Walk to last more than six hours and is being conducted during an eclipse of International Space Station to avoid the danger of the sun activating panelsBritish astronaut Tim Peake’s first spacewalk will take him to the far end of the International Space Station on Friday, as he and another astronaut repair a power unit before the sun makes it too dangerous to work on the solar panels.The spacewalk, scheduled for 12.55pm GMT (7.55am EST) and expected to last more than six hours, is the first for a British astronaut with the European Space Agency. Continue reading...

A team of marine biologists discovered that great white sharks ambush prey from ocean’s dark depths, as they attacked drones recording their movementsGreat white sharks appear to use darkness and depth to ambush prey, marine biologists have learned, thanks to unprecedented footage by an undersea drone that was attacked nine times by four sharks.In the 13 hours of footage, the sharks cruise low above the sand, swim up to the robotic vehicle and inspect it from all sides, bump it curiously, and burst out of the blue to seize the drone in their jaws. In research published on Monday in the Journal of Fish Biology, the scientists described the first great white predatory behavior filmed from under the surface. Continue reading...

Professor Lawrence Krauss, cosmologist at Arizona State university, speaks to the Guardian about the possible discovery of gravitational waves. The professor explains what a gravitational wave is, what this means for astronomy and Einsteins general theory of relativity. He added that the excitement surrounding the possible discovery is good for science but is clear that the news must not be read into too deeply. The paper from the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (Ligo) on the potential findings is still to be published Continue reading...

Oliver Burkeman’s article (Therapy Wars, The long read, 7 January) provides an excellent overview of the history and current debates within the psychological therapy world. Thankfully “the war” is ending and it is increasingly recognised that it is not a binary debate between cognitive behavioural therapy and psychoanalysis.CBT is an effective intervention for some people at certain times in their lives, and proponents such as Richard Layard (Tony Blair’s “happiness tsar”) and Professor David Clark should be congratulated for ensuring its increasing availability within the NHS. Continue reading...

Oliver Burkeman (Therapy Wars, The long read, 7 January) falls into the trap of polarising the wrong point about contemporary psychotherapy. Like any pioneer, Freud made many assumptions that have since turned out to be self-interested, culture-specific or just wrong. But to write him off as a charlatan is facile. What he revealed on behalf of clients then and now is the immense transformative value of being listened to: of having our emotional histories taken seriously, empathically inquired about and ascribed an appropriate level of relevance in the balance of who we are and who we are capable of becoming.I too am sceptical about the claims made for traditional psychoanalysis, with its power-base located in the “expert” interpretations of the analyst. I have encountered former analysis clients who have retrospectively come to regard their analytic experience as exploitative, even abusive. But I am no more enamoured by the idea that reducing our emotional challenges to a series of left-brain box-ticking exercises is of lasting value either. A number of my clients have reported similar reactions to those of “Rachel” in Burkeman’s article. Continue reading...

A new study concludes that older people can’t tell when others are being a bit sarky. However will they cope?People over 65 are less able to detect and understand sarcasm, according to an immensely valuable study just published in Developmental Psychology. You might think it is obvious when somebody is saying the opposite of what they mean for comic effect. Indeed, you probably find the device so funny that you never tire of it. However, quite a lot of research now suggests that ageing tends to make people less good at perceiving emotional cues and understanding the intentions of others, thereby excluding some in later life from sarcasm’s playfulness and charm.For this study, led by Professor Louise Phillips of the University of Aberdeen, 116 participants were shown a series of videos and written stories, then asked to explain them. “For example,” the study says, “in one simple sarcasm video, a woman is busily doing a domestic task while a man reads a book and she says (sarcastically): ‘Are you busy? I know you’ve got a lot on.’” Participants were then required to answer yes or no to the questions: Is she is trying to pressure him into helping her? Is she trying to say it’s OK if he doesn’t help? Is she annoyed with him? and so on. When all the tests were marked, the 36 people who were older than 65 were just as good as the rest at understanding non-sarcastic conversations, but around seven percentage points worse on the sarcastic ones. “Older adults have problems in decoding different types of sarcasm,” the study concluded. Continue reading...

The pharmaceutical giant had initially accused the EPA of overstimating the impact of pesticide on pollinators but now admits report is ‘scientifically sound’Pharmaceutical giant Bayer has said it has put forward proposals for extra protections for bees after initially accusing the Environmental Protection Agency of overestimating the harm caused to the vital pollinators by a widely used pesticide.A preliminary risk assessment released by the EPA last week found that that imidacloprid, one of the world’s most common pesticides, can cause honeybee populations to fall in some circumstances. Continue reading...

Harvard professor’s radical theory of dark matter wiping out the dinosaurs and enigmatic research on extra dimensions has made her a true trailblazerIt’s a bright, chilly winter morning in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in Peet’s cafe, just around the corner from Harvard University, the coffee grinders are going hell for leather. Hunched over their laptops, students peer at seemingly never-ending dissertations while the edge is taken off their caffeine spikes by a soundtrack of soporific crooning.I bag two chairs and wait for Lisa Randall to walk through the door. America’s superstar scientist turns up a little late, negotiates the throng and perches her petite figure on a stool. But while the surroundings are humdrum, our discussion is anything but. Because Randall is here to talk about dark matter – and dinosaurs. Or, more precisely, how a putative disc of dark matter in our galaxy could potentially be responsible for dislodging lumps of rock from the distant Oort cloud which then hurtle towards Earth – possibly leading to events as catastrophic as the planet’s fifth mass extinction – every 35 million years, or so. Continue reading...

Over 90% of cervical cancers are caused by HPV. But squeamishness about sex and unsupported safety fears are threatening vaccination programmesHuman papillomavirus (HPV) has long haunted humankind; almost all sexually active adults carry some of HPV’s 170 strains. And although many of these are harmless, amongst the myriad mutants there are those whose effects are anything but benign: subtypes 6 and 11 can lead to genital warts; subtypes 16 and 18 (amongst others) can lead to cervical, vulvar, vaginal, penile, anal and oral cancers. This is not some mere hypothetical risk – over 90% of cervical cancers are caused by HPV, a cancer which claimed the lives of 270,000 women in 2012 alone.Luckily, the HPV vaccine Gardasil is extraordinarily effective at preventing infection, being at least 99% effective against the four most odious subtypes (6,11,16,18) in young women. Yet despite this, it has been the subject of dogged opposition - in the US, vaccination rates have stagnated far below the optimum levels for protection, while a number of legal challenges against the vaccine have been mounted across Europe. But why is this the case? Continue reading...

Known more as a symbol of global warming, the nutrient-rich plumes that trail melting giant icebergs are in fact sinking carbon deep into the oceanGiant melting icebergs may be a symbol of climate change but new research has revealed that the plumes of nutrient-rich waters they leave in their wake lead to millions of tonnes of carbon being trapped each year.Researchers examined 175 satellite photos of giant icebergs in the Southern Ocean which surrounds Antarctica and discovered green plumes stretching up to 1,000km behind them. The greener colour of the plumes is due to blooms of phytoplankton, which thrive on the iron and other nutrients shed by the icebergs. Continue reading...

This week we’ll be speaking to the physicist and the comedian ahead of the latest series of The Infinite Monkey Cage and we want to ask them your questionsHow big is the universe? What causes supernovas? What’s the food like in the BBC canteen? How much does Things Can Only Get Better earn in royalties each year?These are the mysteries you can finally get to the bottom of with our readers’ Q&A with Brian Cox and Robin Ince, co-presenters of Radio 4’s award-winning science and comedy show The Infinite Monkey Cage. Continue reading...

In the 21 century, it’s pandas. But in the 1820s, the diplomatic gift du jour was a giraffe. Historian Olivier Lebleu tells the story of a very special animal sent to Austria, a giraffe that inspired cakes and pastries.Name: The Emperor’s giraffe

Recent research suggested that most cancers arise for intrinsic reasons that cannot be prevented. But a newer study suggests external factors play a vital roleA study published in Science in early 2015 reported that most cancers aren’t preventable and are simply a case of “bad luck”. A year on, however, and a study published in Nature has come to the opposite conclusion: that external factors such as tobacco, sunlight and human papilloma virus play a greater part in whether or not a person gets cancer.So what does cause cancer: bad luck or avoidable lifestyle choices and environmental factors? Continue reading...

Boris Johnson appears to favour the views of friends and associates on issues such as pollution and climate change. The next mayor needs specialist advice

As the cheats become more sophisticated, we ask experts about detecting gene and protein abuseBiotechnology researcher at Queen Mary, University of London Continue reading...

Australian researchers say chromium is partially converted into carcinogenic form when it enters cells, and warn of long-term use or high dosesA nutritional supplement used for weight loss and body building is partially converted into a carcinogenic form when it enters cells, say Australian researchers.Chromium supplements also are used by people with metabolic disorders such as insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Continue reading...

Each January brings some of our finest evening skies of any month. We must wait until the late evening, though, to see Jupiter, our first bright planet of the night, rise in the E in Leo. Mars, following in the early hours, stands to the left of Spica in Virgo before dawn when Venus is alongside Saturn and low in the SE. Jupiter’s opposition on 8 March is followed by those of Mars on 22 May and Saturn 12 days later, both low down in Britain’s sky. Continue reading...

There’s a golden rule, but some people know it instinctively…The map above shows a number of violent attacks (indicated by black dots) for which the police believe that the same person is responsible. Draw an X on the map to indicate the area in which you think the attacker lives. The answer is shown at the bottom of this article…You got it right What a Cracker! You have an intuitive understanding of the criminal mind, and have somehow internalised what forensic psychologists call the “golden rule” of offender behaviour: that most are impulsive, and don’t travel far to commit their crimes. So – as you know intuitively – the trick is just to place your X as close as possible to as many dots as possible. Continue reading...

Revised health advice on benefits of wine-drinking gets the Mail in a twistReach for a Daily Mail factfile explaining why “red wine is good for you”. Research from the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College, London, suggested it could help to treat serious lung disease. (“Inhibition by red wine extract, resveratrol, of cytokine release by alveolar macrophages in COPD”, is the precise learned journal headline). Because “past studies” have shown it helped “prevent cancer, protect against heart problems and improve brain function”. Because Spanish scientists reported “that people who drank more than two glasses a day had 44% fewer colds. Because (another study) “red wine may prevent herpes” – and, yet further research, “extends the life of brewer’s yeast by up to 80%”.But all this studying was then (a dozen or so years ago). And now? “Red wine’s not good for you after all” booms a Mail headline. Cancel whatever facts you’ve filed. Perhaps the about-turn is a mere disappointment. Perhaps, more seriously, it’s just one more example of the way conflicting research conclusions damage belief in scientific fact (and global warming). Time for one more glass before the chief medical officer changes the advice. Again. Continue reading...

After two centuries of service, the iconic diagnostic device has acquired its fair share of detractorsThe stethoscope is having a crossroads moment. Perhaps more than at any time in its two-century history, this ubiquitous tool of the medical profession is at the centre of debate over how medicine should be practised.In recent years, the sounds it transmits from the heart, lungs, blood vessels and bowels have been digitised, amplified, filtered and recorded. Last year, the US Food and Drug Administration approved a stethoscope that can faithfully reproduce those sounds on a mobile phone app or send them directly to an electronic medical record. Continue reading...

Ever wanted to go to a nightlclub in a sound-sensitive animal mask? Ever wanted to decorate your bedroom with your own genome? These and more in this month’s roundupRemember when Enrique Iglesias was injured by a drone on stage last May, and required reconstructive hand surgery? The Spanish heartthrob will be delighted by the Fleye Robot, a non-threatening drone which has just reached its Kickstarter goal, and is designed to follow you around, take aerial photographs and footage or be piloted like a remote control aircraft. The size and near-shape of a football, Fleye has only one propeller, which is hidden behind its plastic housing, and its onboard computer allows it to be buoyant, autonomous and even rather endearing. Continue reading...

In Saturday’s draw the ‘expected value’ of a ticket is greater than its cost. Don’t get too excited: the odds of hitting the jackpot with six balls are still 1 in 45mBuying a ticket for today’s national lottery draw makes mathematical sense for the first time in its history.The jackpot – which will be around £58m - is the largest since the lottery began in 1994. But that’s not what makes today’s draw unusually interesting. Continue reading...

We love dumping litter so much, we’ve accidentally launched a new geological epoch. Isn’t that just a little sublime?What is it, we’re sometimes asked, that makes us human? What is it that marks our species out among all the others on this big ole blue space-marble we call Earth? Tool use? No, any number of other creatures use tools; corvids especially well. Is it that we have sex face-to-face? Bonobos do that and, for all I can tell, so do earthworms. That we laugh? Hyenas and orangutans have that covered, and judging by the look it gave me when I fell down the stairs in my dressing gown, so does my cat. That we know we’re going to die? Whales surely have a hunch, or they wouldn’t sing like that.No: the one thing we do like no other species on the face of the Earth is dump rubbish. At that, we have always been planetary champions. And in the last nanosecond of the geological timeline, we’ve really found form. We are true galactic contenders. Bring it on, green men of Alpha Centauri: the Homo sapiens has evolved into Homo fly-tippus. Continue reading...

The historic mission sent Nasa its highest-resolution images Thursday of dwarf planet’s Sputnik Planum, a region of pitted plains and a strange ‘X’ formationIcy, pitted plains and craters full of a red soot dot the landscapes of Nasa’s newest photos of Pluto, released late on Thursday.New Horizons, the first spacecraft to ever reach Pluto in a historic mission last year, sent Nasa its highest-resolution photographs so far from the broad, rolling plains that drape the dwarf planet in a heart-shaped expanse. Nasa scientists have dubbed the region within the heart Sputnik Planum, after the first manmade satellite into space. Continue reading...

Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response is the technical term for what some call ‘head orgasms’, or ‘brain tingles’. But what does the research say about it?Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, or ASMR, is a curious phenomenon. Those who experience it often characterise it as a tingling sensation in the back of the head or neck, or another part of the body, in response to some sort of sensory stimulus. That stimulus could be anything, but over the past few years, a subculture has developed around YouTube videos, and their growing popularity was the focus of a video posted on the Guardian this last week. It’s well worth a watch, but I couldn’t help but feel it would have been a bit more interesting if there had been some scientific background in it. The trouble is, there isn’t actually much research on ASMR out there.To date, only one research paper has been published on the phenomenon. In March last year, Emma Barratt, a graduate student at Swansea University, and Dr Nick Davis, then a lecturer at the same institution, published the results of a survey of some 500 ASMR enthusiasts. “ASMR is interesting to me as a psychologist because it’s a bit ‘weird’” says Davis, now at Manchester Metropolitan University. “The sensations people describe are quite hard to describe, and that’s odd because people are usually quite good at describing bodily sensation. So we wanted to know if everybody’s ASMR experience is the same, and of people tend to be triggered by the same sorts of things.” Continue reading...

Sally Davies, the chief medical officer for England, defends new guidelines on alcohol consumption from accusations of scaremongering. In the first updated guidelines in 20 years, UK health chiefs said on Friday that drinking any alcohol increases the risk of cancer and other diseases Continue reading...

Scientist’s proposal of ‘Octarine’, the Discworld shade visible only to wizards and cats, for newly discovered element 117 gains 12,000 signatures in two daysA petition to name one of the new elements added to the periodic table “octarine”, in honour of the late Terry Pratchett’s colour of magic, has garnered more than 12,000 signatures in less than two days.The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) announced the verification of the discoveries of four new chemical elements earlier this week. Currently known as elements 113, 115, 117 and 118, they will be officially named by the teams that discovered them in the months to come, but chemist Dr Kat Day, who blogs at the Chronicle Flask, has put in an early bid for element 117 to be named octarine. Continue reading...

Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD is the subject of Give Me Your Love. Devising the show took our company Ridiculusmus on a journey of discovery – and left me inside a cardboard box on stage

Cause of death at aquarium under investigation as animal rights campaigners criticise shark’s captivity as cruel and wrongA great white shark has died after three days in captivity in a Japanese aquarium.The 3.5 metre (11.5ft) shark, which was accidentally caught in a net off the coast of south-west Japan on Tuesday, died early on Friday, according to Okinawa Churaumi aquarium. The cause of death is under investigation. Continue reading...

Frank Maixner, a microbiologist at the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman in Italy, explains the significance of the gut microbes of the Ötzi the Iceman, a 5,300-year-old mummy found frozen in a European glacier in 1991. When they tested the contents of his stomach, scientists found Helicobacter pylori, an age-old bacterium that evolved differently according geographic region

Anne Wojcicki, CEO of California-based personal genetic testing company 23andMe, which enables people to check their DNA, on why she co-founded the project23andMe offers a saliva test to create a DNA profile covering health, traits and ancestry. Have you taken the test yourself?My family and I were some of the first people to be genotyped. It revealed I was a carrier for Bloom’s syndrome and my husband [Google co-founder Sergey Brin, from whom she is now divorced] was high risk for Parkinson’s disease. It was useful to know because we were planning children. I tested my son as soon as he was born and I tested my daughter’s amniotic fluid [while she was in the womb]. Continue reading...

Study shows inflammation-reducing chemical prevents memory and behavioural problems in diseased mice, raising hopes for human treatmentScientists have fresh hopes for an Alzheimer’s treatment after experiments to reduce inflammation in diseased mouse brains prevented memory and behavioural problems in the animals.Alzheimer’s disease has long been linked to disruption in the brain’s immune system, but the latest research adds to evidence that inflammation in the brain is not so much caused by the disease, but is a driver of the disorder.

Three genes inherited from our Neanderthal cousins may cause modern carriers to have an overly-sensitive immune system susceptible to allergiesPassionate encounters between ancient humans and their burly cousins, the Neanderthals, may have left modern people more prone to sneezes, itches and other allergies, researchers say.The curious legacy comes from three genes that crossed into modern humans after their distant ancestors had sex with Neanderthals, or their close relatives the Denisovans, more than 40,000 years ago.

American Cancer Society report released Thursday shows cancer rates in the US have declined, though it remains the leading cause of death in 21 statesCancer rates in the US continue their long decline in 2016, according to a new report, though the disease remains the second leading cause of death around the country.Deaths caused by cancer have dropped 23% since 1991, according to an American Cancer Society report released on Thursday. Continue reading...

My former colleague at Leeds University Alexei Likhtman, who has died aged 44 after a fall while hiking, was a leading scientist, who showed how computer simulation could be used in imaginative new ways to understand materials of complex molecular structure. An important example is that of flowing melted plastics – here the molecules are giant strings (“polymers”), entangled together and endowing the material with elasticity as well as fluidity. The challenge of identifying the shadowy “entanglements” has been as important to industry as to fundamental science. Alexei’s work showed how to “see” these structures in simulations, in ways that avoided obscuration by irrelevant detail, and produced powerful design tools for industry.Son of Evgeny Likhtman and Tatiana Bykova, both physicists, Alexei was educated in Moscow. He was awarded a diploma in physics with honours from Moscow State University in 1994, remaining there for his PhD research. During this period Alexei met and in 1990 married Katrina Belotserkovskaya, and they soon had two daughters, Sonya and Asya. Continue reading...

A brief attempt to engage readers in the biggest questions of physics dwells on beauty and wonderIn the early 1960s, famed physicist Richard Feynman developed a new lecture course for new undergraduates at the California Institute of Technology. Feynman aimed to turn the standard physics curriculum on its head, introducing young students to some of the most exciting questions in the field right away, rather than slogging through the usual staid topics en route to the research frontier.By most accounts (including Feynman’s own), the classroom experiment was a flop. Even in the hands of such an acclaimed teacher, the leap was just too far for most incoming students to handle. Yet all was not lost. The Feynman Lectures on Physics, first published in 1964, have become some of the most admired – even, cherished – lectures in modern science. Sales of the English-language edition have topped 1.5m copies, and counting. An abridged version, consisting of the more elementary material, was published under the title Six Easy Pieces. Continue reading...

If poverty makes us miserable, it stands to reason that wealth makes life worth living. But does it? Psychologists aren’t so sureAs the post-Christmas credit card bills roll in, most of us would say that a little more money wouldn’t go amiss. In fact, according to research for the Guardian in 2015, money is the greatest source of anxiety for Britons.But would more of it really make us happy? It’s a question that fascinates – and divides – psychologists. Continue reading...

Cheap and effective, CBT became the dominant form of therapy, consigning Freud to psychology’s dingy basement. But new studies have cast doubt on its supremacy – and shown dramatic results for psychoanalysis. Is it time to get back on the couch?Dr David Pollens is a psychoanalyst who sees his patients in a modest ground-floor office on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, a neighbourhood probably only rivalled by the Upper West Side for the highest concentration of therapists anywhere on the planet. Pollens, who is in his early 60s, with thinning silver hair, sits in a wooden armchair at the head of a couch; his patients lie on the couch, facing away from him, the better to explore their most embarrassing fears or fantasies. Many of them come several times a week, sometimes for years, in keeping with analytic tradition. He has an impressive track record treating anxiety, depression and other disorders in adults and children, through the medium of uncensored and largely unstructured talk.To visit Pollens, as I did one dark winter’s afternoon late last year, is to plunge immediately into the arcane Freudian language of “resistance” and “neurosis”, “transference” and “counter-transference”. He exudes a sort of warm neutrality; you could easily imagine telling him your most troubling secrets. Like other members of his tribe, Pollens sees himself as an excavator of the catacombs of the unconscious: of the sexual drives that lurk beneath awareness; the hatred we feel for those we claim to love; and the other distasteful truths about ourselves we don’t know, and often don’t wish to know. Continue reading...