The wanton killing of 10 wombats at the weekend reflects our fear of the bush along with our fundamental ignorance about this particular marsupialThis weekend’s hideous killing of 10 wombats at a large and popular public campground, in the back country behind Nowra on the NSW south coast, reflects a primal Australian fear of the outback combined with a fundamental national misconception about one of our favourite marsupials.There has a been a national outpouring of rage on social media since the incident because it was essentially, and if the alleged facts are correct, a case of Ruth Park’s Muddle-headed Wombat meets Wolf Creek. Continue reading...

The ATLAS and CMS collaborations, at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, have combined their data to produce our most precise view to date of the Higgs boson

An Oxford professor and a top chef have teamed up for the Kitchen Theory project – and believe the multisensory nature of eating could have surprising applicationsCan you possibly create the perfect dining experience for someone?” says Jozef Youssef, when we met in a Pret a Manger off Hanover Square. “Can you knowingly do so?” It’s an apt location. The thoughtful, eloquent Youssef believes chefs could learn a thing or two from the high street and we’re sat in a showcase of consumer seduction, from the packaging that loudly shuns sell-by dates in favour of more emotive “freshness” to the name above the door with its hint of continental chic. “The world now is all about experiences,” he says. “In order to craft and design that experience [chefs] have to do what all your Starbucks and McDonalds of the world are doing and that’s understanding the psychology of your diners.”Having worked at the Dorchester, Hélène Darroze at the Connaught and the Fat Duck, Youssef is unusual for a chef. He doesn’t want to open a restaurant. Or a pub. Or even a street-food van. He’s thrown in his lot with Oxford professor Charles Spence to probe the psychology of diners and learn what pushes their buttons – off the plate as well as on. The result is Youssef’s brainchild, Kitchen Theory, a project that probes everything from the influence of sound on diners’ perceptions of a meal to how best to persuade guests to embrace unexpected ingredients – insects included. It’s a symbiotic relationship, with Spence’s work inspiring Youssef’s menus, and surprising results from Youssef’s pop-up dining “experiences” pointing to new avenues and approaches for Spence’s lab. Continue reading...

The director of the first authorised stage dramatisation of Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel Brave New World reflects on why its human-centred vision is more relevant than ever in today’s selfish, technology-led consumer societyAldous Huxley wrote Brave New World in 1931 in the shadow of the first world war, the Wall Street Crash and a devastating flu virus that had claimed millions of lives. The Treaty of Versailles had carved out a new Europe, while electricity, the automobile, production lines, new mass media and aeroplanes were changing the world. England was in the grip of a depression, but science and technology promised a better future: a world where disease, drudgery and poverty might no longer exist. Very few writers were bold enough to challenge this naive optimism but in Brave New World, Huxley certainly did; now his work, adapted by Dawn King for the stage and premiering at Royal and Derngate, Northampton, challenges audiences to do the same.Related: Margaret Atwood on Brave New World Continue reading...

Google’s Demis Hassabis suggests we can mitigate the dangers of artificial intelligence by instilling values, but even now it’s evolving for its own benefit, fed by our phones, drones and CCTVStephen Hawking, Bill Gates and now Demis Hassabis of Google’s DeepMind have all warned of the dangers of artificial intelligence (AI), urging that we put ethical controls in place before it’s too late.But they have all mistaken the threat: the AI we have let loose is already evolving for its own benefit. Continue reading...

Four separate studies have now demolished the myth of a global warming ‘pause’

Australia has the highest incidence of cancer in the world, and the committee has been examining how to keep drugs affordable and available to patientsRelated: Leaked trade deal terms prompt fears for Pharmaceutical Benefits SchemeA Senate committee has called on the government to undertake a comprehensive review of its system for subsidising medicines to taxpayers, as the increasing number of new and expensive drugs being listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme is becoming unsustainable. Continue reading...

Spectacular views of the universe have been unveiled at the Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2015 awards ceremony, held at the Royal Greenwich Observatory

Carefully directed films could help scientists explore the inner workings of the animal mindJapanese researchers have made two short films, both involving a gorilla suit. They have shown them to a bunch of bonobos and chimpanzees. Why? By tracking the animals’ eye movements, they claim to have got inside the minds of apes.The two films are certainly the highlights of this study, “half-minute movie clips depicting novel and potentially alarming situations for the participant apes.” These apes, captive animals at the Kumamoto Sanctuary in Japan, “have some experience watching commercially available films and TV programs since youth,” the researchers write in Current Biology. Continue reading...

A hitherto unknown form of neuroplasticity discovered by researchers at King’s College London helps to resolve a long-standing crisis of neuronal identityIt is often said that the human brain is the most complex object in the known universe, and for good reason. Even the apparently simple task of compiling a census of the different types of cells it contains has proven to be extremely difficult. Researchers still can’t agree on the best way to classify the numerous sub-types of neurons, and different methods produce different results, so estimates range from several hundred to over a thousand.Basket cells illustrate this neuronal identity crisis perfectly. They are currently sub-divided into multiple different types, according to their electrical properties and molecular profiles. After nearly ten years of detective work, researchers at King’s College London now reveal them to be masters of disguise. In a surprising new study, they show that these cells can dynamically switch from one identity to another in response to neuronal network activity. Continue reading...

These mathematical patterns, by Alex Bellos and illustrator Edmund Harriss, are intended to engage the brain as well as provide a moment of stress-free satisfaction. Print off this page, get out your felt tips and start colouringWhen people say that maths is “beautiful” it is usually meant in the abstract sense, such as to describe a theorem whose power, depth and concision provoke feelings of awe. Bertrand Russell called this “a beauty cold and austere … sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection”.Yet humans have traditionally also found aesthetic, sacred beauty in mathematics. Islamic and Hindu cultures, for example, are rich in stunning images based on geometric design. It was reflecting on the role of maths as a meditative and contemplative medium that I decided to compile a colouring book. Continue reading...

Home Office regulator’s examination of forensic strategy comes as scientists warn criminal justice in the UK could be compromisedThe forensic science regulator is reviewing a series of sexual assault cases to examine whether poor evidence gathering at crime scenes may be compromising criminal justice in the UK, she has told the Guardian.Dr Gill Tully, whose remit is to establish quality standards in forensic science and ensure compliance with them, said her review was prompted by a number of cases where she had been told that “the scientific opportunities don’t appear to have been maximised”. These included examples where scientific analysis was not carried out at all, she said. Continue reading...