Lady Gaga has been forced to cancel a number of shows due to the severe chronic pain condition fibromyalgia. But what is it?Earlier this month, Lady Gaga announced the cancellation of the upcoming leg of her world tour due to her ongoing battle with fibromyalgia syndrome. Her behind-the-scenes Netflix documentary, Gaga: Five foot Two , charts her journey to Superbowl half-time show stardom, but also offers an intriguing glimpse into the challenges faced by someone living with chronic pain.So, first to the question many of you may be asking yourselves: what on earth is fibromyalgia? In the simplest terms it is a chronic pain syndrome characterised by tenderness and pain in muscles and deep tissues. However there are many secondary symptoms that go along with this, and the biggest challenge for patients with the condition can be living with severe fatigue, broken sleep, psychological distress and mental lethargy known as ‘fibro-fog’ (although the list of potential symptoms goes on, meaning that each individual patient experience can be quite unique). Continue reading...

The Victorians feared the moral and physical implications of venereal disease, but the problems of untreatable infection and inadequate health provision are all too familiar to modern viewers

Many juries believe crime-scene DNA evidence is watertight – but this is far from the case. As forensic technology gets ever more sophisticated, experts are only just realising how difficult interpreting the evidence can beFor David Butler, it began with a knock on the door early one November morning, seven years ago. When he opened it, officers from the Merseyside police were standing on his doorstep. The retired taxi driver was being arrested for murder.The police said they had evidence connecting Butler to the death of Anne Marie Foy, a 46-year-old sex worker who had been battered and strangled in Liverpool in 2005. Continue reading...

If there is extraterrestrial life out there, why haven’t we found any yet? Perhaps it’s because we never invited them in

Inquiry finds artificial windpipe, arterial graft and synthetic tear duct made by scientists at University College London were used outside of UKExperimental implants that should only have been used in laboratory or animal tests were sent abroad and used on patients who were treated like human guinea pigs, an inquiry at one of Britain’s leading universities has found.An artificial windpipe, an arterial graft and a synthetic tear duct manufactured by scientists at University College London were used in operations despite not being approved for use in humans, according to the inquiry’s report. Continue reading...

Waves that ripple across the ground are especially destructive to tall buildings whereas intense shaking is more likely to destroy low-rise buildingsTwo big earthquakes in Mexico last month were a tragic reminder that the country sits atop one of the most seismically active places on Earth. In particular, the magnitude 7.1 Puebla tremor on 19 September demonstrated Mexico’s vulnerability, causing severe damage in Mexico City and taking more than 270 lives.However, Mexico’s most lethal earthquake remains the 1985 Michoacán earthquake of magnitude 8, which occurred 32 years earlier, to the day, and killed as many as 10,000 people. Strangely, many of the buildings that survived in 1985 succumbed to the tremors from the magnitude 7.1 last month. That’s because the two earthquakes produced different kinds of shaking. Continue reading...

My friend and colleague Tim Poston, who has died aged 72, had an unorthodox academic career that combined pure mathematics with physics, engineering, computer science and medicine. He also co-authored two science-fiction novels.He was born in St Albans, Hertfordshire, to Ralph, a broadcaster and Anglican priest, and his wife, Mary (nee King), a teacher and later a psychiatric social worker. As his parents moved around for work purposes, Tim was educated at various schools in Britain and abroad before he went to Hull University, where he graduated with a first-class degree in mathematics in 1967. He followed it up with a PhD at Warwick University in 1972, then worked in mathematics and physics research centres around the world, mainly as a research fellow or visiting professor. Among the many cities in which he worked were Rio de Janeiro, Porto, Geneva, Stuttgart, Los Angeles and Bangalore. Continue reading...

Acute shortage in NHS of specialist doctors who undertake life-saving treatment means hospitals cannot provide itStroke patients in Wales are being denied a life-saving pioneering treatment after the surgical team providing it had to be mothballed because of an acute NHS shortage of the specialist doctors who undertake the procedure.Internal NHS emails obtained by the Guardian reveal that health service bosses in Wales are pleading with hospitals in England to perform mechanical thrombectomy on their patients to save them from disability and death. Continue reading...

Automation looks set to replace many jobs in the next few decades. What work will be left for humans to do?Hal Varian, chief economist at Google, has a simple way to predict the future. The future is simply what rich people have today. The rich have chauffeurs. In the future, we will have driverless cars that chauffeur us all around. The rich have private bankers. In the future, we will all have robo-bankers.One thing that we imagine that the rich have today are lives of leisure. So will our future be one in which we too have lives of leisure, and the machines are taking the sweat? We will be able to spend our time on more important things than simply feeding and housing ourselves? Continue reading...

Take our quiz to see how highly you score on self-compassionCompassion is generally thought of as something that we show (or don’t show) to others. But recently psychologists have become increasingly interested in self-compassion. Do you go easy on yourself, or beat yourself up over the slightest slip-up? To find out, rate your agreement with the following statements on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), then add up these numbers to find your total self-compassion score.(a) I accept that I can’t be perfect in everything I do (self kindness).

Despite being surrounded by temptation, children are getting better at resisting itThe innocuous-sounding “marshmallow test”, many will remember, is the beguiling name given to an established experiment that serves to separate those children who can control their primal urges from those who cannot. Given the choice of confectionery now or a double helping a bit later, the child with a greater chance of success in future life will wait for longer. As such, it is a test that has always carried a pretty gloomy, though sugar-coated, message about our pre-determined fates.But now this way of measuring young children’s behaviour, used as an index by scientists for 50 years, is offering a cause for celebration. It seems that, contrary to common wisdom, girls and boys are getting better at mastering their immediate impulses. Research released last week by John Protzko, a psychologist at the University of California, showed that across all levels of ability children can now hold out for several minutes longer. Continue reading...

This week’s Nobel winners will have drawn on teams, often multinational, now threatened by BrexitWhen we think of famous scientists, we think of Albert Einstein, perhaps Marie Curie or Francis Crick. More recently, there’s Peter Higgs, known for the Higgs boson, Andre Geim for graphene or John O’Keefe for his work on the GPS systems in our brains. Though they span vastly different scientific disciplines, they all have one thing in common – they are all Nobel prize winners.Nobel laureates give a human face to science, a discipline that can often seem anonymous to those who aren’t directly involved. They are great figures in history whose discoveries have transformed our understanding of the universe and in many cases improved our lives in ways that cannot be overestimated. Continue reading...

A new Phaidon photobook draws from the worlds of astronomy and art to create a complete, beautiful picture of how we see space and ourselves within it

A new Phaidon photobook, Universe, compiles visions of space from across history, as seen by astronomers, astronauts, painters and propagandists• Read astronomer and author Dr Stuart Clark’s review of Universe Continue reading...

Slides uncovered in an Arizona home seemed to unlock the Roswell incident; a riddle that has baffled UFO enthusiasts for years. But was it all too good to be true?In the spring of 2012, Chicago videographer Adam Dew received a mysterious phone call from his former business partner Joseph Beason. “I have something to show you,” Beason said with urgency in his voice. Continue reading...

Look away now: an investigation into one food processor might put you off your next chicken mealFor almost every meat eater, chicken is the great standby. Every day, more than 2 million birds are consumed: spiced up as drumsticks or curry-sauced thighs or succulently ham-wrapped breasts. But there is perhaps no other area of food production where what we eat has become so distant from what happens to it on the way to the plate. It is not a process for the faint-hearted: and as an investigation by the Guardian and ITV has found, it can also break the law.Undercover reporters who took jobs with 2 Sisters Food Group (2SFG) found workers at the company’s processing plant in West Bromwich packing chicken pieces that had been picked up off the floor, mixing fresh with less-fresh meat and fiddling key information about slaughter dates in a way that might have meant customers were misled about use-by dates. It ought to shame the industry. But on past evidence, it is hard to believe that it will. Continue reading...

Petty prejudice led to people objecting to my BBC voiceovers. I’m proud to have a London accent – and to work for a broadcaster that champions diversityFriday morning. I’ve made it to the end of the week. Reprieve from the school run for two days. I’m working most of the weekend though, but that’s alright, because I am one of the very few people who loves what they do, and I’m grateful – especially because it wasn’t always this way.However, this week is different, as my phone starts to “ping” furiously. It seems I’m making waves online and in print. Why? Because of the way I speak. I’m a BBC TV announcer, and the Sun and the Daily Mail have taken exception to the way I pronounce certain words. I tend to say “f” instead of “th” – what’s the “Funderball”, the Sun demands? “Isn’t the accent a bit estuary for the BBC?”, wonders Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells. By mid-morning, I’m even the subject of a radio phone-in show. Everybody chimes in: “[He’s] as bad as the Welsh woman on Channel 4,” one caller says; there are even comments about how I look as opposed to how I sound. Continue reading...

Woman awarded record $57m damages over implant launched with no clinical trial and marketed despite higher failure rateA vaginal mesh implant made by Johnson & Johnson (J&J) was launched without a clinical trial, and then marketed for five years after the company learned that it had a higher failure rate than their two earlier devices.Internal company emails disclosed in a US court case, in which a 51-year-old woman was awarded a record $57m in damages this month, also show that senior executives even briefly considered suppressing unfavourable data that “could compromise the future” of the device. Continue reading...

Our understanding of the universe is expanding at a fantastic rate, in part thanks to breakthroughs such as the latest gravitational wave detection, reported this week, which shows the 3D shape of ripples from a black hole collision. It’s no surprise then that space agencies and companies are champing at the bit to get people out into the far reaches of space to start loading up cargo ships up with killer xenomorphs with their facehuggers and chestbursters*. This week has seen two separate announcements proposing lunar space stations: one from Nasa/Roscosmos, who propose to put a crewed spaceport in lunar orbit, and one from Elon Musk, who says a new SpaceX craft will make it possible to build a base on the moon. In both cases, the lunar bases are intended as springboards for Mars missions and other deep-space travel. Back in Earth’s labs, however, there are exciting hints at what the future may hold for gene editing, as a Chinese team managed to use “chemical surgery”, also known as “base editing” for the first time to mend harmful mutations in human embryos. It’s a technique similar to Crispr, but can change a single letter in a faulty gene. Another promising piece of research used an implant which stimulates the vagus nerve to restore a form of consciousness to patient who had been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years. In other intriguing news, researchers believe that carbon fragments found in 3.95bn-year-old rocks is remnants of ancient life, putting the emergence of the first organisms on Earth at more than 4bn years ago. Finally (and, let’s face it, not definitively), a study has discovered that psychopaths might have distinct and identifiable musical preferences. Interestingly, the study participants with the highest psychopath scores were among the greatest fans of Blackstreet hit No Diggity, with Eminem’s Lose Yourself also rated highly. Adjust your Spotify playlists accordingly. Continue reading...

Popcorn may be a whole grain but it often comes cooked in oil and covered in sugar, salt and flavourings. So how healthy is it really?It’s been trumpeted as being high in fibre, comes in flavours as diverse as marshmallow and blue cheese, and is one of the UK’s fastest growing grocery products. But is popcorn really a healthy alternative to snack food staples such as crisps?Popcorn has its benefits. For starters, it is a whole grain – a type of food linked to the prevention of cancers and heart disease due to their content of fibre, antioxidants as well as various vitamins and minerals.

Luxembourg has shown how far a tiny country can go by serving the needs of global capitalism. Now it has set its sights on outer space• Read the text version hereSubscribe via Audioboom, Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Mixcloud, Acast & Sticher and join the discussion on Facebook and Twitter Continue reading...

SpaceX boss unveils plans for intercontinental flights that could use technology developed for space travel to reach long-distance destinations in less than 30 minutes. Musk says that by leaving the Earth's atmosphere commercial flights could arrive at any destination in less than an hour

Elon Musk gives an update on the progress SpaceX, his commercial space agency, is making on interplanetary space travel. Musk tells the audience that he believes a cargo mission to Mars will be possible by 2022, with a manned mission following in 2024. He envisages the creation of an inhabited city on the planet, with up to 100 people able to travel to the base per trip

Researchers from around the world submitted photos of the various forms of life they study to the BMC Research in Progress Photo Competition; the winners and their weird and wonderful subjects have now been revealed Continue reading...

A doctor told Sasha Abramsky that, in all likelihood, he had eaten a fish tainted with ciguatoxin. Suddenly, horrors and anxieties lurked everywhereIn early February 2015, two weeks after my family arrived in the atmospheric Chilean port city of Valparaíso to study Spanish for a month, I woke up in the middle of the night convinced I was about to die.We were high up in the hills above the city center, in a compact neighborhood called Cerro Mariposa, staying in a small second-floor suite of rooms out back of our landlady Marisol’s house. Continue reading...

The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment has revealed ice loss in Greenland and Antarctica and mapped water levels in the Yangtze riverA pair of German-American Earth observation satellites are due to be retired this November and put on trajectories that will see them burn up in Earth’s atmosphere in 2018.The two Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (Grace) satellites were launched on 17 March 2002 from Plesetsk Cosmodrome, in north-west Russia. They fly in formation, about 140 miles (220km) apart, and measure the gravitational field of the Earth. Continue reading...

To sleep tight and dodge the bedbug’s bite, pack away worn clothes to avoid spreading the insects, which are attracted to human scent, travellers advisedAfter a long day of sightseeing in a foreign city, you might be tempted to kick off your socks, sling your sweaty T-shirt across your hotel room room and flop down on the bed. Think again.Dirty laundry acts as a powerful magnet for bedbugs, a study published in the journal Scientific Reports has found. Its authors have warned that a failure to securely pack away clothes while travelling may explain why populations of biting parasites have soared during the past decade. Continue reading...

Scientists have used the technique, also known as ‘base editing’, for the first time in human embryos to change a single letter in a faulty geneResearchers in China have used a procedure described as “chemical surgery” to mend harmful mutations in human embryos for the first time.

Way of the Future, a religious group founded by Anthony Levandowski, wants to create a deity based on artificial intelligence for the betterment of societyIntranet service? Check. Autonomous motorcycle? Check. Driverless car technology? Check. Obviously the next logical project for a successful Silicon Valley engineer is to set up an AI-worshipping religious organization.Anthony Levandowski, who is at the center of a legal battle between Uber and Google’s Waymo, has established a nonprofit religious corporation called Way of the Future, according to state filings first uncovered by Wired’s Backchannel. Way of the Future’s startling mission: “To develop and promote the realization of a Godhead based on artificial intelligence and through understanding and worship of the Godhead contribute to the betterment of society.” Continue reading...

Researchers say onset of El Niño weather patterns was the likely cause of the thylacine’s demiseDrought was to blame for the extinction of Tasmanian tigers from the Australian mainland, a new study by the University of Adelaide has found.After examining DNA from fossil bones and museum specimens, researchers say the onset of El Niño weather patterns was the likely cause of the thylacine’s demise. Continue reading...

The new data is a welcome sign of progress in the battle against global warming but many challenges remain, including methane from cattleGlobal emissions of climate-warming carbon dioxide remained static in 2016, a welcome sign that the world is making at least some progress in the battle against global warming by halting the long-term rising trend.All of the world’s biggest emitting nations, except India, saw falling or static carbon emissions due to less coal burning and increasing renewable energy, according to data published on Thursday by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (NEAA). However other mainly developing nations, including Indonesia, still have rising rates of CO2 emissions. Continue reading...

Babies and toddlers are significantly more at risk of being hospitalised with influenza complications if they have older brothers or sisters, research findsSmall children are significantly more at risk of serious illness from influenza if they have older brothers or sisters, new research has shown.Babies and toddlers are more likely to be admitted to hospital with flu complications if they are not the first born in their family, the study found. Continue reading...

A team of scientists and reef managers say it’s time to consider ‘riskier’ and unconventional ways to save the world’s coral habitats.As the metaphorical canary in the global warming coalmine goes, the planet’s coral reefs are hard to beat.Swathes of corals in all tropical basins have been hit by the longest mass bleaching event yet recorded that kicked off in 2014 and ended, at least officially, in June. Continue reading...

The find, which includes a ‘licking’ dog sculpture never before found in Britain, is being kept under special conditions for insurance reasonsA lucky metal detector enthusiast’s breathtaking find is a first in British history, according to archaeologists.A hoard of ancient Roman bronze artefacts includes a sculpture of a “licking” dog never found before in Britain. Continue reading...

Graphite particles suggest that the first organisms emerged on Earth more than 4bn years ago during one of the most violent periods in our planet’s historyLife may have gained a foothold on Earth more than 4bn years ago, according to researchers who believe that fragments of carbon found in rocks in Canada are remnants of ancient organisms.Researchers in Japan analysed graphite particles in rocks from the Saglek region of northern Labrador and found that they contained potential traces of life. In work last year, the team dated the band of rocks to 3.95bn years old.

For the first time, astronomers have detail on the 3D pattern of warping that occurs when black holes with masses of 31 and 25 times that of the sun collideAstronomers have made a new detection of gravitational waves and for the first time have been able to trace the shape of ripples sent through spacetime when black holes collide.The announcement, made at a meeting of the G7 science ministers in Turin, marks the fourth cataclysmic black-hole merger that astronomers have spotted using Ligo, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. The latest detection is the first to have also been picked up by the Virgo detector, located near Pisa, Italy, providing a new layer of detail on the three dimensional pattern of warping that occurs during some of the most violent and energetic events in the universe. Continue reading...

Part of a long-term project to send humans to Mars, the Nasa-led programme will see the two countries working to create a crewed spaceport in lunar orbitRussia and the United States have agreed to cooperate on a Nasa-led programme to build the first lunar space station, part of a long-term project to send humans to Mars.The US space agency said earlier this year that it was exploring a programme called the Deep Space Gateway, a multi-stage project to push further into the solar system. Continue reading...

During the Ultra Gobi in 2016, I felt more aware of my own body as it gradually disintegrated. According to scientists, this might be partly why I enjoyed itWhy would anyone want to run 400km across a desert? It’s a good question and one that I confronted last year when I completed the Ultra Gobi, a single stage, self-navigated 250-mile footrace in China. This year I face an even harder question: Why would anyone do it again?In moderation, running improves both your health and physique; in extremes, it does quite the opposite. The feet blister and swell to the point where multiple pairs of shoes in ascending sizes are required. Toenails turn black and fall off or, worse, fill with fluid and require puncturing. Some runners even choose to strike pre-emptively and have theirs surgically removed. Continue reading...

The sponsorship by Shell and BAE Systems of this weekend’s New Scientist Live festival crosses an ethical red line, writes Chris Garrard, a campaigner and member of the Art Not Oil coalitionIn the past month we have witnessed record-breaking storms, provoking pressing questions about our changing climate, while the Cassini probe concluded an almost 20-year journey in space which has shaped our understanding of the solar system. It is perhaps the ideal moment for the New Scientist to be hosting “the world’s most exciting festival of ideas” – New Scientist Live – an event which is “rooted in the biggest, best and most provocative science” and “will touch on all areas of human life”. But ahead of the festival’s opening, it is not the science that has been provocative. Instead, it is the choice of the oil corporation Shell and the arms company BAE Systems as sponsors.Museums and galleries have come under mounting pressure over the ethics of their fundraising. In 2015, the Science Museum faced tough scrutiny when it was revealed how Shell had attempted to influence the climate science exhibition it was sponsoring. While it normally produces news articles, not exhibitions, New Scientist also needs to demonstrate that is accountable and ethical in how it operates. Today, the importance of fair, balanced and accurate journalism – particularly science journalism – is becoming ever more important. Just last week, respected researchers Myles Allen and Richard Millar felt called to speak out as sceptics in the media misrepresented their research into how much carbon dioxide we can emit into the atmosphere and still hope to achieve the goals set out in the Paris climate agreement. Continue reading...

Emotional, physical or sexual abuse can lie at root of weight problems in later life and, unless targeted, taxes on food types will be cruel to those who self-medicate• Outclassed: The Secret Life of Inequality is our new column about class. Read all articles hereTrinity Wallace-Ellis first recalls associating food with consolation when she was about eight. Her heroin-addicted father could explode in violence, sometimes beating her and her seven younger sisters. Afterwards, he was always regretful – and Trinity would come home from school to find a refrigerator filled with cakes and pies.

The fossils of Alberta capture a remarkable snapshot of a warmer, wetter North America

We’ll also find out what life form Barnaby Joyce really is, and we’ll appoint Malcolm Roberts as ambassador to Alpha Centauri

What does later life look like for the growing population of childhood cancer survivors? And how might their experiences change the way we treat this group of diseases?Subscribe & Review on iTunes, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud & Acast, and join the discussion on Facebook and TwitterA diagnosis of cancer is always a life-changing event, but when the patient is a child the blow must feel even more acute. However, childhood cancer is one of the great success stories of oncology. In the US, more than 80% of childhood cancer patients will now survive in the long-term, compared to under 60% in the mid-1970s. And by looking at these survivors and trying to understand their experiences could the way childhood cancers are understood and treated be about to change? Continue reading...

South Pacific landmass may have been closer to land level than once thought, providing pathways for animals and plantsThe mostly submerged continent of Zealandia may have been much closer to land level than previously thought, providing pathways for animals and plants to cross continents from 80m years ago, an expedition has revealed.Zealandia, a for the most part underwater landmass in the South Pacific, was declared the Earth’s newest continent this year in a paper in the journal of the Geological Society of America. It includes Lord Howe Island off the east coast of Australia, New Caledonia and New Zealand. Continue reading...

Older people more likely to be infected through heterosexual sex and to have more advanced disease when it is finally diagnosed, new study revealsHIV rates are climbing in the over-50s in the UK and across Europe, while the rate of new infections among younger people is dropping, according to new research which warns that the epidemic may be taking a new direction.The study, from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control in Sweden, says that older people are most likely to be infected through heterosexual sex. They are also likely to have more advanced disease – which will be harder to treat and could be life-threatening – when it is finally picked up. Continue reading...

Dr Mohsen Danaie, who works at the UK’s synchrotron, has valid visa but was sent letter warning of forcible removalThe Home Office is still sending out letters telling lawfully resident immigrants in Britain they must leave the country, a month after the home secretary had to apologise for “an unfortunate error” in mistakenly informing 100 EU nationals that they faced possible deportation.The Home Office had to issue a further apology on Monday to a research scientist, who received a letter out of the blue on Friday telling him his driving licence was being revoked and he “should take steps to leave the UK immediately”. Continue reading...

Plant and animal species that are the foundation of our food supplies are as endangered as wildlife but get almost no attention, a new report reveals

Far-sighted government policy means the cost of offshore wind energy has halved. The benefits in terms of climate change and UK jobs will be enormousIn March I went to see Henrik Poulsen, the boss of Dong Energy, in Copenhagen. Never heard of him or his company? You are not alone, but the chances are he is keeping your lights on. The largely unknown story of his company is worth telling because it is genuinely revolutionary.Dong stands for Danish oil and natural gas. It was, like Shell and BP, involved in fossil fuel exploration and production. But in less than a decade it has become an 85% offshore wind company, and is divesting its coal, oil and gas interests. By 2023, Dong Energy will be very close to zero carbon. That is a pretty staggering transformation in a very short space of time. Continue reading...

Those with highest psychopath scores were among the greatest fans of Blackstreet hit No Diggity, with Eminem’s Lose Yourself also rated highlyContrary to the movie trope epitomised by Alex in A Clockwork Orange and Hannibal Lecter in the Silence of the Lambs, psychopaths are no fonder of classical music than anyone else, though they do appear to have other musical preferences, psychologists say.In a study of 200 people who listened to 260 songs, those with the highest psychopath scores were among the greatest fans of the Blackstreet number one hit No Diggity, with Eminem’s Lose Yourself rated highly too. Continue reading...