Long-term forecasting is fraught with difficulty, but some scientists believe the warm Arctic autumn may portend a severe winter in northern EuropeThis year winter arrived early in the UK, with temperatures plunging well below freezing before November was even out. So is an extra cold winter on the cards?Forecasting months ahead is fraught with difficulty, but some scientists believe that the warm autumn in the Arctic may portend a cold winter for North America and northern Europe. Continue reading...

A decades-old thought experiment reveals our inconsistent moral intuitions. What would you do?In the 2015 British thriller Eye in the Sky, a military team locates a terrorist cell preparing an attack expected to kill hundreds. They command a drone that can drop a bomb on the terrorists, preventing their attack. As the team readies the bomb, their cameras spy a little girl selling bread within the blast radius. Should they go through with their mission – killing the girl in order to prevent the deaths of many others?This modern-day moral dilemma has its roots in a classic philosophical thought experiment known as the trolley problem. Introduced in 1967 by Philippa Foot, the trolley problem illuminates the landscape of moral intuitions – the peculiar and sometimes surprising patterns of how we divide right from wrong. Continue reading...

Methane warms planet 20 times as much as similar CO2 volumes but lack of monitoring means scientists can’t be sure of sourcesEmissions of the powerful greenhouse gas methane have surged in the past decade, threatening to thwart global attempts to combat climate change.Scientists have been surprised by the surge, which began just over 10 years ago in 2007 and then was boosted even further in 2014 and 2015. Concentrations of methane in the atmosphere over those two years alone rose by more than 20 parts per billion, bringing the total to 1,830ppb. Continue reading...

Legislation may be unsexy, but I’d like to raise a glass to 50 years of a tiny but mighty act which has saved countless American cultural sitesIn the wake of the second world war, the US embarked on a construction frenzy that began decimating the country’s existing urban fabric. The federal government encouraged much of this Make-America-Shiny-Again activity through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Many people, however, were concerned with the onslaught of destruction, and rightfully so.

University College London is now investigating its links with the work of Paolo Macchiarini, whose windpipe transplants led to a surgical scandalIt was the case of the superstar surgeon, the prestigious Swedish institute and the ill-fated windpipe transplants that escalated into allegations of misconduct, dismissal and a criminal investigation.Now, a leading British university has launched an inquiry into its own links with the endeavours of Paolo Macchiarini, the surgeon at the centre of the trachea operations following which six patients died. Continue reading...

Study by German sports psychologists finds individual athletes score higher on depression scale than those in team sportsAthletes in individual sports are more prone to depression than those in team games, according to German research to be presented at a conference in Cardiff.The research by the Technical University of Munich confirms not just the loneliness of the long distance runner but a range of other depressive symptoms among solo sportsmen and women more generally.

Some of the brightest stars in the winter sky will be hidden by the Moon this week, and the radiance of the full moon will dim the lustre of the Geminids meteor showerThe Moon stands low in the E at nightfall on 12 December, to the right of Aldebaran in Taurus and below the Pleiades. Continue reading...

Pankaj Mishra’s exposé of the poverty of economic man (Welcome to the age of anger, 8 December) is powerful but, among the “more complex drives” he lists, he omits “belonging” – key to understanding “identity politics”. Facing danger our instinct, like that of animals who herd, is to cling to the familiar and the group. Incomers may or may not be a realistic threat, but they are easily perceived to be in times of disturbing upheaval. This need not be a counsel of despair; it could be a cause for hope. Globalisation and technical change may not be inevitably destructive: whether they do harm or good depends on the values by which we handle them. If we remain dedicated to the competitive pursuit of material gain and are indifferent to the feelings of shame, humiliation, helplessness and anger of those who are left out – or if, worse still, we continue our persecution of the poor – then recent events are just a foretaste of a future that will be bleak indeed.

Auction house says bones of allosaurus named Kan, bought by unnamed French buyer, will go on public displayA nearly complete dinosaur skeleton has sold for more than €1m at auction in the eastern French city of Lyon.The bones of the allosaurus, a ferocious carnivore named Kan whose species went extinct 135m years ago, fetched €1.1m (£900,000) on Saturday, the Aguttes auction house said. Continue reading...

Michael Lewis tells the compelling story of Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, whose behaviourist theories led to his own bestseller MoneyballAll love stories involve the science of decision making – for better or worse, richer or poorer. No romance has been as alive to the fallibility of that process as the one described in this book. Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman were both the grandsons of eastern European rabbis. Chance and fate brought them together in Tel Aviv in the 1960s. Their subsequent deep friendship and intellectual collaboration – a bromance that invented “behavioural economics” and established cognitive rules for human irrationality – has arguably done as much to define our world as, say, the intertwining between Francis Crick and James Watson.One of the Israeli duo’s observations was that “no one ever made a decision because of a number – they needed a story”. Kahneman and Tversky argued and proved that in the main humans decided things emotionally, not rationally – the trick was to recognise those habits, and not confuse one for the other. Practising what they preached, their scientific papers were rigorous with fact and research but laced with memorable parable and anecdote. They never made the mistake of thinking that the behaviour they described – of subconscious biases and illogical choices that skewed markets and misunderstood risk – did not also apply to themselves. Continue reading...

UK courts recently allowed a teenager’s body to be cryogenically frozen, but the desire to preserve our dead for resurrection is nothing newWhen a judge’s decision to allow a 14 year old to have her body preserved through cryonics after her death hit the headlines, it prompted numerous opinion pieces on the rights of the dying and the dead and discussions about promises of life after death. But while the technology might be changing, these debates are age-old, as humans have long attempted to ensure their place in the afterlife, or avoid it all together.

60 years after the Clean Air Act, Londoners still suffer from air pollution. What can we can learn from two centuries of campaigns against city smog?

Throwing resources at science, technology, engineering and maths in England hasn’t worked. We need to reaffirm the importance of a more rounded educationAs a long-time maths teacher, the latest assessments by the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study and Programme for International Student Assessment make for tough reading. They indicate that there is little evidence of real gains having been made in maths and science in England over the past four years.Related: UK schools fail to climb international league table Continue reading...

Former astronaut and US senator John Glenn has died aged 95 in Ohio on Thursday. Glenn was the third US astronaut in space and the first of them to get into orbit. He then spent 24 years as a Democratic senator from Ohio and briefly made a run for president in 1984

The first American to orbit the Earth, US former astronaut and senator John Glenn has died aged 95

Replacement craft’s high-altitude glide test was first free flight since 2014 fatal accidentVirgin Galactic’s new VSS Unity spaceplane has flown free for the first time this week. It was released from its carrier aircraft at 10:40am EST. After a 10-minute glide, it landed back on its runway in Mojave.This is Virgin Galactic’s first free flight test since the fatal accident in October 2014 that destroyed the company’s initial spaceplane, and claimed the life of one pilot and injured another. Continue reading...

Glenn was the first US astronaut to orbit the Earth, and later became one of his country’s most effective senators

Glenn served 24 years as a US senator from Ohio and later became the oldest person to be sent into space

A 78% increase in non-melanoma skin cancer may see the cost to the NHS of treating the disease rise to £465m a year by 2025The number of Britons developing the two most common forms of skin cancer will increase as a direct result of people getting tans on foreign holidays and in salons, experts are warning.Related: Scientists closer to understanding why red hair genes increase skin cancer risk Continue reading...

Tested in mice, therapy involves a capsule of genetically engineered cells implanted under the skin that release insulin as requiredA cell-based diabetes treatment has been developed by scientists who say it could eliminate the need for those with the condition to inject insulin.The therapy involves a capsule of genetically engineered cells implanted under the skin that automatically release insulin as required. Diabetic mice that were treated with the cells were found to have normal blood sugar levels for several weeks. Continue reading...

Fragment complete with fossilised bones and traces of muscles, ligaments and mummified-looking skin dates from around 99 million years agoA length of fluffy plumage discovered within a piece of amber has been identified as part of a dinosaur tail, offering new insights into the evolution of feathers.Around 3.7cm long, with chestnut-coloured feathers on the top and pale feathers underneath, the tail was found complete with fossilised bones as well as traces of muscles, ligaments and mummified-looking skin.

From dinosaur hunters to new dimension discoverers, the Local Heroes scheme will fund projects to celebrate and explore science across the UKThe Royal Society today announced the 15 successful projects that its Local Heroes scheme will fund. These grants go to small museums across the UK, from Orkney to Plymouth, to explore the lives and legacies of scientists with close connections to their communities.I was fortunate to be on the judging panel and to see the richness, variety and imagination offered by all the applicants. The funding is only up to £3000, which is not much for museums that are often already suffering cuts from local authority budgets, but the imaginative projects have great potential to intrigue, inform and inspire. Continue reading...

Ancient water channels in Morocco, declining Arctic sea ice and the US-Mexico border were among the images captured by European Space Agency and Nasa satellites last monthA bank of clouds covers East Java to the west, with a bright sun overhead casting shadows from the clouds along the ocean surface. Sunglint, an optical effect caused by the reflection of sunlight off the water surface directly back at the satellite sensor, exposes the waves created by the movement of currents in the ocean water. Internal waves are generated when the interface between layers is disturbed, such as when tidal flow passes over rough ocean floors, ridges, or other obstacles. The Lombok Strait, a relatively narrow passageway between Bali (west) and Lombok (east), allows flow of water from the Pacific Ocean into the Indian Ocean. The bottom of the strait is complex and rough, consisting of two main channels, one shallow and one deep. Because of the variation in water movement due to the complexity of the channels and ocean interface, the tides in the strait have a complex rhythm but tend to combine about every 14 days to create an exceptionally strong tidal flow. It is the combination of rough topography, strong tidal currents, and stratified water from the ocean exchange that makes the Lombok Strait famous for the generation of intensive internal waves. Continue reading...

The obsession with pedigree as an explanation for success and failure is just a present day form of narcissismAre the novelist Anthony Powell and the actor Danny Dyer related? The biology has yet to be checked, but the evidence is compelling. Spiritually, at least, these two are blood brothers, intimately linked. Both are entertainers, both are fans of the pithy putdown (Powell: “His mastery of the hard-luck story was of a kind never achieved by persons not wholly concentrated on themselves”; Dyer: “Mate, you look like an earthworm who’s whacked a hoodie on”). And both are raging snobs. For Powell, lineage was of paramount importance, Burke’s Peerage his favourite book. Between writing, he devoted his studies to his own ancestry. The pedigree of others determined his attitude to them, from aristo pals to the postman. For all, he endeavoured to trace their descent back as far – and as posh – as possible.Related: Who Do You Think You Are? review – arise, King Danny Dyer Continue reading...

Exposure to flashing lights stimulates brain’s immune cells to clean up toxic proteins causing the disease, study finds

What first attracted one of the world’s foremost astrophysicists to the night sky? Are we alone in the universe? And how can scientific thinking benefit us all?Subscribe & Review on iTunes, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud & AcastVisiting the Hayden Planetarium as a young boy, Dr Neil DeGrasse Tyson immediately fell in love with the world of astronomy. Fast forward a couple of decades, and Neil continues to inspire people from all generations. Through his role as the director at the very planetarium that first sparked his interest, and as an author, presenter, and communicator, Neil’s enthusiasm for the subject he loves is truly unrivalled. Continue reading...

The park engineers in HBO’s Westworld should probably be fired for some of the bad choices they madeHBO’s new Westworld series has spawned countless gigabytes of online discussion and speculation as its intricate plot has unfolded. The design of the robots, and of the intelligence that guides them, has attracted less comment. That’s a shame; when you dive into the construction of the park there are some very odd choices that are worth pulling apart.(Warning: spoilers ahead.) Continue reading...

New gallery tells stories of how maths underpins the worldIn 1818, the Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh sent a letter to all British consuls across the world, asking them to obtain examples of their local standard weights. At that time the UK had no universal conversion table between the many different systems of weights and measures used by foreign cities.It took two years for all 71 sets of weights to arrive in London, where they were put in two cabinets installed in the Royal Mint. When the measurements were compared with each other, the Mint discovered that almost every previous conversion table was wrong – and that for the previous century these errors had been costing UK traders dosh. Continue reading...

The gradual slowing of the planet’s rotation is causing our day to lengthen, a comparison of nearly 3,000 years of celestial records has revealedThere may never be enough hours in the day to get everything done, but at least the forces of nature are conspiring to help out.Astronomers who compiled nearly 3,000 years of celestial records have found that with every passing century, the day on Earth lengthens by two milliseconds as the planet’s rotation gradually winds down.

Videos shared by Russians on social media show a meteor turning dark night into day in parts of Siberia on Tuesday. The large fireball was seen across several areas of Khakassia in the south of the country. Local authorities say no damage was caused

A collection of zoological wonders from November 2016, featuring mobbing hyenas, speeding bats and crab power Continue reading...

As the far-reaching Higher Education and Research Bill reaches the House of Lords, further amendments are needed to ensure it succeeds in its aimsPower – where is it located? How is it won and lost? On the face of it, Prime Minister Theresa May is the most powerful person in the UK. But she is struggling to “take back control” on behalf of the country because of the lack of unity on Brexit amongst her ministers. And now the shock result of the Richmond by-election is inducing panic among senior Conservatives, worried that they will not be able to convert a double-digit lead in the polls into a thumping parliamentary majority at the next general election.Former Chancellor George Osborne recently provided some candid insights into the power-plays that rumble through Whitehall as the government machine wrestles with the process of policy-making. When things go wrong, he said, “it’s almost always, I tell you now, cock-up not conspiracy.” Continue reading...

Conspiracy websites and hyperpartisan media outlets are building huge online audiences who want to hear climate change is a hoaxBack in December 2015, Donald Trump gave a 30-minute live interview to the website Infowars.com and its combustible leader, Alex Jones.“Your reputation is amazing and I will not let you down,” said Trump, who, at the time, was leading in most polls for the Republican presidential nomination. Continue reading...