Second woman to be appointed in RI’s 218-year history identifies role, in era of fake news, to supply trusted data across many issues from health to climate change and roboticsWhen Michael Faraday ran the Royal Institution, one of the oldest scientific organisations in the world, the 19th-century chemist took time to pile into public discourse. He ranted about dangerous pollution in the Thames. He debunked the fad of table-turning and blamed the educational system for allowing such nonsense to thrive.Nearly 200 years later, scientists are still tackling bad thinking and big problems. For Sarah Harper, an Oxford gerontologist who takes the helm proper at the RI on Tuesday, the rise of denialism, fake news and alternative facts, combined with rapid advances in research that raise deep questions for society, mean that a grasp of science, and all its uncertainties, has never seemed more vital. Continue reading...

Working in northern Iraq at the site of Qalatga Darband, The British Museum is training Iraqi archaeologists to preserve and study their county’s threatened heritageNorthern Iraq is spectacularly beautiful in April; the foothills of the Zagros Mountains break out in flowers, the barley shoots up in the valleys and everything is eye-wateringly green. Down by the calm waters of Lake Dokan, I’m trying to explain the mystery and wonder of single context excavation to a very nice man called Halkawt who works for the directorate of antiquities in Erbil. He’s enthusiastic, but his excavation experience is pretty limited so we’re very much starting on page one of practical archaeology.I’m working on a project run by the British Museum aimed at training Iraqi antiquities staff in modern archaeological practice. It’s bankrolled by the Cultural Protection Fund; a £30 million pot set up by the British government to counter the destruction of cultural heritage in conflict zones, particularly as a response to the actions of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Continue reading...

Science has shown what’s possible with lamb foetuses. For humans this could revolutionise birth, solving inequalities and raising new ethical dilemmasIn 1924 the evolutionary biologist JBS Haldane coined the term ectogenesis to describe pregnancy in humans provided through an artificial womb. Haldane imagined that artificial wombs might become so popular by 2074 that only a small minority – fewer “than 30% of children” – would then “be born of woman”.In one sense, the journey to ectogenesis had already started in 1880, when the French obstetrician Etienne Stéphane Tarnier built a crude incubator – essentially a wooden box for infants, outfitted with a compartment to hold a hot-water bottle. Tarnier’s simple box reduced the mortality of premature babies by nearly a half, but his design did not become much more technologically sophisticated until the 1950s. Continue reading...

A gallery of mathematical images from Visions of Numberland, the new colouring book by Edmund Harriss and meOne of the great perks of my job - writing about maths – is that I am always learning new maths. And I learned more in my latest book than probably in any other project I have been involved in.This statement might sound odd, since Visions of Numberland is a colouring book. Yet the aim that my co-author Edmund Harriss and I shared was more than just to serve up pretty pictures. It was to curate a gallery of beautiful images that would introduce readers to deep mathematical ideas. Continue reading...

It’s costly, but by exploring the red planet we could solve some of the great mysteries about space and ourselvesWhen US president Donald Trump called astronauts aboard the International Space Station last week to congratulate Peggy Whitson, who now holds the record for the most time spent in space by a Nasa astronaut, he also asked when he could expect to see humans land on Mars (answer: the 2030s). “Well, we want to do it in my first term or at worst in my second term,” he joked, “so we’ll have to speed that up a bit.”Nasa’s not alone in its mission. Space agencies worldwide are aiming for Mars, and the coming decades hold numerous plans for manned and unmanned missions. Although other worlds in the solar system hold significant scientific promise (not least Saturn’s moon Enceladus, which hosts a salty underground ocean and was found to have almost all of the ingredients needed to support life as we know it about a week ago), it seems that we just love Mars the most. Too much? I don’t think so. Continue reading...

With starwatching in the northern hemisphere restricted by shorter nights, Jupiter rules the sky from dusk to dawn. Venus rules the morning in the southern hemisphereUnless the focus is on our local star, the Sun, this month offers a contracting window for star watching. Effective darkness at the latitude of Manchester lasts for about 6 hours at present, but halves to barely 3 hours at the month’s end, by which time night-long twilight bathes most of Scotland. Continue reading...

By following the flow of seawater deep into the earth’s crust, researchers hope to understand the region’s instabilityGeologically speaking the Caribbean is a lively place. Recent reminders include the 1995 volcanic eruption on Montserrat, and the devastating magnitude 7 earthquake that struck Haiti in January 2010. Occasionally the Caribbean produces even more powerful outbursts.Back in February 1843 the region was shaken by an estimated magnitude 8.3 quake, reducing Pointe-a-Pitre in Guadeloupe to ruins and killing one third (1,500) of its inhabitants. Meanwhile, 2,000 people are thought to have perished in a quake of unspecified magnitude which shook Jamaica in 1692. Continue reading...

It is not enough for scientists to be right. They must also be politically adeptThe Wellcome Trust is not making any kind of threat. That would be vulgar. The trust is a unique institution that has helped to fund almost every worthwhile piece of scientific research in the UK over the last 20 years. Without its annual £1bn investment in research, nearly all of which is spent in the UK, there would be very little world-class science in this country. Its open letter to the leaders of all political parties explaining that it may have to reconsider its funding if the post-Brexit order is inimical to scientific research is simply a helpful clarification of reality for a government that may not wholly have grasped some of the implications of some of its own rhetoric. Not a threat at all. Yet two possible consequences of a hard Brexit are singled out in the trust’s letter as potentially fatal to the health of first-rate science in the UK: a withdrawal from European cooperation, and – perhaps more obvious – a clampdown on visas for foreign researchers of any age and achievement, and their families.Both of those measures might appeal to the atavistic xenophobia which has gripped large sections of the Conservative party and indeed of the country as a whole. The crisis of science funding, and of faith in science more generally, is part of the wider contemporary rebellion against conspicuous elites. Considered sociologically, science is the embodiment of the transnational elitism that voters everywhere have revolted against in the last year. The scientist claims to know better than the rest of us; what makes this claim more aggravating is that it is often accompanied by the belief that everyone else ought to be able to understand scientific reasoning and if we can’t this must be the result of moral or intellectual deficiency. This has drawn science into the culture wars in the US and to some degree in Britain, and on that battlefield most scientists are helpless. To hold up a placard saying, “Without science it’s just fiction”, is to make a joke that your own side will appreciate and be warmed by. But outsiders can see that slogan is not itself scientific and so on its own terms fiction. Continue reading...

The president is determined to see Americans walk on Mars during his presidency, but the reality of space travel is a little more complicatedDonald Trump would like to see Americans walk on Mars during his presidency – within three to seven years, depending on the whims of the voting public. Nasa would love to get there that quickly, too. The reality of space travel is slightly more complicated.On Monday, during a call with astronaut Peggy Whitson, who was aboard the International Space Station, Trump pressed her for a timeline on a crewed mission to Mars, one of Nasa’s longest standing and most daunting goals. Continue reading...

A new study shows how strenuous mental and physical exercise keeps your brain firing on all cylindersWhen it comes to retirement, experts recommend that everyone do some hard thinking. By this, they mean you should plan your finances responsibly, consider carefully where to live, and decide what colour beach chair to sit in all day as you sip strawberry daiquiris in the sun. But there’s another reason to think hard about these details: hard thinking by itself – a strenuous mental workout – is good for your ageing brain.My collaborators and I at Massachusetts General hospital and Northeastern University in Boston study people over 65 who have incredible memories for their age, on a par with healthy 25-year-olds. Scientists call them “superagers” (a term coined by neurologist Marsel Mesulam at Northwestern University in Chicago). While nobody knows exactly why some people are superagers, we believe that one common factor is that they engage in demanding mental exercise. They continually challenge themselves to learn new things outside of their comfort zone. Continue reading...

After a remarkable journey around Saturn, the US spacecraft is set for a fiery finaleLast week, the US space probe Cassini survived an encounter of the very closest – and riskiest – kind. In response to signals that had been transmitted to it across several hundred millions of miles of space, it swooped through a tiny gap between Saturn and its rings, then skimmed over the planet’s upper atmosphere. Now the little spaceship is beaming back information about the giant, ringed world from the very closest of viewpoints.The achievement was remarkable – for this fly-by represents just one of a host of triumphs for Cassini, though in this case its manoeuvre did have a particular significance. It will be the spacecraft’s swan song. Having brought a stunning new awareness of Saturn and its system of moons, including observations suggesting that at least two could harbour life, the US space agency Nasa is now preparing to bring an end to Cassini as the spacecraft’s reserves of fuel run out. Continue reading...

The death of a loved one creates an inner wound that can’t be ignored. Healing it requires work

$4m mission in Gulf of California aims to rescue world’s most endangered sea mammal – with help from US navy dolphinsScientists are finalising plans to make a last-ditch attempt to save the world’s most endangered marine mammal, the vaquita porpoise. They believe there are now fewer than 30 of these distinctive cetaceans left in the Gulf of California. Only by catching the remaining creatures and protecting them in a sanctuary can the vaquita be saved, it is argued.Related: Saved: the endangered species back from the brink of extinction Continue reading...

From soldier Catherine Smith to cyclist Chris Froome and astronaut Andrew Feustel, how do people under pressure prepare?The night before the first public performance, you’re actually in the theatre, doing technical rehearsals and making sure everything runs smoothly. It’s all very busy – it’s not a night off. But I think that’s best because, for me, it’s really an exercise in panic management. You’re trying to convince your brain that it’s possible to remember a sequence of words and movements in front of 850 people without having a heart attack. I don’t think I’d want to be sitting at home trying to be calm, because I’m sure that wouldn’t work. Continue reading...

Bill could leave operators open to crippling insurance costs, and could scupper government ambitions to launch satellites from UK spaceports by 2020Ambitious plans to launch satellites from spaceports in Britain are in danger of being grounded by poor legislation that leaves operators open to crippling insurance costs, MPs have warned.The government hopes to have satellites flown into orbit from UK spaceports by 2020, but a draft version of the spaceflight bill states that companies could face unlimited liability for any damages caused by falling space hardware.

Heart disease, depression, life expectancy. New research claims that stress exerts a far heavier physical toll than previously understood. The film-maker James Redford talks about how toxic stress can be a killerThere is a scene in James Redford’s new film, Resilience, in which a paediatrician cites a parental misdeed so outmoded as to seem bizarre. “Parents used to smoke in the car with kids in the back and the windows rolled up,” she says, incredulous. How long ago those days now seem; how wise today’s parents are to the dangers of those toxins. Yet every week in her clinic in the Bayview-Hunters Point area of San Francisco, children present with symptoms of a new pollutant – one that is just as damaging. But unlike the smoke-filled car, this new pollutant is invisible, curling undetected around children’s lives and causing lasting damage to their lungs, their hearts, their immune systems.“Stress,” Redford says. “It is a neurotoxin like lead or mercury poisoning.” He mentions the city of Flint in Michigan, where residents were exposed to lead in drinking water. “And that’s literally what’s going on” with children who are “coming from really stressful environments. We know what environmental toxins are. Well, this is an environmental toxin.” The proliferation of so-called “toxic stress” among children, Redford says, “is a public health crisis”. Continue reading...

Trump is the worst thing that could have happened to the planet. That’s all the more reason to fight on - and celebrate even the smallest successesThere is no upside to the Trump presidency. To be in DC – I’ve come for Saturday’s giant climate march – is to be reminded up close what all Americans have known for months: we’ve put the country in the hands of a man completely unequal to the task. A man so cluelessly over his head that he keeps telling reporters he’s in over his head.But if you want a few grayish linings to the dark-orange cloud, you can find them. In fact, the last few days have given those of us in the climate fight a few glimmers of light. Continue reading...

Empathy requires mental gymnastics at the best of times. Empathy for whole categories of people requires Olympic-level skillsIt is usually seen as a depressing paradox about human beings that we find it easier to sympathise with one person’s suffering than with that of thousands: Stalin probably never really said “one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic” – but he was right all the same. It’s not much of a paradox, though. It makes sense: each of us has access to only one set of thoughts and emotions – our own – so we’re obliged to relate to others by analogy, working on the assumption that they feel pain and joy like we do. (As philosophers enjoy pointing out, you can’t truly know that your family and friends aren’t just meaty robots, with no inner life at all.) And it’s obviously easier to draw an analogy between yourself and one other person, as opposed to “the population of Somalia” or “all victims of domestic violence”, let alone those killed in the future by global warming, who aren’t necessarily even born yet. Empathy requires mental gymnastics at the best of times. Empathy for whole categories of people requires Olympic-level skills, and most of us aren’t up to it.But there’s an intriguingly easy way to induce compassion for groups, according to a new study by the psychologist Kurt Gray and colleagues, published in the Journal Of Experimental Psychology and reported by Vox. It makes a difference, they found, whether you say “a group of 50 refugees” (for example) versus “50 refugees in a group”. The first phrasing focuses on the group, not its members, with the result that we think of those members as less capable of rich inner experience – and less human, if we’re honest – than ourselves. The latter phrasing focuses on the members, rather than the group. That linguistic switch proved sufficient for participants in the study to treat them as fully human, and fully deserving of compassion. Continue reading...

It’s a sensational claim, but a group of researchers believe that they may have found evidence that will rewrite the history of human arrival in North America. The scientists believe that smashed mastodon bones found under a freeway construction site in California indicate that humans arrived over 100,000 years earlier than previously thought. To say that other experts are sceptical, however, would be to understate the situation somewhat. “They are going to face a shitstorm,” said one scientist who preferred not to be named. For my (admittedly limited) money, however, the two biggest stories this week were advances in cancer screening and care for premature babies. The first is a ‘liquid biopsy’, a DNA-based test that in a major lung cancer trial was able to spot cancer recurrence up to a year before conventional scans. But to me, the most impressive breakthrough this week is the artificial womb intended to help premature babies. It has been shown to keep that premature lambs alive and growing for four weeks. Doctors are hoping that this could act as a bridge between the womb and the outside world for the the most fragile newborns – those born between 23 and 28 weeks’ gestation. Continue reading...

The climate event that helped supercharge global warming to record levels in 2015 and 2016 is 50-60% likely in 2017, says World Meteorological OrganizationThe El Niño climate event that helped supercharge global warming to record levels in 2015 and 2016 is set for an early return, according to a forecast from the World Meteorological Organization.Related: What is El Niño? Continue reading...

Antidotes to these dangerous, destructive synthetic drugs are desperately needed. But the government is standing in the way of their developmentLast year I wrote to the health and home secretaries with suggestions on how antidotes for spice could be developed. Their replies revealed a complete lack of appreciation of the magnitude of the synthetic cannabinoid problem and lack of interest in the idea of an antidote.Spice-induced “zombie” outbreaks in New York and in Manchester have hit the headlines in the past year. Use of these new damaging and powerful forms of synthetic cannabinoids is rife in our prisons and by homeless people, with estimates of up to 50 deaths last year. They can produce extremely strong psychotic states often with very violent behaviour. Sometimes a frozen unconscious state results. Either of these outcomes are health emergencies that consume vast amounts of police, prison officer and health professionals time, and so waste a huge amount of public money. Continue reading...

Cancer Research UK institute likely to have lost millions of pounds of life-saving equipment in blaze, says its directorYears of research and millions of pounds of life-saving equipment are feared to have been destroyed in a devastating fire at a cancer hospital in Manchester, its director has said.

Heavy reading increases empathy – and makes users of dating sites more likely to click on your profileA dating website claims to have discovered what kind of reading preferences make one more attractive to potential partners. According to eHarmony, women who listed The Hunger Games among their favourite books saw the biggest boost to their popularity, while men who read Richard Branson’s business books were approached most often. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was a hit for both genders. But crucially, reading anything is a winning move; men who list reading on their dating profiles receive 19% more messages, and women 3% more.This welcome news does not come out of the blue. Last year, the dating app My Bae also announced that people who used reading tags on its profiles were more successful in finding dates. More recently, research from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, showed that reading a novel can improve brain function. Continue reading...

Treatments approved by David Cameron’s scheme were not worth money, extended life very little and often had adverse side-effects, study finds

A large proportion of patients seeking help for urinary tract infections are being misdiagnosed – and even told their problem is psychological, say researchersA test that is routinely used by doctors to diagnose urinary tract infections wrongly gives a negative result in a fifth of cases, scientists have found.The findings imply that a large proportion of women who seek medical help for UTIs such as cystitis are being misdiagnosed, with some being told their problem is psychological. Many women with severe symptoms are also likely to have been refused antibiotics. Continue reading...

First in a sequence of dramatic manoeuvres that will end with the spacecraft burning up in the planet’s atmosphereNasa’s Cassini spacecraft has plunged between Saturn and its rings. This is the first pass in a sequence of 22 weekly dives that will result in the destruction of the spacecraft on 15 September.The mission has been orbiting Saturn since 2004, studying the planet, its rings and moons in unprecedented detail. Recently, it discovered that the ocean inside the moon Enceladus has the conditions necessary for life. Continue reading...

Recorded in front of a live audience as part of our Brainwaves series, Ian Sample asks a group of experts how AI will change our social landscape - for better or worseSubscribe & Review on iTunes, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud & Acast, and join the discussion on Facebook and TwitterOn Monday 20 April, a crowd gathered in Kings Place to hear a discussion on the future of Artificial Intelligence - or AI - as part of our Brainwaves Series, supported by SEAT. How do we define human intelligence? How close are we to reaching it with machines? And what happens when these machines start taking our jobs? Continue reading...

The Cassini spacecraft and its dramatic dive towards Saturn have been in the news this week, but the human Cassini is no less memorableAs a historian of science, when I scroll through my Twitter timeline and see mentions of Cassini, my thoughts tend to go not to the spacecraft that is, at the time of writing, somewhere between Saturn’s rings and the planet itself. Rather, they turn to Cassini I, II, III and IV, the 17th and 18th-century dynasty of Paris Observatory directors. With the word Saturn appearing alongside, I fix on Cassini I, Giovanni Domenico (or, after he moved to France, Jean-Dominique) Cassini.Giovanni Domenico Cassini was the first director of the observatory founded by Louis XIV and, among much else, he discovered two of Saturn’s moons, the planet’s equatorial belt and a division in its rings. This last has been named the Cassini Division in his honour. Thus the Cassini Spacecraft has imaged the Cassini Division that was first depicted by Cassini I. It can just be seen in the image at the top, which was published in 1676 in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Continue reading...

Despite sensational news reports and pop-culture portrayals, the notion that any human has, or even could have, a 100% reliable memory is far from certainEvery now and then, you see news reports of people with incredible memories, able to recall every single thing from their life at a moment’s notice. Initially, it may sound like an incredibly useful ability. No more searching for your car keys that you had in your hand minutes ago, no more desperately stalling for time as you flounder to remember the name of the casual acquaintance who’s just said hello to you, no more taking notes at all. Why would you need to? It’s no wonder it pops up often in pop culture.Indeed, there are many people who can demonstrate incredible memory prowess, having trained their memories to be as efficient and thorough as possible via useful and approved techniques, in order to compete in memory sports, which are an actual thing. Clearly, for some people at least, there is potential to greatly boost the brain’s ability to store and recall information to well above average levels. Ben Carson even claimed to be able to induce this with a simple bit of surgery (which is utterly wrong) Continue reading...

Conventional wisdom suggests the Tories could bleed Remain votes to the Lib Dems. Our detailed data analysis suggests this idea could be very wrong indeedThis post was written in collaboration with Martin Baxter of Electoral Calculus.The Thames Valley constituency I live in voted for Remain in the EU Referendum, which is a little bit awkward because our MP is Theresa May. Surrounded by miles of natural beauty, Maidenhead is a concrete wart on the landscape – fashionable in its day, but now something of an embarrassment. Continue reading...

A new systematic review of existing studies suggests it will reduce smoking, but long-term impacts of standardised cigarette packaging are still unknownStandardised packaging for cigarettes was first introduced in the UK in May last year. Tobacco companies were forced to stop producing branded packs, but were still allowed to sell off existing stock. From 21 May 2017, that must stop too. Fancy, colourful, unique branding on cigarette packets will be completely replaced by uniform olive green boxes, larger health warnings, and brand names written in the same size and font, regardless of make.These changes are the latest in a long line of regulations designed to make smoking less appealing, particularly to teenagers – two-thirds of long-term smokers will start before they’re 18 years old. But is there evidence to support the effectiveness of such packaging? Continue reading...

At the start of our Future of farming series on sustainable agribusiness we show how two gene banks, living libraries of all the seeds and grains in Australia, are designed to safeguard the species• The invisible farmers: the young women injecting new ideas into agriculture

Review by research organisation Cochrane suggests impact of UK’s ban on branded packs could echo results seen in AustraliaPlain cigarette cartons featuring large, graphic health warnings could persuade 300,000 people in the UK to quit smoking if the measure has the effect it had in Australia, scientists say.Standardised cigarette packaging will be compulsory in the UK from 20 May. A new review from the independent health research organisation Cochrane on the impact of plain packaging around the world has found that it does affect the behaviour of smokers. Continue reading...

Tranexamic acid could save the lives of a third of women who die in childbirth from excessive bleeding, which kills 100,000 a yearA cheap and widely available drug could save the lives of thousands of women who die in childbirth from excessive bleeding, one of the main killers of women worldwide.The drug, tranexamic acid, is available over the counter in the UK to women suffering from heavy periods. In Japan and the far east, it is used as a skin whitener. But now a very large study of 20,000 women in 21 countries has shown it can stop a third of cases of bleeding to death after giving birth. Continue reading...

Scientists say discovery of ingredients for life on Saturn’s moon Enceladus is bittersweet as spacecraft prepares to end 20-year missionCould there be life in our own solar system?This is the question posed by the discovery of hydrogen gas erupting in plumes from Saturn’s moon Enceladus, indicating the likely existence of an energy supply for microbial life. Continue reading...

‘Liquid biopsy’ diagnosed cancer recurrence up to a year before CT scans are able to in major lung cancer trial, and could buy crucial time for doctorsA revolutionary blood test has been shown to diagnose the recurrence of cancer up to a year in advance of conventional scans in a major lung cancer trial.The test, known as a liquid biopsy, could buy crucial time for doctors by indicating that cancer is growing in the body when tumours are not yet detectable on CT scans and long before the patient becomes aware of physical symptoms. Continue reading...

Mandibulates, a group that includes crustaceans and insects, show huge diversity – Tokummia katalepsis could be the missing link that explains whyA fossilised ancient creature boasting huge pincers resembling can-openers, a hinged two-piece shell and more than 50 pairs of legs has been discovered, shedding light on the evolutionary past of a huge and diverse group of animals.Researchers say the creature, thought to have lived about 507 million years ago during the Cambrian period, offers insights into the early body plan of mandibulates – a group that encompasses creatures including millipedes, crabs and ants. The group takes its name from the presence of mouth parts known as mandibles, which the animals use to help hold or eat food. Continue reading...

Smashed mastodon bones show humans arrived over 100,000 years earlier than previously thought say researchers, although other experts are scepticalThe history of the people of America, a story that dates back to the last ice age, has been upended by the battered bones of a mastodon found under a freeway construction site in California.Archaeological sites in North America have led most researchers to believe that the continent was first reached by humans like us, Homo sapiens, about 15,000 years ago. But inspection of the broken mastodon bones, and large stones lying with them, point to a radical new date for the arrival of ancient humans. If the claim stands up, humans arrived in the New World 130,000 years ago. Continue reading...

Using drones, snowmobiles and antler-cams, Norwegian broadcaster NRK is charting the passage of more than 1,000 reindeer as they travel to pastures new. Just as soon as they get a move onHigh up on a mountain plateau in Lapland there has been a tense silence for some days. A crew from the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) has been stuck with a herd of reindeer who are not intending to move. But move they must. Food is getting scarce and besides, their annual spring migration, towards new grazing land down at the coast 200km away, is going live on TV. Minute by minute.The transmission started on Monday night, but as the reindeer scraped through snow searching for more food, the lead female deer looked on unconcerned and immobile. The crew, less so. “We were waiting for the lead female to make a move,” editor Ole Rune Hætta explains. All reindeer herds have female leaders, but this this one seemed to be a little stuck. More than 1,000 reindeer and many more television viewers – including those across the world following the live stream – were about to go on a spectacular journey, if she ever got going. Continue reading...

A response to advances in neurotechnology that can read or alter brain activity, new human rights would protect people from theft, abuse and hackingNew human rights that would protect people from having their thoughts and other brain information stolen, abused or hacked have been proposed by researchers.The move is a response to the rapid advances being made with technologies that read or alter brain activity and which many expect to bring enormous benefits to people’s lives in the coming years. Continue reading...

A recent meta-study suggests that regular exercise improves the functioning of the brain in people aged 50 and over. How does that work, and is it even surprising?A recently-published study has provided strong evidence that regular exercise is very beneficial for the health and functioning of the brain in the over 50s. To many scientists, this is just confirming what we already knew. But for others, this may come as a surprise to hear.Who can blame them? Crude portrayals and stereotypes from mainstream entertainment, most obviously bawdy American comedies of the 80s, give the impression there is some sort clear divide between enjoying physical or intellectual activities, as if these things are incompatible. They present a world where you can either be a big, lumbering, strong-but-monosyllabic sports star, or a feeble, pasty, asthmatic book-and-gadget-loving genius. Continue reading...

Encounters with new worlds and new life will present religions with the ultimate theological conundrum. But they will adapt, as they have done beforeAbout two decades ago, it was quite uncertain whether stars other than our own sun even hosted their own planets. However, according to Nasa, the latest count of confirmed exoplanets stands at around 3,500 – and at least six of them are potential Earths. This count will definitely go up and many researchers believe that the advancement of technology will enable humans to discover some form of life on another planet in the coming years.Related: Exoplanet discovery: seven Earth-sized planets found orbiting nearby star Continue reading...

Scientists can’t turn their backs on the engagement of mass-media, but when it comes to inaccurate and sensational headlines, do the ends justify the means?“The public is mostly made of people who just don’t care. The media know they don’t understand the science and they don’t want to learn about it either.” An established scientist bitterly confesses to me his experiences with public outreach, via news media. He is red-faced and his voice is getting louder. “I know you have good intentions, but when you’ve been in the field for as long as me you’ll realise that we can’t win – the media will always take your words and turn them against you. All they care about is public entertainment. Accuracy? Forget it!”We’ve been talking for ten minutes, and it has become increasingly tense. The frustration is obvious: here is someone who loves his work and really wants to tell people about it. Yet he no longer engages with the press office at his institution, not if he can avoid it. He has learnt the hard way that if you speak to the media, what you say is too often misquoted and misunderstood. The science, the real message, is lost to sensationalism. Continue reading...

The British Isles split from Europe several thousand years ago. Now, maritime archaeology is revealing a lost landscape on the seafloorThe British Isles separated from the European continent approximately 8,000 years ago. For this Brexit there was no referendum or bus, no Leavers or Remainers, nor was it hard or soft. This was a watery Brexit as rising sea levels filled the Channel and created the North Sea. Maritime archaeology is revealing this submerged landscape that once connected the continent to Britain.Earth is a dynamic planet that is constantly changing. Going back far enough in time, Britain has been separated from the continent several times as sea levels changed. However, for the study of Homo sapiens it is the change at end of the Pleistocene and the start of the Holocene epoch 11,700 years ago that is most interesting. Continue reading...

Nearly half of LGBTIQ Australians hide their sexual identity at work, with many experiencing homophobic abuse. It’s time to do betterIn 2015 a US survey found that LGBTIQ scientists felt more accepted in their workplaces than their peers in other professions did. The Queer in Stem survey, published in the Journal of Homosexuality, surveyed 1,400 LGBTIQ workers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. They found respondents in scientific fields that had a high proportion of women were more likely to be out to their colleagues than those who worked in male-intensive disciplines.This is heartening news as it’s not necessarily that way in most Australian workplaces. Last year a report found that nearly half of LGBTIQ Australians hide their sexual identity at work. The research was conducted by Dive In festival on diversity and inclusion in the workplace. The report also found six in 10 LGBTIQ people have experienced verbal homophobic abuse in the workplace, while two in 10 have experienced physical violence. Continue reading...

Scientists at Imperial College London used MRI scans and algorithms to produce computer-generated brain age and spot risk of dying youngDoctors may be able to warn patients if they are at risk of early death by analysing their brains, British scientists have discovered.Those whose brains appeared older than their true age were more likely to die early and to be in worse physical and mental health, a study by Imperial College London found. Continue reading...

Mathematical analysis reveals that for players with good control, using an unorthodox underarm technique gives better odds of scoringIt might invite ridicule, but it gets results. A scientific analysis has concluded that using a “granny style” underarm technique is the optimal way to take a free throw in basketball.Adopting the unorthodox strategy could result in marginal gains for professional players, the research suggests. And, as sporting doctrine goes, marginal gains can lead to remarkable results. Continue reading...

The key points in a debate between cardiology experts over the link between fat, cholesterol and coronary diseaseWhat’s the fuss about?A furore has blown up over whether eating saturated fat increases the risk of coronary heart disease after three cardiologists said that “the conceptual model of dietary saturated fat clogging a pipe is just plain wrong”. They also dismissed the drive for foods with lower cholesterol and the use of medications as “misguided”. Continue reading...

Francis Galton’s synoptic chart described conditions of the previous day and sidestepped the pitfalls of predictionThe first newspaper weather map was published in the Times on 1 April 1875, the work of polymath Francis Galton, an explorer and anthropologist who was also a statistician and meteorologist.The map was not a forecast, but a representation of the conditions of the previous day. This is known as a synoptic chart, meaning that it shows a summary of the weather situation. Readers could make their own predictions based on the information it provided. Continue reading...

Breeding wax moth caterpillars to devour our waste sounds good. But they would attack bee colonies too, and ultimately put crops at riskCaterpillars that can munch up plastic bags have just been identified, fuelling excited speculation that this could one day eliminate global pollution from plastic waste. The chance discovery, initially made by a scientist and amateur beekeeper whose plastic bag had been eaten through by the moth caterpillars, was reported this week by researchers at Cambridge University and the Spanish National Research Council.Related: Plastic-eating worms could help wage war on waste Continue reading...