In the latest post in a series on experts, Reiner Grundmann argues that even in the world of Brexit and President Trump expertise is alive and well. However, we must pay close attention to how it is used in politics.Over the past months senior politicians in the UK have called into question the role of experts in politics. Much of this view is linked to the Brexit debate and Michael Gove’s comment that ‘people in this country have had enough of experts’. He was responding to alarming predictions from economic experts, including the governor of the bank of England, the IMF, the treasury, and the OECD. Pundits in the elite press, from the Economist to the Financial Times gave the same message. The meaning of the term ‘expert’ in this context was linked to an institutionally and professionally established role. Economists by and large agree that open societies are better for wealth creation (and indirectly for the public good) than closed societies.

A controversial treatment that has divided medical professionals is offering hope to women who have suffered multiple miscarriagesIt is a warm spring day, and I am sitting in a private clinic in Surrey with a drip in my arm. I am having an infusion of intralipids, a white emulsion of soybean oil and egg: mayonnaise, basically. On top of that, I am taking a daily dose of steroids. I have signed a form declaring that I am aware intralipids are not licensed for use in pregnancy, and that there is a lack of scientific evidence for their use in my condition; and I know that the steroids have potential side-effects ranging from psychosis to liver failure. Yet here I am, watching the mayonnaise make its way into my bloodstream, hoping this unproven treatment will protect the tiny twins I am carrying.After years of infertility and a miscarriage, I have decided to put my faith in reproductive immunology, a field of medicine that is either fantastically promising or utterly bogus, depending on whom you ask. Its critics see the treatments as bad medicine, and a cash cow for private fertility clinics. Its advocates, including women who finally have a healthy baby after four or five losses, think it could revolutionise the way we think about pregnancy. As for me, I feel I have nothing to lose. At the NHS hospital where I miscarried at the beginning of this year, I was told there was nothing I could do but go away and try again. Continue reading...

Never mind the economy, or jobs – consider instead Trump’s personality, and the effect it has on people. Then his victory makes sense

Strong possibility that 4.5m-long object which landed in northern mining area was part of Chinese satellite

Jack Stilgoe and Roger Pielke Jr: As they recover from Donald Trump’s shock victory, US scientists must ask themselves three big questions.Donald Trump has won. Science and scientists played almost no part in the campaign. Now, scientists must consider how they fit into a Trump future. This won’t be easy. Many scientists are scared. In the tribal world of US politics, many now find themselves on the outside looking in. Most university scientists are Democrats, and the 2017 President, House and Senate will all be Republican. For this group, nothing portends disaster more than the elevation of a long-time opponent to national and international policies, Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, to oversee the transformation of the Environmental Protection Agency.Even those academics who lean Republican (many of whom are engineers, since you ask) would despise Trump’s rejection of what a George W Bush adviser once dismissed as the “reality-based community” (that is, anyone interested in prioritising evidence over faith). Continue reading...

It sounds a little sci-fi, but this week the US military revealed that it had successfully tested electrical brain stimulation to enhance staff skills. Obviously this raises a lot of ethical questions, but could this be the future of certain roles? Something that very well might be the future is some extraordinarily exciting work on paralysis, announced this week. Scientists have developed a brain implant that allowed partially paralysed monkeys to walk again. It could be ready for human trials within five years and raises the prospect of radical new therapies for people with spinal injuries. Which leads us to another important human health breakthrough, this time concerning the seasonal joy that is flu. Will you get nasty flu this year? According to a new study the year in which you were born influences which strains of flu will affect you most. And while flu might leave you feeling like you have a head full of mud it could be worse - spare a thought for poor old Tongtianlong limosus, a new species of bird-like dinosaur discovered in China. Its name means “muddy dragon on the road to heaven” - the dinosaur appears to have died after getting stuck in the mud. And finally, I hope you’re enjoying reading this, but maybe not on your phone in bed: a new study has added to the growing body of evidence linking smartphone use to poor-quality sleep. Continue reading...

Study challenges view that soaring obesity rates among children are caused solely by eating too muchSkipping breakfast and irregular sleep patterns have been identified as key reasons why children may become dangerously overweight in research that sheds new light on the obesity epidemic.The study, led by academics from University College London, challenges the widely-held view that soaring childhood obesity rates are caused solely by overeating. Continue reading...

Lander was feared lost for more than a decade after failing to make contact, but new analysis reveals it managed to unfurl three of its four solar panelsThe broken-down Mars lander Beagle 2 came “excruciatingly close” to success scientists say, after new research has revealed that it managed to unfurl at least three of its four solar panels before giving up the ghost.“It turns out we didn’t make that many mistakes,” said former Beagle 2 mission manager Mark Sims, currently professor of astrobiology and space science at the University of Leicester. Continue reading...

Technically a ‘perigee full moon’, the phenomenon occurs when a full moon coincides with the moon being the closest it gets to the Earth on its orbitOn Monday, 14 November, the moon will be the biggest and brightest it has been in more than 60 years. So long as the sky is clear of clouds, it should be a great time to get outside and gaze at it or take some photos.It’s what is commonly called a “supermoon”, or technically a “perigee full moon” – a phenomenon that occurs when a full moon coincides with the moon being the closest it gets to the Earth on its orbit. Continue reading...

First type of flu virus you encounter as a child gives you protection against similar strains, and leaves you vulnerable to others, research suggestsWhen flu strikes, why are some family members reduced to shivering wrecks under their duvets, while others get off with little more than a snuffle?Scientists now have an answer, showing that the generation you belong to - and even the year of your birth - predicts how vulnerable you will be to a given strain of seasonal virus. Continue reading...

Scientists believe the animals have been infected with the disfiguring disease for centuries and pose little risk to humans todayLeprosy has been found in red squirrels across the British Isles and scientists believe they have been infected with the disfiguring disease for centuries.The endangered animals carry the same bacteria that cause the human disease, research has revealed. This results in lesions on their muzzles, ears and paws, adding to the sharp decline in their numbers caused by invading grey squirrels, which appear immune to the disease. Continue reading...

Denis Villeneuve’s thrilling sci-fi epic, in which a linguistics expert is called on to speak for the human race, is daring, clever and touched with skin-crawling strangenessArthur C Clarke famously said there are just two possibilities: that we are alone in the universe, or we aren’t, and both are equally terrifying. The first terror is harder to put on film, but director Denis Villeneuve brings the second to life with this freaky and audacious contact sci-fi – and makes it something other than terror. Screenwriter Eric Heisserer has adapted the novella Story of Your Life by the SF author Ted Chiang; he brings to it a Shyamalanesque lilt, and cleverly finesses the inevitable problem of how to end this kind of story: whether there is going to be any kind of departure. The movie skirts the edge of absurdity as anything like this must, but a forthright star performance from Amy Adams convinces you that something that could be silly is actually fascinating and deeply scary. This is a close encounter of the engrossing kind: smarter and more dreamily exalting than recent, disappointing movies such as Jeff Nichols’s Midnight Special and Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. Continue reading...

The newly excavated Curtain theatre in Shoreditch is believed to be where Henry V was first performedThe battle scenes of Shakespeare’s Henry V may have been written to suit the long, narrow stage of the Curtain, one of the earliest purpose-built theatres in London.The foundations of the theatre in Shoreditch have been excavated, revealing that it was a rectangular building with a stage about 14 metres long and five metres deep – a different shape from the “wooden Os” of Shakespeare’s more famous theatres on the South Bank, the Globe and the Rose. Continue reading...

Named Tongtianlong limosus - which means “muddy dragon on the road to heaven” - the dinosaur appears to have died after getting stuck in the mudA farmer and construction workers in China have discovered the remains of a new species of bird-like dinosaur that appears to have died after getting stuck in the mud. The find, experts say, adds weight to the idea that such animals were thriving shortly before the mass extinction 66 million years ago.Around the size of a sheep, with a beak, wings and a crest on its head, the flightless creature is thought to be a species of oviraptorosaur - a group of bird-like, feathered, toothless and short-skulled non-avian dinosaurs that were roaming the land in the period shortly before an asteroid slammed into Earth off the coast of Mexico, triggering the annihilation of swaths of life.

It’s the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness - not to mention chestnuts roasting on an open fire. But many of the “nuts” we eat are nothing of the sortAny self-respecting pub quiz bore will tell you a peanut is a legume, a relative of the pea. If they are on top of their game, they will take pride in their certain knowledge that pineapples are, in fact, coalesced berries; there’ll be discussion of bananas no doubt. But, what of hips and haws? What about drupes? And, perhaps of more seasonal importance: what makes a “true nut”, in the strictest biological definition? Continue reading...

On Monday 14 November, the moon will be the biggest and brightest it has been in almost 60 years. Here is what you need to know to make the most of this rare close encounter of the lunar kind Continue reading...

For those lamenting the idea of Trump’s America, the day after the night before is drowning in emotions. At least we’ve got the playlist sortedAs the hangover lifts the day after the night before, replaced by the realisation Donald Trump’s election victory was not just a bad dream, you might find yourself catapulted headlong into what some psychologists call “the five stages of grief”.We may not be psychologists but we are in need of distraction – so we prepared you a playlist if you’re feeling the same. Continue reading...

Algae on drifting plastic waste gives off a sulfur compound which smells similar to the krill many marine birds feed on, researchers have discoveredSeabirds are enticed into eating plastic debris because it smells like their food, according to scientists.The study found that drifting plastic waste accumulates algae and gives off a smell very similar to the krill that many marine birds feed on. The findings could explain why certain birds - including albatrosses and shearwaters - which rely on their sense of smell for hunting, are particularly vulnerable to swallowing plastic. Continue reading...

New study adds to growing body of evidence linking increased screen time to fewer hours of repose and poorer quality of sleepIf you want a decent night’s sleep stop fiddling with your phone, researchers have warned.A US study has found that greater screen time, particularly at bedtime, is linked to disrupted sleep patterns - including taking a longer time to drop off. Continue reading...

Prospect of radical new therapies for people with spinal injuries is raised by implant, the first shown to restore walking ability in paralysed primatesPartially-paralysed monkeys have learned to walk again with a brain implant that uses wireless signals to bypass broken nerves in the spinal cord and reanimate the useless limbs.The implant is the first to restore walking ability in paralysed primates and raises the prospect of radical new therapies for people with devastating spinal injuries.

In his celebration of the rich history of puzzles, Alex Bellos set readers some classic brainteasers. If you haven’t finished with them then read no further, because the answers are below ...

Isn’t it time we learned to reconnect with the idea of problem-solving for fun? After all, argues Alex Bellos, the best puzzles are pieces of poetry. In an exclusive extract from his new book, he selects some of his favourites

Experts and the public need to be able to trust each other. But this trust is fragile. We need honest and frank conversations between all sectors if we are to address the divide in our country. We hope that yesterday’s Huxley Summit was a start.

In these austerity-hardened times, why should palaeontology be funded over health research, team sports and performing arts?Last week I was at the launch of the University of Oxford’s Biological Anthropology Research Network and website at a panel discussion called Biological Anthropology: Possible Futures. The expert panel of academics not only speculated about the future of the discipline but reflected on the discipline’s difficult past too. Biological anthropology or physical anthropology is the scientific discipline that studies the biological and behavioural aspects of human beings. It may also be the inspiration for the Girls Aloud 2005 hit, Biology.There have been definite periods of waxing and waning of the subject at universities, biological anthropology departments and degrees have come and gone and come back again. It’s an interesting subject but one that spans disciplines so sometimes struggles to build up a critical mass of pure biological anthropology academics to form a department. Consequently, it is also a subject that is oversubscribed, producing more students than can ever be employed in biological anthropology. Continue reading...

Wenlock Edge I listen for owls and smell the wet leaves that awaken some wordless feeling like a very misty memoryThis has been one of the most vivid autumns I can remember. Days of clear skies and bright sunlight have been plenty this year, and apart from some fog there have yet to be many washouts or frosts. This warm, sunny, weather has been wonderful in the trees, and the furnace colours of oak, birch and beech, the buttery sycamores and field maples, lemony ash and golden syrup limes, have been spectacular. But surely this happens every year, more or less?Every year the deciduous trees change colour before falling. Every year before winter there is a burst of transition that looks beautiful, and our feelings for it have something to do with an increase in wild food mammals need to bulk up for the winter. The absence of chlorophyll to mask leaf pigments before the tree jettisons them hardly captures the significance of autumn colour or that sense of wonder in seeing the woods shine brightly like a bedtime story before the long sleep. Continue reading...

Recent study that analyzed saliva to measure stress levels finds people with higher cortisol levels vote less – and now WNYC takes the findings further

Increased growth of plants fertilised by higher CO2 levels is only partly offsetting emissions and will not halt dangerous warming, scientists concludeA global “greening” of the planet has significantly slowed the rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere since the start of the century, according to new research.More plants have been growing due to higher CO2 levels in the air and warming temperatures that cut the CO2 emitted by plants via respiration. The effects led the proportion of annual carbon emissions remaining in the air to fall from about 50% to 40% in the last decade. Continue reading...

When the evidence is clear-cut, the assumption that good journalism requires mutually opposed views to be treated as equally valid simply doesn’t holdImpartiality lies at the very heart of good journalism – avoiding bias is something on which respectable media outlets pride themselves. This is laudable, as robust debate is vital for a healthy media and, by extension, an informed society. But when the weight of scientific evidence points incontrovertibly one direction, doggedly reporting both “sides” equally can result in misleading coverage.The BBC provided a high-profile example of this in 2011, coming in for harsh criticism in a Trust report which singled out their “undue attention to marginal opinion” on the subject of man made climate change, among other issues. Despite the overwhelming scientific evidence that human activity is driving climate change, the report found that several BBC shows fell victim to an “over-rigid application of editorial guidelines on impartiality,” resulting in far too much airtime for climate change deniers. A follow-up report published in 2014 concluded that this key conclusion “still resonates today”. Continue reading...

The Baillie Gifford longlisted author explains how he tried to reconnect with the natural world to write Being a Beast and why we should all conduct our own ‘epistemological fieldwork’I grew up in suburban Sheffield. Everywhere in Sheffield is an edge place. Everywhere everywhere’s an edge place, in fact, but in some places you can forget that for a while. That’s not an option in Sheffield. The streetlights ended at the top of our road. Wilderness crouched in the dark beyond and it would slink into my bedroom at night. As an edge person, perhaps I was bound to try to look over, or even ooze through, the porous boundary between our species and others. Certainly I was bound to write about the wilderness that creeps in and sleeps with and in everyone, and without which we die, and which will one day kill and eat us.One day, there was a blackbird in our garden. It looked at me, and I looked at it. It plainly knew something about the garden that I didn’t know. That enraged and tantalised me. I wanted to know what it knew; I wanted to know what it saw when it looked at our privet hedges. I wanted to see our garden properly, and thought that the bird could help me to do it. Continue reading...

It’s not just an Arnie-style sci-fi plot – a study has shown that tobacco smoke mutates human DNA

In some areas of science, citizens are moving from being passive consumers to active participants. Citizen science has the potential to make science and innovation more responsible, but it is not without controversy.Like many patient groups, the Alzheimers’ Society isn’t happy with the state of scientific research. Using donations from members of the public, it funds its own science to fill in gaps and speed up the development of treatments.But as well as using its members’ money, the society also makes use of their expertise. The science supported by the Alzheimers’ Society follows an unusual model. At every step – defining research questions, doing the research, analysing the data and measuring the impact – the patients and carers who are affected by memory loss are involved as so-researchers. Continue reading...

Faced with the uncertainties of Brexit and Donald Trump, the best response is to fight back against the forces that oppress usMany of us have been stuck in a Brexistential crisis since June. Uncertainty over if, whether and how article 50 will be triggered only sharpens our distrust of political leaders, and ever more hyperbolic, rabble-rousing headlines appear now on a daily basis. We face another looming worry: the possibility of a Donald Trump victory in the US. Like Princess Diana’s death or 9/11, these are world events that we struggle to compute. They are absolutely real yet seem strangely unreal.Related: Whether Trump or Clinton wins the US election, what follows is up to us | Rebecca Solnit Continue reading...

According to our best estimates, life first appeared on planet Earth around 3.8bn years ago. But what happened leading up to it? What conditions were necessary? And what is ‘life’ anyway’?Subscribe & Review on iTunes, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud & AcastThe question of how life began here on Earth has been one at the forefront of scientific endeavour for millennia. And whilst huge advances – both theoretically and experimentally – have been able to bring pieces of this mysterious puzzle to light, the quest to understand where we came from, what we’re doing here, and whether life could exist elsewhere in the universe, is as elusive as ever. Continue reading...

Forget politics and enjoy some physics. (If you’re American, vote first!)Last week I spent a couple of days in Abingdon discussing particle physics, and specifically where we might be headed with the high-energy collision data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. Whatever it may be remembered for in terms of celebrity deaths and politics, 2016 has been a great year for the LHC, with more collision data delivered than ever before, at the highest energy so far.I shared a taxi from Didcot Parkway with John Ellis and Nick Mavromatos, two particle theorists from King’s College London (though John has spent much of his career at CERN). Whenever two or more scientists get together these days, they will discuss Brexit and/or Trump. But (probably desperate to change topic) we also talked about some relatively recent evidence for pieces of supernova impacting the Earth about 2.5 million years ago. This article is written in a similar spirit. Continue reading...

Study paves way for personnel such as drone operators to have electrical pulses sent into their brains to improve effectiveness in high pressure situationsUS military scientists have used electrical brain stimulators to enhance mental skills of staff, in research that aims to boost the performance of air crews, drone operators and others in the armed forces’ most demanding roles.The successful tests of the devices pave the way for servicemen and women to be wired up at critical times of duty, so that electrical pulses can be beamed into their brains to improve their effectiveness in high pressure situations.

The answers to today’s puzzle. Find out if you made the gradeEarlier today I set you the following puzzle, from a recent Oxford Mathematics Admissions Test. Thanks to everyone took part; more than a thousand comments below the line and several very funny threads.And I’m very impressed - about 80 per cent of you got each question correct. Congratulations, you are all admitted into Oxford! (And next time I will make the questions more difficult.) Continue reading...

Analysis of insect damage to fossil leaves presents new theory as to why southern hemisphere recovered faster from asteroid that killed the dinosaursEcosystems in the southern hemisphere bounced back more than twice as quickly as those in the north after the devastating asteroid impact that annihilated the dinosaurs, research suggests.A mass extinction was triggered 66 million years ago when a huge extraterrestrial rock crashed into the Earth. It produced the Chicxulub crater off the coast of Mexico as well as wiping out non-avian dinosaurs and a vast array of other species. Continue reading...

My father, Eric Roberts, who has died aged 86, was a renowned seed and crop scientist who advanced the understanding of plant breeding and genetic resource conservation.His work showed that long-term seed storage was not only feasible but also relatively inexpensive, and he played a key role in setting up and managing seed banks. In the mid-1970s he chaired the expert group on seed storage of the International Board For Plant Genetic Resources, which was aiming to conserve crop diversity. There are now more than 1,400 seed banks all over the world. Continue reading...

Test your wits against Oxford’s famed Maths Admission TestUPDATE: answers and results now up hereHello guzzlers,Last week some of the smartest sixth formers in the country sat Oxford University’s annual Mathematics Admissions Test. For today’s puzzle I’ve chosen one of its most fun questions from recent years. Continue reading...

A collection of short essays on the search for alien life asks all the big questions, but doesn’t leave enough space for answersAre we alone – a pale blue dot, bursting with life amid a vast, uninhabited universe – or is there life beyond Earth, existing in unimaginable forms, with extraterrestrial beings asking the same poignant question of themselves?It’s a conundrum that has fuelled incredible scientific feats and dodgy B-movies alike. Now with Aliens, a group of experts have joined forces to set out what we know, what we don’t, and what we might hope to determine about the potential for life on other planets. Continue reading...

Exclusive: In Under the Surface, a special Guardian film, the award-winning writer and environmental campaigner Naomi Klein travels to the Great Barrier Reef with her son, Toma, to see the impact of coral bleaching caused by climate change. In a personal but also universal story, Klein tells how she wants him to bear witness. ‘Just in case, amid the coral that is still alive, he can find something beautiful to connect with, something he can carry with him as he navigates life on a warmer, harsher planet than the one I grew up on. Because climate change is already here – and kids are on the frontlines’

The cluster of earthquakes that have hit Italy this year are the latest in a long history of destruction. Italy sits on the boundary where the African tectonic plate is diving down beneath the Eurasian plateFor people living along Italy’s picturesque Apennine mountain spine, these are worrying times. Since 24 August there have been three significant earthquakes in the region, the most recent of which was the magnitude 6.6 Norcia quake, on Sunday 30 October. Add to this the thousands of smaller aftershocks, and right now the Apennines feel very unstable. So why is the backbone of Italy being pummelled repeatedly?

Authority on fossil plants who pioneered the use of growth rings to reconstruct ancient climatesWilliam Chaloner, who has died aged 87, was one of the world’s leading authorities on fossil plants. He pioneered new methods for their study and is considered one of the founders of the research field of palynology, which uses fossil pollen and spores from ancient rocks to interpret plant evolution and to reconstruct environments of the past.His research was wide-ranging and included work on some of the earliest plants to colonise the land, fossil plants of the coal age, and the use of plant fossils to infer ancient climates and the composition of the atmosphere in the distant past. Continue reading...

As a Texas-based climate scientist and an evangelical Christian, Hayhoe is well placed to reach a sceptical audience – even if that means braving hate mail“Speaking of shills, if she teaches in Texas she probably gets grants from the oil industry.”This is one of the more polite social media missiles Katharine Hayhoe has had fired at her this week. But it’s hopelessly misguided. Continue reading...

Every day millions of internet users ask Google life’s most difficult questions, big and small. Our writers answer some of the commonest queriesAre psychopaths trendy? Does saying “I have psychopathic tendencies” pass the dinner table test? Is this merely the latest debilitating condition to be reimagined as a fascinating quirk, à la “I’m a little bit OCD”?If so, popular non-fiction might be to blame. In 2011, Jon Ronson’s The Psychopath Test introduced millions of readers to a checklist, devised by psychologist Robert Hare, that scores people on a range of psychopathic traits. A year later, Kevin Dutton’s The Wisdom of Psychopaths advanced the idea that we all sit somewhere on a psychopathic spectrum, and that aspects of psychopathy can be harnessed for good. ME Thomas used an alternative term to describe her superficial charm and lack of empathy in Confessions of a Sociopath. Hare’s own own book, Snakes in Suits, written with psychologist Paul Babiak, examines the success of the psychopath in corporate settings. Continue reading...

Among the frontiers identified are time, the cosmos, consciousness and God, but aren’t swaths of knowledge concerned with meaning rather than scientific fact?Scientists like to see themselves as modern counterparts of the great explorers, sailing off into the unknown and coming back with marvellous tales of adventure and discovery. But the heroic age of exploration lasted no more than 500 years: after the so-called conquest of the poles there was not much terra incognita left to conquer. Does a similar fate await the sciences? Will nature yield up its last secret one day? Will our questions all be answered? Will scientists abandon their laboratories and take up poetry, painting or tap dancing instead?These are the questions raised by an engaging new book in which Marcus du Sautoy promises to lead us to “the edges of knowledge”. He begins by recalling a speech given by the physicist Lord Kelvin at the end of the 19th century. “There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now,” Kelvin said, “all that remains is more and more precise measurement.” Albert Einstein soon proved him wrong, but scientists carried on dreaming of the day when they could declare mission accomplished. In September 1930, for instance, the distinguished mathematician David Hilbert addressed a meeting in his honour in Königsberg. Nothing could hold out against the progress of science, he said: “We must know – and we shall.” Unluckily for him, a young logician called Kurt Gödel had demonstrated the exact opposite in a paper delivered in the same city on the previous day. Every conceivable system of mathematics, Gödel showed, must contain statements that cannot be proved, so the idea of scientific closure was a quixotic fantasy. Continue reading...

Larger version of solid rocket booster used on shuttle will form part of Space Launch System propelling astronauts beyond Earth’s orbitNasa has successfully tested a huge rocket motor that will one day propel astronauts out of Earth’s orbit and towards Mars.It was the second and final test-firing of the solid rocket booster designed for Nasa’s Space Launch System (SLS). The debut launch from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center in 2018 will not carry people, but a few years later astronauts are scheduled to climb aboard for a flight near the moon. Continue reading...

English Heritage has closely matched the original appearance of the room at Down House, Kent, in the late 1850sThe bedroom in which Charles Darwin died has been recreated after more than a century, and is due to open to the public.Working from family letters, a detailed inventory, descriptions from the time, paint analysis and research into mid-Victorian interior design, the charity English Heritage has closely matched the original appearance of the room at Down House, Kent, in the late 1850s. Visitors will now be able to see the room where Darwin, father of evolutionary biology, died in 1882, and for 20 years before that enjoyed reading and resting, recovered from illnesses and looked out on his garden experiments from the bay window. Continue reading...

Research finds species of female praying mantises who eat males after sex produce greater number of eggs than those who do not

Authors say there could be 2,000 extra heart attacks or strokes in next decade after research cast doubt on pills’ effectivenessThe public controversy over statins after a leading medical journal ran articles questioning their use will have prompted an estimated 200,000 people in the UK to stop taking the pills in a six-month period, according to researchers.The authors of a study funded by the British Heart Foundation say there could be 2,000 extra heart attacks or strokes over the following 10 years as a consequence, but say it is impossible to be certain. Continue reading...