Has Hollywood’s need for the feel-good factor done Margot Shetterley’s book – and the history of Nasa’s black women mathematicians – a disservice?In the opening scenes of Hidden Figures, released in the UK on Friday, we are introduced to Dorothy Vaughan – played with verve and wit by Octavia Spencer – as a pair of legs sticking out from under the bonnet of a broken-down car. One detail immediately stands out: Vaughan’s legs are light beige and shiny. She is wearing stockings that don’t match her skin tone, presumably because that was all that was available to her.Related: Hidden figures: the history of Nasa’s black female scientists Continue reading...

A Shakespearean riddle in memory of peerless puzzler Raymond Smullyan, who died last week age 97UPDATE: The answers and explanation are now posted here“Why should I be worried about dying? It’s not going to happen in my lifetime!”So said Raymond Smullyan, the American mathematician, philosopher and prolific writer of logic puzzles, who died a week ago aged 97. Continue reading...

A look at the stars that make up the constellation of Gemini, including Castor, a tight binary, and Pollux, an orange giantThe evening star, Venus, reaches its peak brilliance at magnitude -4.6 this week. Obvious in Britain’s SW sky at nightfall, it sets in the W at 21:30. Mars, to its left and higher and now pulling away, is a good deal fainter at mag 1.2. Continue reading...

Truth has long been a key concern for the American philosopher. He’s in the UK to discuss his latest book on consciousness, but there’s just no escaping Trump…I meet Daniel Dennett, the great American rationalist, on the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration, as good a day as any to contemplate the fragility of civilisation in face of overwhelming technological change, a topic he examines in his latest book.Dennett is a singular figure in American culture: a white-haired, white-bearded 74-year-old philosopher whose work has mined the questions that erupt at the places where science, technology and consciousness meet. His subject is the brain and how it creates meaning and what our brains will make of a future that includes AI and robots. He’s in London with his wife, Susan, to mark the publication of his latest book – From Bacteria to Bach and Back – and I find him in a rented flat in Notting Hill, scowling at his laptop. “I was about to send a tweet,” he says. “Something like, ‘Republican senators are in an enviable position. How often does anybody get a real opportunity to become a national hero? Who’s going to step up and enter the pages of history?’” Continue reading...

The mainstream media can fight back against the poisoning of our public sphere by giving people narratives they can understandLet us pause for a moment to mourn the passing of Hans Rosling , one of the most gifted and humane educators of our age. He was professor of global health at Sweden’s prestigious Karolinska Institute and became famous when he gave a spectacular TED talk in 2006 using global data to show how the world had changed during the 20th century. Rosling specialised in devising striking ways of visualising statistical data and in using computers to provide animations showing, for example, how child mortality, family income and so on changed over time. But what probably clinched his fame was the way he talked his audience through the evolving worldview with a manic energy reminiscent of Newsnight’s Peter Snow and his general election night “swingometer”.Rosling’s untimely death (from cancer) seems particularly poignant at this moment in our history, because he was such a fervent believer in the idea that we could find illumination, if not salvation, in facts. In that respect, he reminded me of the late David MacKay, another gentle polymath, who was for a time the chief scientific adviser to the Department of Energy and Climate Change. At a lecture following the publication of his book, Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air, he was assailed by an angry environmentalist who asked him why he was “so hostile” to wind power. MacKay smiled sweetly and replied: “I’m not hostile to anything. I’m just in favour of arithmetic.” Continue reading...

A new radio drama by Val McDermid highlights the worrying prospect of antibiotic resistance becoming a global epidemicImagine a world in which even the slightest scratch could be lethal. Cancer treatments, including chemotherapy, and organ transplants are no longer possible. Even simple surgery is too risky to contemplate, while epidemics triggered by deadly bacteria have left our health services helpless.It is science fiction, of course – but only just. According to many doctors and scientists, the rise of antibiotic resistance across the planet could soon make this grim scenario a reality. And if it does, humans will have to face up to challenges that would once have seemed unthinkable. The question is: when – and how – might this horrific medical ordeal unfold for the human race? Continue reading...

Dr Daniel Glaser explores what the wiring of the brain can tell us about how we perceive the worldSubscribe & Review on iTunes, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud & Acast, and join the discussion on Facebook and TwitterThis week, Observer Magazine columnist and neuroscientist Dr Daniel Glaser speaks to University College London’s Professor Nilli Lavie about perception. How do we perceive our visual world? Can this be affected by higher cognitive processes? And what can this all tell us about the phenomena of ‘fake news’? Continue reading...

Charmouth Beach, Dorset This section of the Jurassic Coast is one of the most active landslip sites in EuropeIt is fossiling weather – wet and stormy with a strong tide and choppy sea. The cliffs above Charmouth Beach are running with water and the top of Black Venn is masked by fog. Trickles of soil and small stones dribble down the dark cliff face.This section of the Jurassic Coast is one of the most active landslip sites in Europe. One section has slipped in the past few days, sliding a great chunk of clayey rock and mud on to the shingle below. The sea is already dragging the fall away, the waves sucking into its soft base and pulling it out into Lyme Bay where the water divides: pinkish-grey inshore and leaden slate far out in the English Channel.

Costing the US alone $88bn a year, low back and neck pain is widespread and expensive – despite the fact that most treatments don’t workLow back and neck pain is an increasingly widespread and expensive condition worldwide, costing the US alone $88bn a year – the third highest bill for any health condition – despite evidence most treatments do not work.Millions of people worldwide suffer from low back and neck pain, most of it unexplained, although some professionals think it may be worsened by sitting at desks all day, carrying bags and general bad posture. Episodes of acute pain are very common, but experts say that medical investigations only make things worse and the best cure is often to take painkillers, exercise gently and wait for the pain to pass. Continue reading...

Patients with multiple sclerosis, severe epilepsy, or undergoing chemotherapy could be given drug despite safety fearsIreland is set to legalise the use of cannabis for treating specific medical conditions, after a report commissioned by the government said the drug could be given to some patients with certain illnesses.The Irish health minister, Simon Harris, said he would support the use of medical cannabis “where patients have not responded to other treatments and there is some evidence that cannabis may be effective”. Continue reading...

It’s nearly the weekend, so this is timely indeed. Ladies. If your dance moves have failed to progress from “big fish, little fish, cardboard box” or you stick to gently stepping from side to side I have good news. Psychologists have figured out the best moves for women who would like to be admired on the dance floor. There are highly instructive videos included in our piece, so get watching – you could be a dancing queen by Saturday night. Another reason to dance for joy is the news that a successful trial in primates has brought us closer to a new form of male contraceptive. It’s a gel designed to be a reversible and less invasive form of vasectomy. And speaking of high hopes, the Japanese space agency attempted some space fishing, intending to clear junk from Earth’s orbit. Sadly, the 700-metre ‘tether’ they were trying to use failed. A slightly more down-to-Earth story to finish then, with the news that a lumpy, hairy, toe-like fossil could reveal the evolution of molluscs. It’s weird-looking, but oddly compelling ... Continue reading...

Following last year’s computer glitch, Juno has successfully gathered data on the composition of the planet’s atmosphereNasa’s Juno spacecraft has skimmed past Jupiter’s north and south pole, returning data on the giant planet and its atmosphere.The flyby took place on 2 February at 12:57 GMT. Travelling at 129,000mph relative to the planet, the solar powered spacecraft made its close approach over Jupiter’s north pole before skirting the planet and exiting over the south pole. At closest approach, Juno was 2,670 miles above the cloud tops. Continue reading...

Top UK and US scientists say high cost for medicines is indefensible as they propose cheaper way to develop themThe high price of new cancer drugs is indefensible and unsustainable, say two of the world’s leading cancer research institutions, who propose a different way to develop them that could sideline big pharma.“There is a clear and urgent necessity to lower cancer drug prices to keep lifesaving drugs available and affordable to patients,” say leading scientists from the Institute of Cancer Research in the UK and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, where many important new cancer drugs have been invented, in a paper in the journal Cell. Continue reading...

Does strange quantum behaviour emerge from run-of-the-mill classical physics? If so, what does this tell us about the fundamental nature of reality?Subscribe & Review on iTunes, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud & Acast, and join the discussion on Facebook and TwitterThe 20th century was a golden one for science. Big bang cosmology, the unravelling of the genetic code of life, and of course Einstein’s general theory of relativity. But it also saw the birth of quantum mechanics – a description of the world on a subatomic level – and unlike many of the other great achievements of the century, the weird world of quantum physics remains as mysterious today as it was a century ago. But what if strange quantum behaviour emerged from familiar, classical physics? How would this alter our view of the quantum world? And, more importantly, what would it tell us about the fundamental nature of reality? Continue reading...

Now we know the identity of the chief executive of UK Research and Innovation, the science community will be anxiously watching his first steps

Hip-swings, leg moves, arm waggles and staying on the beat are the best moves for women who want to be admired on the dance floor, say psychologistsDisco divas looking to tear up the dance floor should ditch the soft sway and plump for the hip-swing, leg moves and an arm waggle or two – according to psychologists.The researchers used motion-capture technology to record the moves of women dancing to a drum beat, before turning them into featureless avatars and showing them to both men and women to rate. Continue reading...

Dozens of children who developed sleep disorder after getting vaccine could get compensation after high court rulingDozens of British children who developed narcolepsy as a result of a swine flu vaccine could be compensated after the high court rejected a government appeal to withhold payments.Six million people in Britain, and more across Europe, were given the Pandemrix vaccine made by GlaxoSmithKline during the 2009-10 swine flu pandemic, but the jab was withdrawn after doctors noticed a sharp rise in narcolepsy among those who received it.

We tend to think of parasites as harmful, itchy, nasty, creepy crawlies. But these strange, beautiful creatures have many uses – and they need our helpUntil very recently, the skies of North America played host to one of the largest birds on earth: the Californian condor (Gymnogyps californianus). Weighing in at 12 kg with a wingspan of three metres, these remarkable birds were almost lost to us until efforts were made in 1987 to round up the last remaining 27 individuals of the species for captive breeding efforts at San Diego Zoo.However, these birds were not alone. Nestled amongst their feathers was another species on the brink of extinction: the Californian condor louse (Colpocephalum californici). Regrettably, within weeks of entering San Diego Zoo for conservation efforts, a species went extinct. When an animal is taken into captivity to prevent its extinction zookeepers are quick to treat each individual with anti-parasitic drugs. The condor louse became a victim of this all too common practice. Continue reading...

Tunnel, at the the Museum of London Docklands, showcases the archaeological treasures unearthed during the digging of the Crossrail projectFrom reindeer bones gnawed by wolves at Old Oak Common 68,000 years ago to victims of the Black Death, a vulgar Victorian chamber pot and 13,000 Crosse & Blackwell marmalade and pickle jars – the longest slice of the capital’s history ever excavated lies exposed in a new exhibition at the Museum of London.The Crossrail tunnel, which will hold the 73-mile new Elizabeth line that is due to open in 2018, is the largest engineering project in Europe and it has given archaeologists a unique slit trench across the capital’s history. The oldest objects shaped by a Londoner are flakes chipped from a flint axe 8,000 years ago, found in north Woolwich. Continue reading...

My father, John Beetlestone, who has died aged 84, was an extraordinary man who founded a museum and had three careers.Born within the sound of Bow bells in London, John was the only child of Albert Beetlestone, a clerk for British Rail, and his wife, Ivy (nee Spencer). The family was driven out of London by doodlebugs during the second world war and he was brought up in Norwich, attending Thetford grammar school. Continue reading...

Responding to some of our listener’s emails, Dr Daniel Glaser explores the role of photographs for recall, and the vividness of musical memorySubscribe & Review on iTunes, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud & Acast, and join the discussion on Facebook and TwitterIn this mini podcast, Observer Magazine columnist and neuroscientist Dr Daniel Glaser answers listener’s emails in response to our A Neuroscientist Explains podcast on memory storage. Continue reading...

Scientists were amazed to find remains of 300,000-year-old sediment slip while conducting 3D mapping of deep sea floorEvidence of a massive undersea landslide that took place more than 300,000 years ago has been discovered off the Great Barrier Reef.

The opportunity to use data to improve health and social care is being hampered by a lack of personnel with skills in data science

He declared that women’s brains were “analogous to those of animals”, but conducted scholarly personal correspondence with women, new book revealsCharles Darwin may have held less hostile views about women than previously thought, according to a new book out this month. Drawing on letters between the father of evolutionary science and the women he knew, the book reveals close ties between the scientist, his family and leading feminist figures in the 19th century, including medical pioneer Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and social reformer Josephine Butler.Darwin and Women by Samantha Evans, published by Cambridge University Press, is the latest book to come out of the Darwin Correspondence Project, which was started at the university in 1974 and is due to finish in 2022, when letters between the pioneering naturalist and his circle will be made available online for free. Continue reading...

Welcome to the Cretaceous Romanian island of Hațeg, once populated by lifeforms stranger than anything imagined by Lovecraft or GeigerWhat makes ancient, extinct animals so compelling is that they are often beyond anything we can imagine. Many of them have no comparison among the lifeforms surviving on earth today. They reached unsurpassed sizes, or were chimeric half-and-halfs. Others had alien skeletons with bodily projections and elongations that stretch credulity. There are few creatures that embody the strangeness of the extinct quite like azhdarchids.Pronounced az-dar-kid, these giant reptiles were named after the azhdar of Iranian mythology: huge lizards with wings that populated Persian epics. Real life azhdarchids were actually pterosaurs, the group of flying reptiles most commonly recognised in the form of the head-crested Pteranodon; much beloved of scientifically dubious film and television. Continue reading...

From the Georgian medic who shocked his patients to scientists, artists and inventors, the Wellcome’s exhibition explores our relationship with electricityThere must have been gasps of astonishment – and possibly of well-justified terror – in Georgian Lancashire when John Fell sent a charge through his frame of mahogany, glass, black silk and tin foil, and the word “electricity” lit up in letters of fire.“This Experiment, when performed in the dark, which it always should be, presents a pleasing spectacle,” he wrote. Continue reading...

Buckingham University is to beome a ‘positive’ institution. Yet the wholesale importing of Martin Seligman’s philosophy risks fostering a culture of compulsory happinessProfessor Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology, flew in from the United States recently to celebrate the launch of a new era for Buckingham University, which is to become Europe’s first “positive” university. From now on all students at Buckingham, along with its professors, will be trained in the theory of positive psychology, helping them foster a more engaging and positive culture, free from bullying.Related: The cult of compulsory happiness is ruining our workplaces | André Spicer Continue reading...

A new technique involving coloured lights may, sadly, not be the breakthrough sufferers of the condition are looking forThe UK’s estimated 6 million tinnitus sufferers are often left to flounder when their GPs fail to offer the help they want. So a report this week that coloured lights, that “distract” people’s brains, may help alleviate the condition will be music to their ears. Unfortunately, close reading reveals that the research, at the University of Leicester, is yet to achieve a breakthrough.This is Tinnitus Awareness Week, and the British Tinnitus Association is working hard to raise its profile. It has released new guidance for GPs and launched an online platform, Take on Tinnitus, for people who are newly diagnosed. But how much hope is there? Continue reading...

The diversity of Nasa’s workforce in 1940s Virginia is uncovered in a new book by Margot Lee Shetterly. She recalls how a visit to her home town led to a revelation“Mrs Land worked as a computer out at Langley,” my father said, taking a right turn out of the parking lot of the First Baptist church in Hampton, Virginia. My husband and I visited my parents just after Christmas in 2010, enjoying a few days away from our full-time life and work in Mexico.They squired us around town in their 20-year-old green minivan, my father driving, my mother in the front passenger seat, Aran and I buckled in behind like siblings. My father, gregarious as always, offered a stream of commentary that shifted fluidly from updates on the friends and neighbours we’d bumped into around town to the weather forecast to elaborate discourses on the physics underlying his latest research as a 66-year-old doctoral student at Hampton University. Continue reading...

Deep in the brain, your amygdala generates a knee-jerk response to political enemies and other threats. But experiments show the divide can be bridgedI was walking back to my room on the ninth floor of a hotel in Kuala Lumpur last October, and I happened to meet the guy in the room next door, standing in the hall, searching for his key card. We said hi. Clearly we had English in common as a first language (he was American, I’m Canadian).“It looks like Trump is finally going down,” I said. The election was on everybody’s mind, and Trump’s ratings were sinking that week. The fellow looked at me in a friendly way and said, “Yeah, but he’s still got a chance. There’s still hope.” Continue reading...

Some argue that, far from motivating pro-social behaviours, empathy can push us towards inaction at best and racism and violence at worstWhy do we flinch when we see someone hit their thumb with a hammer? Our intuitive tendency to feel what we imagine another person is feeling is called ‘emotional empathy’. Empathy is, among other things, believed to improve our personal relationships, motivate charitable giving and encourage pro-social behaviours. The general consensus is that empathy is crucial to being a good person.But empathy is not without its discontents. In his latest book, Against Empathy , Paul Bloom argues that empathy is actually a very poor moral guide. He compiles evidence from a range of sources to show that empathy can be innumerate, biased, parochial and inconsistent and can push us towards inaction at best and racism and violence at worst. Continue reading...

In the era of satellites and Google Maps there are still areas that remain a mysteryOn a quiet summer evening, the Aurora, a 60ft cutter-rigged sloop, approaches the craggy shore of eastern Greenland, along what is known as the Forbidden Coast. Its captain, Sigurdur Jonsson, a sturdy man in his 50s, stands carefully watching his charts. The waters he is entering have been described in navigation books as among “the most difficult in Greenland; the mountains rise almost vertically from the sea to form a narrow bulwark, with rifts through which active glaciers discharge quantities of ice, while numerous off-lying islets and rocks make navigation hazardous”. The sloop is single-masted, painted a cheery, cherry red. Icebergs float in ominous silence.Where Jonsson, who goes by Captain Siggi, sails, he is one of few to have ever gone. Because the splintered fjords create thousands of miles of uninhabited coastline, there has been little effort to map this region. “It’s practically uncharted,” he says. “You are almost in the same position as you were 1,000 years ago.” Continue reading...

Scientists looking at galaxy 1.8bn light years away discover cosmic event taking more than a decade, when most stars would succumb in a yearScientists have detected a black hole spending more than a decade devouring a star — something that usually only takes a year.The event happened in a small galaxy 1.8bn light years from Earth. Continue reading...

Designed to be a reversible and less invasive form of vasectomy, Vasalgel has been found to work reliably in primatesA male contraceptive gel has been found to work reliably in a trial in primates, bringing the prospect of an alternative form of birth control for humans closer.The product, called Vasalgel, is designed to be a reversible and less invasive form of vasectomy and in the latest study was 100% effective at preventing conception. A blob of the gel is injected into the sperm-carrying tube, known as the vas deferens, and acts as a long-lasting barrier. Continue reading...

Scientists may now know what the common ancestor of slugs, snails and squid looked like, based on Calvapilosa kroegeri, a 480m-year-old fossilLumpy, hairy and with a nail-like horny patch – it sounds like a hobbit’s toe. In fact, it’s a portrait of what researchers say the common ancestor of slugs, snails and squid might have looked like.The surmise is based on the discovery of the fossilised remains of a mollusc, thought to have lived about 480 million years ago, which has short spines all over its body and fingernail-like shell over its head which housed a radula – a tongue-like structure found only in molluscs – with more than 125 rows of teeth. Continue reading...

Ever fancied making like Indiana Jones and searching for ancient treasures? Now you can do it in your pyjamas

Advances in epigenetics mean incredibly detailed profiles of criminal suspects might soon be reality. Is the legal system ready to use this information?Picture the scene. A detective is addressing her team:

Alan Finkel warns that forcing EPA data to undergo political review before publication will ‘cause long-term harm’Australia’s chief scientist has slammed Donald Trump’s attempt to censor environmental data, saying the US president’s behaviour was comparable to the manipulation of science by the Soviet Union.Speaking at a scientific roundtable in Canberra on Monday, Alan Finkel warned science was “literally under attack” in the United States and urged his colleagues to keep giving “frank and fearless” advice despite the political opposition. Continue reading...

From the fabled northern lights to the meteor shower that inspired one of John Denver’s most famous songs, stunning celestial wonders can be seen beyond the UK’s street lightsWe forget how beautiful the night sky can be. Across too much of the country, it is outshone by street lights, traffic, homes and offices. Escape the light pollution, however, and you will see things to make you ooh and ahh – or simply stand quietly transfixed. Here are five striking sights to look out for next time you escape into the darkness. Just remember: wrap up warm if it is winter and douse yourself in mosquito repellent if it is not. Continue reading...

Mission to clear up Earth’s orbit ends after device created with a fishing net company fails to deployAn experimental Japanese mission to clear space junk from the Earth’s orbit has ended in failure, officials said on Monday, in an embarrassment for Tokyo.

This revolutionary work written by Henry James’s less famous brother brought a democratising impulse to the realm of religious beliefThe United States is a society, first described in Thomas Jefferson’s revolutionary words in 1776, that constantly rewrites its narrative – in law, philosophy, economics and belief, as well as through poetry, drama and fiction. In moments of change, its finest writers have often found new forms of expression and ideas that both illuminate the American story and help to redefine it.William James, brother of the more famous Henry, was a classic American intellectual, a brilliant New Englander and renowned pragmatist – a celebrity in his time who coined the phrase “stream of consciousness”. He responded to the cultural and social ferment of the late 19th century with the Gifford lectures, given in Edinburgh during 1900-02. When he turned these talks into a book, James, a Harvard psychologist and the author of The Principles of Psychology, placed himself at the crossroads of psychology and religion to articulate an approach to religious experience that would help liberate the American mind at the beginning of the 20th century from its puritan restrictions by advancing a pluralistic view of belief inspired by American traditions of tolerance. Like his brother, he was obsessed by the problem of expressing individual consciousness through language; this is just one of the principal themes of The Varieties of Religious Experience. Continue reading...

By understanding how ripples form in sand, geologists can gain a valuable insight into past conditions – both on Earth and on MarsRipples in the sand are a beauty to behold. Sometimes their sinuous curves can be spied beneath a tinkling stream, and other times you feel them under your feet as the currents in the sea create ridges and hollows in the sand.But what controls the size and shape of a ripple? Is it the size of the grains, the depth of the water, or perhaps the strength of the flow? For geologists the question matters because they use fossilised ripples to try to better understand past environments or interpret conditions on other planets. Continue reading...

‘Planck’s constant is a tiny number. It is even smaller than 1. Wow!’By the end of the 19th century, many physicists believed there really wasn’t any more to learn about the workings of nature and the properties of matter and radiation. On balance, it might have been easier for everyone if things had stayed that way. Then we could just study Newton and Maxwell and all go home, too. Here’s a picture of an apple landing on Newton’s head.Things changed in 1900 when Max Planck proposed that the energy of electromagnetic radiation was proportional to its frequency. This is known as Planck’s constant which is a tiny number. Even smaller than one. This led Planck to conclude that the radiation had to be lumpy. Continue reading...

After 53 years, many discoveries and starring roles in movies, funds for the Puerto Rico observatory are under threatIt has helped guard our planet from the threat of wayward asteroids, studied some of the most remote bodies in the cosmos and been used to make countless invaluable astronomical discoveries. For good measure, the Arecibo radio telescope, one of the world’s largest observatories, provided the setting for the spectacular dispatch of evil agent Alec Trevelyan (played by Sean Bean) at the hands of James Bond (then played by Piers Brosnan) in the film GoldenEye.But now the great radio telescope is facing closure. Despite being one of the most powerful instruments of its kind in the world, the Arecibo, which is based in Puerto Rico but funded by US science agencies, is facing the axe, a victim of federal budget cuts. Continue reading...

It may not be a tropical paradise, but the UK is home to plenty of weird and wonderful creatures all the same. Here are five of the strangestThe beasts of Britain do not have much going for them. For starters, there aren’t many of them, a historic legacy of the Ice Age and Britain’s island status, which prevented many plants, insects and mammals from colonising when the ice retreated. Britain exists at a northerly latitude, so its species cannot luxuriate in a tropical paradise with millions of colourful, noisy brethren. And, these days, they must share their island with more than 60 million humans.But, being busy, myopic creatures, we easily overlook the weird and wonderful wildlife that is tucked away on – and just off – our shores. Here are five wild surprises. Continue reading...

Are you always turning the camera lens towards yourself? Answer our questions to see what it meansHow often do you take selfies, and what does this say about your self-confidence?Choose from the following: Never – maybe once a year; Rarely – maybe one or two a month; Often – at least once a week. Continue reading...

What is the neuroscience behind empathy? When do children develop it? And can it be taught?Subscribe & Review on iTunes, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud & AcastThis week, Observer Magazine columnist and neuroscientist Dr Daniel Glaser takes a look at the world of empathy, mirror neurons and Theory of Mind. Meeting King’s College London’s Professor Francesca Happé at the school gates, Daniel explores when and how children develop empathy, whether it can be taught, and how we can create a more empathetic society. Continue reading...

Trump tweets and software problems heighten concerns over advanced jetBritain is being forced to pour millions of pounds of new funds into the troubled F-35 stealth fighter programme being developed in America and considered a vital part of the UK’s future defences.The F-35, being built by the US in partnership with countries including the UK, is the costliest weapon ever developed by the Pentagon. It is scheduled to go into service in the UK in 2018 and into full production in 2019, and is intended to be a cornerstone of UK defences for decades to come, flying off two new aircraft carriers. Continue reading...

French presidential candidate calls on those alarmed by Donald Trump’s rhetoric to relocate to the ‘new land of innovation’

Astronauts throw an American football on the International Space Station on Saturday to mark the upcoming Super Bowl LI on Sunday. Footage shows an astronaut throwing ‘the longest Hail Mary pass ever’, as they claim the ball travels 564,664 yards