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

Satellite data confirms ‘calving’ of trillion-tonne, 5,800 sq km iceberg from the Larsen C ice shelf, dramatically altering the landscapeA giant iceberg twice the size of Luxembourg has broken off an ice shelf on the Antarctic peninsula and is now adrift in the Weddell Sea.Reported to be “hanging by a thread” last month, the trillion-tonne iceberg was found to have split off from the Larsen C segment of the Larsen ice shelf on Wednesday morning after scientists examined the latest satellite data from the area. Continue reading...

A giant section of the Larsen C ice shelf in the Antarctic peninsula has broken off, unleashing a 5,000 sq km iceberg – about a quarter of the size of WalesOne of largest icebergs ever recorded breaks off Antarctic ice shelf

Research into sleep patterns of Tanzanian hunter-gatherers sheds new light on phenomenon often attributed to smartphones and modern-day lifestylesPoor sleep is often regarded as a modern affliction linked to our sedentary lifestyles, electric lighting and smartphones on the bedside table.However, new research suggests that fitful sleep could be an ancient survival mechanism designed to guard against nocturnal threats. The study, which tracked the sleep patterns of a modern-day hunter-gatherer tribe in northern Tanzania, found that frequent night-time waking and differing sleep schedules between the young and old ensured that there was nearly always at least one tribe member awake. Continue reading...

US army efforts in 1947 to put ‘wiretapping’ balloons in the mesosphere led to flying saucer tales but ultimately to scientists finding natural channels of communicationSeventy years ago a rancher near Roswell, New Mexico, found some peculiar wreckage of silver foil and sticks. An official US army statement claimed it was a “flying disc”, leading to headlines that an alien flying saucer had been captured.A second statement said the debris was just a weather balloon. The media accepted this version, although UFO enthusiasts still believe the Pentagon has a crashed extra-terrestrial spacecraft. Continue reading...

Breastfeeding our babies may be ‘natural’ but it’s not always viable, and many women lack support. In fact, the process is far trickier for humans than other species – and it’s all because of our oversized brains …Have you recently had a baby? Here’s a step-by-step guide for how to go about your new role as a mother.1. Do what you think is best for you and your baby.

Research has found that drinking three or more cups of coffee a day can cut the risk of dying early by between 8% and 18%. Scientists suggest drinking coffee lowers the risk of dying from a host of causes, including heart disease, stroke and liver disease. However, experts say it is unclear whether the health boost is down to the brew itself.

Subscribe and review: iTunes, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud and Acast. Join the discussion on Facebook and TwitterThis week we’re talking science and culture, and how to bridge the divide between the two, with Richard Dawkins and Carlo Rovelli. Continue reading...

Bacteria causing two different illnesses belong to the same family and share much of the same genetic code providing unexpected cross protectionHopes to fight untreatable strains of gonorrhoea have risen after it emerged that a new vaccine against meningitis unexpectedly reduced the risk of people getting the sexually transmitted infection.Some strains of gonorrhoea are resistant to all available drugs, making vaccine development an urgent global health priority. But according to a study in The Lancet, a vaccine has offered protection against the sexually transmitted disease for the first time. Continue reading...

Coffee a day keeps the doctor away? Perhaps, but benefits may be down to lifestyles rather than the brew itself, researchers sayPeople who drink coffee have a lower risk of dying from a host of causes, including heart disease, stroke and liver disease, research suggests – but experts say it’s unclear whether the health boost is down to the brew itself.The connection, revealed in two large studies, was found to hold regardless of whether the coffee was caffeinated or not, with the effect higher among those who drank more cups of coffee a day. Continue reading...

Findings raise possibility repeated disruption of slow wave sleep could lead to a buildup of proteins linked to diseaseProlonged periods of poor sleep increase levels of proteins involved in Alzheimer’s disease, research suggests, although quality, not quantity, of sleep is at the root of the issue.While previous research has revealed that bad sleep can increase levels of these proteins, known as beta-amyloid and tau, it was unclear which aspect of shut-eye was behind the uptick. Continue reading...

Research shows that defensive chemicals emitted by plants cause armyworms to turn on each otherCaterpillars turn into cannibals and eat each other when plants deploy defensive chemicals to make their foliage less appetising, research has revealed.While it was already known that caterpillars of many species munch on each other, and that plants have a range of defence mechanisms, it was not clear whether the two were linked. Continue reading...

A recent article by Deborah Orr regarding her experiences with antidepressants sparked a lot of debate as to their merits and drawbacks. The truth is, they’re not as simple or as understood as many might thinkAntidepressants; the go-to treatment for depression, or generalised anxiety. It’s incredible when you think about it, the fact that you can have a debilitating mood disorder, take a few pills, and feel better. It’s unbelievable that medical science has progressed so far that we now fully understand how the human brain produces moods and other emotions, so can manipulate them with designer drugs.That’s right, it is unbelievable. Because it isn’t the case. The fact that antidepressants are now so common is something of a mixed blessing. On one hand, anything that helps reduce stigma and lets those afflicted know they aren’t alone can only be helpful. Depression is incredibly common, so this awareness can literally save many lives. Continue reading...

Archaeologists excited about 25 tablets found at Vindolanda fort, site of 1992 discovery of hundreds of Roman documentsA cache of 25 Roman letters has been found at Vindolanda, the fort below Hadrian’s Wall where the most famous documents from the Roman world were discovered in 1992, first-person accounts of cold feet, beer running short, and jolly birthday parties at the northernmost edge of the empire.The tablets are still being conserved, before being scanned with infrared light which should make the faint marks in black ink legible, but the cursive script is invariably a cryptic crossword puzzle that will take experts many months to solve. Continue reading...

Brian Cox, Garry Kasparov, Gaia Vince and other stars of science writing pick the books that fired their imaginations Continue reading...

Sir Mark Walport’s vision for the UK’s new super-research council has a Europe-shaped hole. He needs to fill itLast Tuesday morning, the most powerful scientist in the UK set out his vision for the future of research and innovation in this country. In a plush Westminster conference room Sir Mark Walport, chief executive designate of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the new super-research council that will soon oversee all publicly-funded research and development in Britain, spoke at length about the guiding principles of his new organisation (video and slides available here). He linked fundamental research across all disciplines – the sciences and the humanities – to the industrial strategy with which this present government aims to tackle the societal and economic imperatives facing Britain in the 21st century.Walport’s vision was boldly global in its reach, recognising not only the importance of international collaboration in research, but also the worldwide nature of many of the challenges ahead, from energy and food supply, to environmental protection and the societal impact of artificial intelligence. Continue reading...

Mindfulness could help make you more resilient, regulate stress and increase emotional intelligence. Here are some practical tips for introducing it in the workplaceIf recent events in politics have confirmed anything, it is that we live in unpredictable times where old assumptions no longer hold true.Creative thinking is crucial for business success through a period of uncertainty. Upheaval presents a chance to embrace uncertainty and remain level-headed, focused and compassionate under pressure. That’s where mindfulness comes in. Research in contemplative neuroscience suggests that mindfulness - the practice of focusing your attention on the present moment - makes us more resilient, regulates our stress response, increases emotional intelligence and strengthens our ability to focus. Here’s how to bring practical mindfulness into your business. Continue reading...

People who felt they had a strong purpose in life suffer from less insomnia and sleep disturbance, says neurologistThe secret to a good night’s sleep later in life is having a good reason to get up in the morning, according to US researchers who surveyed people on their sleeping habits and sense of purpose.People who felt they had a strong purpose in life suffered from less insomnia and sleep disturbances than others and claimed to rest better at night as a result, the study found. Continue reading...

On 21 August the total eclipse makes landfall in Oregon at 10:17 PDT and speeds across the country to leave the coast of South Carolina at 14:48 EDTIf we have not made plans for the total eclipse of the Sun that crosses the USA on 21 August, our options are dwindling fast. Many rooms and campsites along the path of totality are already booked and it is only within that path, no more than 115km wide, that the full spectacle of totality is experienced.After touching down in the NE Pacific, the centre of the Moon’s shadow makes landfall in Oregon at 10:17 PDT (18:17 BST) and speeds across the country to leave the coast of South Carolina at 14:48 EDT (19:48 BST). Totality ends SW of Cape Verde in the E Atlantic. Continue reading...

Recent studies suggest traits often seen as negatives could actually signify high brain power. Truth or merely self-affirmation?I’m very intelligent. I’m also extremely creative and have a vocabulary that could be described as voluminous, venerable or very large. But don’t just take my word for it: science says so.You see, my desk is always messy, I swear like a sailor and I tend to sleep late in the morning – normally because I’ve stayed up into the early hours, watching trash on TV. And while all these things may seem like bad habits, you don’t need to look that hard to find evidence that they’re the opposite. Continue reading...

Babies born from the 1 August will be offered new ‘hexavalent’ jab in effort to clamp down on infections that cause cirrhosis and liver cancerAll babies born in the UK will receive the hepatitis B jab as part of their routine immunisations from the autumn in an effort to drive down viral infections that cause cirrhosis and liver cancer.The hepatitis B vaccine is to be added to the 5-in-1 jab that is already given to babies across the UK to protect them from diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, polio and bacterial infections known as Hib, or haemophilus influenzae type b, health officials said.

Our contradictory impulses present one of the human race’s oldest conundrums. Dexter Dias takes a more balanced look

The neuroscience behind whether we run or stand our ground when faced with threatLondoners will always use humour as the ultimate response to terror attacks. Nowhere was this more apparent than with the Millwall supporter, knifed eight times after tackling the London Bridge terrorists, pictured recovering in hospital with a copy of Learn to Run. A gift from friends, the joke being he would have been safer sprinting away.Neuroscientists would say the choice to run or stay put isn’t that simple. A ‘fight or flight’ response kicks in when our threat-detection systems prepare the body for action with neuronal and hormonal changes. We’re all familiar with these symptoms; a flood of adrenaline, heart pounding and pupils dilating. These will prepare you to stand your ground or beat a hasty retreat, depending on the threat. Continue reading...

Investigation will give clues about where to look for habitable planetsA tiny world that is battered by intense radiation and incredible heat, Mercury is one of the most inhospitable places in our solar system. Zinc would melt on its surface. Yet this scorched planet is set to play a crucial role in one of science’s most important quests: the search to find life on other worlds in our galaxy.Astronomers believe that Mercury’s proximity to the Sun could provide them with crucial insights about the prospects of finding worlds that can support living organisms. And they hope these insights will be revealed by BepiColombo, a European-Japanese probe that was unveiled to the public last week at the European Space Agency’s research and technology centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. Continue reading...

Transgenic flock brought to UK for research into incurable brain condition, which affects more than 6,700 people in the countryScientists at Cambridge University have co-opted an unusual ally in their battle to find treatments for an incurable degenerative ailment that affects thousands of people in the UK. They have taken charge of a flock of merino sheep that have been genetically modified to carry the gene for Huntington’s disease.The research, led by neuroscientist Professor Jenny Morton, aims to understand how to pinpoint early symptoms of the brain condition, which affects more than 6,700 people in the UK. Continue reading...

During a visit to Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida the US vice-president, Mike Pence, says President Trump will return Americans to the moon and put a human presence on the face of Mars, branding space the ‘next great American frontier’. Pence says that frontier will be settled by Americans in order to protect the country’s security

Food scientists are battling to overcome dairy and carbs’ image problem – but will mealworms and 3D-printed pasta really win consumers back?A man in skinny jeans and a bow tie is standing by a whiteboard with various buzzwords written on it: empathy, respect, create. He is leading a corporate bonding day for about 20 workers in an airy atrium, and moves over to start playing Bon Jovi’s Livin’ On A Prayer on a keyboard, imploring staff to dance. “Come on, don’t be shy! We need to get the energy going! Grab your partner’s hand.”I am just outside Aarhus in Denmark, in the new innovation centre of one of Denmark’s oldest food companies: Arla, a dairy cooperative, which started life in the 1880s. The centre, which opened in May this year, aims to have more in common with Legoland – just an hour away in Billund – than with a traditional office. A stream runs through the building, which is almost entirely glass-walled, allowing you to peer into various meeting rooms, laboratories and a dairy-processing plant to one side of the building. Here, close to 5km of pipe runs along the walls above men wearing hairnets, who are sticking a probe into a large block of cheese. A large sign painted on to the wall in English reads: “Arla’s Innovative Playground.” Continue reading...

Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore enlists priests, rabbis and a Buddhist to test the effects of psychedelic drugs on religious experience

The number of people with mental health problems is soaring, and the crisis-ridden NHS cannot cope

US vice-president pictured with his left hand resting on ‘critical space flight hardware’ for the Orion programmeMike Pence has jokingly defended himself after being photographed putting his hand on a piece of Nasa space equipment in contradiction of a “do not touch” sign.Pence was pictured with his left hand resting on part of a spacecraft-in-the-making called the Orion, inches away from a notice with red lettering telling people not to touch the “critical space flight hardware”. Continue reading...

Resisting childhood vaccinations for bad reasons should not be tolerated. We must not play with people’s livesIt takes a long time for social movements to show up in conventional politics. The personal becomes political only with a time lag of decades. The increased toleration and the respect for the individual and the marginalised that appeared in western societies in the 60s and 70s did not make their political breakthrough until the earlier years of this century. This wasn’t an unmixed good. We tend to think of this rejection of outmoded convention as a wholly progressive development, but the loss of respect for authority has a shadow side as well. The belief that people should be free to believe what they like has led to the rise of fake news, and of infantile fantasies of the triumph of the will. These burst into electoral politics last year, nourishing both the Trump campaign and the Brexit referendum. But such thoughts had been incubating quietly for years inside the anti-vaccine movement.To refuse to have your children vaccinated is an attack on society in much the same way as tax evasion is. If a refusal to vaccinate only endangered the children whose parents deliberately put them in harm’s way, it would still be wrong because parents do not have an unlimited right to be irresponsible. It can be argued that so long as very few people do it, there is very little irresponsibility in refusing to vaccinate a child against a risk that remains distant if everyone else acts for the good of society. Similar arguments are used to justify all sorts of fraud. But when children who might be vaccinated are not, their parents are both exploiting herd immunity and contributing to its breakdown. This is plainly wrong and should not be tolerated. The French government has just announced that children there must be vaccinated against 18 common childhood diseases. This follows the Italian decision to make vaccinations against 16 diseases a condition of entry to school at six. These measures may feel disturbing to society’s liberal instincts, but they are entirely justified as measures of collective solidarity against disease. Continue reading...

Remember Matt Damon growing potatoes from his own waste in Ridley Scott’s spectacular man-on-Mars space epic The Martian? Of course you do. Damon’s botanist astronaut Mark Watney devises an ingenious way of surviving four years till his only chance of being rescued when another mission flies by Mars. So he grows spuds and lives to tell the tale – in the film, that is. In reality, Mr Watney wouldn’t have stood a chance as Martian soil, as experiments revealed this week, contains a cocktail of toxic chemicals potent enough to smother anything remotely living. The planet gets cooked in ultra violet light that renders it’s surface toxic and sterile, so search for alien life – microbes, at best – have to dig deep underground.From Mars we move to Mercury – its strange orbit played a key role in overthrowing of Newtonian physics by Einstein’s theory of general relativity that correctly predicted a slightly rosette-like orbit instead of perfectly elliptical. But it isn’t just about the orbit – almost sun-kissed, the solar system’s smallest and innermost planet also appears to be shrinking. That and its other mysterious properties will be probed by the European Space Agency’s third mission to Mercury as it prepares to launch BepiColombo spacecraft – a joint venture with Japan’s space agency Jaxa – in October 2018. To understand why the task is extra complicated and how the ESA plans to overcome the incredibly difficult engineering problems of manoeuvring the spacecraft under scorching temperatures read Stuart Clark’s insightful piece from mission HQ in Noordwijk, near Amsterdam. Continue reading...

It is an industry like no other, with profit margins to rival Google – and it was created by one of Britain’s most notorious tycoons: Robert Maxwell• Read the text version hereSubscribe via Audioboom, iTunes, Soundcloud, Mixcloud, Acast & Sticher and join the discussion on Facebook and Twitter Continue reading...

Geologist Andrew Snelling sued US Department of the Interior when it initially turned down his plan to prove the Bible’s great flood story is trueAn Australian geologist who is trying to prove the existence of the biblical great flood will be allowed to collect rock samples from the Grand Canyon.Andrew Snelling was awarded a PhD by the University of Sydney in 1982 and is the director of research at Answers in Genesis, a Christian science group that believes in the literal interpretation of the Bible. Continue reading...

Dearth of ‘mentors’ is leaving many mothers without the help they need but social attitude towards breastfeeding is also having an impact, says researchersMillions of mothers are missing out on valuable peer support that encourages breastfeeding, according to a UK-wide survey.The World Health Organisation recommends that infants should be exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life, and continued alongside complementary foods until at least two years of age.