Tour guides may tell you that a pin dropping can be heard in every seat of the ancient theatre of Epidaurus – but scientists disagreeIt has been held up as a stunning example of ancient Greek sound engineering, but researchers say the acoustics of the theatre at Epidaurus are not as dazzling as they have been hailed.Dating from the fourth century BC, and seating up to 14,000 spectators, the theatre has long been admired for its sound quality, with claims that audiences are able to hear a pin drop, or a match being struck, at any seat in the house. Even the British archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler raved about the theatre, declaring in clipped tones in a 1958 broadcast: “Even a stage whisper could be picked up by the furthest spectator with the cheapest ticket.” Continue reading...

The cultural brain hypothesis of human development could also explain cetaceans forming friendships – and even gossipingLife is not so different beneath the ocean waves. Bottlenose dolphins use simple tools, orcas call each other by name, and sperm whales talk in local dialects. Many cetaceans live in tight-knit groups and spend a good deal of time at play.That much scientists know. But in a new study, researchers compiled a list of the rich behaviours spotted in 90 different species of dolphins, whales and porpoises, and found that the bigger the species’ brain, the more complex – indeed, the more “human-like” – their lives are likely to be. Continue reading...

World leaders seem to be getting younger. But whether youthful energy and verve can ever make up for lack of experience remains a vexed questionGrey power this is not. Sebastian Kurz, the 31-year-old leader of the conservative Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), looks set to become the world’s youngest head of government after Sunday’s elections. The country of elegantly dressed, respectably middle-aged ladies and gentlemen has handed the keys of the Mercedes to a fresh-faced kid.Kurz may look young but he is not a new figure on the Austrian political scene. Four years ago he was made foreign minister. Clearly it was time for a new challenge if his career trajectory was to be maintained. Continue reading...

Extraordinary event has been ‘seen’ for the first time, in both gravitational waves and light – ending decades-old debate about where gold comes fromThe collision of a pair of neutron stars, marked by ripples through the fabric of space-time and a flash brighter than a billion suns, has been witnessed for the first time in the most intensely observed astronomical event to date.The extraordinary sequence, in which the two ultra-dense stars spiralled inwards, violently collided and, in all likelihood, immediately collapsed into a black hole, was first picked up by the US-based Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (Ligo).

Proof that celestial collisions called kilonovas create gold is the first wonder to arise from coordinated observations – expect more to comeIf you are wearing a piece of gold jewellery, take a good, hard look at it and consider this: you are likely to be wearing the celestial debris of a cataclysmic stellar collision, a collision so devastating that it literally shook the universe. That’s the conclusion from Monday’s announcement of gravitational wave signal GW170817.It is another reminder that we are intimately connected to the cosmos around us. At heart, astronomy is not really about remote and abstracted realms, instead it informs us about our own origins and the origins of those things we value. Continue reading...

With concealment common and women expected not even to show knowledge of the disease, infection of families by men was widespread across all classes

Food, sex, money, work, family, friends, health, politics: there’s nothing we can’t feel guilty about, including our own feelings of guilt• Read the text version hereSubscribe via Audioboom, Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Mixcloud, Acast & Sticher and join the discussion on Facebook and Twitter Continue reading...

Developments in eye-gaze technology – which converts minute movements of the eye into spoken words – are opening up undreamed of opportunities for people with motor neurone diseaseSteve Thomas and I are talking about brain implants. Bonnie Tyler’s Holding Out For a Hero is playing in the background and for a moment I almost forget that a disease has robbed Steve of his speech. The conversation breaks briefly; now I see his wheelchair, his ventilator, his hospital bed.Steve, a software engineer, was diagnosed with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a type of motor neurone disease) aged 50. He knew it was progressive and incurable; that he would soon become unable to move and, in his case, speak. He is using eye-gaze technology to tell me this (and later to turn off the sound of Bonnie Tyler); cameras pick up light reflection from his eye as he scans a screen. Movements of his pupils are translated into movements of a cursor through infrared technology and the cursor chooses letters or symbols. A speech-generating device transforms these written words into spoken ones – and, in turn, sentences and stories form. Continue reading...

A big tree can be infested with about 2m of these tiny leaf miners, just one of several new pests attacking British woodlandsThe autumn tree colours are appearing, but all is not quite what it seems. Horse chestnut leaves started falling weeks ago like crispy brown pieces of paper, a sign of leaf miners infesting the trees.These are the caterpillars of a tiny moth, and a big tree can be infested with about 2m of these pests, which weakens the tree. Even more pernicious is a disease of horse chestnuts called bleeding canker, which can kill the tree. Continue reading...

David Dodd wants employers to assume a degree of responsibility for employees’ mental wellbeing, Justin Harper makes a case for income protection and Gary Fereday says psychoanalytically informed therapies should be more widely available. Plus letters from Keir Harding and Rob DaviesJeremy Hunt has once more propelled mental health up the political agenda with the promise that an extra £1.3bn would be invested annually in mental health services by 2021 (Report, 10 October). However, while such promises constitute a significant step forward, it will take a lot more than policy and funding to resolve a problem reaching pandemic proportions in the UK. In light of World Mental Health Day, we need to broaden the debate from how to resolve mental health issues – to how to prevent them. And data suggests that at least part of the onus should be on employers.Our research has found that almost half of UK employees believe that their workplace has a negative impact on their physical or mental health; it’s time for UK employers to assume a degree of responsibility for their employees’ mental wellbeing. Introducing measures such as resilience training, mindfulness and mental health first aiders could make a significant difference to both the support offered to employees and UK business – alleviating the impact of our tech-enabled 24/7 work lifestyles, reducing employee absence and fundamentally improving business productivity.

On Friday, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN had a day of smashing xenon nuclei together, a departure from its usual diet of protons or leadThe picture at the top shows what happened in the CMS particle detector when xenon nuclei were circulated in the LHC and brought into head-on collision. The yellow is made up of tracks of electrically-charged particles, produced in such numbers that the whole of the centre of the picture is a yellow blur, with individual tracks only visible near the edges. The blue and green blocks indicate energy deposited by both charged and neutral particles in the CMS calorimeter.Collisions between protons look significantly less busy than this, with fewer particles produced. But both xenon and lead nuclei are packed with protons and neutrons, and though lead has more of them, by eye I don’t think anyone could tell the difference between a xenon-xenon collision and a lead-lead one.

Meeting a young Syrian refugee inspires Mark Cousins to imagine how different our defining images can beWe have work lives and love lives, but we also have looking lives. If we’re lucky enough to have eyesight, an inner photo album accrues throughout our lives. On its pages are the sunsets we’ve seen, the dead bodies, and many other defining images – these are the visual shocks and pleasures which help us understand and read emotion.In a refugee camp in Calais last year, I played football with a young teenage boy from Syria. We had no common language, but we had a laugh as we played. Afterwards I wondered what he had seen in his life so far. Continue reading...

Analysis of bones and pottery fragments shows special foods were consumed in feasts at the ancient siteBritons’ Stone Age ancestors possessed some unexpected talents, scientists have discovered. On top of their prowess in constructing great monoliths such as Stonehenge, they were also adept at staging first-rate parties.Roast sweetened pork consumed with a range of rich dairy products including cheese and butter appear to have been commonplace at feasts – according to an English Heritage exhibition, Feeding Stonehenge, which will open this week at the stone circle’s visitor centre. Continue reading...

These posthumously published essays range from psychiatry to plagiarism to near-death experiences

Leading researchers and campaigners express concern that geoengineering research could be used as an excuse not to reduce CO2 emissionsLeading climate scientists have warned that geoengineering research could be hijacked by climate change deniers as an excuse not to reduce CO2 emissions, citing the US administration under Donald Trump as a major threat to their work.David Keith, a solar geoengineering (GE) expert at Harvard University has said there is a real danger that his work could be exploited by those who oppose action on emissions, at the same time as he defended himself and colleagues from the claims GE strengthens the argument for abandoning the targets set by the Paris climate agreement. Continue reading...

I congratulate myself – but then spot the mistake in my analysisRemember my DNA test a few weeks ago? I got my results back from FitnessGenes, and spent a couple of hours awed by my own capacities, before I realised how to interpret the information. Starting from the top: ACE is the endurance gene. You either have two copies of the long version, II; two copies of the short, DD; or one of each, ID. The long version is associated with endurance athletes, the short with being a power/strength athlete. I’m an II, so my endurance is epic.I have these endurance genes in spades – in ACTN3, the gene for speed, I’m an RR, which is associated, in women, with higher-than-average baseline strength, and in older women, with better response to resistance training. (The letters are just the names of alleles – genetic-sequencing variations.) With the fat-burning gene, PPARA, I’m a GG, which is another endurance athlete’s trait. Continue reading...

Pieces weighing up to 100kg could make it to the surface, says expert, when out-of-control 8.5-tonne laboratory breaks apart in the atmosphereAn 8.5-tonne Chinese space station has accelerated its out-of-control descent towards Earth and is expected to crash to the surface within a few months.The Tiangong-1 or “Heavenly Palace” lab was launched in 2011 and described as a “potent political symbol” of China, part of an ambitious scientific push to turn China into a space superpower. Continue reading...

Exclusive: US bodybuilding star and an ex-conman are linked to UK sales of the toxic diet drug DNP following searches on premises in CumbriaA series of raids in northern England has uncovered an operation suspected of selling a deadly fat-burning chemical used by bodybuilders that has killed eight young people in Britain in the last two years.Around 11 kilos of the chemical 2,4-dinitrophenol, known as DNP, was found last month at premises in Wigton, Cumbria, alongside other legal supplements and equipment that could be used for making tablets. Continue reading...

Obviously to a scientifically-minded human like myself, the news that astronomers have found half of the missing matter in the universe initially conjured up images of odd socks and lost car keys. It’s a little more complex than that, it seems: the findings could potentially resolve one of cosmology’s most perplexing problems. Scientists have also discovered that dwarf planet Haumea, a rugby ball-shaped planet which lies beyond Neptune, has a ring around it. Until now, ring-like structures had only been found around Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Returning to Earth, there’s optimistic news from a trial using psilocybin – the psychoactive compound that occurs naturally in magic mushrooms – to treat patients with depression. The study suggests that it might “reboot” the brain, although more trials are needed, and the researchers have warned against self medication. Also intriguing on the brain front is a piece of research that appears to confirm the stereotype that women are kinder and less selfish than men. Apparently our reward system is geared towards more “prosocial” and generous behaviour. That said, another study out this week seems to show that there is one area in which women are unwilling to compromise: household temperature. And on that chilly note, we’ll end with the cool news that in the wake of the loss of iceberg A68 from the Larsen C ice shelf, British Antarctic Survey researchers will study the damaged area, which has been hidden for up to 120,000 years. Continue reading...

Today is not a good day to be superstitious. My tip for sufferers of friggatriskaidekaphobia? Drive to the Netherlands, or Spain – avoiding the M25There is a chance that you are reading this while curled up at home with the curtains drawn and doors locked, convinced that the best way to avoid the malevolent influence of Friday the 13th is to avoid all human contact. If so, you aren’t alone.Related: The 13 worst things that have ever happened on Friday the 13th Continue reading...

The winning and shortlisted entries for the the Royal Society of Biology’s 2017 Photographer of the Year and Young Photographer of the Year competitions. This gorgeous and intriguing series of images features species from across the globe, and ranges from microscopic insights into the development of frogspawn, to the incredible emerald hues of an Indian lake photographed from 30,000 feet Continue reading...

University researchers’ ‘staggering’ find contradicts theories that Islamic objects in Viking graves are result of plunderA Swedish university has discovered Arabic characters for “Allah” and “Ali” woven into Viking burial clothes. Researchers at Uppsala University describe the finding of the geometric Kufic characters in silver on woven bands of silk as “staggering”.Related: How the female Viking warrior was written out of history Continue reading...

Theatre503, London

Patients unresponsive to conventional treatments benefit when treated with natural psychoactive compound, but researchers warn against self medicationMagic mushrooms may effectively “reset” the activity of key brain circuits known to play a role in depression, the latest study to highlight the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics suggests.Psychedelics have shown promising results in the treatment of depression and addictions in a number of clinical trials over the last decade. Imperial College London researchers used psilocybin – the psychoactive compound that occurs naturally in magic mushrooms – to treat a small number of patients with depression, monitoring their brain function, before and after. 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. By Ian LeslieIn 2013, a British man was arrested for planning to kidnap and brutally murder a soldier. The suspect, who had a criminal history, had posted messages on social media in support of violent jihad. In a search of his residence, the police had found a bag containing a hammer, a kitchen knife and a map with the location of a nearby army barracks.Shortly after his arrest, the suspect was interviewed by a counter-terrorist police officer. The interviewer wanted him to provide an account of his plan, and to reveal with whom, if anyone, he has been conspiring. But the detainee – we will call him Diola – refused to divulge any information. Instead, he expounded grandiloquently on the evils of the British state for 42 minutes, with little interruption. When the interviewer attempted questions, Diola responded with scornful, finger-jabbing accusations of ignorance, naivety and moral weakness: “You don’t know how corrupt your own government is – and if you don’t care, then a curse upon you.” Continue reading...

Concern over illicit use and addiction is putting morphine out of reach for millions of patients globally who need it for pain reliefMore than 25 million people, including 2.5 million children, die in agony every year around the world, for want of morphine or other palliative care, according to a major investigation.

Elon Musk’s firm blasts previously flown Falcon 9 first-stage booster into space and recovers it safely back on EarthSpaceX set a brisk pace this week, with two successful launches of the Falcon 9 rocket. The second launch by the company – whose chief executive is its billionaire founder, Elon Musk – re-used a previously flown first stage booster, increasing confidence that SpaceX could deliver re-useable rockets and so drive down launch costs.The first launch took place on 9 October. The rocket lifted off from the Vandenberg airforce base in California at 05:37 PDT (12:37 GMT). It placed 10 communications satellites in a 400-mile-high orbit for Iridium, the telecommunications company. Continue reading...

Universities urged to help the UK weather the post-Brexit economy through EU science collaborations and new incentives to commercialise their researchJo Johnson, the universities minister, said the government wanted to secure “an ambitious agreement” with the EU to safeguard Britain’s science and innovation, and pledged to allow British universities to continue close research collaboration with their European peers.

Research reveals subtle changes in sound patterns help babies recognise the voice of their mothersCooing to an infant might not seem like sophisticated speech, but it turns out that baby talk is more complex than previously thought.While it has long been known the pitch and rhythm of speech changes when mothers talk to their babies, researchers have now found the timbre of their voice changes too – a quality that reflects properties such as how velvety, raspy or nasal a sound seems. Continue reading...

Scientists produce indirect evidence of gaseous filaments and sheets known as Whims linking clusters of galaxies in the cosmic webIt is one of cosmology’s more perplexing problems: that up to 90% of the ordinary matter in the universe appears to have gone missing.Now astronomers have detected about half of this missing content for the first time, in a discovery that could resolve a long-standing paradox. Continue reading...

Research using brain scans finds people experience feelings of contentment from places more than from objects such as photographs or wedding ringsThe poet WHAuden is credited with first coining the word “topophilia” to describe a strong emotional pull to a special place.Now scientific research, using cutting-edge brain imaging, suggests Auden was on to something. According to a study commissioned by the National Trust, people experience intense feelings of wellbeing, contentment and belonging from places that evoke positive memories far more than treasured objects such as photographs or wedding rings.

Why are so many women with autism often misdiagnosed? And how does this issue resonate with broader ideas of neurodiversity?Subscribe & Review on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud & Acast, and join the discussion on Facebook and TwitterLast week, the Guardian’s Virtual Reality team released their latest film; ‘The Party’, which allows the viewer to step into the shoes of a 16-year-old with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Importantly, the viewpoint is that of a female. Surprised? It’s little wonder. Autism is often discussed in relation to males, and misdiagnosis of ASDs with other conditions is more common in females. But why do so many females fall through the diagnostic net? What techniques might they employ to cope with autism? And how can we improve the situation? Continue reading...

Men caught up in scandals often claim to be sex addicts, but does that even exist? The science is debatableAnother day, another powerful man embroiled in a sinister sexual scandal decades in the making. This time it’s powerful Hollywood figure Harvey Weinstein. The moral, ethical and political aspects of this whole mess have been covered extensively elsewhere, and will no doubt continue to be so over the coming days and weeks.However, recent reports suggest that Weinstein has checked himself into a European rehab clinic for sex addiction. This has been met with some not-inconsiderable cynicism, but, even if it is true, wondering whether Weinstein is a sex addict overlooks a more fundamental question: is anyone a sex addict? Because that diagnosis, as commonplace as it may seem, is far from established psychiatric fact. Continue reading...

SpaceX launched a partially used Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Billionaire SpaceX founder Elon Musk has hailed the twin achievement of salvaging a used rocket and re-launching it yet again as a revolutionary step in his quest to slash launch costs and shorten intervals between space shots Continue reading...

Sandy, Bedfordshire The fly’s head tipped back a little, eyes the colour of a tired strawberry, its legs frozen, as if in ecstasySitting down at the wheel of the car I found my view through the windscreen partially obscured by two large insects having sex. At least, this was how things looked from the driver’s seat. A solitary wasp had mounted its mate and wrapped its forelegs fondly around its neck. It had managed to anchor the both of them to the sloping glass with its rear feet.This wasp was an angular Audrey Hepburn of insects, narrow-waisted with a pencil-point slender abdomen and an impeccable dress sense of yellow and black hoops and bars. It had pulled big time, for its “partner” was a whopper of a catch – a giant house fly, its coarse-haired, scabby, bulbous, abdomen flattened against the screen. Continue reading...

Rugby ball-shaped dwarf planet with two moons also has a ring around it and orbits in the outer solar systemA ring has been discovered around one of the dwarf planets that orbits the outer reaches of the solar system.Until now, ring-like structures had only been found around the four outer planets – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Continue reading...

While male and female body temperatures are similar, subtle biological difference conspire to make household temperatures a perennial bone of contentionForget negotiations over who takes out the bin, new research suggests that the ideal home temperature is the vexed question most likely to split households down gender lines.A study found that one third of couples dispute this issue and that four in 10 women covertly turn up the heating behind their partner’s back. Continue reading...

Scientists are discovering more and more about the internal lives of animals. But what does this mean for the way humans behave?Last week footage of five young elephants being captured in Zimbabwe to sell to zoos travelled round the world. Parks officials used helicopters to find the elephant families, shot sedatives into the young ones, then hazed away family members who came to the aid of the drugged young ones as they fell.The film, shared exclusively with the Guardian, showed the young captives being trussed up and dragged on to trucks. In the final moments of footage, two men repeatedly kick a small dazed elephant in the head. Continue reading...

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific conceptsIs it possible or ethical to gather all the nuclear waste the world produces, load it into a rocket, and blast it into the sun? I’m guessing it will burn up before reaching the sun, but would it have any adverse effects?Stella Cloherty Continue reading...

Lentils might not sound like a spectacular archaeological find but at the prehistoric site of Gurga Chiya in Iraqi Kurdistan they hold the clues to social transformationRelated: Iraq: Kurdish leader Barzani claims win in independence referendumI should be in the Kurdish region of Iraq right now knee-deep in Late Chalcolitic archaeology, but instead I’m watching Bake Off in Crewe. The autumn excavation season in the Kurdish region is cancelled and most of the international teams have left, including the University College London project I was working on and the British Museum’s training excavation at Qalatga Darband. The cessation of international flights into and out of Iraqi Kurdistan, imposed by Baghdad after the Kurdish independence referendum on 25 September, has put a stop to archaeology in the region just at the best time of the year for digging. 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 queriesA great frustration for those who study natural history is that the sounds made by almost every extinct creature that ever lived will never be heard by human ears. The best we know of the call of the dodo, for instance, is that, perhaps, its name was an onomatopoeic allusion to a two-noted pigeon-like “cooo”. Likewise, the best we know of the great auk, a flightless penguin-like bird of the northern hemisphere, is that it may or may not have made a “gurgling noise when anxious”. My favourite of these extinct sounds is that of the Huia, a charming long-billed New Zealand bird which, although last seen in 1907, managed to stow its song into modernity because an elderly Maori man could remember the song from his childhood and recite it 50 years later, whistling it in front of audiences still saddened by its loss.Related: Why are children so annoying? You asked Google – here’s the answer | Phil Daoust Continue reading...

A new study of oviraptor eggshell fragments shows remarkable similarities between the reproductive biology of dinosaurs and birdsBird eggs come in a variety of colours. From the creamy and chalky whites in doves and pigeons to spotted yellow lapwing eggs and brown chicken eggs, to the blues of blackbirds and American robins. The striking colours and patterns have inspired artists, scientists and home decor makers from Aristotle to high-end jewellers. Thanks to palaeontology, we can now add oviraptor blue-green to the spectrum.Remarkably, only two chemical compounds bring about the whole spectrum of bird egg coloration and patterning: reddish-brown protoporphyrin IX and green-blue biliverdin. Both pigments have distinctly different chemical properties, and whereas biliverdin is distributed throughout the inner core layer of the eggshell, protoporphyrin IX is limited to the outermost eggshell layer. Continue reading...

The former Australian prime minister’s misleading speech to a London thinktank was full of climate denial mythologyTony Abbott titled his London speech on climate change “Daring to Doubt” – a challenge, if you will, to reject mountains of evidence and instead lick your fingers and shove them into the plug socket of denial.Go on, I dare you. Continue reading...

Nasa says there will be ‘no danger’ when the asteroid 2012 TC4 shaves past Earth at just above the altitude at which most satellites operate on ThursdayA house-size asteroid will give Earth a near-miss on Thursday, giving experts a rare chance to rehearse for a real-life strike threat as it passes inside the moon’s orbit.Dubbed 2012 TC4, the space rock will shave past at an altitude of less than 44,000km (27,300 miles) – just above the 36,000km altitude at which hundreds of geosynchronous satellites orbit the Earth. Continue reading...

Living With the Gods will include exhibition and 30-part radio series hosted by venue’s ex-director Neil MacGregorPatterns of shared belief and ritual over 40,000 years, from the ice age to the present day, are to be explored in an ambitious 30-part radio series and exhibition at the British Museum.Living With the Gods, presented by the former British Museum director Neil MacGregor, will air over six weeks, beginning this month, on BBC Radio 4. An exhibition of objects that form the core of the series will open on 2 November.

The work of economists such as Nobel prize winner Richard Thaler has profound implications for society. A nudge is sometimes all we needRichard Thaler’s Nudge opens with a story about a school cafeteria in the US. Not for the first time, a headteacher was grappling with the question of how to encourage the kids to eat better.Should the school ban sugary sweets altogether? Subsidise the salads? Eventually, the head found the answer was simple – just put the healthier foods at eye level, and watch as more students reach for carrot sticks over fries. Continue reading...

People are better able to pick up on the emotions of others by focusing on a speaker’s voice, rather than their expression or gestures, study suggestsWhen it comes to understanding how another person thinks and feels, it might be best to close your eyes and listen.A study by an American psychologist suggests that people are better able to pick up on the emotions of others when simply focusing on their voice, compared with both watching and listening to them, or just watching them. Continue reading...

Be it the tale of the Grenfell fire survivor being reunited with her cat, or the ‘refugee cat’ lost in Greece and found in Norway stories of pets draw us in like no otherWhat could be more heartening than the story of the Grenfell fire survivor who was reported this week to have been reunited with the cat she thought she’d lost in the blaze? What could warm the cockles more than the story, also reported this week, of the “refugee cat” lost in Greece and reunited with its family in Norway courtesy of a global social media campaign. For stories of cats and dogs, be they heroes or victims, draw us in like no other. What magic was cast upon us to seemingly love them so?Related: Miaow! Row over harm done by domestic cats sends fur flying Continue reading...

A new study by neuroeconomists suggesting that women’s biology could make them a soft touch covers overly familiar gendered groundRichard Thaler has just won the Nobel prize for economics for his work explaining how human choice can be influenced. The insight that people make decisions for all sorts of reasons, not all of them based on a cool assessment of the consequences, led Professor Thaler to global acclaim as the slayer of homo economicus. Homo economicus was an entirely fictional character who decided whose turn it was to put the bin out on rational grounds. Thaler was, among his lesser achievements, David Cameron’s favourite economist, his nudge theory credited with encouraging people to stop smoking and eat more healthily.What Professor Thaler, in his moment of glory, may not yet realise is that his insights may already be on their way to extinction, just like homo economicus. He is being nudged out of the future by biology: to be precise, by neuroeconomics, which like his is an interdisciplinary science but one that studies brain activity, or the lack of it, to draw conclusions about why people behave as they do. Continue reading...