Saturn is at its best, enjoying its summer solstice and in opposition, though sadly low in Britain’s skySaturn’s northern hemisphere is now tilting at its maximum angle to the Sun, 26.75°, as the beautiful ringed planet enjoys its own summer solstice. It is also nearing opposition on the 15th when it stands opposite the Sun in Earth’s sky so that it rises at sunset, stands highest in the middle of the night and sets at sunrise.Saturn’s rings are best seen when the planet comes to opposition around the times of Earth’s solstices, as it does every 15 years or so. This arises because the rings lie directly above Saturn’s equator and its polar axis is aligned to within 6° of that of the Earth, much closer than for any other planet. We could say that we share the same north pole star, Polaris. Continue reading...

Animals and birds evolve more quickly in urban environments than in remote habitats, Cheltenham science festival is toldFoxes loitering around rubbish bins and pigeons roosting in train stations: urban animals are widely regarded as the dregs of the natural world.However, according to biologist Simon Watt, cities represent some of the world’s hotspots for evolution and behavioural adaptation. Speaking at the Cheltenham science festival, Watt, who is founder of the Ugly Animal Preservation Society, said: “The ice caps are melting, the rainforest is shrinking, the one environment that is growing is cities. If we’re going to look for evolutionary shifts right now in our world, the place to look is cities.” Continue reading...

Certain types of elective surgery only benefit patients because of placebo effect, says Prof Andy CarrThousands of people could be undergoing unnecessary, risky and expensive surgeries as most procedures have never been subjected to the rigorous testing drugs are required to have, a leading surgeon has said.Prof Andy Carr, an orthopaedic surgeon at Oxford University Hospitals, said there is emerging evidence that for certain types of elective surgery, the benefits could be partly or entirely explained by patients’ strong expectation that their symptoms would improve after treatment. Continue reading...

Queen’s birthday list recognises Shine’s discovery in genetic sequencing; Freeman’s work in astronomy; and Gott’s contribution to ethnobotanyA man whose discovery was essential for the development of genetic engineering, and used that technology to create several therapies now helping many thousands of people, says receiving a Queen’s Birthday honour is a great recognition from the community of the value of scientific research.John Shine started his career by discovering a sequence of DNA now called the Shine-Dalgarno sequence as part of his PhD in the mid 1970s. Continue reading...

Success allowed the writer to escape the past, but at a cost: nightmares haunted him. Here, he recounts how he escaped the terrifying stranger stalking his dreamsThe town was up in the mountains, a little Ruritanian place of cobbled streets and timber-framed houses. It was market day and in the main square, crowds of locals browsed stalls piled with fresh bread, cheese and cooked sausage. I drifted among them, passing unnoticed.In the afternoon the sun slid behind the mountains. With the waning of the light a madness seemed to infect the crowd. Uniformly they turned to me, evil intent in their eyes. Continue reading...

A growing number of diarists are using expressive writing or ‘bullet journalling’ to improve their health and productivity. But does keeping a daily log actually work?”This groundbreaking tool will change your life,” claims MindJournal, a £9.99 collection of quizzes and writing exercises that it claims will “encourage you to be more honest with how you’re feeling”. Aimed at a male audience, it has a testosterone-fuelled tagline: “Become a stronger version of the man you already are.”It’s not unique; in bookshops, it has quickly evident that the humble notebook is having an overhaul. Prescriptive travel diaries (“Enjoy the lightly guided prompts for agendas, lists and observations”) bump up against journals claiming to focus on inner truth (“Featuring over 70 thought-provoking quotes from fellow self-improvers, this journal is great for both perfectionists and failures!”), while the latest fad for bullet journalling – a convoluted to-do list system – has swept the internet, inundating Instagram with a pages of artfully annotated checklists. Continue reading...

Expected to die, and having lost the ability to read, the Italian film producer devoted himself to a near-impossible taskI meet Martino Sclavi in Islington, north London, where he shares a small flat. It’s a perfectly ordinary summer morning: pigeons are cooing and somewhere far off, a siren sounds. But in Sclavi’s kitchen, everything is slightly skewed, our encounter just a notch off normal. For one thing, there is the peculiar food he is trying to make me eat at only 10 o’clock: a pie filled with grey-looking onions, mushrooms and nuts, which tastes powerfully of chilli. For another, there is the fact that while he talks in an unstoppable flow (and in English, too, which is his second language), certain words will keep evading him. When, for instance, I reject the pie, and he offers me a sweet concoction instead, all he can tell me is that it is made of yogurt and “a fruit…” What kind of fruit? “A big one, and when you peel it, there is just this long bit.” A mango? “No.” An avocado? “No.” The pair of us stumped, he falls silent for a moment. “Bananas are my treat,” he says, after a while. So it’s banana? “No.” He shakes his head forlornly.Six years ago Sclavi, a film producer, was in Los Angeles, working on a movie project with his best friend Russell Brand, when he began suffering from severe headaches. Soon afterwards he was admitted to hospital as an emergency, whereupon surgeons opened up his skull – they flipped a bit out, he says, as if it was on a hinge – and operated on his brain in a desperate bid to remove what turned out to be a grade four glioblastoma (the most malignant kind of brain tumour). Six months later he travelled to Rome, where he underwent a much longer operation, during which doctors had to wake him twice, the better to check he could still count to 10 backwards. Continue reading...

Nicola Davis speaks with two scientists about their respective missions to the sun - what burning questions do they hope to answer? And what are some of the obstacles?Subscribe & Review on iTunes, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud & Acast, and join the discussion on Facebook and TwitterOn 31 May, Nasa announced that its hotly anticipated solar probe mission was to be renamed in honour of astrophysicist professor Eugene Parker. A world first – no living person has ever had the honour of having a Nasa mission named after them – the gesture honoured Parker’s breakthrough work on high-speed solar wind. But what is solar wind? What are spacecraft like Nasa’s Parker Solar Probe (PSP) hoping to find out? And what are some of the challenges ahead? Continue reading...

Take our personality test to find out whether a computer will end up doing your jobYour personality predicts a great deal about your prospects in life, including whether or not a computer will end up doing your job. Answer the following to find out how likely this may be:When you were a teenager, compared with other people at your school, were you more or less

Tackling too big a challenge can be daunting. The secret is to be a ‘micromaster’Life can be overwhelming. We want to do as much as we can, see the world, learn new things – and it can all get a bit too much. I reached a point when I felt that I could no longer be interested in everything. I had to shut some of life out, and I didn’t like that. I was living under the assumption – the false assumption, as it turned out – that to know anything worthwhile took years of study, so I might as well forget it.But something inside me rebelled. I still wanted to learn new things and make new things. They didn’t have to be big things – I was happy to leave that until later. Start small, start humble. Start with an egg. Continue reading...

When it comes to longevity, surviving illness and coping with trauma, one gender comes out on top. Angela Saini meets the scientists working out whyFour years ago, completely spent, blood transfused into me in a frantic effort to allow me to walk, I lay on a hospital bed having given birth the day before. To the joy of my family, I had brought them a son. Blue balloons foretold a man in the making. Not just the apple of my eye, but the one who would one day open jam jars for me. The hero who would do the DIY and put out the rubbish. He who was born to be strong because he is male.But then, physical strength can be defined in different ways. What I was yet to learn was that, beneath our skin, women bubble with a source of power that even science has yet to fully understand. We are better survivors than men. What’s more, we are born this way. Continue reading...

Stubbornness beset Einstein’s later years when he increasingly distrusted new experimental dataIn this very readable biography of one of the most famous scientists of all time, Bodanis tells “the story of a fallible genius but also the story of his mistakes”. Although he breezes through Einstein’s whole life, including his annus mirabilis, 1905, when aged 26 he wrote five papers that transformed physics, the main focus is on the later years. Einstein was furious with himself for changing his 1915 theory of general relativity to bring it in line with current but misleading astronomical observations, a mistake he had to rectify in 1931. It was, he said, “the greatest blunder of my life”. Bodanis argues that he increasingly distrusted new experimental data. His insistence “that all underlying reality was clear, exact, understandable” meant that he refused to accept growing evidence of the fundamental unknowability of the universe as revealed by quantum mechanics. “Unreasonable stubbornness” characterised Einstein’s final two decades, a tragic waste of a great intellect. This is a perceptive and lucid account of a brilliant but flawed physicist.• Einstein’s Greatest Mistake: The Life of a Flawed Genius is published by Abacus. To order a copy for £9.34 (RRP £10.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99. Continue reading...

Old-school psychologists obsess over the past; modern, self-helpy ones focus on the present. But a new school of thought is hanging happiness on the futureThe standard knock against old-school approaches to psychology – Freud, Jung et al – is they’re obsessed with the past. Visit some crusty psychoanalyst and you’re sure to waste years picking through your childhood, concluding – surprise! – that your parents messed you up. (A Freudian slip is where you say one thing but mean your mother.) Modern, self-helpy psychology starts from the tempting premise that you can skip all that: just change your present-day thoughts and happiness will follow! But now Martin Seligman, the father of “positive psychology”, has gone further. The past and present are both distractions, he argues in a book and New York Times essay; the key to happiness lies in humans’ unique ability to contemplate the future. “For the past century, most researchers have assumed we’re prisoners of the past and the present,” he writes. But we’re not. For example, depression results not mainly from “past traumas and present stresses, but because of skewed visions of what lies ahead”. Indeed, “the main purpose of emotions is to guide future behaviour”. He even proposes a new discipline, “prospective psychology”, to tackle this paradigm-shifting truth.Related: Bored? Now you know why Continue reading...

It’s been a week for overturning certainties, and the latest discovery of 300,000-year-old remains in Moroccan mine is no exception. Scientists believe that these are the oldest Homo sapiens bones ever found and they challenge the very foundations of our understanding of human evolution. Put that alongside the discovery of Kelt-9b, the hottest known giant planet (found using Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescopes, made with off-the-shelf components, which in itself is pretty amazing) and this week’s been pretty damned interesting even without the distraction of a general election. But there were also a couple of quirkier excitements in store, not least a fossil mushroom from the era of the dinosaurs (yes, a dino-spore! I’ll get my coat) a unique find, believed to be 115m years old. Surprisingly, it’s similar to today’s fungi. And if your romance has bombed as badly as my jokes, help may be at hand. Cambridge University neuropsychologist Barbara Sahakian thinks that brain training might help you to avoid humiliation after heartbreak, by building up willpower that will prevent late-night ex-texting and other regrettable lovelorn behaviour. Finally, this is serious, kids. “Fake news” has become a bit of a buzzphrase, but we really need to start taking action against it. Former Nasa chief scientist Ellen Stofan, who left the US space agency in December, has warned that Americans are “under siege” from climate disinformation. She says that fake news spread by those with a profit motive is leaving many people oblivious to the threat of climate change, despite the science being unequivocal. Time for us all to arm ourselves with facts, research and trustworthy sources of information. Right, lecture over, you may go. Continue reading...

From bovine valves to electrical motors and 3-D printed hearts, cardiologists are forging ahead with technologies once dismissed as ‘crazy ideas’• Read the text version hereSubscribe via Audioboom, iTunes, Soundcloud, Mixcloud, Acast & Sticher and join the discussion on Facebook and Twitter Continue reading...

Advanced satellite launch vehicle will free India from the need to buy launch slots from other countries in futureIndia launched a new rocket this week, extending the country’s ability to place larger payloads into orbit. Until now, India had depended on buying launch slots from other countries and organisations, using the European Space Agency’s Ariane 5 rocket, for example.India’s 43m-tall Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV Mk3) took to the skies at 11:58 GMT on Monday 5 June from the Satish Dhawan space centre, on Sriharikota island, off India’s east coast. Continue reading...

Computerised tests could train those suffering unrequited love to avoid actions they might later regret, says Cambridge University professor Barbara SahakianThe indignity of being dumped has rarely been helped by a clumsy poem or a drunken text sent after closing time, but there is at least hope for the heartbroken.

Fake news spread by those with a profit motive is leaving many people oblivious to the threat of climate change, says former head of US space agencyAmericans are “under siege” from disinformation designed to confuse the public about the threat of climate change, Nasa’s former chief scientist has said.Speaking to the Guardian, Ellen Stofan, who left the US space agency in December, said that a constant barrage of half-truths had left many Americans oblivious to the potentially dire consequences of continued carbon emissions, despite the science being unequivocal. Continue reading...

It’s World Ocean Day, so spare a thought for the vaquita – by the end of 2017, there could be just 15 of these small porpoises leftIn a few months, conservationists will converge on the Gulf of California in a last-ditch effort to save the vaquita from extinction, a species of tiny porpoise. The scientists face an unprecedented challenge: to bring as many vaquita into captivity as possible.When the Vaquita CPR rescue plan was announced back in April, I interviewed several scientists for Nature News. At that point, the best estimate was that there were just 30 vaquita left. It now looks like there are fewer than this.

Review concludes drugs hailed as cure for potentially fatal liver disease may clear virus from blood, but there is no evidence they prevent harm or save livesDrugs that have been hailed as a cure for a debilitating and sometimes fatal liver disease – but have threatened to break the health budgets of most countries because of their cost – have not been proven to have any effect, according to a new review.The startling conclusion came from the respected and independent Cochrane Collaboration, which has assessed all the drug company trials of the breakthrough hepatitis C treatments. Continue reading...

A controversial lab in Montreal is developing virtual reality images that can help build a profile of a pedophile, and determine their risk to societyIn a maximum security mental health facility in Montreal is a “cave-like” virtual reality vault that’s used to show images of child sexual abuse to sex offenders. Patients sit inside the vault with devices placed around their penises to measure signs of arousal as they are shown computer-generated animations of naked children.“We do develop pornography, but these images and animations are not used for the pleasure of the patient but to assess them,” said Patrice Renaud, who heads up the project at the Institut Philippe-Pinel. “It’s a bit like using a polygraph but with other measurement techniques.” Continue reading...

Scientists say the unique find, believed to be 115m years old, is similar to today’s fungiWith a classic shape, gills and a sturdy stalk, it wouldn’t look out of place in a stir-fry – but in fact it’s the fossilised remains of a mushroom thought to have sprouted about 115m years ago. It is the world’s oldest known fossil mushroom, and it is remarkable that it was preserved at all.“It is pretty astonishing,” said Sam Heads, a palaeontologist and co-author of the research from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “Mushrooms are really ephemeral in the sense that to begin with they sprout up, they grow and then usually they are gone within a few days – but they are not around for very long. Also when you consider their structure, they are very soft and fleshy and so they decay really rapidly, so the chances of one being preserved are pretty minuscule.” Continue reading...

Idea that modern humans evolved in East Africa 200,000 years ago challenged by extraordinary discovery of 300,000-year-old remains in Moroccan mineFossils recovered from an old mine on a desolate mountain in Morocco have rocked one of the most enduring foundations of the human story: that Homo sapiens arose in a cradle of humankind in East Africa 200,000 years ago.Archaeologists unearthed the bones of at least five people at Jebel Irhoud, a former barite mine 100km west of Marrakesh, in excavations that lasted years. They knew the remains were old, but were stunned when dating tests revealed that a tooth and stone tools found with the bones were about 300,000 years old. Continue reading...

Using electrical currents to affect parts of the brain involved in planning and reasoning found to make people better at imaginative puzzle-solvingIf off-the-wall thinking gives you a headache, scientists might have the solution.Researchers have found that suppressing activity in part of the brain involved in planning and reasoning can boost an individual’s ability to think in creative ways and solve mind-bending problems. Continue reading...

Childcare is the single biggest problem for female academics, but too little is done to help, suggests Cambridge University historian Patricia FaraA leading British historian has called on universities to provide more support for childcare to reduce the number of women who leave academia before they reach the peak of their careers.Starting a family remains one of the greatest obstacles for women who are building their careers as university researchers, but too little is done to help them, said Patricia Fara, a historian at Cambridge University and president of the British Society for the History of Science. Continue reading...

Researchers in one study find patients who do yoga sleep less but are less tired, while another study sees mood benefits among those who add yoga to exerciseYoga may help ease the pain and fatigue of cancer treatment, according to new research.One study conducted at the University of Rochester used two surveys to interrogate why a group of about 300 mostly female cancer patients felt less fatigued following a program of yoga. Continue reading...

Recent speculation that giant dinosaur predators were covered in downy feathers has been challenged by a new study of tyrannosaurid skinThe evolution of feathers, and how this relates to bird evolution, is something that even people outside the world of palaeontology can get very agitated about. Just look at the recent debate around the lack of feathers on the GM theropods in Jurassic World. By the 1990s, it was pretty much accepted by everyone (well, everyone apart from one or two very vocal opponents) that birds were the descendants of theropod dinosaurs. ‘Non-avian dinosaurs’ is now a standard phrase in the literature: a constant reminder that birds are just the final twigs of a much larger branch of the tree of life. Our cut-off point between the concepts of ‘dinosaur’ and ‘bird’ is due to the fact that dinosaurs were extinct before people starting classifying living things, rather than anything to do with their evolutionary relationship.

Seeing the span of our children’s lives laid over a climate projection graph slices through the boredom that comes with climate apathyLong after we each cease to exist, the physical outcomes of the choices we make today, and tomorrow, will linger. Shadows of our decisions on policy, energy and lifestyle will manifest as the consequence of our injection of greenhouse gases into the Earth’s atmosphere.Related: Writing about climate change: my professional detachment has finally turned to panic | Michael Slezak Continue reading...

Moderate alcohol consumption can impair cognitive function, says study, countering suggestions that low levels of drinking can help protect the brainDrinking even moderate amounts of alcohol can damage the brain and impair cognitive function over time, researchers have claimed.While heavy drinking has previously been linked to memory problems and dementia, previous studies have suggested low levels of drinking could help protect the brain. But the new study pushes back against the notion of such benefits. Continue reading...

Results of a study comparing health impact of wholegrain sourdough and factory-made white bread found individual gut microbiomes are keyWhat’s the background?Bread makes up about 10% of the daily calories consumed by adults. Now a study by researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel has delved into whether fresh wholegrain sourdough is better for you than industrially produced white bread containing refined wheat flour as well as preservatives and emulsifiers. Continue reading...

My mother, Beryl Allan, who has died aged 94, was a keen scientist whose varied life included working in radar for the army and, later, bringing science to members of the Women’s Institute. Science, and its public understanding, was the field to which she dedicated much of her later life.Born in north London, to Elsie (nee Dawson), who worked for a milliner, and Colin Broadbent, a gentleman’s tailor, Beryl went to Southgate county school, where she excelled educationally and at sports. Continue reading...

From hard Brexiters to Donald Trump, nationalists who deny the existence of manmade global warming will eventually have to face the factsAround 97% of climate scientists confirm the existence of manmade global warming, and public opinion is steadily catching up. In the UK, a recent poll suggested 84% of British people want Theresa May to “convince Trump not to quit” the Paris climate agreement. According to a survey spanning 40 nations, 78% of people support their country joining the global agreement.Related: The Republican party – not Trump – is the biggest obstacle to climate action | Naomi Oreskes Continue reading...

New evidence from Akhenaten’s capital suggests that a ‘disposable’ workforce of children and teenagers provided much of the labour for the city’s constructionThere’s a whiff of magic about the site of Tell el-Amarna that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. It’s partly down to the effort of imagination needed to conjure a great capital of ancient Egypt from the sea of low humps stretching between the cultivation and the desert cliffs, and partly the long shadows cast by its founders – the ‘heretic’ pharaoh Akhenaten and his queen Nefertiti. Continue reading...

Could a bizarre form of culture shock known as Paris Syndrome explain the Theresa May’s poor election campaign performance?What’s up with Theresa May? How did she go from being the epitome of confident, sensible leadership to someone so shambling and self-damaging they inspire their own memes? With 20 years’ experience as an MP, including seven as home secretary and 11 months as Prime Minister, facing a weakened opposition at war with itself under a questionable leader, you’d assume that a quick, victorious election campaign would be a doddle.Apparently not; May’s attempts to win people over have been going from bad to worse, meaning she often refuses to even engage, and even when she does she never actually says anything of substance. When your main selling point is being strong and stable, this isn’t a good look at all. How did this happen? Continue reading...

Academic journals don’t select the research they publish on scientific rigour alone. So why aren’t academics taking to the streets about this?Hundreds of thousands of scientists took to streets around the world in April. “We need science because science tells the truth. We are those who can fight the fake news,” a friend who participated in one of the March for Science rallies told me. I really wish this were true. Sadly, much evidence suggests otherwise.The idea that the same experiment will always produce the same result, no matter who performs it, is one of the cornerstones of science’s claim to truth. However, more than 70% of the researchers (pdf), who took part in a recent study published in Nature have tried and failed to replicate another scientist’s experiment. Another study found that at least 50% of life science research cannot be replicated. The same holds for 51% of economics papers (pdf). Continue reading...

Though research is ‘in its infancy’, drug olaparib could slow cancer growth for with inherited BRCA-related breast cancer, which tends to affect younger womenA type of inherited and incurable breast cancer that tends to affect younger women could be targeted by a new therapy, researchers have found.Related: Painless cancer detection could become routine thanks to 'liquid biopsies' Continue reading...

Have you made a flagrant error, in confusing your alternative choices? The legendary Fleet Street editor Harold Evans proscribes this glossary to solve your language dilemmasI freely acknowledge that, in a list of this sort, “glossary” is a fancy Latin word for a collection of pet peeves (noun, 1919), meaning an annoyance or irritation. One of my peeves is that, as a noun originating in America, it had not been admitted into the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1968) on my desk in London when I edited the Sunday Times. Now, it is recognised (“back-formation from peevish”). I admit I have no evidence for believing that the neglect of peeve is to blame for angering the poltergeist Peeves in the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.Affect/Effect You can only affect something that already exists. When it does, you can effect, or bring about, a change in it. To say: “It effected a change in his attitude” is correct; so is: “It affected his attitude.” To combine the two – “It affected a change in his attitude” – is silly. Continue reading...

The answer - with workings! - of the puzzle that stumped nine out of ten 18-year-olds around the world.In this blog earlier today I set you this puzzle:A string is wound symmetrically around a circular rod. The string goes exactly four times around the rod. The circumference of the rod is 4cm and its length is 12cm. Find the length of the string. Continue reading...

Fresh concerns over reliability of papers published in journals as suspicious statistical patterns prompt investigations into some of the identified trialsDozens of recent clinical trials contain suspicious statistical patterns that could indicate incorrect or falsified data, according to a review of thousands of papers published in leading medical journals.The study, which used statistical tools to identify anomalies hidden in the data, has prompted investigations into some of the trials identified as suspect and raises new concerns about the reliability of some papers published in medical journals.

Twice the size of Jupiter and 650 lights years away, planet found using Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescopes, made with off-the-shelf componentsIt is a world like no other. Twice the size of Jupiter and hotter than most stars, the planet sweeps through space with a giant tail of superheated gas stretching out behind it. Life as we know it would not stand a chance.Named Kelt-9b, the planet was discovered when astronomers spotted the shadow it cast as it crossed the face of its host star 650 light years away in the constellation of Cygnus. The planet is so close to the star that its surface reaches more than 4,300C (7800F), making it the hottest giant planet ever found.

As UK students sit their A-levels, here’s a ‘simple’ puzzle that once stumped nine out of ten 18-year-olds around the worldUPDATE: The answer - and workings - are now up here.Hello guzzlers,Today’s puzzle is about a rod and a string. Continue reading...

Only 40% remains of final resting place of 353 Australian sailors who drowned off Java in second world war, archaeologists sayOne of Australia’s most treasured second world war warships has been illegally salvaged for metal, devastating the war grave of more than 300 sailors, maritime archaeologists say.An Australian-Indonesian expedition conducted a dive on the wreck of HMAS Perth, which sank in 1942 following a fierce battle against the Japanese navy off the north-west tip of Java. Continue reading...

Biopsies are seen as the best way of detecting the illness – but they have traditionally often required invasive techniquesResearchers are developing tests that could make cancer detection so painless that it becomes part of routine check-ups, experts said, as new developments in such “liquid biopsy” technology were presented at the world’s largest cancer conference in Chicago this weekend.Related: Prostate cancer trial stuns researchers: 'It's a once in a career feeling' Continue reading...

Studies of colon and breast cancer patients link healthy habits to better outcomes amid slew of research on lifestyle and cancerA healthy diet and exercise could reduce colon cancer patients’ chance of death and simply walking could improve survival rates for breast cancer survivors, studies presented at the world’s largest cancer conference have found.

Dams exert a massive load on the ground underneath. Satellite monitoring can measure deformation in time to prevent failureSometimes solid ground isn’t as solid as it seems. This can come as particularly bad news when you’ve just built a whopping great dam on what you thought were strong foundations. On average ten significant dam failures occur globally every decade, often with devastating consequences downstream. Now satellite measurements are helping scientists to monitor dam movement before the damage is too great.Dams play an essential role in many parts of the world, providing fresh water, flood control, and often hydropower. But the average dam exerts a massive load on the ground underneath it, and sometimes the ground below can’t cope. Monitoring dam movement using ground based or internal sensors tends to be labour-intensive and time consuming. Mahdi Motagh from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam, Germany, and colleagues have shown that satellites are capable of keeping a closer eye on dam deformation. Continue reading...

My friend and colleague David Cosgrove, who has died aged 78, was a pioneer of clinical ultrasound, a non-invasive medical imaging technique that uses sound waves to examine joints, vessels and internal organs of the body as well as to monitor babies in the womb.He was known for his work on developing microbubble-contrast ultrasound, where trackable bubbles much smaller than a red blood cell are injected into the bloodstream so that blood flow and other information can be monitored. Continue reading...

An anomaly in the tiny magnetic field of a fundamental particle could be the loose thread that lets us unravel a new layer of physics. A new experiment has started to take a closer lookA new experiment at the Fermi National Laboratory near Chicago, USA, has just taken an important step. The first beam of muons has entered the storage magnet of the Muon g-2 experiment.Muons are fundamental particles very like electrons, but with a mass more than 200 times greater. Because they have electric charge and spin, muons are little magnets. The aim of the experiment is to make the most precise measurement so far of the tiny magnetic field that muons create. I’ll come on to the “why” in a minute, but first a bit about “how”.

This week, Nicola Davis sits down with mathematical physicist Professor Robbert Dijkgraaf to discuss The Usefulness of Useless KnowledgeSubscribe & Review on iTunes, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud & Acast, and join the discussion on Facebook and TwitterIn 1939, Abraham Flexner, the founding director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, published an essay entitled The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge. Which, as the name suggests, was was an ode to curiosity-driven research. Continue reading...

There’s a link between how disgusting you find various things and the party you’re most likely to put a tick byIf you are easily revolted, what does it say about your politics?We may say that we find opponents’ political views “sickening”, but did you know that your sensitivity to various forms of ickiness correlates with political views? To find out how, rate each of the following from 0 (not at all disgusting) to 100 (the most disgusting thought imaginable) Continue reading...