Going feet first into evolutionary theory, the race to crack the genetic code and a memorable journey around the coast of Britain

After two ecstasy deaths at the Stereosonic festivals, it’s imperative that we get our facts straight about the drug, or more young people will die, say two leading experts on drug use and policyThe recent tragic deaths of two young people after taking ecstasy at the Stereosonic music events in Sydney and Adelaide prompted much media comment. Unfortunately, much of it was misinformed.Unless we can agree on the basic issues and realistic options, sadly more young people will continue to die. Ecstasy is very different from and a much less dangerous drug than “ice”, the subject of prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s announcement of a National Ice Action Plan on Sunday. Continue reading...

Review on antimicrobial resistance warns that antibiotic use on animals outweighs that on humans in many countries, posing great health riskThe use of antibiotics in agriculture is fuelling drug resistance and must be cut back or even banned where they are important for humans, a report commissioned by David Cameron has warned.The Review on Antimicrobial Resistance said global use of antimicrobials in food production at least matched that by humans, extending even to the widespread application in some areas of “last resort” antibiotics for humans – which cannot be replaced when ineffective – to animals. Continue reading...

The government is walking the walk and talking the talk on science, but what’s missing from the innovation agenda?The applause will be long and loud for the government’s $1.1bn national innovation and science agenda, and for good reason.The dollar figures and the breadth are impressive, with 24 initiatives spanning 11 different government departments. Continue reading...

The notion that scientists are easy prey to jihadism is scurrilous because of the false assertion that scientific education is uncritical (Paul Vallely, Opinion, 4 December). Putting aside the issue of whether 18 British Muslims make up a reliable sample, it can be hypothesised that it is more likely that jihadism might be a reaction against the critical scientific approach that denies the veracity of many of the events in the religious texts. What is equally disturbing is that Martin Rose of the British Council fails to understand that science is the very essence of British culture – a culture that has produced, or encouraged, scientists and philosophers of science such as Roger Bacon, Francis Bacon, Newton, Hooke, Boyle, Wallace, Darwin, Rutherford, Crick, Popper and Sanger (to name just a few). Our success in this area comes about because British scientists are critical and question authority.

The singer is planning an experiment at Monkey World in Dorset to see if chimps can use videoconferencing to chat to each other – or even to usWhat if the internet that humans currently use could be extended to other species?This is the kind of idea that the musician Peter Gabriel has long been interested in. As part of the Interspecies Internet project, which he has been working on with pioneers such as Vint Cerf, one of the architects of the internet, and academics such as Neil Gershenfeld, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Gabriel is planning to run an experiment at Monkey World, the Dorset-based chimp rescue centre. Continue reading...

The stress and potential harm of these simulations in schools should not be underestimated, especially when they are repeated

World may have reached peak emissions, say researchers, as they predict substantial drop in greenhouse gas levels in 2015 due to decline in China’s coal consumptionWorldwide greenhouse gas emissions will fall in 2015, researchers have said, in what would mark the first time they have declined while the economy has grown substantially.Emissions have fallen in previous years but only because of financial crashes, such as the global slump in 2007. Continue reading...

Palaeontologists re-examine a 200-million-year-old fossil from Greenland, reigniting debate about the origins of mammalsHow old are you? What if, when someone asked you this question, you answered with the age of all humans? 2.3 million years, you would say. What about all primates? Around 80 million years old. If you wanted to answer for the whole of mammal-kind, you’d find the answer depends who you ask.

From Republican presidential candidates to hard-core Corbyn supporters, we’re used to hearing extreme views from all over the political spectrum and beyond. Why?As a British person with liberal leanings, the ongoing coverage of the US Republican race to select a presidential candidate is often baffling. Much of this is due to Donald Trump, of course. Donald Trump, the ungodly offspring of a retired golfer and a beligerent tangerine. Donald Trump, a man who once heard the word “unspeakable” and thought “challenge accepted!” Just when you think he couldn’t possibly be more openly offensive towards large groups of people, he reliably proves you wrong a few days later.Despite this, it seems a large number of people still think he’s the best person to be President, where he can bring about nuclear Armageddon by openly mocking Vladimir Putin’s height at some international summit. Continue reading...

A festive question about German concern for the Christmas wishes of the nomadic tribes of north AfricaHello guzzlers.Every year the German Mathematical Society runs an online puzzle advent calendar for schoolchildren in which a new puzzle appears every day from 1 to 24 December. Continue reading...

The detection of gravitational waves will open up a new spectrum of the universe – finally demonstrating a theory presented a century agoHistory may judge 2015 as the year when mankind opened up a completely new window on the universe, exactly a century after Albert Einstein laid the scientific foundations for it. The excitement concerns the possibility of detecting one of nature’s most elusive phenomena – gravitational waves – which could pave the way for a much better understanding of black holes, neutron stars and other violent astronomical systems.Several new projects have been launched in the past few months to make gravitational waves the Next Big Thing in astronomy. Rumours have it that one of these – the US’s Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (Advanced Ligo) – already “detected something” in September, but the scientists involved remain tight-lipped. Time will tell. Continue reading...

In South Africa and beyond, thousands of TB cases emerge each year despite the BCG vaccine. An ambitious plan seeks to end what has become a global epidemicWhen her son Luluto was born 16 years ago, Yoliswa Qaku was eager to have him vaccinated against tuberculosis. Once he received the injection, she thought, he would be safe from the disease for the rest of his life. She learned earlier this year that this was never the case. Continue reading...

Once the buzzword bombardment subsides, we will truly see how the major parties can dispense with old politics and work together on innovationGet ready for the buzzword bombardment.For the next couple of days, your eyes and ears will be assaulted by catchphrases aplenty: energetic talk about innovation, agility, exemplars, digital disruption, emerging ecosystems.

Climate change hit the headlines again last week during the Paris climate summit. The speed at which we have burned fossil fuels and increased the proportion of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere is staggering. But we are far from the first to wreak climate havoc on our planet.A mind boggling 2800 million years ago photosynthesising bacteria began to flourish, using sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into food, and producing oxygen as waste. Their success rebalanced Earth’s atmosphere, increasing oxygen and reducing greenhouse gases. The result was one of Earth’s most severe ice ages – the Huronian glaciation – which lasted 300 million years. Continue reading...

Former president given pembrolizumab, one of the most promising new drugs in the treatment of cancerFormer US president Jimmy Carter says his brain cancer has disappeared. His doctors found four small “spots of melanoma”, he said in August, after an operation to remove a tumour from his liver. It sounded like a fatal diagnosis at the time, but the former president said then he was “perfectly at ease with whatever comes”. And now it appears to have gone.It is not a miracle, however much it may sound that way. The former president’s doctors believe the melanoma – normally a skin cancer but sometimes forming inside the body – was the primary cancer, and that it had spread to the liver. Carter was given pembrolizumab, one of the most exciting new drugs in cancer treatment today. Continue reading...

Startups to get support and foreign students of maths, science and technology encouraged to stay, in package believed to be worth $1bn over four yearsMalcolm Turnbull is set to expand on an early theme of his prime ministership by unveiling an “innovation” package believed to be worth more than $1bn over four years.Guardian Australia understands the plan to be released in Canberra on Monday will include tax incentives for early-stage companies closely modelled on the “seed enterprise investment scheme” championed by the British chancellor George Osborne. Continue reading...

It’s all about making the right choices, not being too ambitious … and expanding your willpowerAs 2015 draws to a close, perhaps you’re thinking about what you’d like to do differently next year. Whether it’s holding your tongue, spending more wisely or simply eating a more varied diet, the days are approaching when new year’s resolutions are set.According to a YouGov survey last December, 2015 was the year in which 63% of us planned to turn over a new leaf. Losing weight, getting fitter and eating more healthily topped our wish list, while 12% of us strove to achieve a healthier work-life balance. How many achieved their goals is unclear, but, if experience is anything to go by, there are good grounds to be pessimistic. Of those surveyed, 32% pointed out that their resolutions are usually broken by the end of January, while only 10% said they never break one. Continue reading...

When is a circle a circle? And what does your ability to name the shape say about your attitudes to the rest of society?Here’s a simple question that can tell us an awful lot about you. Is this a circle?If you said: “Yeah, sure, close enough,” then you are probably politically liberal, and strongly support the idea of government aid for the homeless and unemployed. You are also likely to support same-sex marriage and legalisation of marijuana for recreational use. Continue reading...

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan takes over the Royal Society at a time when the need for leadership and education is at its greatestThe distinguished scientist Venkatraman Ramakrishnan is not an easy person to dislodge from a given path. Indeed, there are times when the Indian-born biochemist – who has taken up the presidency of the world’s oldest scientific organisation, the Royal Society – can display remarkable obstinacy. This was illustrated in October 2009, when Venki – as he is universally known – was told he was to be awarded the Nobel prize for chemistry.Far from celebrating, Venki refused to believe the news and accused his caller – from the Royal Swedish Academy – of being a lousy hoaxer. “We have quite a few pranksters in the lab and I thought this was one of them,” Venki told the Observer in a 2013 interview. “I even congratulated the man, ironically, on his Swedish accent.” Continue reading...

Pictures taken during historic flyby of dwarf planet show details of mountains, craters and ice fields on its surfaceNasa’s New Horizons spacecraft has returned the sharpest pictures of Pluto to date, taken during the probe’s historic flyby of the dwarf planet in July.The images released by the US space agency on Friday show details of Pluto’s surface, including mountains, craters and ice fields, at a resolution better than 80 metres per pixel. This is 10 times the resolution of previous pictures, and displays a wealth of information on the planet, as well as the moon Charon and its other satellites. Continue reading...

Plans to clone cattle to meet China’s growing demand for beef threaten to take the country down a dangerous road to pollution, food insecurity and ill healthA biotech consortium in China has announced that it intends to open a facility near Beijing with the aim of cloning up to a million cows a year to meet the country’s growing demand for beef. The factory won’t stop at cows. It also plans to clone racehorses, pets and even sniffer dogs. But the vast majority of animals it produces will be calves for meat production.In Beijing I read this news with incredulity and dismay. In 2009, I directed the first documentary about China’s rising consumption of meat and the growing industrialisation of its food sector, including livestock production. In the film, What’s for Dinner?, I explored a nexus of problems related to intensive animal agriculture: environmental pollution, food security, public health (including the use of antibiotics and hormones in feed), climate change and animal welfare. Continue reading...

A love of beer made them friends, but Steve Lancaster and Anthony Gachanja’s mission to bring chemistry to Kenya has changed African science foreverThey come from very different worlds, yet have remarkably similar tales to tell. One hails from the outskirts of Barnsley, in the small south Yorkshire mining village of Darfield. The other was brought up under the shadows of the magnificent slopes of Africa’s second-highest mountain, Mount Kenya.

A new study has given credence to the idea that gender is more cultural than biological. It won’t stop the human urge to seek out like minds and avoid unlike ones – but it can remind us that our strength is in our infinite diversityA study led by Daphna Joel at Tel Aviv university has shown that there’s really not much in the way of difference between male brains and female brains. There are features that are more prevalent in the brains of women and features that are more prevalent in the brains of men. But human brains tend to have a highly individual mix of such characteristics.Interestingly, while hardly anyone has anything like the full set of mostly male features or the full set of mostly female features, by no means everyone with a significant collection of “female end” features is female, and vice versa. What’s more, many of these characteristics aren’t fixed. Environment and experience also play their part in shaping the brain, increasing its individuality. Continue reading...

This week’s summit has explicitly left the door open and unlocked for gene editing for human reproduction. This concerns us all: we need a wider debateAn international summit on human gene editing drew hundreds of people to Washington DC for three days this week, with many more joining online. The meeting, which wrapped up on Thursday, was convened by the scientific academies of the United States, the United Kingdom, and China. Its central issue: whether or not powerful new molecular engineering techniques should be used to create genetically modified children.The summit was not designed to produce consensus among the participants, a mix of scientists, academics, ethicists and others, but its organizing committee released a statement at the end of the deliberations. Perhaps unsurprisingly, its conclusion was inconclusive. Continue reading...

As the Paris climate change conference takes place, author Tim Flannery talks to Ian Sample about the prospects for preventing irreversible climate changeProfessor Tim Flannery, author of Atmosphere of Hope, gives his assessment of new technology designed to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and the importance of the Paris summit. Continue reading...

Richard Branson says ‘Cosmic Girl’, a former Virgin Atlantic airliner, will be adapted to carry and release Launcher One rocket at high altitudeA 747 jumbo jet will be adapted for use as a launchpad for a Virgin Galactic spaceship, Sir Richard Branson has announced.

We are responding to Simon Jenkins’s opinion piece, (Every faith spawns its fables and myths. The trick is to puncture them, 26 November) which discusses our major archaeology research published last month on Glastonbury Abbey. Mr Jenkins used our research to make a broader point about religious “mythmaking” in the Middle Ages right up to modern-day extremist beliefs. However, we wanted to address some of his misinformed comments about the research being “nonsense”.This was a four-year research project focused on the archaeological excavations that have taken place at Glastonbury. Historians have understood for many decades how the monks spun Glastonbury’s myths. However, our work challenges some of the archaeological “myths” spun by 20th-century excavators themselves – with a detailed, comprehensive analysis, assessment and interpretation of all known archaeological records from 36 separate digs at the abbey between 1904 and 1979, none of which has ever been published. Continue reading...

Display of volcanic lightning inside giant smoke and ash cloud over Europe’s tallest active volcano is Voragine crater’s first eruption in two years

Genetic markers in the sperm of obese men have the potential to affect brain development and appetite control, study suggestsThe children of overweight men may be at greater risk of obesity due to genetic changes carried in their father’s sperm, a study suggests.Scientists found a pattern of genetic markers in the sperm of obese men that have the potential to affect brain development and appetite control. The changes were absent in the sperm of lean men.

Highest ranking Soviet spy in Israel, recruited by the KGB in 1963, who became an internationally known epidemiologist while working for MoscowIt is, frankly, a wonder that Marcus Klingberg, who has died aged 97, lived as long as he did. A Polish Jew who fled Warsaw in 1939 as the Germans invaded (and eventually murdered his family), he served in the Red Army as a medical officer, was wounded and placed behind the lines to fight epidemics of typhoid fever, dysentery and a deadly fungal toxin. After the second world war, he went to Israel, where he served in the Israeli army, became a respected epidemiologist, and worked at Israel’s top secret chemical and biological weapons laboratory at Ness Ziona, dedicated to the study of rare and deadly infectious diseases, including the plague and West Nile virus.In 1963, Klingberg was recruited by the KGB. He served Moscow faithfully for two decades, becoming the highest ranking Soviet spy in Israel. He was caught in 1983, aged 64, after the intervention of a Russian double agent. He tried twice to kill himself under interrogation, confessed, and was sentenced to 20 years in jail, the first 10 served in solitary confinement, where he suffered from serious heart problems. Thirty-nine members of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, and Amnesty International launched separate appeals for his early release. Continue reading...

George Osborne’s announcement last week of a piecemeal, flat-value research budget signals a worrying lack of political ambition for UK scienceThe chancellor of the exchequer’s announcement of the spending review in the House of Commons last week was a canny political performance. George Osborne used £27 billion gifted to him by the revised forecasts of the Office of Budgetary Responsibility to wrong-foot many commentators. His deft shimmy reversed plans for tax credit cuts, and gave every appearance of leaving high-visibility public services in the clear.

Cuttlefish are well known for their ability to transform their visual appearance, blending in with their background to hide from would-be predators. A new study shows they also respond to danger by clamping down on the electrical signals they emit.Cuttlefish, squid and octopus can change colour in milliseconds, rapidly recloaking themselves in the face of danger. A new study, reveals that cuttlefish also respond to predators by freezing, dramatically reducing electrical signals that might give them away.The paper, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society, builds the case for this new mode of crypsis through a series of clear observations and experiments. Continue reading...

Climate change scientist James Hansen says current ‘half arsed’ plans to reduce emissions will lead to dangerous climate change and calls for an honest carbon price to cut fossil fuel useOne of the world’s leading atmospheric scientists has told the UN that its present attempt to limit emissions is “half-arsed and half-baked” and risks handing the next generation a climate system that is out of their control.James Hansen, former head of Nasa’s Goddard Center and the man who raised awareness of climate change in a key Senate hearing back in 1988 said that the UN meeting was on the wrong track by seeking a 2C maximum rise in temperatures. Continue reading...

The international summit on human gene editing concludes tomorrow. This is why they must agree to allow scientists to pursue work on human DNAAn international summit on human gene editing is underway in Washington DC. Scientists and other specialists, myself among them, are gathered here to discuss the potential of powerful new technologies to make changes to human DNA. A major question for those attending is whether gene editing of human embryos for therapeutic reasons should be on the table or categorically ruled out.All of us need gene editing to be pursued, and if possible, made safe enough to use in humans. Not only to pave the way for procedures on adult tissues, but to keep open the possibility of using gene editing to protect embryos from susceptibility to major diseases and prevent other debilitating genetic conditions from being passed on through them to future generations. Continue reading...

Readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific conceptsAll the moreish foods and drinks seem to be bad for us. Does this mean our evolution has taken a wrong turn?Tim Burton, Whissonsett, Dereham, Norfolk Continue reading...