Three books about the postwar era – by Simon Hall, Francis Beckett and Tony Russell, and Jon Savage – chart the end of the ‘great greyness’Historians love to identify a particular year as world-shaking or otherwise important, and write a book about it. Recently, popular histories have appeared of 1913 (the “year before the storm”), 1968 (“the year of revolt”), and 1980 (the “year of free markets”). By comparison, the 1950s remain oddly neglected. Perhaps the decade is seen as too dreary or drab to have diverted the course of history decisively. Certainly 1950s Britain was a derelict, half-ruined place, where railway carriages were black with grime and bomb damage showed in the big cities. It was the world of the screenwriter Dennis Potter’s “great greyness” – the “feeling of the flatness and bleakness of everyday England”.In fact, Britain was on the cusp of tumultuous change in the 1950s. It was then that the sound barrier was finally broken and an “Elizabethan” age of aeronautical pre-eminence beckoned. Hair-raising cockpit dramas occurred as aviators were killed in engine flame-outs or were vaporised on impact with the countryside. Nevertheless, from these 1950s jet age catastrophes designers and engineers learned how to make commercial flight safe for us today. The science and aesthetics of faster-than-sound flight is a story that deserves to be told. Continue reading...

Voids, loss, a future without humans: the influential DJ/musician and Hyperdub founder is back with a new album inspired by … nothing. He explains allEarlier this year Steve Goodman, better known as Kode9, developed a weird strain of what he calls the “zero virus”. Ever since New Year’s Eve, when he holed himself up in his studio to begin work on his third LP, he had been looking for a concept that might explain where he was at emotionally, musically and politically. “I started reading about mathematics and the history of zeros,” he says, “and about vacuums and voids in quantum theory. Suddenly zeroes were everywhere.”

Public Health England finds use of such drugs has risen since 2010 while antibiotic-resistant infections continue to increaseThe use of antibiotics of last resort has risen significantly in England during the last five years as antibiotic-resistant infections continue to grow, posing a threat to healthcare.

In December, the first British European Space Agency Astronaut, Tim Peake, will be heading to the International Space Station on the five-month-long Principia mission. Along with Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and Nasa astronaut Tim Kopra, he will launch from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to join the international team on board humanity’s outpost in space. Three of the currently-serving crew will transfer back to Earth as the new members take up their duties, maintaining the station’s permanent staff of six.It’s hard not to envy the experiences Tim is about to have, but happily we can keep an eye on him from here on Earth. The ISS appears to us as a fast-moving star (it is moving at almost 28,000 km/hr), but your own position coupled with the station’s orbit determines where and when to look for it. Nasa has created a user-friendly Spot The Station service to help do just that, with automated notifications for upcoming opportunities, and clear instructions that beginner astronomers will find useful. Continue reading...

Placebos can work magic. But that’s no argument for the health service to privilege a form of mock medicine that defies science and common senseWestern medicine doesn’t know it all. There are treatments that don’t work at all well, others that work for reasons that nobody can fathom, and all sorts of others again that are still to be discovered. It is also true – as western medicine itself has firmly established – that the sugar pill can sometimes be a wonder drug. The administration of anything with the form of a treatment can do real good, and remarkably this applies even where the patient knows that “treatment” is nothing but a placebo. Administering placebos with extra ritual appears to redouble the effect, and so it would be no surprise, either, if a spoonful of mumbo-jumbo helped the medicine go down.Related: Homeopathy on prescription could be banned from NHS Continue reading...

Sequenced genome of boy who was sacrificed by the Inca 500 years ago points to extent of genetic diversity in the Andes before the Spanish arrivedArchaeologists and geneticists have sequenced the genome of a boy sacrificed 500 years ago during an Incan ritual in the Andes, finding a previously unidentified lineage that hints at genetic diversity before the Spanish landed in the Americas.Spanish geneticists extracted the DNA of a mummy found in the icy heights of Aconcagua, the world’s tallest mountain outside Asia, near the border of Argentina and Chile. The mummy, of a seven-year-old boy who was sacrificed by the Inca, showed a DNA signature that has virtually disappeared in modern South Americans. Continue reading...

Mycoplasma genitalium, or MG, may infect 1% of sexually active Brits. What is it?A supposedly new sexually transmitted infection has been getting a lot of media attention in the last few days, which has suggested that hundreds of thousands of people are infected with it. Is it new and are you at risk? Here are some basic questions answered. Continue reading...

A new book on how Dark Matter may have finished off the dinosaurs is just one example of unexpected connections

We’re hardwired to focus on bad news stories, but that is not the whole truth. Ed Cumming meets the optimistic statisticians and economists using facts to reveal why more people are healthier and happier than ever beforeNot every problem has an obvious solution, which is why during the 1850s Britain bought 300,000 tons of bird poo a year from Peru. This was guano, the wonder fertiliser that had been discovered by Europeans at the start of that century. It was shipped back to the motherland, where it helped to feed the burgeoning and rapidly industrialising population, mainly through the medium of turnips.In a modern globalised world, the idea of transporting large quantities of avian dung thousands of miles in wooden sailing boats to grow turnips seems less incongruous. For Ruth DeFries, a professor of ecology and sustainable development at Columbia University in New York, the guano craze is one example of how over the centuries human ingenuity has risen to the challenge of feeding ourselves. Continue reading...

Take this simple Observer quiz to find out whether you are a true atheist or whether your faith is not as strong as you thoughtDo you believe in God? How confident are you in your view? Let’s put your belief (or lack of it) to the test.Read aloud the following statements. Don’t just think about them or mutter them to yourself – shout them out:

If you have violent tendencies, catching your own dinner can have a remarkable effect, argues Caspar WalshLondon’s not a place you would associate with hunting. But when I was growing up in the 70s, it was everywhere. Crime was how my father made a living. The consequences of this career choice meant that our house was constantly under threat from police raids. London for me was a dangerous place, full of predators.I cut myself off emotionally from a world I couldn’t trust and soon headed down the same destructive path as my father. I came within a hair’s breadth of a long prison sentence. Continue reading...

New illustrated book follows 11-year-old’s hunt for the man and woman who helped his parents conceiveThey number 49,000 in the UK, but have yet to see their existence reflected in a book, TV show or film. But now the profile of donor-conceived children is about to increase with the publication of the first book in which the main characters are boys and girls wrestling with the complexities of being born through unconventional means.Described by its author as “like Diary of a Wimpy Kid meets Tracy Beaker”, Archie Nolan: Family Detective, by Beverley Ward, aims to tackle the subject of the growing number of children born through donated sperm and eggs. Continue reading...

Just because the so-called medical experts tell us something, it doesn’t mean it’s trueOn Thursday, a million women experiencing the toughest time in the menopause – hot flushes, insomnia, startling mood swings – could have read the news that GPs are once again being encouraged to prescribe hormone replacement therapy (HRT).A study, published in 2003, had shown a significant increase in the risk of cancer. Last week, the health watchdog, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, said GPs had wrongly “lost confidence” in the drug. Women had been left to “suffer in silence”. Now, according to Nice, the benefits of HRT far outweigh the risks. Continue reading...

Vets studying the muscle-wasting disease in dogs say new drugs being tested could halt its progress in humansAt first glance, the beagles running round the enclosure of the Royal Veterinary College look typical of the breed. Inquisitive and affectionate, the dogs rush from visitor to visitor, anxious to play and make contact. Endearing behaviour like this has made the beagle one of Britain’s most popular breeds.But closer scrutiny shows something unusual: some beagles look a little clumsy and weak on their paws. Occasionally one will stagger or stop in its tracks. The cause of this behaviour is straightforward. The dogs have the inherited the wasting condition muscular dystrophy. Crucially, the animals – kept at the college’s site near Potter’s Bar, Hertfordshire – suffer from a version very similar to the disease’s most common human version, Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Continue reading...

It’s a dereliction of duty if doctors are failing to discuss HRT knowledgably with patients. But symptoms vary, and so do people – and if some choose to tough out the menopause without medication, then kudos to themThe National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice) has published new guidelines aimed at helping women and their GPs to reach an informed decision about hormone replacement therapy. Nice reckons that around a million women could currently be suffering debilitating menopausal symptoms because HRT is under-prescribed. The clear implication is that Nice experts reckon around a million women would make a different choice if they were better informed. Some might believe HRT is more risky than it really is. Others might never have had the opportunity to choose at all.The second matter is the more straightforward. Nice says its guidelines should prove useful to GPs who aren’t “expert” in HRT. Eh? Since the menopause is a condition that all of a GP’s female patients will encounter, surely all GPs should be fairly expert, because they are all used to routinely laying out the options to women patients as they reach their mid-40s. Continue reading...

What doctors used to call mass hysteria usually occurs among close-knit groups as anxiety weaves its way through, causing physical symptomsOn 15 February 1787, a young woman at a Lancashire cotton mill decided to scare one of her co-workers with a mouse. The prank made medical history. Terrified of the rodent, the woman on the receiving end had a fit that lasted hours. The next day, three more workers suffered violent fits. The day after, six more.Alarmed and mystified at the epidemic, the owners closed the mill amid rumours of a disease brought in by contaminated cotton. When Dr William St Clare arrived from Preston to investigate, he found 24 people affected. Three worked at another factory five miles down the road. He ended the epidemic swiftly. It was “merely nervous, easily cured, and not introduced by the cotton,” he concluded. Suitably reassured, all recovered and no more workers fell ill. Continue reading...

FDA approval of Tagrisso offers major boost for British company, seeking to release six new cancer medicines by 2020A new lung cancer pill from AstraZeneca has been approved by US regulators, in a major boost for the British drugmaker.AZD9291, which will be sold as Tagrisso, is for advanced non-small-cell lung cancer, the most common form of lung cancer. Tagrisso targets a genetic mutation, known as T790M, that helps tumours evade current lung cancer pills. The drug will be made available to patients in the US as soon as possible and its price will be “comparable to other oral cancer therapies,” a spokeswoman said. AstraZeneca will reveal the price early next week. Continue reading...

Should we distrust our own ability to reason? Why is debunking conspiracy theories such a risky business? And is David Icke a force for good?Rob Brotherton is an academic psychologist and theorist of conspiracy theories. His new book is Suspicious Minds: Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories. He joins us down the line from New York City.With Nicola Davis in the studio is Chris French, professor of psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he heads the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit. Continue reading...

We’re already halfway through Movember, and beards are more than just hot. Amy Coats celebrates the historically and scientifically acclaimed, multi-faceted powers of the humble yet glorious beard.As a 27-year-old woman, I’ll probably have to wait a while before I am able to grow a beard. This Movember I was feeling a little left-out, so I did some research to try to discover what it’s like to grow and wear one, and what they’re good for.I’ve not got particularly strong feelings for or against facial hair. It seems only fair that men should have something to struggle with keeping at bay, or with which to indulge in a little vanity. But I do love Movember. It tickles me to see the faces of friends and colleagues transform, at various rates and in varying degrees, into hairy yet straight-faced beasts. Continue reading...

Did you know Venus spins in the opposite direction to all the other planets in our solar system and there are thought to be trillions of diamonds on Uranus? Space experts Dr Dominic Walliman and Ben Newman tell all – with the help of Professor Astro Cat Continue reading...

A potentially game-changing rocket engine has attracted significant new investment to allow it to enter development.The Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (Sabre) combines elements of a jet and rocket engine. It is designed to enable a “spaceplane” to take off from a conventional runway and “fly” into orbit. Continue reading...

Huge Zachariae Isstrom glacier has begun to break up, starting a rapid retreat that could continue to raise sea levels for decades to comeA major glacier in Greenland that holds enough water to raise global sea levels by half a metre has begun to crumble into the North Atlantic Ocean, scientists say.The huge Zachariae Isstrom glacier in northeast Greenland started to melt rapidly in 2012 and is now breaking up into large icebergs where the glacier meets the sea, monitoring has revealed.

Study finds further evidence Mycoplasma genitalium, which has few symptoms, is sexually transmitted and may be present in 1% of adults under 45A sexually transmitted infection could have infected hundreds of thousands of people in the UK, research suggests.Mycoplasma genitalium, known as MG, has very few symptoms but is now known to be passed on through sex. It is estimated to affect 1% of 16- to 44-year-olds who report having had at least one sexual partner. Continue reading...

Herbicide can now be approved for relicensing in EU, despite World Health Organisation assessment linking it to cancer in humansThe European Food and Safety Authority (Efsa) has removed barriers to the relicensing of glyphosate, a best-selling herbicide, despite World Health Organisation (WHO) warnings that the substance is “probably carcinogenic to humans”.The ruling opens the door to a new 10-year licence for glyphosate across Europe, although the authority set a threshold for exposure to the substance of of 0.5mg per kg of body weight for the first time. Continue reading...

When up to 40 children collapsed and suffered nausea at a Yorkshire school yesterday, media outlets were keen to diagnose ‘mass hysteria’. But what is it?One particularly strange story cropped up in the news yesterday: around 40 children were treated at a school in Ripon, Yorkshire, after collapsing during a Remembrance Day service. The trouble is, no one’s quite sure why it happened. Although a hazardous materials team were called in, no obvious toxic substances were found. The assembly room was warm, apparently, so the mass fainting could have been down to everyone overheating, but an alternative explanation that some media outlets are putting forward is that it was simply a case of ‘mass hysteria’.Mass hysteria is a fairly broad term that covers a few different types of collective delusions, so it might be more accurate to characterise the Ripon event as a case of ‘mass sociogenic illness’ or MSI – described in a 2002 paper by Robert Bartholomew and Simon Wessely as situation in which signs or symptoms of an illness spread rapidly through a group of people, and which don’t have any sort of organic cause. In a seminal paper in 1987, Wessely described two different types of MSI: mass anxiety hysteria, in which the event lasts a short time and, as the name suggests, manifests mainly in symptoms of anxiety and fear, and mass motor anxiety, which tends to be much more prolonged and manifests as a disorder of movement. Continue reading...

Arrangement with oil company will not be renewed when it lapses in December, but museum refuses to rule out future partnershipThe Science Museum will not renew a controversial sponsorship deal with Shell in which the oil company provided significant funding for its high-profile climate change exhibition.The museum in London answered a freedom of information request saying: “No, the Science Museum Group [formerly the National Museum of Science & Industry] does not have plans to renew its existing sponsorship deal or initiate a new deal or funding agreement with Royal Dutch Shell.” Continue reading...

The health secretary has recently caused more controversy by urging the medical profession to resist “militant doctors”. Who are they? What do they want? Why so aggressive?Those interested or worried about the current situation in the NHS with the controversial junior contract will be aware that health secretary Jeremy Hunt recently urged those in the medical profession to resist militant doctors. This is a move that surprised many, mostly because most people weren’t aware that there were militant doctors.What makes a doctor a militant, and how do they reconcile these disparate approaches of combat and healing the sick? I set out to find out more about these worrying individuals. Continue reading...

Indonesia’s fires, autumn on the Great Lakes and Australia’s Earth art are among the images captured by European Space Agency and Nasa satellites last monthNasa astronaut Scott Kelly’s series of photographs of Australia taken from the International Space Station have been shared thousands of times on Twitter, where he posts them. This was the first photo in his Australia “#EarthArt” series. Continue reading...

This week, the ‘Being Human’ Festival of the Humanities launches in London. Athene Donald argues that we must avoid seeing Humanities in opposition to Science.Writer and journalist Cristina Odone sparked a furore this past weekend by suggesting that her daughter was being pressured to take science to GCSE and this was unreasonable for a child with a literary bent. More provocatively, she claimed that “… this focus on STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics] subjects sends a message that makes her (and me) uncomfortable: doing a man’s work is more impressive than doing a woman’s.”Like many others, I disagree profoundly with her position. As I’ve argued before, taking science to age 16 should simply be seen as part of obtaining a well-rounded education. Furthermore, identifying STEM as a man’s subject leads in part to our crucial lack of diversity in the scientific workforce. Meanwhile, many male authors and poets might be surprised to learn that literature is ‘woman’s work’. Continue reading...

Guideline says GPs should explain cancer risks but that HRT offers effective menopause relief for many womenNHS guidance on treatment of the menopause could lead to many thousands more women being offered hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in the UK.Related: A guide to the menopause Continue reading...

Some people harbour violent hatreds of certain foods, and our own tastes can change over time. But is it possible to force our tastes to change?Brussels sprouts, Marmite, stinky cheese … these are all foods guaranteed to create divisions around the dinner table –and sometimes extreme reactions. A friend once ordered a baked camembert at dinner and I had to physically remove myself from the vicinity, such was its overpowering stench.Yet foods that once turned my stomach – mushrooms and prawns, in particular – now make a regular appearance on my plate. How is it that my opinion of a juicy grilled mushroom has gone from yuk to yum after 30 years of steadfast objection? And why is it that certain foods leave some diners gagging theatrically while others tuck in with vigour? Continue reading...

The Mexican capital’s lavatories may not cope with its creaking sewage system, but what they lack in efficiency they make up for in creative designLee este artículo en españolI began photographing bathrooms in Mexico City more than a decade ago, when I got a severe case of salmonella that degenerated into chronic ulcerative colitis. Over the several years that I watched helplessly as the life drained out of my rear end, I visited more public bathrooms than anyone else in Mexico City. Running to bathrooms all over the city fundamentally changed the way I viewed it.

Royal Free hospital says Cafferkey has made full recovery and is no longer infectiousPauline Cafferkey, the nurse treated in London for life-threatening complications months after she was apparently cured of Ebola, has been released from isolation and has returned to hospital in Glasgow.Related: Ebola nurse Pauline Cafferkey nearly died from meningitis, doctors say Continue reading...

A huge flowering of creativity is focused on the minor inconveniences of the cash-rich and time-poor. That’s why we need proper funding for scienceIt all started with the snacks. A few months ago I lied to myself that eating “omega booster seeds” or tiny squares of carrot cake was in some way a substitute for nipping out to get a packet of Fruit Gums from the corner shop, and signed up to get “nibbles” delivered directly to my desk.Related: Science research grants awarded on the basis of patents is patently wrong | Kim Carr Continue reading...

Research has found that two weeks of three exercise sessions reduced fear in bodily sensations the same as 12 weekly therapy sessions. More study is needed, but doctors are cautiously optimistic about its applicationAmerican psychologists are hoping to treat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with a recommendation so well-worn by family physicians, it almost seems mundane: exercise.The nascent field of research has found reason to hope that physical activity can improve outcomes for those diagnosed with the persistent psychiatric disorders. Doctors hope that physical activity will eventually become part of the widely accepted psychotherapy and medication routines used to treat the condition synonymous with war that causes flashbacks, nightmares and hypervigilance. Continue reading...

Academics raise concerns over prospect of Brexit, arguing membership is crucial for funding and allowing research to thriveA British exit from the EU would be catastrophic for universities and scientific research, leading academics and scientists say, warning it would cost tens of millions of pounds in funding and leave prestigious UK institutions struggling to compete on the world stage.Related: 'Brexit would weaken UK universities' Continue reading...

Mitsubishi Regional Jet is country’s first commercial airliner since propeller models of the 1970s and is aimed at growing market for smaller planesJapan’s first ever domestic passenger jet has successfully embarked on its maiden test flight, culminating a decade of development for a programme aimed at competing with Brazilian and Canadian rivals in the global market for smaller aircraft.

Scientists are developing open-source technologies that reward locally grown foods, cutting down on shipping and improving nutritionAs much as 40% of the urban diet could eventually be produced in specialized domestic grow-boxes, an agricultural scientist has explained, cutting down on unnecessary shipping and also providing fresher, more nutritional food.Caleb Harper, director of the Open Agriculture Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is developing sustainable food systems, including boxes that create controlled environments to grow specific types of food. Certain combinations of temperature, humidity and soil can be optimised for certain crops, such as tomatoes, and that “recipe” can be shared through the lab’s open source work to recreate it anywhere in the world. Continue reading...