The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific conceptsAre there different sizes of infinity? Apparently there is an infinite series of prime numbers, but also an infinite series of “normal” (non-prime) numbers; but at any given time there must be more normal numbers than prime numbers, however long you count for.Ray Crabtree Continue reading...

Funding response follows UN warnings that 40% of South Sudan’s population are in urgent need, with people already dying from hungerNew and existing funds provided by the EU and the UK government will be made available to South Sudan following the declaration of famine in the country.The UN has warned that about 40% of South Sudan’s population are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance and that people are already dying from hunger caused by famine in parts of the country.

To counter Trump’s administration, scientists need counter-propaganda, evidence-based alternative policies and political representationIt would surprise very few if surveys revealed that the vast majority of scientists and academics find the US presidency of Donald Trump abhorrent. After all, the scientific community shares values that are clearly not held by the Trump administration and its supporters: among them, the importance of diversity and the crucial role of evidence in the process of making smart decisions.What has been surprising is that the scientific community has not fully upheld these values in their initial responses in opposition to the Trump administration’s words and deeds over its first month in office. We need to up our game. We need more diverse ideas, more critical debate and more effective actions backed by evidence of what works. Continue reading...

Has the great urbanisation of our species over the last 5,000 years been good for humanity or bad? It’s a story that can be told by examining ancient skeletons – which reveal incredible dangers, but also point to a bright futureThe UN human settlements programme predicts that homo sapiens will soon be a majority urban species: 60% of humans will live in cities by 2030. More than 10 millennia of adaptations have gone into changing our lives from free-range to metropolitan. Yet in evolutionary terms this is a blindingly swift change of habitat, and to understand what it means for our future we must turn to the long view of archaeology.The accumulation of humans in dense habitations – cities – has had enormous and frequently fatal consequences. Problems of access to resources, disease transmission and pollution follow rapidly on the heels of our great urban experiment. And it is precisely these problems, originating many thousand of years ago, that we must come to terms with if we are going to survive as a species.

DNA sequencing shows insects crossed oceans then migrated from treetops to the ground to adapt to ancient climate changeA new paper shows that the ancient ancestors of termites found in northern Australia crossed vast distances over oceans, and then followed an evolutionary path similar to humans, migrating from tree-tops to the ground.Mounds sometimes reaching as high as eight metres and housing millions of individual insects are seen in the Northern Territory, Western Australia and far north Queensland, built by cathedral termites. Relative to the animals’ 3mm height and the average human height the termite mounds are the equivalent to four of the world’s tallest structure, the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai, stacked on top of each other. Continue reading...

Archaeologists say pair unearthed in London plague burial ground may have been related by blood or marriageThe skeletons of two men who were buried apparently hand in hand during an outbreak of the Black Death have been excavated from a plague burial ground in London.The men, believed to have been in their 40s, were buried in the early 15th century in a carefully dug double grave, in identical positions, with heads turned towards the right and the left hand of one man apparently clasping the right hand of the other.

One-off examination, being introduced across NHS, was able to prevent 35% of bowel cancers overall and 40% of deathsA one-off screening test being introduced across the NHS cuts the risk of developing bowel cancer by a third, a long-term study has found.The test, which is being rolled out across England, will invite men and women to have bowel scope screening around the time of their 55th birthday. Continue reading...

Study shows significant increase in lifespan, with South Korea top of league table and other countries not far behindLife expectancy will soon exceed 90 years for the first time, scientists have predicted, overturning all the assumptions about human longevity that prevailed at the beginning of the 20th century.Women born in South Korea in 2030 are forecast to have a life expectancy of 90, a study has found. But other developed countries are not far behind, raising serious questions about the health and social care that will be needed by large numbers of the population living through their 80s. Continue reading...

Committee hears Brexit prompting move by European colleagues, while UK position would be threatened by no access to ERCBritish medical researchers are being removed from applications for EU research grants by European colleagues because of Brexit, MPs have been told.Prof David Lomas, representing UK university hospitals, told MPs that Britain’s position at the forefront of medial advancement was threatened were it no longer able to access the European Research Council, one of the world’s leading funders of scientific research. Continue reading...

Australian scientists seek to understand how non-carbon aerosolised particles affect global temperaturesAustralian scientists are studying air pollution and cloud formation in Antarctica in an effort to understand how non-carbon aerosolised particles impact on global temperatures.It’s the first comprehensive study of the composition and concentration of aerosols in the Antarctic sea ice area, a region that influences cloud formation and weather patterns for much of the southern hemisphere. Continue reading...

Neuroscientist who carried out pioneering research on how damage to the central nervous system might be repairedIn 1969 Geoffrey Raisman, who has died aged 77, introduced the term “plasticity” to describe the ability of damaged nerve tissue to form new synaptic connections. He discovered that damaged nerves in the central nervous system (CNS) could be repaired and developed the theory that white matter (nerve fibres and supporting cells) is like a pathway – when it is disrupted by injury, such as spinal cord injury, growth of the regenerating fibres is blocked.In 1985 he described how olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs) “open doors” for newly formed nerve fibres in the nose to enter the CNS. Believing that reconstruction of the damaged pathway is essential to repair of the injured CNS and using the unique door-opening capability of OECs, in 1997, together with colleagues, Geoffrey showed that transplantation of OECs into the damaged spinal cord in experimental models repairs the damaged pathway and results in the regeneration of severed nerve fibres and the restoration of lost functions. Continue reading...

Are your pupils prone to feeling like a fraud when they succeed? Try these ideas to help them realise their potentialEver felt like a fraud at work? As if at any moment, everyone else is going to realise that you’ve bluffed your way to your current position? This phenomenon is known as the impostor syndrome, and even those who are at the top of their professional game feel it. Emma Watson recently admitted that she’s uncomfortable receiving praise because she feels like an impostor, and Rénee Zellweger and Kate Winslet have also acknowledged similar feelings.

Research finds distinctive language deficits in people with mild cognitive impairment, a precursor to dementiaRambling and long-winded anecdotes could be an early sign of Alzheimer’s disease, according to research that suggests subtle changes in speech style occur years before the more serious mental decline takes hold.The scientists behind the work said it may be possible to detect these changes and predict if someone is at risk more than a decade before meeting the threshold for an Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Continue reading...

To its critics, it is dangerous pseudoscience. To its supporters, it offers unique insights. What is the future of this controversial psychological test?Victor Norris had reached the final round in his application for a job working with young children, but he still had to undergo a psychological evaluation. Over two long November afternoons, he spent eight hours at the office of Caroline Hill, an assessment psychologist working in Chicago.Norris had seemed an ideal candidate in interviews – charming and friendly, with a suitable résumé and unimpeachable references. Hill liked him. His scores were normal to high on the cognitive tests she gave him, as were his results on the personality test he took. When Hill showed him a series of pictures without captions and asked him to tell her a story about what was happening in each one – another standard assessment – Norris gave answers that were a bit obvious, but harmless enough. Continue reading...

The Princeton atomic physicist is no climate scientist – and he’s pushing the same old denier mythsWilliam Happer is a physicist at Princeton University – one of those US academic institutions with brand recognition for academic excellence that travels the globe.Happer is well known for his contrarian views (that’s the polite term) on human-caused climate change. Continue reading...

App development likened to the ‘wild west’ as researchers raise concerns over one-size-fits-all targets and absence of sound scienceFitness trackers and mental health apps could be doing more harm than good because they are not based on sound science, researchers have warned, comparing some health app developers to “snake oil salesmen of the 1860s”.Greg Hager, professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins University, said that in the absence of trials or scientific grounding it was impossible to say whether apps were having the intended effect. Continue reading...

With unprecedented access to news and knowledge, how do we make judgements about what we read? Neuroscience news is a case in pointIn an era of fake news and alternative facts, it seems as if our collective ability to critically assess information is starting to falter. We have unprecedented access to news and knowledge on a daily basis, but how do we make judgments about whether to accept what we read? There’s still a lot of work to do in this area, but an influential psychology experiment from 2009 might provide a good starting point – at least when it comes to thinking about how neuroscience is presented in the news. Continue reading...

Suicide attempts among high school students fell by an average of 7% following implementation of same-sex marriage laws, say researchersLegalisation of same-sex marriage in US states has been linked to a drop in suicide attempts among teenagers.Researchers say suicide attempts among high school students fell by an average of 7% following the implementation of the legislation. The impact was especially significant among gay, lesbian and bisexual teenagers, for whom the passing of same-sex marriage laws was linked to a 14% drop in suicide attempts. Continue reading...

Jealous rivals’ rumours about the supposed effeminacy of popular figures such as Humphry Davy left an enduring legacy, says Dr Heather EllisJealous rivals’ attempts to destroy 19th-century chemist Sir Humphry Davy’s popularity by insinuating he was gay have left a legacy that means the so-called hard sciences remain a bastion of sexism, a new book claims.Evidence unearthed by Dr Heather Ellis for her book Masculinity and Science, published by Palgrave, from the archives of the British Science Association, shows that Davy’s popularity created enemies who tried to destroy his reputation. Popular magazines, like the John Bull, launched vicious personal attacks on the chemist’s flamboyant dress and the charismatic delivery at lectures that had brought him a wide female following. Continue reading...

Physicist awarded the Nobel prize for his work as the inventor and main architect of the revolutionary MRI scannerMagnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is familiar to us all, and with some 36,000 scanners and 100m scans undertaken annually, it is hard to imagine a world without it. Yet it is only 40 years since the development of the MRI scanner, which revealed internal human anatomy in exquisite detail and revolutionised diagnostic medicine. Sir Peter Mansfield, who has died aged 83, was its inventor and principal architect.MRI uses the magnetic properties of hydrogen nuclei and in particular, those found in the water molecules that constitute more than half of our bodyweight. In a magnetic field they have two possible states, parallel and opposed to the magnetic field. A radiofrequency field precisely tuned to the energy difference between them will induce a transition (resonance). Mansfield realised that, in a magnetic field gradient, the resonance frequency would correspond to position, enabling an image to be generated. Continue reading...

For women, phone calls can keep long-distance friendships going, but men need to meet face-to-face, study showsMuch like a long-distance romance, it can be difficult to keep the spark alive in a friendship with someone living in a different city. Now scientists say they have uncovered the key to staying close – and it appears to be different for men and women.Men need to meet up face-to-face and bond over activities, according to the study of students leaving home for the first time, while for female friendships, long phone conversations can bridge the physical distance. Continue reading...

A new exhibition charts the changing place of electricity in our lives, our homes and in literatureImagine an invisible power. A force that can affect the world at a great distance, cause damage and healing, bring objects to you, show you images of faraway lands, cast light in dark places, even – sometimes – bring the dead back to life. There used to be a name for a force like that; the name was magic. But of course, that flexible, useful, intangible power has now been our servant for decades, in the form of electricity.In my novel, The Power, I imagine the changes that come to pass when all of a sudden almost all the women in the world develop the power to electrify – and electrocute – people at will. I liked the idea as soon as I thought of it; it seemed supple enough to bear some metaphorical weight, and less comic than giving women enormous muscles or the ability to emit poisonous gas from their nostrils. But the more I’ve learned about the history of electricity – fact and fiction – the more I’ve understood why the image of the electrified woman was such a perfect fit. It’s about women and magic, about women’s liberation via the promise of the “electrified home”, and about the way that electric power makes the weak strong. Although I hadn’t put this all together when I started work on the novel, I’m not the first person to imagine women’s empowerment as literally electric. Continue reading...

Ambitious Mosaic expedition will study weather patterns and life in melt ponds from vessel drifting with the ice currentIn 1893 the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen embarked on a mission of extraordinary boldness and ingenuity. He planned to become the first person to reach the north pole by allowing his wooden vessel, the Fram, to be engulfed by sea ice and pulled across the polar cap on an ice current.Ultimately, Nansen ended up abandoning the Fram and skiing hundreds of miles to a British base after he realised he was not on course to hit the pole, but the ship made it across the ice cap intact and the expedition resulted in groundbreaking scientific discoveries about the Arctic and weather patterns. Continue reading...

Scientists rally in Boston amid alarm over president’s views and fears for the future of the EPA, as ecologist likens current struggle to Galileo’sHundreds of scientists rallied in Boston on Sunday to protest what they call the “direct attack” of Donald Trump and Republicans on research, scientific institutions and facts themselves, as a community reckons, and argues, with a new era of American politics.Gathering in Boston’s Copley Square, outside the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), several scientists gave speeches to a crowd holding signs shaped like beakers and reading “Stand up for science”. The speeches reflected a sea change in the culture of many labs and universities, where many researchers long maintained that good scientific work could speak for itself. Continue reading...

The president’s hyped-up behaviour at his Florida rally was an alarming display of his neediness. Maybe he should have his own theme parkTherapy has never been so expensive. At the weekend, it cost American taxpayers millions of dollars to fly Donald Trump down to Florida so he could hold a session with thousands of adoring fans after another trying week in the White House. At a cost of roughly $3m per trip, it would have been cheaper to hire Dr Freud but, sadly, aides who tried to contact him discovered he has been dead since 1939.Instead, the 45th president of the US invited on stage a man who later revealed he has a 6ft cardboard model of his hero and talks to it every day. Continue reading...

SpaceX successfully launches a Falcon 9 rocket in Florida on Sunday on a resupply mission to the International Space Station. The rocket takes off from a launchpad at the Kennedy Space Center that has seen off some of Nasa’s most famous missions, but has gone unused since the agency retired its space shuttle fleet in 2011

Rocket launches from pad that was home to some of Nasa’s best-known missions – then booster gracefully returns to EarthSpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket on Sunday on a resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS) that marks a new era of private spaceflight at one of Nasa’s most storied bases.A Falcon 9 rocket took off at about 9.40am eastern from the Kennedy Space Center, off the coast of central Florida, from a launchpad that has seen off some of Nasa’s most famous missions but has gone unused since the agency retired its space shuttle fleet in 2011. Continue reading...

Two employees of Randox Testing Services arrested, with 484 police inquiries based on toxicology results under reviewHundreds of drug tests may have been manipulated by staff at a forensics lab, with almost 500 police investigations under review.Two employees of Randox Testing Services (RTS), which analyses blood, saliva and hair samples on behalf of police forces, have been arrested by Greater Manchester police. Continue reading...

You wait longer when other people are behind you, we should stand on both sides of an escalator, and we usually get away with pushing in. Psychology professor Adrian Furnham explains what studies show us about standing in lineEvery Saturday at 7am, Adrian Furnham, professor of psychology at University College London, can be found shopping at his local supermarket. “It’s the same sad old gits, who recognise me,” he says. “But we know it’s very efficient. Although there are only two people on the till, I’m through the whole thing and back home within 20 minutes. I’ve tried shopping at different places and different times, and that is optimal.”Furnham studies queueing, but is not immune to its stresses. Last week, his latest research was widely reported as revealing a “rule of six” behind queueing behaviour: people will wait for only six minutes in a queue, and are unlikely to join one with more than six people in it. This simplification has a grain of truth. Six minutes of queueing does make people impatient, but it is not a magic length of time beyond which people stop waiting. For one thing, it depends what they are waiting for. “You won’t wait for six minutes at an ATM machine,” Furnham says, “but you will if you want concert tickets. Six minutes was the sort of average.” Continue reading...

As a young man, after an initial interest in Freudian psychoanalysis, my friend Alex Barakan, who has died aged 99, went on to develop his own style of therapeutic psychology.Whether as a client or friend, it was the quality of his listening that was so striking and which was so appreciated by the hundreds of people he helped throughout his long life. Continue reading...

This roving study of our enduring fascination with time travel covers well trodden ground but finds the concept constantly evolvingAre we trapped in the present, free to move in space yet unable to travel in the fourth dimension? Or is there a chance, a glimmer of a possibility, that the past and future could unfurl to our physical experience at will? Despite the punchline being apparent from the off – lest we forget, such journeys are impossible – James Gleick’s latest offering sets out to question the questions, probing how the idea of time travel emerged, gripped our imaginations and shaped our society.Our relationship with the slippery concept of time is far from static: technology continues to shape our view, even now Continue reading...

If you are a go-getter you may find that you live longer than those happy just to drift through lifeDoes your life have purpose? Are you a drifter or do you have a cast iron plan for the future? To find out, answer the following three statements on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Add them up and divide by three for an average score.1. Some people wander aimlessly through life, but I am not one of them. Continue reading...

Dr Daniel Glaser explores the history and science behind a well known method of brain imaging, including a trip for producer Max into an MRI scannerSubscribe & Review on iTunes, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud & Acast, and join the discussion on Facebook and TwitterThis week, Observer Magazine columnist and neuroscientist Dr Daniel Glaser delves into the world of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). How does it work? Where did it come from? And what can it tell us about the intricacies of the human brain? Visiting Dr Martina Callaghan at University College London’s Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, producer Max also finds out first hand what an MRI scan entails. Continue reading...

Countdown at Kennedy Space Center was halted with just 13 seconds remaining over a ‘slightly odd’ thrust control problem, delaying launch until SundaySpaceX scrubbed a planned launch on Saturday from Kennedy Space Center, citing a “slightly odd” thrust control problem and delaying the return to service for a historic launchpad at the Florida spaceport.“All systems go, except the movement trace of an upper stage engine steering hydraulic piston was slightly odd,” CEO Elon Musk said on Twitter. “If this is the only issue, flight would be fine, but need to make sure that it isn’t symptomatic of a more significant upstream root cause.” Continue reading...

Microsoft founder and philanthropist tells Munich security conference genetic engineering could be terrorist weaponA chilling warning that tens of millions of people could be killed by bio-terrorism was delivered at the Munich security conference by the world’s richest man, Bill GatesGates, who has spent much of the last 20 years funding a global health campaign, said: “We ignore the link between health security and international security at our peril.”

The bizarre, ancient microbes and viruses found living in crystals in extremely punishing conditions deep in an abandoned lead and zinc mineIn a Mexican cave system so beautiful and hot that it is called both fairyland and hell, scientists have discovered life trapped in crystals that could be 50,000 years old.The bizarre and ancient microbes were found dormant in caves in Naica, in Mexico’s northern Chihuahua state, and were able to exist by living on minerals such as iron and manganese, said Penelope Boston, head of Nasa’s Astrobiology Institute. Continue reading...

In future, sensor networks could interpret movement data and contact relatives or support staff when a person is at riskRobotic movement sensing systems in the homes of elderly people can predict with a high level of accuracy when a person is at high risk of having a fall and send warnings to support workers or relatives, say researchersThe US study, carried out in a senior housing centre in Missouri, found that telltale signs, including a sudden decline in walking speed, were linked to an 86% chance of having a fall within the next three weeks. Elderly residents who were monitored by the system, which allowed clinicians to intervene before injuries occurred, were able to live independently for 1.8 years longer than those without the technology. Continue reading...

Radical plan to maintain diversity of gene pool proposes use of genetically modified chickens as surrogate mothersThe Rumpless Game is squawky and, as its name suggests, lacks a tail, while the Burmese Bantam, has fantastically flared leg feathers and a head like a feather duster. But the true value of rare chicken breeds, according to a team of scientists working to save them from obsolescence, is not their decorative crests and plumage, but the diversity they bring to the chicken gene pool.In a radical plan to preserve rare varieties such as the Nankin, Scots Dumpy and Sicilian Buttercup, scientists at the the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute have bred genetically modified chickens designed to act as surrogates that would be capable of laying eggs from any rare breed. Continue reading...

Yes it’s a big story in more ways than one – a team of Harvard scientists say that scientists say they are on the brink of being able to create a hybrid elephant-mammoth embryo. There are lots of technical and ethical concerns to address before we actually have real, live mammoths (or mammophants, as they’re being called by some) but the idea of “de-extinctifying” something that’s been gone for 4,000 years is pretty exciting. This isn’t the only genetic engineering story in town this week, though, as a major US report out this week has prepared ground for genetic modification of human embryos, eggs and sperm to prevent people passing serious medical conditions to their children. Again, there’s along way to go, but as gene editing technology is moving fast, it’s vital that we have these ethical discussions now. A man who certainly was pondering vital questions ahead of his time was Winston Churchill, a copy of whose essay Are We Alone in the Universe? was recently unearthed in a US college. Pondering the possibility of alien life, Churchill shows the keen grasp of science that was one of the hallmarks of his premiership. Also looking to the future were two pieces of neuroscience research out this week. The first is a trial of a portable brain-scanning helmet, which could benefit stroke victims and those felled by head injuries on the sports pitch or battlefield by providing a rapid assessment of their condition. The second is a study which suggests that brain scans could identify babies most at risk of developing autism, raising hopes for earlier care and interventions for those affected. And finally, appendix removal is the most common emergency surgery in children, but researchers say that antibiotics might offer a less-invasive alternative. It wouldn’t be right in all cases, and more studies need to be done to assess safety, but it’s a future possibility that might help some children avoid the risks and trauma of surgery. Continue reading...

Scientists have discovered the river reef is far bigger, and more important, than first thought – a biodiversity hotspot on a par with the Great Barrier Reef. Now they face a race to protect it from big oilThere is a flickering, bright glimmer of sky as the two-person submarine descends beneath the muddy equatorial waters to a place no human has ever seen – a vast, complex coral reef at the mouth of the world’s greatest river.Thirty metres under the murky plume of the sediment-heavy Amazon, the sub enters a darker, richer world. A school of curious remora fish approaches the two-tonne machine. Crabs and starfish loom in its eerie lights. A metre-long amberjack swims past, then a two-metre ray. Continue reading...

After almost five years with taxidermists in New York, Lonesome George has returned home. He may be dead, but his legacy is very much aliveLonesome George is back in Galapagos.

Climate change threatens the financial system and companies should no longer view it as a future problem, regulator warnsAustralia’s financial regulator has warned that climate change poses a material risk to the entire financial system, and has urged companies to start adapting.Geoff Summerhayes, from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, says it is unsafe for companies to ignore the risks of climate change just because there is some uncertainty, or “even some controversy”, about the policy outlook. Continue reading...

Appendix removal is the most common emergency surgery in children, but researchers say that antibiotics might offer a less-invasive alternativeAntibiotics could be an effective alternative to surgery for treating children with appendicitis, research suggests.According to the NHS, appendicitis affects an estimated one in 13 people at some point in their life, with appendix removal the most common reason for emergency surgery in children.

The landmass – about two-thirds the size of Australia – of which 94% is under water, is a step closer to being recognised, scientists sayZealandia – a new continent submerged in the southwest Pacific – is a step closer to being recognised, the authors of a new scientific paper claim.A paper published in GSA Today, the journal of the Geological Society of America, contends that the vast, continuous expanse of continental crust, which centres on New Zealand, is distinct enough to constitute a separate continent. Continue reading...

If the winds are strong enough and sustained, the spring can deliver ice shove or ice heave at the edge of lakes in the north of the globeIn late February, the winter ice may start to melt. When that happens, frozen lakes can send spectacular slow-motion waves of crushed ice cascading over the shoreline onto the land. These waves are sometimes called “ice tsunamis” but, to meteorologists, they are “ice shove” or “ice heave”.Specific conditions are needed to produce ice heave. There must be large cracks in the lake ice, which must be separated from the shore, so that it becomes several free-floating sheets. This only occurs when a thaw starts. Then there needs to be a powerful wind blowing in the direction of the shore for at least 12 hours. Continue reading...

Stroke victims and those felled by head injuries on the sports pitch or battlefield could benefit from a new wearable scanner currently being testedA transportable brain-scanning helmet that could be used for rapid brain injury assessments of stroke victims and those felled on the sports pitch or battlefield is being tested by US scientists.The wearable device, known as the PET helmet, is a miniaturised version of the hospital positron emission tomography (PET) scanner, a doughnut-shaped machine which occupies the volume of a small room. Continue reading...

‘Oppressive’ approach to federal agency communications could result in misinformation on climate change, former presidential science advisers saidTwo former US science advisers have warned against restrictions on scientists’ freedom to speak out on contentious issues like climate change, which they say could result in laws being made on the basis of false evidence.Related: Trump's likely science adviser calls climate scientists 'glassy-eyed cult' Continue reading...

Scientist leading ‘de-extinction’ effort says Harvard team could create hybrid mammoth-elephant embryo in two yearsThe woolly mammoth vanished from the Earth 4,000 years ago, but now scientists say they are on the brink of resurrecting the ancient beast in a revised form, through an ambitious feat of genetic engineering.

Examination of a fossilised turtle suggests the way modern animals withdraw both head and neck into their shells might be linked to capturing preyIt sounds like a tale worthy of Kipling, but how the turtle got its neck is a mystery that might have been solved by science.Researchers say fresh examination of a fossilised turtle, thought to have lived around 150 million years ago, suggests that ability of turtles to withdraw their neck and head into their shells might have evolved as it allowed them to rapidly shoot their head forward to snap up prey.