Eminent neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks, who died from terminal cancer on Sunday, describes the pleasure writing gives him. In the video posted on his YouTube channel, he says it ‘takes him to another place’ where he lets go of worries and forgets about the passage of time. Sacks was a prolific writer, publishing 13 books throughout his life, including his most famous work, Awakenings, which was made into an Oscar-nominated film

The astronauts living on the ISS get to experience the wonders of the universe’s natural phenomena like no one elseThis piece was first published on The ConversationImagine seeing the lights of cities spreading around the Nile Delta and then in less than an hour gazing down on Mount Everest. The astronauts on the International Space Station(ISS) are among the lucky few who will have this humbling, once-in-a-lifetime experience of seeing the beauty of Earth from space.

Fifteen years ago, when Steve Silberman broke the story of Silicon Valley’s autism ‘epidemic’, he saw it as a problem. Now he’s changed his mind and has published a book about understanding and accepting autism spectrum disordersFifteen years ago, Steve Silberman was working as a journalist for Wired magazine in San Francisco, as the digital revolution was really taking off. He was sitting in a cafe, telling a friend how he’d recently met two Silicon Valley power couples, each with a profoundly autistic child, when a teacher at the next table overheard and butted in: “There’s an epidemic of autism in Silicon Valley. Something terrible is happening to our children.” Silberman’s story on the topic, The Geek Syndrome, was published by Wired in 2001.Back then, it was not uncommon to hear autism spoken about in this way. But understanding and acceptance have since progressed in leaps and bounds. Silberman’s new book, Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and How to Think Smarter About People Who Think Differently, tells the story of how this transformation happened – the research, the parents and therapists, and above all, the information networks that allowed everybody interested to share what they were finding out. Continue reading...

A new Science study has highlighted a potential problem in reproducibility in psychology. But, as Dorothy Bishop points out, it’s also the starting point for the revitalisation and improvement of scienceEver since Brian Nosek and his colleagues first set up the Reproducibility Project in 2011 many psychologists have been twitchy. The aim of the project was simple: recruit an army of experimenters, with the aim of trying to reproduce results from 100 articles published in three well-established journals in 2008. Why would anyone want to do that? Well, because in psychology, as in many other fields, there have been growing concerns that scientific results are often not reproducible, but there was no hard evidence as to how serious a problem it was.A notable feature of the study was the care taken to liaise with authors of the original studies to ensure methods and materials were comparable. Also the researchers adopted transparent and audited methods for depositing data and summarising results. In addition, all replication studies had to have a sample size large enough to give convincing results – in many cases these were substantially larger than in the original study. Continue reading...

New clinical trial data suggest that nerve growth factor gene therapy is safe for extended periods of timeAn experimental gene therapy reduces the rate at which nerve cells in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients degenerate and die, according to new results from a small clinical trial, published in the current issue of the journal JAMA Neurology.Targeted injection of nerve growth factor into the patients’ brains rescued dying cells around the injection site, enhancing their growth and inducing them to sprout new fibres. In some cases, these beneficial effects persisted for 10 years after the therapy was first delivered. Continue reading...

Of 100 studies published in top-ranking journals in 2008, 75% of social psychology experiments and half of cognitive studies failed the replication testA major investigation into scores of claims made in psychology research journals has delivered a bleak verdict on the state of the science.An international team of experts repeated 100 experiments published in top psychology journals and found that they could reproduce only 36% of original findings.

Weakened form of polio from childhood immunisations lived on in subject’s gut, mutating into a strain which could cause paralysis in the unvaccinatedA British man with an immune deficiency has been shedding a highly virulent, mutant strain of polio virus for nearly 30 years as a result of childhood vaccinations.The discovery has prompted scientists to warn of other patients who could unwittingly trigger fresh outbreaks of the disease in regions where people are not sufficiently protected against the illness.

Genes and the Bioimaginary, by Professor Deborah Lynn Steinberg, investigates whether the foundations of much genetic research are scientifically soundThe last few decades have seen what some describe as a “genetic revolution”. Advances in genetic science have seen genes become all-encompassing in political and scientific discussion.Do a quick survey of recent stories, for example, and you will find research that claims “intelligence, creativity and bipolar disorder may share underlying genetics” and a much-reported story that found that Holocaust survivors may have passed ontrauma to their children through their genes. Genetics has come to explain almost everything about our identities, whether it is our weight, our sexuality, or even if we are likely to become a criminal. Continue reading...

The Shoreham plane crash has prompted calls for a review of airshow safety. But everyday safety on Britain’s A roads is an issue receiving little attentionSince the Shoreham Airshow crash, which claimed at least eleven lives, many have called for a review of airshow safety. They question the level of risk in having vintage jets fly acrobatic manoeuvres, and many displays have now been grounded. By focusing on the aircraft though, these people have failed to recognize the most dangerous element in the crash: not the Hawker Hunter jet, but the road it crashed into.

Eighty-five-year-old twins from Brooklyn are setting off on what they say will be their final voyage. Their plan to die at sea has an undeniable romanceThe endlessness of the sea offers an eternal alternative. Perhaps if we just pushed off into it, we could escape death itself – as if its amniotic waters might be a return to a universal womb. After all, the sea is where we came from in the first place. There’s a definite romance to saying goodbye to the land, and setting sail for that last adventure.Van and Carl Vollmer, 85-year-old twins from Brooklyn, certainly think so. The brothers are about to embark on the handsome 158ft, three-masted barquentine, the Peacemaker, on a round-the-world voyage in search of remote islands and sunken galleons, from the Panama Canal to the Great Barrier Reef, the Philippines, and on to the Mediterranean. Continue reading...

Free online dictionary releases list of 1,000 latest words added to its database – with new entries also including Grexit, Brexit and beer o’clockBritons are offending commuters by manspreading, revelling in bants with their friends at beer o’clock, and being charged cakeage for bringing a birthday dessert into a restaurant, but it’s NBD.

The BBC’s recent announcement that its weather forecasts will no longer be provided by the Met Office has triggered widespread debate, but has this partnership always been solid, and are we right to fear the end of cooperation between these two cherished public services? Alexander Hall investigatesOn Sunday it was announced that after a 93-year relationship, the UK’s national weather service, the Met Office, would no longer be providing weather forecasts for the UK’s public service broadcaster, the BBC. The Met Office will no longer supply forecast data or weather presenters across all of the BBC’s platforms*, as Auntie Beeb looks to secure best value for money for license fee payers by tendering the contract to outside competition. Despite the seeming omnipresent nature of Met Office-presented weather on the BBC, the history of the special association between these two cherished British institutions suggests that there is nothing inevitable or straightforward about their relationship.On Monday, as people woke up to the news, the internet reacted with the usual cacophony of guffaws, outrage, “I told you so”s and conspiracy theories. Amongst the reasons put forward as to the real cause of the split the full spectrum of political agendas were evident, from blaming the EU for forcing the BBC to openly tender for the contract, to questions of the current government’s penchant for privatisation of public services, through to the usual Met Office bashing from climate change sceptics. Continue reading...

Scientists say warming waters and melting ice were to blame for levels rising faster than 50 years ago and ‘it’s very likely to get worse’Sea levels worldwide have risen an average of nearly eight centimetres (three inches) since 1992 because of warming waters and melting ice, a panel of Nasa scientists said on Wednesday.

Highly sensitive test can accurately predict relapses several months before new tumours show up on hospital scans

US study shows sharp drop in memory awareness about two years before the development of symptoms

Himalayan balsam is in bloom, its stunning helmet-shaped flowers giving off a heady fragrance unlike any other plant. It is also spectacular, standing up to over 10ft tall and growing in dense clusters. But this is a highly contentious plant that can spread rapidly and colonise damp ground, and with no natural enemies in the UK it has become a widespread weed.Himalayan balsam was brought here in 1839 from the western Himalayas and made a magnificent garden plant. But it didn’t take long before it escaped and began colonising the banks of waterways across the country. It grows at astonishing speed, up to 1.5 inches a day, and so tightly packed that it smothers most other plant life. And each plant produces up to 800 seeds that are flung into the air and can land up to 35ft away when the seedpods explode, helping spread the plants. Continue reading...

American and Russian astronauts use separate water filtration systems on ISS, as Nasa astronauts also collect Russian urine when available to increase supplyWhat’s the difference between American and Russian astronauts on the International Space Station? The Americans drink their urine, the Russians don’t.“It tastes like bottled water,” Layne Carter, water subsystem manager for the ISS at Nasa’s Marshall Space Flight Center told Bloomberg. “As long as you can psychologically get past the point that it’s recycled urine and condensate that comes out of the air.” Continue reading...

A fossilised dinosaur foot found by a student on a Welsh beach could be from the earliest known ancestor of Tyrannosaurus rex, experts sayA dinosaur foot found by chance on a Welsh beach could be from the earliest known ancestor of Tyrannosaurus rex.Palaeontology student Sam Davies made the discovery while searching for fossils on Lavernock Beach, near Penarth, South Wales. Continue reading...

Previously in the business of snapping supermodels, a chance meeting at a bus stop made this fashion photographer look again at young people affected visibly by genetic disease.See a gallery of Guidotti’s Positive Exposure pictures.I’m in a hotel in Seattle watching photographer Rick Guidotti at work. Amid high fives and shouts of “awesome” a group of young people are laughing and posing as he clicks away, capturing the wide smiles and infectious enthusiasm in the room. This is not an average photo shoot, however, and Rick is not your average photographer. Each of the young people has Costello Syndrome, a rare genetic syndrome, characterised by very distinct physical features, varying degrees of learning disability and an increased risk of cancer.A few years ago, Guidotti was a successful fashion photographer, flying between New York, Paris and Milan working on high-profile campaigns for YSL, Revlon, Elle, Vogue and Marie Claire, photographing some of the most beautiful women in the world.