Hawkstone Park, Shropshire The stinkhorn mushroom shares the smell of rotting flesh, making it irresistible to blowfliesThe stench of death, the buzz of flies, the indecent exposure – it was a stinkhorn. Rude, erect and smothered in bluebottles, the fungus was at the side of the path to the follies at Hawkstone Park, though bank holiday visitors paid it little attention.In the 18th century, when this landscape theme park was created, Linnaeus named the fungus Phallus impudicus, literally “shameless phallus”. I imagine visitors then would have been familiar with what the herbalist John Gerard called the “prike mushroom’ in 1597; other folk names included deadman’s cock. Gwen Raverat, the engraver and granddaughter of Charles Darwin (in her 1952 memoir, Period Piece), told a story about her Aunt Hetty (Darwin’s daughter) collecting stinkhorns from the woods and burning them in secret. This was reportedly to protect the morals of the maids but, given Hetty’s neopagan interests, perhaps it was something more fun. Continue reading...

Vegans are often unfairly mocked. They should instead be praisedJeremy Corbyn is “going through the process” of eating more vegan food, he has said – he just has to bring himself to give up the brie, verboten under vegan rules, along with eggs, milk and everything animals produce. Later, as if fearful of a backlash, his spokesperson issued a statement denying he was vegan. But the Labour leader was right to be proud of his efforts. Vegans are often unreasonably mocked as do-gooders and sniped at for making dinner parties awkward for those who don’t like lentils quite so much. This is unfair: the diet does do the world good and if vegans provoke their friends into going vegan too, so much the better.There is now a great deal of convincing data that breeding animals for food dirties the air and chews up the earth. One recent peer-reviewed study from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine calculates that should the world go vegan, annual greenhouse gas emissions would halve and the new land used every year for each person would near-halve. The diet is also healthier: some meat products have been linked to cancer and saturated fat from meat and dairy products can cause heart disease. A study published in Nature predicts that global veganism would lead to 8.1 million fewer deaths per year. Continue reading...

Genetic detectives discover surprising findings about our evolution by studying salivaWhat does a protein in our spit called MUC7 that all of us have – but most of us have never heard of – have to do with human history? A surprising amount, as a recent paper by Xu et al. has discovered. Despite being a rather obscure protein to most of us, MUC7 is actually quite important – it helps get rid of bacteria and other junk in our oral tracts.One of the most interesting features of the gene that encodes MUC7 is that it contains a series of repeated DNA sequences (called the “PTS repeat region” for the amino acids these sequences encode: proline, threonine, and serine). Repeated structural elements are a fairly common feature of the genome, and these regions tend to be where many interesting evolutionary events occur. Continue reading...

Researchers hope to develop a medication that mimics a diet stripped of carbohydrate, after two studies showed clear benefits in miceA drug that mimics a zero-carbohydrate diet could help people live longer, healthier lives and have better memories in old age, US researchers claim.Scientists hope to develop a medication after two independent studies showed that mice fed on a diet stripped of all carbohydrate lived longer and performed better on a range of physical and mental tasks than those that had regular meals.

Fisherman Alex Todd had to release the lobster as it had a notched tail, indicating it was a female potentially carrying eggs, but it was caught againIn a lobster-fishing career spanning more than 40 years, Maine resident Alex Todd thought he had seen it all. Then, last month, he hauled in a white, almost translucent crustacean which he called “by far the weirdest one I’ve caught”.Related: Consider the rare split-colored lobster: unusual catch turns up in Maine Continue reading...

New evidence suggests many who struggle to accept aspects of evolution still exhibit trust in science overall – and that even some atheists have their doubtsIn a supposedly “post-truth” era, we need to be ever mindful of threats to scientific or evidence-based ways of thinking about the world. And one of the ongoing and continual threats to a scientific worldview is “science denial”, the rejection of core accepted scientific paradigms like evolution … right?Many see the rejection of evolutionary science as a marker of religiosity or hard-line conservativism. There is a widespread assumption that religious people will find it hard to reconcile evolutionary science, and by extension science as a whole, with their religious beliefs. However, our new research turns some of this thinking on its head. Continue reading...

A new network for equality, diversity and inclusion in research will challenge the UK scientific community to take these priorities more seriouslyLast month, the now notorious Google memo shone a depressing light on the persistence of sexism and discrimination in Silicon Valley. But these problems aren’t restricted to the tech world: a powerful new book by Angela Saini, which also surfaced over the summer, reminds us that such attitudes remain surprisingly ingrained across the wider scientific community.What can we as researchers and research funders do to change things? This week sees the launch of a new network called EDIS (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in Science and Health Research). Co-founded by the Francis Crick Institute, Wellcome and GlaxoSmithKline, EDIS aims to inspire and encourage the UK scientific community to make equality and diversity a top priority. Continue reading...

After suffering serious brain injuries, Scott Routley spent 12 years in a vegetative state. But his family were convinced that he was still aware – could a pioneering ‘mind-reading’ technique prove them right? By Adrian OwenOn 20 December 1999, a young man pulled away in his car from his grandfather’s house in Sarnia, Ontario, with his girlfriend in the passenger seat beside him. Scott Routley, who was 26, had studied physics at the University of Waterloo and had a promising career in robotics ahead of him. But at an intersection just a few blocks from his grandfather’s house, a police car travelling to the scene of a crime crashed into the side of Scott’s car, hitting the driver’s side full on. The police officer and Scott’s girlfriend were taken to the hospital with minor injuries. Scott wasn’t so lucky; his injuries were devastating.Scott was admitted to hospital, and within hours his score on the Glasgow coma scale – a neurological scale that measures a person’s conscious state – was rapidly dropping. The lowest score possible is three, indicating “does not open eyes”, “makes no sounds” and “makes no movements”. The highest score, 15, indicates that you are fully awake, conversing normally and obeying commands. Scott was already a four, just one step away from complete shutdown. Despite no outward signs of head or facial injury, the impact of the police car with the side of Scott’s car had slammed his brain against the inside of his skull, squeezing it into herniation and bruising it badly. Continue reading...

In research that could help to combat extremists, scientists working on the the frontline in Iraq have begun to unpick what is behind the will to fightWhen Islamic State (Isis) launched its attack on Mosul in 2014, they were outnumbered by opposition forces by almost 40 to one – yet Isis took the city. Now a group of scientists working on the frontline in Iraq have analysed what motivates such fighters in research they say could help combat extremists.

Astronomers find evidence of enormous black hole one hundred thousand times more massive than the sun in a gas cloud near the galaxy’s centreAn enormous black hole one hundred thousand times more massive than the sun has been found hiding in a toxic gas cloud wafting around near the heart of the Milky Way.If the discovery is confirmed, the invisible behemoth will rank as the second largest black hole ever seen in the Milky Way after the supermassive black hole known as Sagittarius A* that is anchored at the very centre of the galaxy.

The 77 hours a year that we spend moaning at work could have advantages – for us and our colleaguesWe Brits love to moan – at least those of us who work in offices. According to the animal charity Spana, we spend up to 20 minutes a day – more than 77 hours a year – whingeing to colleagues about everything from insensitive bosses to dirty sinks, but mostly about crappy computers and horrible co-workers.“Seventy-seven hours!” you may be thinking. “That’s almost two working weeks. Imagine what you could get done in that time.” You could take up juggling, or train for a marathon. You could learn to drive and still have 10 hours left over. You could even – God help us – do more of the work you’re actually paid to do. I’m glad I’m not the complaining type. Continue reading...

Hydrogen chloride from Mount Pinatubo could have caused serious damage to the ozone layer. We were saved by a typhoonIn June 1991 the Philippine volcano, Mount Pinatubo, blew its top in spectacular fashion, producing one of the greatest volcanic eruptions in the 20th Century. It is well known that this eruption, which killed around 800 people and left 10,000 homeless, ejected so much dust into the atmosphere that it had a major effect on climate, depressing global temperatures by around 0.5°C for a couple of years. But what is less commonly known is that if Typhoon Yunya hadn’t coincided with the eruption, the impact could have been significantly worse.Related: Ozone layer hole appears to be healing, scientists say Continue reading...

Eton cheating | Graham Greene | First world war burials | Armageddon | Yotam Ottolenghi’s ingredientsPJ Murphy wonders if the young men of Eton and Winchester who colluded to cheat in examinations are heading for a career in banking (Letters, 1 September). If history is a guide, I suspect that they are as likely to make their way into politics, where they will find they are equally well prepared and be welcomed by familiar faces who had been taught in the same way.

Beams of light do not, generally speaking, bounce off each other like snooker balls. But at the high energies in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN they have just been observed doing exactly thatLight is useful, versatile and perplexing. We see with it - that is, we make sense of our surroundings (sometimes) using signals that our eyes send to our brains when light impinges upon them. We also use it to “see” far beyond the limits of our own sense organs. We peer deep into space, or – as at the shiny new light source just opened in Hamburg – into the complexities of atoms and molecules.Often we think of light as a wave, and that is how it often behaves. But we know that light comes in little packets – quanta – called photons. The paper which swung the scientific consensus in favour of the existence of photons was published by Albert Einstein in 1905, and yet in 1951 he wrote to an old friend Continue reading...

Astronauts Peggy Whitson, Fyodor Yurchikhin and Jack Fischer return to Earth after checking out of the International Space Station. Whitson wrapped up a record-breaking flight after spending 665 days off the planet – 288 days on this mission alone

The comedian and TV presenter on his new children’s book and standup show, being starstruck by Stephen Hawking, and David Beckham’s weird way with LegoWicklow-born Dara Ó Briain, 45, studied maths and theoretical physics at University College Dublin. In the mid-90s he became a children’s TV presenter and standup comic. He has hosted panel show Mock the Week for 12 years, and also presents BBC2’s revival of Robot Wars and astronomy series Stargazing Live. He has now written a children’s book about space.You’re currently writing your next standup show. How’s it going?

In Japan, people over retirement age don’t put their feet up. They harness their ikigaiIt is now known that working for longer may help you live longer. This may not sound all that appealing, but staying in the workplace for just one year more than another retired and healthy counterpart has been shown to be associated with an 11% lower risk of death from all causes. But perhaps there’s another way to gain these extra years without commuting for any longer than necessary.The people of Japan know this intuitively, which is one of the key reasons they have the longest life expectancy in the world. Continue reading...

Peggy Whitson set multiple other records while in orbit: world’s oldest spacewoman, at 57, and most experienced female spacewalker, with 10Astronaut Peggy Whitson returned to Earth late on Saturday, wrapping up a record-breaking flight that catapulted her to first place for US space endurance.

Stephen Hawking’s Breakthrough Listen project picks up radio pulses that could be from black holes, neutron stars or, some speculate – UFO beacons

Olivia Laing, Philip Chklar, Dr Gerald Smith and Alison Hackett write in response to Hilary Mantel’s essay The princess myth. Plus letters from Vivian Cook, Edward Thomas and Chris BirchI’d like to take issue with the statements about Aids in Hilary Mantel’s otherwise wonderful Princess Diana essay (The princess myth, Review, 26 August). It is not right to say that in 1987 only the ignorant or bigoted thought that casual contact would infect them – or perhaps it’s more true to say that the ignorant and bigoted made up the majority of the population.In 1987 the US banned HIV-infected immigrants and travellers. 1987 was the year President Reagan first mentioned the disease in public, and the beginning of the UK’s “Don’t Die in Ignorance” campaign. It was also the year that the activist group Act Up was founded, meaning the very beginning of concerted public information. There wasn’t just ignorance about transmission, but widespread uncertainty in the medical community itself. As the New York Times reported in February 1987 in an article entitled Facts, theory and myth on the spread of Aids, “Experts say there is no danger in a peck on the cheek of an infected person but they recommend against any exchange of saliva and deep kissing with an infected person.” Stigma played a huge part in the ongoing nightmare of an Aids diagnosis, and whatever else one may think of Princess Diana, her gesture in touching a person with Aids did occur in a climate of widespread and unnecessary ignorance and prejudice that she did her best to dispel.

News of the UK’s first lentil harvest prompts memories of university research projects from Prof Richard Ellis, and speculation about the footwear of lentil pickers from Michael CunninghamI was pleased to learn of farmers’ success with British lentil production (Finger on pulse: harvest time for UK’s lentil crops, 31 August). This augurs well for improved food chain traceability, UK food supply resilience and, of course, other advantages from legumes such as nitrogen fixation.However, I was surprised by the comment that producers were told it was impossible to grow lentils in the UK. Projects here at the University of Reading in the 1990s confirmed that while both spring- and autumn-sown lentils could be grown (and combined) successfully, the latter provided a more reliable high-quality lentil suitable for human consumption. Continue reading...

Facility in Hamburg will help recreate conditions deep inside the sun, unravel ways to make new antibiotics and even create a new form of diamondThe world’s most powerful X-ray laser has begun operating at a facility where scientists will attempt to recreate the conditions deep inside the sun and produce film-like sequences of viruses and cells.The machine, called the European X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL), acts as a high-speed camera that can capture images of individual atoms in a few millionths of a billionth of a second. Unlike a conventional camera, though, everything imaged by the X-ray laser is obliterated – its beam is 100 times more intense than if all the sunlight hitting the Earth’s surface were focused onto a single thumbnail. Continue reading...

Music is neurologically special: we’re only just scratching the surface of what it can do for dementia sufferers – and for their carers and familiesIn October BBC Radio 3 will broadcast a six-hour programme blending music with the voices of people living with dementia, in a collaboration with the Wellcome Collection. It promises to be a moving demonstration of something we all need to know: that music can be a powerful tool for people with dementia.Related: Could music projects cut the cost of dementia care? Continue reading...

A witty, fascinating film about the Voyager I and II probes, launched in 1977 and now carrying their golden records beyond the solar system and into deep spaceThis exquisite, exemplary science documentary, directed by Irish editor turned helmer Emer Reynolds, recounts the rich and fascinating story of the Voyager mission, arguably Nasa’s finest, noblest contribution to scientific understanding. Launched in 1977, Voyager I and II were sent billions of miles to the outer limits of our solar system to gather information about Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune and then into deep space. In 2012, Voyager I slipped through the heliopause and officially became the first human-made object to reach interstellar space, and it’s still going today, to infinity and beyond.Related: 40 years and counting: the team behind Voyager’s space odyssey Continue reading...

Surgeon Paolo Macchiarini was hailed for turning the dream of regenerative medicine into a reality – until he was exposed as a con artist and false prophetScientific pioneer, superstar surgeon, miracle worker – that’s how Paolo Macchiarini was known for several years. Dressed in a white lab coat or in surgical scrubs, with his broad, handsome face and easy charm, he certainly looked the part. And fooled almost everyone.

British and Iraqi archaeologists identify the first known settlement built under the enigmatic Sealand kingsThe Kings of the Sealand sound like they come straight out of a fantasy novel but it’s the name given to a royal dynasty who ruled a swathe of Bronze Age Iraq for almost three centuries (ca. 1730-1460 BCE). Archaeologists know almost nothing about the Sealand Kings or their kingdom; all we have to go on are a tiny number of ancient texts, mostly written about them by other rulers. We know they controlled the swampy land around the head of the Persian Gulf, including several of the great ancient cities of southern Babylonia, and we know that they thoroughly annoyed the Kings of Babylon from whom they’d wrestled their kingdom.

NHS should offer more stomach-shrinking procedures to help people lose weight and prevent associated diseases, doctors argueThousands more stomach-shrinking operations need to be carried out in the UK, say surgeons, who warn the country is lagging behind the rest of Europe despite the toll being taken on people’s health and warnings that the obesity crisis could bankrupt the NHS.Reducing stomach size prevents people eating more than small amounts at a time, leading to dramatic weight loss. It can also reverse type 2 diabetes, which carries the risk of amputations, blindness, heart attacks and strokes. Continue reading...

Researchers identify Plasmodium simium in Atlantic Forest area of Rio de Janeiro state, raising concerns for eradication of disease in Brazil and beyondA form of malaria parasite that has spread from howler monkeys to humans in Brazil has been identified by researchers, raising concerns for eradication of the disease in Brazil and beyond.Malaria was thought to have been eradicated from southern and south-eastern Brazil 50 years ago, but more than 1,000 cases reported since 2006 from the Atlantic Forest region, in Rio de Janeiro state, including two outbreaks in 2015 and 2016, led researchers to investigate. Continue reading...

Experiment in the Bellingshuan Sea reveals temperature rise has more alarming implications for biodiversity in polar waters than previously thoughtMarine life on the Antarctic seabed is likely to be far more affected by global warming than previously thought, say scientists who have conducted the most sophisticated study to date of heating impacts in the species-rich environment.Growth rates of some fauna doubled – including colonising moss animals and undersea worms – following a 1C increase in temperature, making them more dominant, pushing out other species and reducing overall levels of biodiversity, according to the study published on Thursday in Current Biology. Continue reading...

Plotting how often stars stray into the Oort cloud allows astronomers to assess the risk of all life being wiped out by a cosmic cataclysmThe collision of a giant comet with the Earth is one of the most violent and cataclysmic events that could befall our planet. It has happened in the past, but the odds of another such catastrophe have remained uncertain.Now astronomers have performed the cosmic equivalent of a risk assessment. A new paper calculates how often stars stray into the Oort cloud, a vast, spherical shell of billions of icy objects that is thought to envelop our solar system. Such close encounters can dislodge these loosely orbiting comets, sending them hurtling into the solar system, risking a collision course with the Earth. Continue reading...

Hubble telescope readings suggesting watery outer planets of Trappist-1 – including three in habitable zone – boosts hope for life beyond our solar systemFour of seven mysterious worlds orbiting a nearby star might bear large quantities of water, scientists have revealed, offering a tantalising boost to the possibility of finding life beyond our solar system.Just 39 light-years away from Earth, the solar system of seven Earth-sized planets orbiting the small, cool star known as Trappist-1 was discovered earlier this year, with the announcement met with excitement by experts. Continue reading...

Nobody’s job is safe. But a citizen’s income in a post-work world could see us avoid the Terminator scenario and return to pre-capitalist sources of valueSemi-automated truck convoys are soon to be tested on UK roads. Perhaps, one day, human beings won’t be allowed to drive. Perhaps it will be considered too risky to put an easily distractible human being in charge of a ton or more of fast-moving metal. Future generations may think of driving as terrifyingly retro.It’s yet another example of a pressing existential question, as well as an economic one. When clever robots have taken most of our jobs, how will we live and what will we live on? For these Meccano scabs are not only going after the repetitive tasks of the long-distance lorry driver or factory workers. Once they pass the Turing test and can successfully fob themselves off as human beings, jobs that used to require a university degree will be just as much at risk. Human beings are fast heading for obsolescence. Continue reading...

Richard Aspinall talks to Martin Stelfox from the Olive Ridley project about protecting one of the world’s smallest turtles from ‘ghost fishing’ in the Maldives

Crops grown on farms across the south of England have been harvested and will be on sale at food festivals, as well as at London’s Borough MarketThe UK’s first commercial crops of lentils, grown on farms in Hertfordshire, Hampshire, Suffolk, Sussex and Wiltshire are being harvested this week before going on sale in the autumn.Blazing the trail is Hodmedod, a Suffolk-based pioneer of British-grown pulses and grains founded five years ago, which has worked with UK farmers since 2015 on a series of trial crops leading to 24 acres of organic lentils being picked and packed this season. Continue reading...

Benefits of world’s only vaccine against tuberculosis were underestimated as new findings reveal it protects against the disease for at least 20 yearsThe BCG, an old vaccine but the only one against tuberculosis, is more effective than was thought, offering protection for at least 20 years, a new study shows.BCG vaccination used to be routine in all secondary schools in the UK for young teenagers, but in recent years it has been given only to those at risk, such as children living in inner-city areas with relatively high TB rates. Continue reading...

Llanbedr, Gwynedd With sadness I realised a proposed road, improving access to the planned spaceport, would cut across the floodplain I had just exploredThe train along the Cambrian coast route stops at Llanbedr only by request, and on this occasion I was the only passenger to alight. To the west fields of wet grassland, divided by drainage channels brimming with rushes, spread towards the sea.Related: Snowdonia fears impact of UK spaceport decision Continue reading...

Novartis medication marketed as Kymriah treats most common type of childhood cancer, but some fear it could spur wave of highly expensive drugsUS regulators have approved the first cancer drug that uses a patient’s own cells to fight cancer. But the drug is priced at $475,000.Oncologists described the drug, made by Novartis and marketed as Kymriah, as revolutionary, but critics say the first-of-its-kind cancer treatment could usher in a new class of ultra-expensive medications. Continue reading...

Scientists say one of the most rapid periods of warming in Earth’s history was due to gradual release of CO2, warning current levels of emissions were even higherA dramatic period of global warming 56 million years ago that saw temperatures climb by up to five degrees and triggered extinctions of marine organisms was down to volcanic eruptions, researchers have revealed, in a study they say offers insights into the scale and possible impact of global warming today.One of the most rapid periods of warming in Earth’s history, the Palaeocene/Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), occurred as Greenland pulled away from Europe. Continue reading...

Algorithms based on NHS records could seed an ‘entirely new industry’ in AI-based diagnostics and mint billions for tech companies, strategic review revealsThe government must act urgently to ensure that patients and UK taxpayers – not just tech companies – gain from new commercial applications of NHS data, an independent review of the UK life sciences industry has said.Sir John Bell, a professor of medicine at Oxford university who led the government-commissioned review, said that NHS patient records are uniquely suited for driving the development of powerful algorithms that could transform healthcare and seed an “entirely new industry” in AI-based diagnostics. 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 queriesWhen it comes to speed records, one animal beats all others on both land and a Google search. But the cheetah has now been usurped by the not-so-humble raven. This is thanks to a particularly fantastical bit of editing in the penultimate episode of season seven of Game of Thrones. No spoilers here. All I’ll say is that it left the audience wondering just what kind of flight speed the daddy of the crow family can muster if it were to have travelled such long distances in what appeared, at least on screen, to be such little time. (My favourite meme featured a raven with jet engines under its wings.)If, like me, you’re a fan of animal record breakers, you’ll know the fastest flight recorded is the stoop of a peregrine falcon – over 200mph. That’s vertical though, plunging down toward prey, so it’s working with gravity not against it. Flying horizontally takes more effort so we can expect speeds to be lower. Continue reading...

Visitors are often confounded by the idea that some specimens are not originals, but this does not make them fake or guessworkPerhaps the most common question that is posed to museum staff and educators dealing with things like fossils and other artefacts is: “Is it real?”. In itself, it’s a perfectly reasonable question, especially when someone has the unexpected privilege to touch and hold a specimen and wants to know if this really is an original of some kind.Often though it can come from incredulity, that something like a tyrannosaur tooth really could exist or be real. In my own case, working with dinosaurs, this is also a quite reasonable question – their bones can be so outsized, bizarrely proportioned and downright strange that some scepticism that these could possibly be genuine is quite understandable. However, the intonation of the query if often plain that someone quite simply doesn’t believe that these things are actually real but in some way a fabrication, and here is where things get tricky as some specimens and exhibits are rather more ‘real’ than others. Continue reading...

This was a responsible look at a troubling subject, even if Ian Brady’s inclusion felt like a gimmick. Plus, Celebrity Island with Bear GryllsFor some unknowable reason, last night’s Horizon: What Makes a Psychopath? – an investigation into people who score highly for personality traits such as grandiosity, superficiality, lying, being easily bored, having short attention spans and an inability to empathise with others or feel guilt or remorse – felt timely.Psychologist Prof Uta Frith was our guide on a tour of what defines and creates such a being and whether he (or presumably she, although there was no mention of a distaff counterpart to the men interviewed or referred to in the programme) can ever be successfully treated. Continue reading...

Nicola Davis delves into the world of plastics to find out exactly how and why they became so widespread, and what can now be done to curtail the ever-present problems they can causeSubscribe & Review on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud & Acast, and join the discussion on Facebook and TwitterEarlier this year, the first global analysis of all mass–produced plastics found that humans have produced over 8.3bn tonnes of the stuff since the 1950s. And with this figure predicted to rise to 34bn by 2050, issues around its production, usage, and disposal, are of the utmost importance. But what is it about plastics that makes them so widespread? Where does most of it end up? And looking to the future – what can now be done to address the ever-growing threats that plastics can pose? Continue reading...

Residue in terracotta jars suggests drink was being made and consumed on the island in the fourth millennium BCResearchers have discovered traces of what could be the world’s oldest wine at the bottom of terracotta jars in a cave in Sicily, showing that the fermented drink was being made and consumed in Italy more than 6,000 years ago.Previously scientists had believed winemaking developed in Italy around 1200 BC, but the find by a team from the University of South Florida pushes that date back by at least three millennia. Continue reading...

Finding debunks long-held idea that teeth of prehistoric animals were shaped to allow water to sieve through themAustralian researchers have produced new evidence disputing a popular theory of whale evolution proffered by scientists from Charles Darwin onwards about the development of baleen, the hair-like strands used to filter krill out of the water and down the gullet of the largest mammals on the planet.Using 3D modelling of a prehistoric tooth dug out of the rocks near Torquay on Victoria’s southern coastline in 2016 and comparing it to similar modelling of modern predators, a team of scientists based at Museums Victoria found that rather than being shaped as a precursor to filter-feeding, the teeth of ancestral whales were surprisingly sharp. Continue reading...

Lethal autonomous weapons are a reality, but the campaign to prevent their use is ours to winThe first meeting of the UN-backed group of experts, intended to start work on getting a ban on lethal autonomous weapons, was supposed to wrap up at the end of last week. But only days before it was due to start it was cancelled: funding shortfalls were blamed. A lack of will feels the more likely explanation. Alarmed by the delay the day it was due to begin, more than 100 of those most closely involved in developing the artificial intelligence on which such weapons would rely, led by Tesla’s Elon Musk and Alphabet’s Mustafa Suleyman, wrote a public letter of bleak warning: killer robots amount to a third revolution in warfare, the sequel to gunpowder and nuclear weapons. They are right. The only thing more frightening than a machine that can’t decide for itself who to kill is one that can.But the technology is out there, within reach of scientists backed by billions of dollars poured into the development of AI by the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, and certainly matched in other less transparent regimes. Some semi-autonomous weaponry is already available, like the border guarding system on the ceasefire line between North and South Korea. The process of what its critics, such as the campaigning group Article 36, call “bureaucratising” weapons, where targets are defined according to an explicit hierarchy, is under way. Continue reading...

Almost six-year wrangle delays release of anonymous surveys done after elite athletics events in 2011, in which 57% of competitors doing admitted doping compared to under 4% in Wada results

Largest ever such survey of British 11- to 16-year-olds reveals experimentation with vaping devices does not translate into regular use and smoking rates still in decline

Across the US, towns and metropolises like mine are united to meet the Paris climate agreement’s targets and protect our residents and businessesWhile the Trump administration is dropping the mantle of leadership on climate change, American cities from coast to coast are picking it up. From small towns to metropolises and from the coasts to the heartland, Republican and Democratic mayors are united in common cause to curb emissions, shrink our carbon footprints and fight for a greener future.Rather than accepting the White House’s wrongheaded withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, cities are redoubling our efforts to meeting the landmark accords’ benchmarks. We not only have the power to take action, but unlike Washington we have the will to get the job done. Continue reading...

This is a manmade climate-related disaster. To ignore this ensures our greatest challenge goes unanswered and helps push the world towards catastrophe• Tropical storm Harvey – live updatesIt is not only Donald Trump’s government that censors the discussion of climate change; it is the entire body of polite opinion. This is why, though the links are clear and obvious, most reports on Hurricane Harvey have made no mention of the human contribution to it.In 2016 the US elected a president who believes that human-driven global warming is a hoax. It was the hottest year on record, in which the US was hammered by a series of climate-related disasters. Yet the total combined coverage for the entire year on the evening and Sunday news programmes on ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox News amounted to 50 minutes. Our greatest predicament, the issue that will define our lives, has been blotted from the public’s mind. Continue reading...