The solution to today’s 3D puzzleIn my puzzle blog earlier today I set you this puzzle:Draw a 3-dimensional picture of a shape that goes through each of the holes above, exactly touching all sides as it passes through. Continue reading...

Why academics feel aggrieved by Lord Adonis raising the old canard that they have too much time off in the summer“Most academics don’t teach enough,” spouted Lord Adonis, former Labour Education Minister on Twitter last week. He cites his time in Oxford as “evidence”, though I think we might more accurately call it an anecdote. Adonis is perpetuating the myth that academics are lucky so-and-sos who have three months off in the summer. Like teachers. Like MPs even. Remind me: just how long is the parliamentary summer recess?The reality is, as I’m sure he knows from his sojourn in academia, that the summer is the moment when academics can finally breathe and do all the vital work to keep them going during the teaching year. To tweet that the “Oxford’s estate and resource woefully underused from mid-June until early Oct (3.5 months!). Teaching year far too short,” means he hasn’t set foot in a university during those months recently. They are frequently heaving with academic conferences, summer schools for students of all kinds, open days and more. These summer months are the time when, for instance, physics teaching laboratory equipment in heavy use during the year can be overhauled, maintained and updated; when academics can get into the teaching labs to prepare new experiments. To dream up new experiments that fit within the budget, with robust and (dare I say it) fool-proof equipment for tens if not hundreds of first years is no mean feat. It takes time, and it needs to be a time when the teaching labs are empty – an important logistical detail that evidently escapes Adonis Continue reading...

UK expertise in preventing the misuse of chemical weapons should be applied to tackling the alarming rise in acid violenceOn 13 July, five acid attacks occurred across north London in the space of ninety minutes, causing “life-changing” injuries in at least one case, with others severely injured. Two of the alleged attackers have been arrested, yet little is known about them. This follows several incidents of acid violence in London, including an attack last month against Resham Khan and Jameel Muhktar.Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Cressida Dick, has sought to calm the brewing hysteria, stating that “I don’t want people to think this is happening all over London all the time, it is really not”. But the Met is now working with the Home Office to see if any changes in the law are required. Earlier this month the Home Office and the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) held a joint summit on acid attacks in which the government’s approach was laid out. This includes reviewing sentencing for such attacks, ensuring legislation is effectively used, and “working with retailers to…restrict access to the most harmful products.” Continue reading...

As the Large Hadron Collider at CERN continues probing the high-energy frontier of physics, a new feature of its greatest discovery so far has come into viewIn high-energy particle collisions we study the smallest known constituents of matter. According to our best knowledge of physics, these constituents have mass only because of the way they interact with a unique quantity which permeates all of space. This quantity, like practically everything else in the strange world of the very small, is a quantum field.So much for the recap. Last week we learned something new about the Higgs boson Continue reading...

Auditory issues could be an early sign of future risk of memory and thinking problems but more research is required to unpick the link, researchers sayPeople who experience hearing loss could be at greater risk of memory and thinking problems later in life than those without auditory issues, research suggests.The study focused on people who were at risk of Alzheimer’s disease, revealing that those who were diagnosed with hearing loss had a higher risk of “mild cognitive impairment” four years later.

A puzzle that tests 3D thinkingUPDATE: The solution is now uploaded hereHi guzzlers,Today’s puzzle was sent in by a reader who remembers it from his days as an architecture student. Continue reading...

Humans hard-wired to favour leaning to the right while locking lips with romantic partners, an international study has foundHumans are hard-wired to favour leaning to the right while kissing romantic partners, an international study by psychologists and neuroscientists has found.

Security minister Ben Wallace set to launch competition seeking ideas on how ‘to keep people safe in crowds’The government is to make up to £2m available to fund research into technology and behavioural science projects that could identify possible terrorists in crowds.Ministers hope the competition will generate techniques to improve the surveillance and detection of potential terrorist threats. Continue reading...

Child’s death, divorce or job loss linked to poorer cognition in later life, study finds, with African Americans more susceptibleStressful life experiences can age the brain by several years, new research suggests. Experts led by a team from Wisconsin University’s school of medicine and public health in the US found that even one major stressful event early in life may have an impact on later brain health.The team examined data for 1,320 people who reported stressful experiences over their lifetime and underwent tests in areas such as thinking and memory. The subjects’ average age was 58 and included 1,232 white Americans and 82 African Americans. A series of neuropsychological tests examined several areas, including four memory scores (immediate memory, verbal learning and memory, visual learning and memory, and story recall). Continue reading...

Despite the unprecedented speed of current breakthroughs investment is weak and money is either stashed away or distributed to shareholdersPrepare for the age of the driverless car and the robot that does the housework. That was the message from the World Economic Forum earlier this year as it hailed the start of a new industrial revolution. According to the WEF, the fourth big structural change in the past 250 years is upon us. The first industrial revolution was about water and steam. The second was about electricity and mass production. The third harnessed electronics and information technology to automate production. Now it is the turn of artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, biotechnology, materials science, 3D printing and quantum computing to transform the global economy. Continue reading...

Killian Fox has eaten termites, he’s tried crickets, but there’s one food he is afraid of. Can psychology and a brilliant young chef help?Why do fears exist, if not for us to confront them? This is what I’m telling myself as I enter Tim Spedding’s kitchen in east London on a brisk evening in late spring. On the face of it, it doesn’t seem like such a bad proposition: one of the most exciting young chefs in the city, who honed his skills at the Ledbury and the Clove Club, has offered to cook dinner for me at his home. The downside is that everything on tonight’s menu contains boiled eggs – the food of my darkest culinary nightmares.I have only myself to blame. This is all part of a plan to overcome an aversion that I’ve been trying to beat for years, without much success. Having enjoyed Spedding’s recent residency at P Franco in Hackney, where he turned out a series of extraordinary dishes from a tiny space at the back of a wine bar, I thought he’d be a good person to help out. So why is the sight of six peeled eggs on the kitchen counter making me wish I’d never asked? Continue reading...

Anthropologist Dario Piombino-Mascali discovers lessons for modern medicine among remains of 23 preserved peopleThe crypt under the Dominican Church of the Holy Spirit in the heart of Vilnius has a vivid history.The coffins hidden in the gloomy lair under the church’s altar were stripped by Napoleon’s army for wood. During the second world war, the Nazis used it as a makeshift bomb shelter. And in their time as the local overlords, the Soviets converted the crypt into a museum of atheism. Continue reading...

The celebrated neurosurgeon and writer talks about 40 years inside our skulls, what’s wrong with the NHS – and the Zen of woodworkHenry Marsh made the decision to become a neurosurgeon after he had witnessed his three-month-old son survive the complex removal of a brain tumour. For two decades he was the senior consultant in the Atkinson Morley wing at St George’s hospital in London, one of the country’s largest specialist brain surgery units. He pioneered techniques in operating on the brain under local anaesthetic and was the subject of the BBC documentary Your Life in Their Hands. His first book, Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery, was published in 2014 to great acclaim, and became a bestseller across the world. Marsh retired from full-time work at St George’s in 2015, though he continues with long-standing surgical roles at hospitals in the Ukraine and Nepal. He is also an avid carpenter. Earlier this year he published a second volume of memoir, Admissions: a Life in Brain Surgery, in which he looks back on his career as he takes up a “retirement project” of renovating a decrepit lock-keeper’s cottage near where he grew up in Oxfordshire. He lives with his second wife, the social anthropologist and author Kate Fox. They have homes in Oxford, and in south London, which is where the following conversation took place.Have you officially retired now?

Social media bullying is getting the parliamentary attention it deserves – but politicians must focus on what’s going on behind this toxic behaviourOne of the most important breakthroughs in public health came in 1847, when a Hungarian doctor, Ignaz Semmelweis, discovered that surgeons could dramatically cut mortality rates by disinfecting their hands. At the time, he was ridiculed by his medical contemporaries. But today, hand washing remains the cornerstone of lifesaving medical hygiene.I wonder if we’ve got something important to learn from Semmelweis when it comes to online abuse. Last week, MPs debated a new cross-party report on the rising levels of abuse levelled at election candidates. It found people on all sides of politics being subject to terrible abuse, but particularly women and ethnic minority candidates. While abuse has always been a feature of our politics, there is no doubt it has been turbocharged by the internet and social media. Continue reading...

Disagreeing with an authority figure in public is associated with creativity but having unprotected sex is not. Answer our questions to test yourselfCreativity has many different aspects, but one way to measure it is through its links with risk taking. Many pieces of art and music took risks by flying in the face of the accepted norms of the day (Michelangelo’s nudes for example). So, on a scale of 1 (extremely unlikely) to 7 (extremely likely), how likely are you to take risks in the following areas of life:Morals and ethics eg, having an affair.

The UK is currently a world leader in fusion research; leaving Euratom would be calamitousIn the south of France, the largest scientific experiment mankind has ever embarked upon is rising out of the ground. This facility, the Iter project, will demonstrate nuclear fusion power on a commercial scale, involving the European Union, US, Japan, South Korea, China, Russia and India. Fusion is the process that powers the sun and the stars, and bringing it to Earth has long been a staple of science fiction fantasies.It is an energy source that, instead of burning fossil fuels, uses water; it produces no long-lived waste and can operate alongside solar, wind and other renewables to power the world to a carbon-free future. Iter will be operational within a decade and will represent a huge step towards fusion, revolutionising the way we generate electricity in the middle part of this century. Continue reading...

Scientists say marine life has proved ‘remarkably resilient’ despite the Pacific island being declared a wasteland in the 1950sThe former island paradise of Bikini Atoll is slowing blooming back to life, 70 years after the United States dropped 23 nuclear bombs on it, including a device in 1954 that was 1,100-times larger than the Hiroshima atom bomb.A team of scientists from Stanford University have been surprised to discover an abundance of marine life apparently thriving in the crater of Bikini Atoll, which was declared a nuclear wasteland after the bombings, with its 167 inhabitants relocated to other islands. Continue reading...

Experts warn that Earth’s sixth mass extinction has begun – and humans are to blame. Can Hope help us to confront biological annihilation?A single blue whale, even with a skeleton of 4.5 tonnes, weighs imperceptibly in the world’s scales when biological annihilation is set on the other side. Yet perhaps the “new” 126-year-old star of the entrance hall of Natural History Museum in London may play some tiny part in tipping the balance. By replacing “Dippy” – the much-loved cast of a diplodocus skeleton – with a creature whose relatives still swim the oceans, the museum seeks to remind us of the glories that remain in the natural world, and the urgent need to conserve them.The whale was unveiled as the Guardian revealed that researchers believe a sixth mass extinction is under way (marginally more optimistic scientists think we are merely on the verge of such an event). Estimating overall populations – not just the number of exterminated species – they conclude that up to 50% of all land animals have been lost in recent decades. Unlike the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction, which saw off Dippy et al, this one is manmade. Scientists blame human over-population and consumption and expect the challenges to intensify, “painting a dismal picture of the future of life, including human life”. We are not just threatening the creatures with whom we share the world; we are risking our own future. Admittedly, other new research assures us that life on Earth is secure even in the event of cosmic calamity. But while the endurance of the portly micro-animals known as tardigrades may console those thinking on such a grand scale, most of us would rather these creatures have company – including ours. Continue reading...

From declining royal honour to refusing to sit for a portrait, correspondences show co-discoverer of evolutionary theory avoiding publicityDarwin’s name is eternally linked to one of the most momentous scientific breakthroughs of all time, while his co-discoverer, Alfred Russel Wallace, who first coined the phrase “origin of species”, has been largely forgotten.Now a newly revealed archive of Wallace’s letters provides a remarkable insight into how he came to be the underdog of evolutionary theory. Continue reading...

Scientists hit a new milestone this week when they successfully exploited the properties of quantum entanglement – particles generated simultaneously existing in a single, shared quantum state – to teleport photons 300 miles into space from Earth. The implications of this are huge. While Star Trek-like teleportation of humans exists in realms of fiction only, achieving space-scale quantum entanglement distance opens up the possibility of building an unhackable quantum internet. Continue reading...

No wild cat has ever been observed nursing a cub from another species – the event may be the result of the Tanzanian lioness having lost her own litterA lioness has been spotted nursing a tiny leopard cub in Tanzania, the first time a wild cat is known to have adopted a cub from another species.The five-year old lioness, called Nosikitok is closely monitored by conservationists in the Ngorongoro conservation area and is known to have had a litter of her own in mid to late June. Continue reading...

Experts praise return to harm-reduction in strategy aimed at cutting illicit drug use and improving dependence recovery ratesDrugs charities and critics have welcomed a shift away from an “abstinence-only” approach to drug treatment and a return to an emphasis on harm-reduction and recovery in the government’s revised drugs strategy.The 2017 drug strategy, published on Friday by the Home Office, comes at a time of a sharp rise in drug-related deaths despite falling levels of use. It targets psychoactive substances – formerly known as legal highs – performance-enhancing drugs, including “chemsex” substances, and misuse of prescription medicines. Continue reading...

Microscopic creatures reassure scientists complete eradication of life on the planet is extremely unlikelyWhether it is a supernova or an asteroid impact, should a cosmic calamity strike, it seems there will be at least one form of life left: a tubby, microscopic animal with the appearance of a crumpled hoover bag.The creatures, known as tardigrades, are staggeringly hardy animals, a millimetre or less in size, with species living in wet conditions that range from mountain tops to chilly ocean waters to moss and lichen on land. Continue reading...

Chances of developing irregular heartbeat – atrial fibrillation – spikes up considerably with working more than 55 hours a week, research showsA long hours office culture can affect more than just your social life – long days at work can be bad for your heart as well, according to a major study.It’s been established that too many hours in the office can increase the risk of a stroke. Now it seems that clocking up more than 55 hours a week means a 40% higher chance of developing an irregular heartbeat, known as atrial fibrillation (AF), when compared to those with a better work-life balance. Continue reading...

14 July 1961: Prime minister Harold Macmillan attended a reception for the man hailed ‘Columbus of the space age’There must have been moments yesterday when Major Gagarin could have wished himself back in the solitude of space. Especially last night at a reception at the Hyde Park Hotel arranged by the Great Britain-USSR Association. It was attended unexpectedly by Mr Macmillan – who had earlier found Major Gagarin “charming” – Lord Home, and most of the Cabinet.Related: From the archive: Russia hails 'Columbus of space' Continue reading...

Absence of climate and energy policy has left Australia lagging dangerously behind, missing out on investment and facing major electricity disruptions.

Swedish experiment shows the notoriously brilliant bird has capacity to think ahead, an ability previously documented only in humans and great apes

Commercial space company says it is still on track to land on the moon and bag Google’s $20m prize before the end of 2017Moon Express, a private company founded in California in 2010, is living up to its name. This week in Washington DC, its chief executive, Bob Richards, said it was still on course to launch its lander by the end of the year.To do this means sticking to a tight schedule. Moon Express is currently building the lander, termed the MX-1E, and hopes to be finished by the end of the summer so it can ship it to the launch site in New Zealand, where further challenges await. Continue reading...

Female life expectancy is now 83 years but many women will spend a quarter of their lives in ill-health, finds reportAlzheimer’s disease and dementia are the biggest cause of death among women, according to a government report on the state of the nation’s health.

Timid mice turn bold after their ‘alpha’ circuit is stimulated as results show ‘winner effect’ lingers on and mechanism may be similar in humans

Transfer of Eadweard Muybridge’s galloping horse opens possibility of using living cells to store informationHis groundbreaking photos showed life in motion, from cantering bison to leapfrogging boys, and settled an argument that had long divided trainers and riders: do all four hooves of a racehorse ever leave the floor at once?Now, more than a century later, the stills and animations of Eadweard Muybridge, the eccentric Englishman and father of the motion picture, have had a modern makeover. Where Muybridge captured his pictures on photographic plates, Harvard scientists have set them in DNA. Continue reading...

Nasa releases raw data to public, enabling citizen scientists and experts to share their own processed versions of the images• The great red spot of Jupiter as never seen before – in picturesNasa’s mission to send a spacecraft hurtling around Jupiter has captured stunning images of the planet’s great red spot in its first up-close flyby of the huge storm.The images from the Juno spacecraft not only showcase the scale of the tempest but also its extraordinary colour. Continue reading...

Medical papers relating to Luana Gomes raise fears highly toxic hydrogen cyanide gas was released when insulation burnedA survivor of the Grenfell Tower fire has been treated for cyanide poisoning, raising fears that the highly toxic gas hydrogen cyanide might have been released by the burning of insulation or plastics during the blaze.Luana Gomes, 12, was diagnosed with smoke inhalation injury and cyanide poisoning, according to discharge papers from King’s College hospital in London seen by the BBC’s Newsnight. Continue reading...

We have learned to think critically about obviously biased statements – but against prejudice dressed up as kindness, we are more defenceless

There is increasing evidence that growing up poor diminishes the physical development of a child’s brain. A landmark US study is attempting to establish a causal link – and find new ways to help our poorest children

The Natural History Museum has replaced its much-loved dinosaur skeleton in the Hintze Hall, affectionately known as Dippy, with a huge blue whale skeleton. The whale was first displayed in 1939 in the museum and now proudly stands in the museum’s central space

English Heritage says people who lived on site of Cornish castle 1,000 years ago dined on oysters and imported fine tableware

Lunar dust plus some tiny Moon rocks are in a small bag and are expected to fetch $2 million to $4 millionMoon dust collected by Neil Armstrong during the first lunar landing is being sold at a New York auction.

Nasa’s Juno mission has captured stunning images of Jupiter’s great red spot in its first up-close flyby of the huge storm. The raw data has been released to the public, allowing for the never-before-seen images to be creatively brought to life• See the JunoCam website for more processed images Continue reading...

As a Trump appointee pushes for televised slanging match, a New York magazine cover story sparks a different debate – should we talk about how bad global warming could actually get?In the United States, people who refuse to accept even some of the basic tenets of climate science are calling for a heated debate.“Who better to do that than a group of scientists … getting together and having a robust discussion for all the world to see,” the boss of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, told Reuters. Continue reading...

UK scientists find chance of high-grade prostate cancer rises by 21% with every 10cm increment in heightTall men are at greater risk of contracting aggressive prostate cancer and of dying from the disease, the findings of a large study suggest.British scientists found that every 10cm increment in height increased the chance of developing high-grade prostate cancer by 21% and the risk of death from the disease by 17%. They also found that obesity raised the risk of aggressive prostate cancer. Continue reading...

Concerns about the quality of blood products from the United States were raised nearly half a century ago, writes Martyn BerryThe “bad blood” tragedy could so easily have been avoided (May orders inquiry into contaminated blood scandal, 12 July). Professor Richard Titmuss’s book The Gift Relationship, published in 1970, showed clearly in a comparison of the American system (donors paid for blood) and the British one (unpaid, altruistic donors) that payment leads to drug addicts, alcoholics, convicts and desperately poor malnourished people selling their blood.I reviewed Titmuss’s book in the Times and I recall there was a review in the Guardian. Titmuss created something of a sensation at the time, and NHS bosses and the appropriate ministers and senior civil servants cannot plausibly have missed it. I hope the inquiry will go into this aspect.

Researchers says colour of fat surrounding a heart’s arteries can predict risk, meaning expensive drugs can be given to those most likely to benefitHeart attacks may soon be easier to predict thanks to a method of reading routine heart scans that can pinpoint those most at risk, research suggests.Every year, roughly 750,000 Americans have a heart attack and around half die from it, often before reaching hospital. In the UK, someone has a heart attack every seven minutes. Doctors hope to identify the highest risk patients so they can be given preventative treatment and advised to adopt lifestyle changes. Continue reading...

Star Trek tech is still way off but successful test of quantum entanglement at Earth-space distance boosts hope for building an unhackable quantum internetChinese scientists have teleported an object from Earth to a satellite orbiting 300 miles away in space, in a demonstration that has echoes of science fiction.The feat sets a new record for quantum teleportation, an eerie phenomenon in which the complete properties of one particle are instantaneously transferred to another – in effect teleporting it to a distant location. Continue reading...

Natural History Museum in London signals urgency of wildlife crisis by replacing dinosaur centrepiece with species alive todayIn the hot summer of 1976, when Richard Sabin was 10, he went on a trip with his Birmingham primary school to the Natural History Museum in London. Blown away by the scale of what he was seeing, the wide-eyed schoolboy was told by an attendant that if he wanted to see something really big he should make his way to the mammal hall, where the skeletons of a number of whales, including an enormous blue whale, were displayed.“Another gallery attendant went past, and I stopped her and said, ‘Are these real?’” recalls Sabin. “And she said, ‘Yes they are. They’re the real skeletons of animals that still live in our oceans today.’ That was the sentence that really grabbed me and carried me away. I didn’t know what to make of what I was seeing. I was transfixed.” Continue reading...

In an age where Google sees trillions of searches a year, what can our usage of it reveal? How accurate are these ‘big data’ representations? And how might this all be used for the greater good?Subscribe & Review on iTunes, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud & Acast, and join the discussion on Facebook and TwitterPokemon Go, the iPhone 7, and Donald Trump. These were 2016’s most searched for terms on Google. And with over a trillion searches to draw on, it’s clear that they reflect what’s on our minds. But can Google searches tell us even more about ourselves? By pooling together huge aggregates of our search history – a form of “big data” – can Google reveal our deepest, darkest desires? And what can big data tell us more broadly about the human condition? Continue reading...

Time-travel would be a useful tool for palaeontologists, but Doctor Who has already explained some of the fossil record for usEvery palaeontologist wants a time machine. The tantalising, scrappy bits of biology that survive in the fossil record are a tiny fraction of what I could find out from a quick field trip to the Cretaceous. I’ve got my list prepared of the first four or five trips I’ll make when such technology becomes widely available. And being forty-something and British, there’s one time machine that’s been a constant in my life: the Tardis.Doctor Who has explored ideas in evolution and the fossil record many times. Old school fans will be happy to explain how the origins of life of Earth are not in hydrothermal vents in the deep oceans four billion years ago, but were actually triggered by Scaroth, last of the Jagaroth, taking off in his faulty spaceship which promptly exploded, causing a cascade of new organic molecules to form. Continue reading...

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific conceptsIf a country – Russia, say – managed to send cosmonauts to Mars, would they be able to claim the planet for Russia? Are there rules governing territorial claims in space?Stephen Hughes, Birmingham Continue reading...

Feeling hopeless about a situation is cognitively associated with inaction. Instead of being defeatist, look to climate change heroes who are leading the way