Science | The Guardian

Yearly spectacle, most visible in northern hemisphere, is caused by Earth passing through debris of ancient cometIt is time for stargazers to dig out the deckchairs to try to enjoy what is considered to be one of the best meteor showers of the year.The Perseids are expected to peak on the night of 12 August, although they have been active from mid-July and will continue to be visible for a further couple of weeks. Continue reading...

For many of us, slathering on sunscreen to protect our skin in the summer months is a no-brainer. But recently social media has been awash with influencers airing their concerns about the potential dangers of this seemingly innocuous product. So is there anything to the claims that sunscreen is toxic? To find out, Madeleine Finlay is joined by the Guardian's science editor, Ian Sample. He explains where the science stands on the safety of sunscreen and what we can do to protect our skin all year roundAs influencers spread toxic' claims, what is the truth about sunscreen?Support the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod Continue reading...

Excrement contains nutrients needed for crop growth and a new source of them could cut farming's huge CO2 outputCharcoal made from human waste could help solve fertiliser shortages as well as reduce pollution and energy use, a study has found.Biochar is a form of charcoal made from organic matter treated at high heat, which is often used on farming soil as a fertiliser. The process also removes carbon from the atmosphere, making it a useful carbon sink. Continue reading...

The decision by the US health and human services secretary to remove mRNA research funding is ill-informed and dangerousScience is not black and white. It's more complicated and more exciting. It's a constant process of exploration. An adventure into the unknown. Scientists come up with theories about what might be going on, and then test them. They don't always get it right. Far from it. But inch by inch, testing, failing and trying again, they makeprogress.Robert F Kennedy Jr, during Senate confirmation hearings for the role of secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), seemed to get that. Those who feared what a vaccine sceptic might do in that role breathed again. I'm going to empower the scientists at HHS to do their job and make sure that we have good science that is evidence based ... I'm not going to substitute my judgment for science," he said.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Non-mRNA jab targeting common mutations in pancreatic and bowel cancers could lower risk of relapseAn off-the-shelf vaccine has shown promise in preventing the return of pancreatic and colorectal cancer, researchers have revealed.Cancer vaccines have been the subject of promising research in recent years. The NHS in England has been trialling various jabs in patients through the Cancer Vaccine Launch Pad (CVLP). Continue reading...

The avian flu virus is now just one mutation away from easier transmission among humans. Donald Trump's health chief is a grave risk to world health

Cherry tomato-sized space rock that pierced roof and hit floor of metro Atlanta home is 20m years older than EarthA cherry tomato-sized fireball that crashed through the roof of a metro Atlanta house in June was a meteorite 20m years older than Earth, a scientist has determined.In a news release on Friday, the University of Georgia planetary geologist Scott Harris said that he arrived at that conclusion after examining 23 grams of fragments from a meteorite that were provided to him after the space rock pierced a man's home and dented its floor in the Henry county community of McDonough. Continue reading...

Shower peaks on the night of 12 to 13 August, when in ideal conditions as many as 100 meteors an hour can be seenThe Perseid meteor shower is widely regarded as the best of the year but better than that, it is happening this week.Active from mid-July until the end of August, the shower peaks on the night of 12 to 13 August, when it can be possible to see as many as 100 meteors an hour streaking across the sky in all directions from the radiant point. From more urban environments, expect an average of as many as one a minute. Continue reading...

Experts on condition affecting millions of people in UK give cautious welcome to findings but say more research neededBlowing into a conch shell could help tackle the symptoms of a sleep disorder that affects millions of people across the UK, according to a study.Conch blowing, also known as shankh blowing, is an ancient ritual that involves breathing in deeply and exhaling into the spiral-shaped shell. Continue reading...

Will the University of Edinburgh confront its dark past? Severin Carrell reportsThe University of Edinburgh has released a report examining its 400-year history and its connections to slavery, colonialism and the development of scientific racism.The Guardian's Scotland editor, Severin Carrell, explains to Nosheen Iqbal how these findings will lead to a lot of soul-searching about how this centre of the Scottish Enlightenment should now be understood. Continue reading...

Actor who portrayed commander in 1995 Oscar-winning film says Lovell dared to go to places most wouldn't goLate Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell has received a tribute from Tom Hanks, the actor who brought him to life in an Oscar-winning movie and said he had gone places most wouldn't dare.There are people who dare, who dream, and who lead others to places we would not go on our own," Hanks said of Lovell in a heartfelt Instagram tribute post published after the astronaut's death was announced on Friday. Jim Lovell, who for a long while had gone farther into space and for longer than any other person of our planet, was that kind of guy." Continue reading...

American astronaut and commander of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission who dramatically brought the crew back to EarthJust after 9.20pm, Houston time, on Monday 13 April 1970, Jim Lovell, who has died aged 97, looked out of the left side window of Odyssey, the command module of the Apollo 13 lunar mission. Caught in the sunlight was what looked like smoke, which Lovell believed, correctly, was oxygen. It was pouring out of the service module, the technological core of the spacecraft.Lovell and his fellow crew members, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert, were 205,000 miles from Earth. Thirteen minutes earlier, a muffled explosion had rocked Apollo 13 and Lovell now realised that we were in serious trouble" and, unlike Apollo 11's Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, or Apollo 12's Pete Conrad and Alan Bean, he would never fulfil his life's ambition to walk on the moon. Continue reading...

Yes, they can be hard to spot - but this find highlights how little we know about creatures crucial to our ecosystem

Aalborg zoo points to importance of mimicking natural feeding, but critics say its campaign devalues petsAfter a Danish zoo posted a reminder of its long-running programme allowing people to donate their healthy, small pets to be gently euthanised" and fed to predators, reaction poured in from across the globe.But beyond the battleground playing out on social media - where some protested against the idea of using pets as prey and others praised the zoo's efforts to drum up a practical food supply - some were swift to point out that the zoo was simply laying bare the reality of keeping carnivores in captivity. Continue reading...

Email obtained by Guardian says Pfizer was told approval may not be granted, meaning Moderna may have to fill gapPfizer's Covid vaccine for young children may not be renewed by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this fall, prompting Moderna to fill possible gaps in supply, according to an email obtained by the Guardian.The move would pull the only remaining Covid vaccine for all children under five from the market. Continue reading...

Nasa hails Lovell for saving 1970 moon mission from potential tragedy' and safely returning crew to EarthJames Jim" Lovell, the commander of Apollo 13 who helped turn a failed moon mission into a triumph of on-the-fly can-do engineering, has died. He was 97.Lovell died on Thursday in Lake Forest, Illinois, Nasa said in a statement. Continue reading...

Academic study suggests devices cannot differentiate between someone being overworked and being excitedThey are supposed to monitor you throughout the working day and help make sure that life is not getting on top of you.But a study has concluded that smartwatches cannot accurately measure your stress levels - and may think you are overworked when really you are just excited. Continue reading...

Organisers say move will damage nation's scientific standing as government refuses to comment on why group of scientists were refused entry

Researchers say distinct frequency is great news' as it will allow their nests to be located with greater easeAsian hornets buzz at a unique frequency that could be the key to controlling their spread, scientists have found, as the invasive species experiences a record year in the UK.Researchers have said this is great news", as the hornet nests can now be more quickly found and distinguished from those of other species, meaning their threat to bees and other pollinators could be contained. Continue reading...

The virtual world can bring a kind of friendship and a kind of connection, even to the grieving. But it can also facilitate exploitation of very human needsJoaquin Oliver was 17 years old when he was shot in the hallway of his high school. An older teenager, expelled some months previously, had opened fire with a high-powered rifle on Valentine's Day in what became America's deadliest high school shooting. Seven years on, Joaquin says he thinks it's important to talk about what happened on that day in Parkland, Florida, so that we can create a safer future for everyone".But sadly, what happened to Joaquin that day is that he died. The oddly metallic voice speaking to the ex-CNN journalist Jim Acosta in an interview on Substack this week was actually that of a digital ghost: an AI, trained on the teenager's old social media posts at the request of his parents, who are using it to bolster their campaign for tougher gun controls. Like many bereaved families, they have told their child's story over and over again to heartbreakingly little avail. No wonder they're pulling desperately at every possible lever now, wondering what it takes to get dead children heard in Washington.Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Many say control measure for mosquito-borne disease hark back to the zero-Covid era, in which people's daily lives were strictly monitoredThere is growing alarm in China that official efforts to control the spread of Chikungunya virus, a non-fatal mosquito-borne disease that has been spreading in the south of the country, are infringing on people's personal rights.A single mother living in Zhanjiang, a port city in Guangdong province, posted a video on social media this week showing a group of people, including a uniformed police officer, entering her children's bedroom in the middle of the night and taking blood samples from the boy and the girl, without their mother's presence or consent. The mother had been working a night shift so was not at home. Continue reading...

Social media post led to discovery that samplers measuring toxic particles in air can also detect fragments of DNAAs the UK's Big Butterfly Count reaches more than 100,000 submissions, an international group of scientists have produced the first national survey of biodiversity using an entirely different approach. Instead of looking for species by eye, they took advantage of the samplers around the UK that constantly measure toxic metal particles in the air, and used them to measure tiny fragments of DNA.Dr Joanne Littlefair from University College London, part of the research team, said: Organisms lose bits of themselves all the time - dead skin cells, fragments of hair or feathers, saliva, even faeces and urine. Some of this will blow up into the air and become airborne environmental' DNA or eDNA." Continue reading...

Ex-fossil fuel executive Chris Wright said administration is reviewing national assessments made by past governmentsThe US energy secretary, Chris Wright, is facing growing criticism from scientists who say their worst fears" were realized when Wright revealed that the Trump administration would update" the US's premier climate crisis reports.Wright, a former oil and gas executive, told CNN's Kaitlin Collins earlier this week that the administration was reviewing national climate assessment reports published by past governments. Continue reading...

Researchers say scientific community is in state of whiplash and accuse president of trying to destroy' vital workLast week, the office of management and budget (OMB) revealed plans to freeze all outside funding for National Institutes of Health research this fiscal year, but reversed course later that day, leaving the scientific community in a state of whiplash. A senior official at the NIH who spoke on condition of anonymity said this was just the latest in a multi-prong" approach by the Trump administration to destroy American scientific research.In July, the National Cancer Institute, which is part of the NIH, updated its website to reflect Trump administration plans to significantly cut cancer research spending as well. Since January, the administration has been cancelling NIH grants, in some cases targeting other specific research areas, such as HIV treatment and prevention. Continue reading...

While urban greening can help mitigate extreme heat, such spaces are not distributed equitablyIt has been a summer of heatwaves in western Europe, with record highs of 46C (115F) in Spain and Portugal.An estimated 2,300 people died of heat-related causes across 12 European cities in June, according to a rapid scientific analysis, with two-thirds of those deaths linked to climate breakdown, which has made heatwaves more severe. Continue reading...

It's a mystery that has long puzzled researchers. Freud called the phenomenon infantile amnesia, and for many years scientists have wondered whether it's a result of failure to create memories or just a failure to retrieve them.In this episode from March 2025, Ian Sample speaks to Nick Turk-Browne, a professor of psychology at Yale University, whose research appears to point to an answerWhy can't we remember our lives as babies or toddlers?Support the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod Continue reading...

Large study suggests people's genetics could tip the balance' on whether they would develop the illnessScientists have found the first robust evidence that people's genes affect their chances of developing myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), a mysterious and debilitating illness that has been neglected and dismissed for decades by many in the medical community.Early findings from the world's largest study into the genetics of the condition pinpointed eight regions of the human genome that were substantially different in people with an ME/CFS diagnosis compared to those without the illness. Continue reading...

Site director says a kind of camp, a favela' was founded in the ruins of city destroyed in AD79Archaeologists have discovered new evidence pointing to the reoccupation of Pompeii after the AD79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius that left the city in ruins.Despite the massive destruction suffered by Pompeii, an ancient Roman city home to more than 20,000 people before the eruption, some survivors who could not afford to start a new life elsewhere are believed to have returned to live in the devastated area. Continue reading...

Winner of Project Hyperion design contest envisions polyamorous people thriving onboard cigar-shaped craftSpaceships modelled on jellyfish, 3D-printed homes, polyamorous relationships and vegetarian diets are among the ways in which experts have envisaged making interstellar travel feasible.The ideas from scientists, engineers, architects and social theorists came in response to a global competition to develop plans for generation ships", self-sustaining crafts capable of supporting up to 1,500 people on a 250-year journey to a habitable planet. Continue reading...

Agency to end 22 federal contracts, questioning safety of technology credited with helping end Covid pandemicThe US Department of Health and Human Services said on Tuesday it would terminate 22 federal contracts for mRNA-based vaccines, questioning the safety of a technology credited with helping end the Covid pandemic and saving millions of lives.The unit, Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, helps companies develop medical supplies to address public health threats, and had provided billions of dollars for development of vaccines during the Covid-19 pandemic. Continue reading...

Even if we don't develop long sticky tongues and a taste for termites, we can still learn a lot from these remarkable creaturesWho doesn't love an anteater? I mean, apart from ants, obviously. With their long snouts and even longer sticky tongues, they trundle around, slurping up insects like milkshakes. They have handsome, bushy tails, which they wrap around themselves at night like a blanket. And they're excellent parents. Giant anteater mothers allow their young to cling to their backs, rucksack-style, for periods of up to a year.Indeed, the surrealist artist Salvador Dali was so taken with the giant anteater that he once took one for a walk through the streets of Paris. And before you ask, no, this wasn't a cheese dream. There is photographic evidence.Helen Pilcher is a science writer and the author of Bring Back the King: The New Science of De-Extinction and Life Changing: How Humans are Altering Life on Earth Continue reading...

Too much exposure to the sun has traditionally been seen as a danger. Now claims that sunscreen is toxic flood the internet. What does the science say?It's summertime in the UK and social media is awash with influencers airing their concerns about sunscreen. Among them is reality TV star Sam Faiers from The Only Way Is Essex, who believes sunscreen is full of toxic ingredients". None of her family wore sunscreen, she said, adding that her children had built up a really good tolerance" to the sun. Some of the claims appear to be fuelled by a US doctor who told his followers: Be careful what you smear on yourself and your children." Here we look at the science behind sunscreen and sun exposure. Continue reading...

More than 100 million novel entity' chemicals are in circulation, with health impact not widely recognisedChemical pollution is a threat to the thriving of humans and nature of a similar order as climate change" but decades behind global heating in terms of public awareness and action, a report has warned.The industrial economy has created more than 100 million novel entities", or chemicals not found in nature, with somewhere between 40,000 and 350,000 in commercial use and production, the report says. But the environmental and human health effects of this widespread contamination of the biosphere are not widely appreciated, in spite of a growing body of evidence linking chemical toxicity with effects ranging from ADHD to infertility to cancer. Continue reading...

Risks of a wave are compounded by new vaccine restrictions from the Trump administrationCovid is on the rise again in the US, as children begin returning to school and as officials plan to restrict booster shots.While cases are increasing less quickly than at the start of other surges, it is too soon to tell how big the current late-summer wave could get - and with highly varied immune responses from prior infections and vaccinations, it is difficult to know how severe illness could be, experts said. Continue reading...

After 90% loss of global sunflower sea star population in 10 years, researchers hope decline can now be tackledA decade after the onset of a sea star wasting disease (SSWD) epidemic considered the largest ever documented in the wild, researchers have identified the microbial culprit responsible: a strain of the bacterium Vibrio pectenicida.In 10 years, the bacterium has ravaged sunflower sea stars (Pycnopodia helianthoides), a large sea star or starfish, along the western coast of North America, with a loss of 5.8 billion since 2013 - or 90% of the total global population. The sunflower sea star is on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's red list of critically endangered species. Continue reading...

Recently, a group of world-leading scientists called for a halt on research to create mirror life' microbes amid concerns that the synthetic organisms would present an unprecedented risk' to life on Earth. Ian Sample tells Madeleine Finlay about why this work initially seemed exciting for scientists and what the risks of it continuing could be. Kate Adamala, assistant professor of genetics, cell biology and development at the University of Minnesota, describes what made her change her mind about pursuing her own research on mirror cellsUnprecedented risk' to life on Earth: scientists call for halt on mirror life' microbe researchSupport the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod Continue reading...

Solutions for todays puzzles plus a gallery of readers' designsEarlier today I wrote about ambigrams, a type of writing that is designed to be read in more than one way. Typically, an ambigram is a word or phrase that has left-right mirror symmetry, or reads the same upside down. (To read the article click here.)I set the following challenge - scroll down to see designs by ambigram author (and public intellectual) Douglas Hofstadter and by readers of this column. Continue reading...

Dieters in trial lost twice as much weight when avoiding ultra-processed ready meals with as much nutritionPeople lose more weight if they cook minimally processed food from scratch than if they eat ultra-processed and ready-made foods, according to the first study to establish a clear link between ultra-processed foods (UPFs) and weight.Trial participants were given one of two diets with the same nutritional profile for eight weeks. One diet was made up of UPFs while the other comprised minimally processed foods. Continue reading...

A pun, a puzzle and a work of artUPDATE: Read the solutions hereDouglas Hofstadter is probably best known as the author of Godel, Escher Bach, a classic of popular science writing published in 1979.In 1983, he coined the word ambigram", meaning a piece of text that can be read in more than one way, an art form pioneered in the 1970s by the typographers Scott Kim and John Langdon. Typically, an ambigram is a word or phrase that has left-right mirror symmetry, or reads the same upside down. Continue reading...

The planet will be shining brightly and visible in even the most light-polluted urban environmentsAugust is another bright sky month in the northern hemisphere so we're having to look for late night and early morning events featuring bright celestial objects. Luckily, Venus has us covered. The planet reaches its highest altitude in the morning sky this month, rising more than three hours earlier than the Sun at mid-northern latitudes and shining brilliantly in the eastern sky.This week, the planet is located in the constellation of Gemini, the Twins. It will be unmistakably bright, shining with an apparent magnitude of -4, making it brighter than everything else in the sky, except the Sun and the moon. This will mean it is visible even from the most light-polluted urban environments. Continue reading...

An experienced clinician in prosthetics, Jim Ashworth-Beaumont found himself the perfect guinea pig for a radical new option for amputeesWhen the air ambulance brought Jim Ashworth-Beaumont to King's College hospital in south-east London, nobody thought he had a hope. He had been cycling home when a lorry driver failed to spot him alongside his trailer while turning left after a set of traffic lights. The vehicle's wheels opened his torso like a sardine tin, puncturing his lungs and splitting his liver in two. They also tore off his right arm. Weeks after the accident, in July 2020, Ashworth-Beaumont would see a photo of the severed limb taken by a doctor while it lay beside him in hospital. He had asked to see the picture and says it helped him come to terms with his loss. My hand didn't look too bad," he says. It was as if it was waving goodbye to me."Ashworth-Beaumont, a super-fit and sunny former Royal Marine from Edinburgh, would go on to spend six weeks in an induced coma as surgeons raced to repair his crushed body. But as he lay on the road, waiting for the paramedics, his only thoughts were that he was dying. He did not have the wherewithal to consider the irony of his predicament. Continue reading...

Jaime Slaughter-Acey's study addresses the high rates of maternal mortality among Black women in the US. Trump's NIH funding cuts threaten her years-long researchJaime Slaughter-Acey was in a state of shock and anger when she learned that her National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded study on birth outcomes in Black families was cancelled this spring. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill associate professor in epidemiology said that she felt like the rug was pulled out from under us" when the university called her to share the news. The termination notice said that the study no longer met the agency's priorities and didn't promise to increase life expectancy.It was heartbreaking," Slaughter-Acey told the Guardian, and honestly, infuriating given the high rates of maternal and infant mortality in this country." Continue reading...

Experts say the report being used to justify the mass rollback of climate regulations has many claims based on long-debunked researchA new Trump administration report which attempts to justify a mass rollback of environmental regulations is chock-full of climate misinformation, experts say.On Tuesday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a proposal to undo the 2009 endangerment finding", which allows the agency to limit planet-heating pollution from cars and trucks, power plants and other industrial sources. Hours later, the Department of Energy (DOE) published a 150-page report defending the proposal, claiming scientific concern about the climate crisis is overblown. Continue reading...

Prof Michele Dougherty, first woman to hold position, is upbeat about role of private sector in space explorationThe Royal Society was right to keep Elon Musk as a fellow, the UK's new astronomer royal has said, adding there was a benefit to the private sector playing a role in space exploration.Speaking to the Guardian after becoming the first woman to hold the 350-year-old position, the planetary scientist Prof Michele Dougherty said she had not been involved in the meetings around Musk's fellowship, but that she supported the academy's stance. Continue reading...

Hybridisation event took place about 9 million years ago, helping to spark the emergence of a new organ'When it comes to the senses, there could not be a greater difference between Friday night chips and juicy Mediterranean tomatoes.However, scientists have discovered that these two foods are not so far from each other after all. Landmark research has found the potato evolved from a tomato ancestor nearly 9 million years ago. Continue reading...

Parents of boy born in Ohio, US, used adopted' IVF embryo that had been stored away for more than 30 yearsThe world's oldest baby" has been born in the US from an embryo that was frozen in 1994, it has been reported.Thaddeus Daniel Pierce was born on 26 July in Ohio to Lindsey and Tim Pierce, using an adopted" embryo from Linda Archerd, 62, from more than 30 years ago. Continue reading...

The 2017 flash, which stretched from east Texas to near Kansas City, beat the previous record by almost 50 milesA 515-mile (829km) lightning flash has set a new record as the longest ever identified.The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed the new world record for the flash registered on 22 October 2017 over the Great Plains in the US. It stretched from east Texas to near Kansas City, Missouri, roughly the distance between Paris and Venice. Continue reading...

In this episode from January 2025, Ian Sample speaks to Keon West, a professor of social psychology at the University of London, whose new book explores what science can reveal about racism, the inventive methods scientists have used to study it and the scientifically proven ways of tackling racism and discriminationOrder The Science of Racism by Keon West from the Guardian bookshopSupport the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod Continue reading...

Race against time to study HMS Northumberland as shifting sands expose part of well-preserved wreck off KentThe English warship HMS Northumberland was built in 1679 as part of a wave of naval modernisation overseen by Samuel Pepys, a decade after he had stopped writing his celebrated diary and gone on to become the Royal Navy's most senior administrator.Twenty-four years later, after the ship had taken part in many of the major naval battles of its day, it was at the bottom of the North Sea, a victim of the Great Storm of 1703, one of the deadliest weather disasters in British history. Continue reading...

Physicist who worked on Nasa Cassini mission absolutely delighted' after being awarded 350-year-old titleA planetary scientist whose research revealed the possibility of extraterrestrial life on one of Saturn's moons has been made the first female astronomer royal.Prof Michele Dougherty, a leading space physicist who was a researcher for the Nasa Cassini mission, has been awarded the 350-year-old honorary title. In 2021, Catherine Heymans, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Edinburgh, became the first female astronomer royal for Scotland, a post established in 1834. Continue reading...