sabotage has not gone unnoticed, especially by the top lads over at the Daily Mail, with their front-page splash.This cannot be allowed to continue. Everyone knows that Brexit is brilliant and all-powerful, but also simultaneously fragile and weak, so must be protected and shielded from even the slightest scrutiny or pressure. It’s like an unborn golden eagle. Or a palace, made entirely out of dry manure and blind optimism. Continue reading...

The British astronaut answered your questions on whether you can get a cold in space, why you can’t see Brexit from the ISS, the time he saw strange flying objects and why he wants to go to Mars2.49pm BSTThat’s all for today!Thanks for all the brilliant questions, I've really enjoyed answering them and sorry to those of you who didn't get an answer. There are loads more answers in my new book Ask An Astronaut and proceeds go to the Prince's Trust.2.47pm BSTJacandJill asks:What was the hardest part of the selection process for you? From Lucy age 9.The selection process took a year and covered many different areas. Some of these are these that you simply cannot train for such as your medical condition and psychology. However, some areas such as communication skills and teamwork are things that you can practice and get better at throughout your career. I found the hardest part of selection were all the tests we had to do on the very first day. This covered areas such as maths, science, language, concentration, memory, spatial awareness and it was a very stressful day. At the time I had no idea how well I had done, but when I was told I'd passed I knew that for me that was the most difficult hurdle out of the way. Continue reading...

Mongolia’s cold, dry climate can result in incredible archaeological finds, but a harsh economic downturn means looting has risen to disastrous levelsIt’s a sunny, late summer day in northern Mongolia’s Darkhad Basin – a large glacial lake basin nestled against the country’s Russian border. To the south stretch the grasslands of the Eastern Eurasian Steppe; to the north, the Siberian boreal forest. We stand – almost precisely – at the place they meet, at the forest’s edge overlooking a large, grassy valley the administrative district of Ulaan Uul. We’ve come to this site, known locally as Khorigiin Am, in response to reports from local herders of bones and artifacts lying on the ground surface. What we find is shocking –scraps of silk, hastily scattered pieces of wooden artifacts – and bone, human bone, everywhere.My companion, Dr J Bayarsaikhan, finishes a tally of the looted burial craters that dot the hillside. “More than forty,” he tells me, surveying the scene in front of us with dismay. We work through the evening to salvage what we can from the dozens of looted burial mounds, which from the fragmented artifacts we find, appear to date to the time of the Great Mongol Empire – around 800 years ago. Continue reading...

A new government campaign suggesting that growing antimicrobial resistance is the fault of patients is lazy and dishonestSinging and dancing pills are the latest weapon to be pulled out of the NHS’s public health armoury, in a last-ditch battle to beat antibiotic resistance. The animated capsules are featured in Public Health England’s Keep Antibiotics Working campaign, which was unveiled earlier this week, and aims to encourage patients to use fewer antibiotics. Yet like all other attempts to curb the impending antibiotic Armageddon, it will fail. Why? Because it is based on the lazy assumption that patients are to blame.We should be in a strong position to curb the threat of antimicrobial resistance in the UK, as our comparatively non-interventionist approach to illness (necessitated by having one of the lowest spends per capita on healthcare in the western world) has meant we have a much stronger grip on prescribing than many other places. This is admirable and should be celebrated more than it is, yet this is exactly why a campaign encouraging people to use fewer antibiotics is destined to fail. Patients aren’t the decision-makers here. Continue reading...

Some people exude self-assurance, while others dread putting themselves forward. But is lack of confidence societal or genetic, and what tricks can we use to overcome it?Above the entrance to Manchester Grammar School lies a coat of arms and a Latin inscription: “Sapere Aude”. Ian Thorpe, then the school’s development officer, translated it for me – “Dare to Be Wise” – as we stood in the front quad on a warm day last July. First used by the Roman poet Horace in his book of Epistles, the phrase was later employed by the philosopher Immanuel Kant: “Dare to know! ‘Have the courage to use your own understanding’ is … the motto of the enlightenment,” he wrote. And it makes a fine motto, too, for a school that counts among its alumni the writer Thomas de Quincy and the director Nicholas Hytner.Manchester Grammar is the largest all-boys day school in the country, and when I visited they were in the throes of summer sports’ day: a loudspeaker reeled race results out across the grass, a large marquee stood by the track. There was, I felt, a sense of gentle splendour – there in the trees that line its long driveway, mature and broad-branched, and in the quad designed in the style of an Oxbridge college. Certainly, the school wants for little: it stands on a 28-acre site, has a history dating back to the early 16th century, and commands fees a little shy of £12,000 a year. Continue reading...

Skull yields new evidence of link between human and animal leprosy – with red squirrel fur traded with Viking Scandinavia thought to be a factorScientists have found evidence that the medieval taste for the beautiful fine fur of red squirrels, traded with Viking Scandinavia, may have been a factor in the spread of leprosy.The link between human and animal leprosy had already been suggested when the disease was found in modern squirrels in the UK, but the new evidence is from analysis of the skull of a woman who died more than 1,000 years ago in Suffolk, before the Norman invasion. Continue reading...

Fresh DNA base editing breakthrough brings hope of potential treatment for huge number of diseases that arise as a result of a single genetic ‘misspelling’A breakthrough in “chemical surgery” that can correct a type of genetic mutation behind a host of diseases has been unveiled by researchers.Scientists are hopeful that the approach could offer new ways to understand – and even one day tackle – certain human genetic diseases by correcting mutations in a patient’s body. Continue reading...

In a rare piece of good press for the persistently antisocial, researchers have found that there are some tasks that are particularly suited for themMost will agree that psychopaths are a bad thing for society. They’re into genocide, violence, reckless banking, sadistic political policies and sending deranged tweets late at night.However, a new study suggests psychopaths could act as a force for “greater good”. The research, by the University of Plymouth, found that when you need to carry out a bit of utilitarianism – sacrificing one person to save many others, for example – you might be wise to rely on someone with psychopathic traits to get the job done. Continue reading...

In this week’s Science Weekly podcast, Nicola Davis asks two of popular science’s best known stars a host of pressing questions. What role should scientists play in society? What might the future hold for humanity? And will we ever build Northampton on Mars?Subscribe & Review on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud & Acast, and join the discussion on Facebook and TwitterLast week, Science Weekly went out live on Facebook. Joined in the studio by Professor Brian Cox and comedian Robin Ince – co-hosts of The Infinite Monkey Cage, and co-authors of How to Build a Universe – Nicola Davis asked: how important is communicating science to the masses? What role can comedy play? And, when thinking about a potentially infinite universe, is there any meaning to anything at all? Continue reading...

Newly-discovered Junornis huoi was the oldest bird capable of bounding flight – and represents an exciting update to what we know about complex flightA 126-million-year-old fossil has demonstrated that birds were capable of a special form of flight much earlier than previously thought. The newly named Junornis huoi (which means “beautiful wing”) is known from a single incredibly preserved specimen with a superb skeleton and extensive preservation of feathers, including the wings and two long tail feathers which were likely used for display.The fossil comes from the famous “Jehol” beds of China, which have produced numerous birds, dinosaurs, and other animals including predatory mammals and tadpoles of salamanders. The exceptional preservation of soft tissues such as feathers, claws, muscles and even gills has added considerably to our understanding of the evolution of various groups. The beds extend across northern China and even into North Korea, but Junornis is from the far western extent of these, coming from Inner Mongolia. Continue reading...

Crops that feed 200 million people at risk from destructive march of fall armyworm, as agriculture experts call for urgent action

Handwritten advice to Japanese courier in lieu of a tip exceeds pre-auction estimate by more than 31,000%A note that Albert Einstein gave to a courier in Tokyo briefly describing his theory on happy living has sold at auction in Jerusalem for $1.56m (€1.33m ), according to auctioneers.The winning bid for the note far exceeded the pre-auction estimate of between $5,000 and $8,000, according to Winner’s auctions. Continue reading...

First runs in a new location are memorable, even magical – an introduction to a new city, for example – and science has set out to explain the phenomenonYou remember your first time, right? Everyone does. That grand départ into the unknown, the bewildering, clean-sheeted novelty of it all. That initial feeling of hesitation. The lingering trepidation. Then, bang, that’s all behind you. You’re away. You’ve found your feet, you’ve hit your stride. Pulse quickening, limbs loosening, excitement mounting. But your senses are where the real action is taking place. They’re off the charts, flying high. Everything is pinging and buzzing, brimming and popping. You’re alert, you’re alive, you’re there, in the zone, on the mark, nearing your peak. Yes, everyone remembers their first time.

Enthusiasm for Richard Thaler’s work on behavioural economics means economists have more influence than ever. But their failures contributed to the financial crisis – and we’re being distracted, say Tiago Mata and Jack WrightThe praise is still pouring in for Richard Thaler, winner of the 2017 Sveriges Riksbank prize in economic sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel. The news was described as “wonderful”, “well-deserved … and clarifying,” and BBC Radio 4’s More or Less explained that Thaler is an “amazing economist”. All this praise is due because Thaler has shown better than anyone that behavioural economics can be an engine of policy innovation. Thaler has turned failure into success, helping economists thrive during a financial crisis that they had failed to avert.Thaler is a best-selling author and an entertaining speaker who is never short of an anecdote to explain himself. It has been easy to describe the “endowment effect” – how we overvalue our possessions – or the “problem of self-control” in cartoons or on the radio. But Thaler’s insights, named in the award, are not why he is important. His true value lies in the fact that behavioural economics has refashioned economists as designers and evaluators of legislative and regulatory policy. Continue reading...

Analysis of US fracking sites suggests pollutants including airborne particulates and heavy metals could affect neurodevelopment of babies and childrenPollutants released during fracking processes could pose a health risk to infants and children, according to researchers studying chemicals involved in shale gas operations.The extraction of shale gas using pressurised fluid – a process known as fracking – has been used commercially since the 1950s and in recent years has fuelled an energy boom in the US. Many countries around the world are looking to follow suit – including Australia and the UK, where the first drilling in six years is expected to begin this week in the North Yorkshire village of Kirby Misperton, despite staunch opposition from protesters.

Research ‘strongly suggests’ that patients taking anticoagulants for irregular heartbeat could be protected against dementia and strokeBlood-thinning drugs could protect against dementia and stroke in people with an irregular heartbeat, research suggests.

Exclusive: Lawson’s claim that global temperatures are not rising went unchallenged, breaching guidelines on accuracy and impartialityThe BBC has apologised for an interview with the climate change denier Lord Lawson after admitting it had breached its own editorial guidelines for allowing him to claim that global temperatures have not risen in the past decade.BBC Radio 4’s flagship news programme Today ran the item in August in which Lawson, interviewed by presenter Justin Webb, made the claim. The last three years have in fact seen successive global heat records broken. Continue reading...

Analysis by German professor claims project for UK to leave the EU is a trickier task than Nasa’s 1969 moonshotBritain extricating itself from the European Union will be “incomparably more complex” than the first moon landing, an academic study has found.Roland Alter, a professor at Heilbronn University in Germany who specialises in risk assessment, said he had been inspired to carry out his analysis after comments by the Brexit secretary, David Davis, that he was “running a set of projects that make the Nasa moonshot look quite simple”. Continue reading...

Farmers must be incentivised to tackle decline in biodiversity, says environment secretary at launch of parliamentary soil bodyThe UK is 30 to 40 years away from “the fundamental eradication of soil fertility” in parts of the country, the environment secretary Michael Gove has warned.“We have encouraged a type of farming which has damaged the earth,” Gove told the parliamentary launch of the Sustainable Soils Alliance (SSA). “Countries can withstand coups d’état, wars and conflict, even leaving the EU, but no country can withstand the loss of its soil and fertility. Continue reading...