A rush of joy? Or moved to tears? Suggest songs with lyrics that refer to other songs or music that can bring about a change in state of mind or emotion

Neutrinos, created by violent phenomena such as black holes and exploding stars, could hold the key to the universe’s most distant and mysterious eventsAntarctic scientists have confirmed the existence of cosmic neutrinos – ghostly particles that have traveled from the Milky Way and beyond. These particles carry messages from distant galaxies, and could potentially help solve several cosmic puzzles.Related: A good week for neutrinos: highest-power beam delivers oscillations, space delivers highest energy Continue reading...

Landscape-wide research by former UK government agency on oilseed rape fields in England and Wales shows link between neonicotinoids and honeybee colony lossesA new study provides the first evidence of a link between neonicotinoid pesticides and escalating honeybee colony losses on a landscape level.The study found the increased use of a pesticide, which is linked to causing serious harm in bees worldwide, as a seed treatment on oilseed rape in England and Wales over an 11 year period correlated with higher bee mortality during that time. Continue reading...

Trying to balance entertainment and facts has been the downfall of many an artist. But Bryony Kimmings’ latest work shows it can be done with panacheHow do you make theatre which effectively communicates information without producing something that makes the audience wish they’d bought tickets to Wicked instead? As the Guardian’s science production editor I see a lot of what is termed “science communication”. It’s something of a buzzphrase which can mean anything from the slightly misfiring videos which caused a furore last week to the Large Hadron Collider’s arts residencies. Sometimes wonderful pieces of art are created; more often, yes, we wish we were drinking an overpriced G&T and marvelling at flying monkeys instead.This balance of art and information is something which performance artist Bryony Kimmings manages extremely well, without resorting to the trappings of Oz. Her much-lauded 2013 Edinburgh show, Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model, took on what she labels “the tween-machine”: the sexualisation and commercialisation of childhood. Her latest show, Fake It ’Til You Make It, tackles the issues around mental health in men, and does so in typically personal style through the lens of her partner Tim Grayburn’s clinical depression.

A small institute in Kampala is cultivating a regional network of researchers, using an inexpensive lab model based on the fruit fly

PhD students at the University of Tasmania are netting bare-nosed wombats as part of their research into sarcoptic mange, which can cause localised extinction. Among other things, they hope to determine how the disease was introduced to Australia. Once caught, the wombats are anaesthetised, put in sacks and taken in for testing and assessment, then released back into the wild where they were found Continue reading...

Some people think that vibrations rising up out of the earth can cause anything from road rage to cancer, but where’s the evidence for such an extraordinary claim?I have a confession to make. For a brief time when I was about ten years old, I thought I could move a quartz crystal with the power of my mind. I was on holiday in North Wales, and I’d got it from a gift shop from a small-town attraction whose name I can no longer recall. Quartz crystals have a certain sort of captivating beauty about them, and this one was no exception; it was attached to a length of leather cord, and looked like it would fit right at home as a trinket from an epic fantasy novel. When I got back to the caravan we were staying with, I was holding it, staring at it, when it seemed to move for no apparent reason. Curious, and ever-hopeful that something magical would happen to make the holiday something other than banal, I wondered whether I could make it happen again. So I held the top of the cord as still as I could, and tried to imagine the crystal swinging in a circle. And it did. For a brief moment, anyway. I think.Obviously, I don’t have any magical psychic powers – no one does. What I was experiencing was the ideomotor effect – I was simply making the swinging motion myself, without realising it. I didn’t know the term when I was ten years old, but after repeating the experiment a few times, and not getting a consistent swing, I nevertheless came to the same conclusion that nothing out of the ordinary was happening. And so the holiday plodded on. Continue reading...

Nicholas Reeves says scans of walls inside Tutankhamun’s burial chamber suggest resting place of legendary queen may be hidden on the other sideRelated: Queen Nefertiti dazzles the modern imagination – but why?An Egyptologist who has said Queen Nefertiti’s crypt may be hidden behind King Tutankhamun’s 3,300-year-old tomb in the famed Valley of the Kings has been invited to Cairo to defend his theory. Continue reading...

Increasingly taken by healthy people to improve focus before exams, after a comprehensive review researchers say modafinil is safe in the short-termModafinil is the world’s first safe “smart drug”, researchers at Harvard and Oxford universities have said, after performing a comprehensive review of the drug. They concluded that the drug, which is prescribed for narcolepsy but is increasingly taken without prescription by healthy people, can improve decision- making, problem-solving and possibly even make people think more creatively.

Helium, used in nuclear, medical and, yes, party industries, has become scarce, but new research has revealed a possible way to pinpoint fresh sourcesA few years ago, we were warned that the world’s helium reserves were running out. Today, researchers announced there may be several potential new sources of the precious gas hidden throughout the world.Helium, which is used widely in nuclear, medical and party industries, has become worryingly scarce. Despite it being the second most abundant element in the universe, here on Earth it’s rare - it is so light that it leaks away into space – and our major resources are running low.

Addyi gains US marketing licence after third attempt, but questions remain about its effectiveness, potential side-effects and the true need for the drugIt is the small pink pill that its manufacturers hope will do for women what Viagra did for men. The decision to give the drug a marketing licence in the US has been cheered on by campaigners for women’s rights, but the question remains whether Addyi is the breakthrough medicine claimed.Men have the blue diamond-shaped Viagra pill and 25 others (although 17 of those are forms of testosterone), while there has until now been no counterpart for women. But sex and relationship therapists say Addyi is only moderately effective, should not be taken with alcohol, and has potentially serious side-effects. Trials showed that Addyi gave women who took it daily one extra sexually satisfying experience per month. Continue reading...

Findings that highlight how brain’s ‘plasticity’ allows congenitally blind and sighted children to adapt to sensory experiences could inform future treatmentsParts of the brain once thought to be primarily devoted to processing vision can be recruited by blind children as young as five to process speech, a study has found.The work could have implications for neurologists’ understanding of “plasticity”, or how the brain adapts to experience. Continue reading...

The historian beheaded by Isis was a key figure in Syrian archaeology and has been compared with the discoverer of Tutankhamun’s tomb in EgyptKhaled al-Asaad, the Syrian scholar murdered by Isis, was one of the most important pioneers in Syrian archaeology in the 20th century and a man who devoted his life to promoting and protecting his home town of Palmyra.

Italian media report that star-crossed wolves – Slavc and Juliet – have produced another litter of cubs, the third in three years together. Not everyone is happy.Celebrity wolves Slavc and Juliet have produced their third litter in as many years.

Biologist Rich Ross at the California Academy of Sciences says a batch of octopuses from Central America doesn’t fit the loner profile that scientists had drawn for the rest of the species. While most octopuses live alone, coming together briefly for dangerous mating, couples of this species mate beak-to-beak in a romantic way and stay together for a few days Continue reading...

When canopy-dwelling spiders are dropped from great heights, they don’t just fall. They skydive.Earlier in the summer, we learned that spiders can ‘sail’ on water, lifting their legs, or abdomen to catch the wind and throwing out lines of silk like anchors. Now it transpires that several species of canopy-dwelling spiders in Central and South America are capable of something approaching flight. It looks like they are skydiving.My favourite part of a scientific paper is the methods section because it reveals the clever, sometimes batty, often funny things that scientists get up to. This new research on spiders, published today in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, does not disappoint. In it, the researchers describe how they performed “drop tests” on large arboreal spiders of the genus Selenops. These species look like they’ve spent several days in a flower press, hence their nickname: “flatties”. Continue reading...

Study linking high childhood IQ with bipolar traits later in life suggests that mood disorders may be the genetic price we pay for intelligence and creativitySerious mood disorders such as bipolar may be the price humans have had to pay for our intelligence and creativity.That’s according to new research which links high childhood IQ to an increased risk of experiencing manic bipolar traits in later life. Continue reading...

US study finds light drinking linked only to minimal increase in risk of all cancers but daily drink raises chances of breast cancer for women significantlyDrinking one glass of wine a day increases a woman’s chances of getting breast cancer, according to new research.Alcohol is a known risk for a number of cancers, including colorectal, liver, larynx and oesophageal cancer, and most attention has been paid to heavy drinking. A large study in the United States has now looked specifically at the link between alcohol and cancer in light to moderate drinkers. Continue reading...

Research team say tiny brain could be used to test drugs and study diseases, but scientific peers urge caution as data on breakthrough kept under wrapsAn almost fully-formed human brain has been grown in a lab for the first time, claim scientists from Ohio State University. The team behind the feat hope the brain could transform our understanding of neurological disease.Though not conscious the miniature brain, which resembles that of a five-week-old foetus, could potentially be useful for scientists who want to study the progression of developmental diseases. It could also be used to test drugs for conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, since the regions they affect are in place during an early stage of brain development. Continue reading...

Junior doctors are not prepared to accept changes to their contracts that would negatively affect patient care and doctors’ safety. In July, the health secretary attacked doctors’ professionalism and commitment to patients in a deliberate mischaracterisation of the care they and other NHS staff deliver to patients every day and night of the week. At the same time he gave doctors just eight weeks to agree to new negotiations on a potential new contract for junior doctors (Hospital consultants face ultimatum, 16 July). It has quickly become clear that the so-called negotiations on contracts for junior doctors offered by Jeremy Hunt do nothing to address our concerns and are instead an imposition in all but name. It is for this reason that junior doctors have rejected the UK government’s offer to re-enter negotiations.By simply going along with a government hell-bent on getting something signed, sealed and delivered as quickly as possible, we would be letting down junior doctors and the patients for whom they care. Continue reading...

What’s the common factor between the tragic deaths of refugees in the Mediterranean and the Arab spring? Food shortages driven by global warmingI’ve been interested in the way the migrant crisis is being debated in politics and the media. It’s that word – crisis – that is particularly striking. It suggests that what we’re seeing in across Europe is an aberration, a temporary disaster to be “solved” by politicians. Even the sight of ramshackle tents in Calais suggests a phenomenon that could be cleared away at any given moment.In The Concept of the Political, the philosopher Carl Schmitt argued that, when presented with crisis, liberal democracies will put aside constitutional niceties in order to survive. The public consents to its government violating liberal values because crisis is a state of exception, which requires desperate measures. Continue reading...

When scientific breakthroughs are reported, no matter how exciting, journalists and readers alike need to cut through the hype and look at the evidenceYesterday, an article in the Entrepreneurs section of the Guardian purported to reveal a “cloth cap that could help treat depression”. This claim has caused some alarm in the neuroscience and mental health fields, so it’s important to look a little more closely at what the manufacturers are actually claiming.The piece in question concerns a product from Neuroelectrics: a soft helmet containing electrodes and sensors. According to the company’s website, it can be used to monitor brain activity (electroencephalography, or EEG), or administer light electrical currents to different areas of the brain in order to treat certain neurological and psychiatric conditions (known as transcranial direct current stimulation or tDCS). Continue reading...

A Brexit would put the UK’s academic success at risk as European research stars go elsewhereWhat does the prospect of Brexit mean for one of Britain’s major export industries – science and academia? And can British science afford to lose the European scientists that currently work here? The data suggests not.The UK is a magnet for talent, attracting the highest number of university-educated migrants of any country in the EU, no fewer than 62% of expats from western Europe has a university degree compared to 24% of the British labour force. These migrants have contributed to more than £20bn since 2000 to British economy according to a recent study. Among them, talented EU nationals, mostly German and Italian, make up 20% of the UK academic community. Continue reading...

Nearly 30 organisations sign open letter accusing Scottish environment secretary of taking political decision not based on scientific evidence

Atlas, a humanoid robot, can run on natural terrains such as soil and rocks. Here it is seen navigating through woodland and jogging along a nature trail. This promotional film from Atlas’s maker Boston Dynamics, owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet, is narrated by company founder Marc Railbert and formed part of the FAB 11 conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Feeling awe has been linked to health and happiness ... but the experience is its own justificationThe other day, I got fairly decisively lost while hiking in the French Pyrénées. Not seriously lost, since I had a functioning iPhone, and was never much more than an hour’s walk from a road where, in a crisis, I could doubtless have flagged down a grudging French motorist. (Is there any other kind?) But just lost enough to feel the first frisson of something like fear: enough to be reminded that mountain ranges are very large and solid things, whereas I am a tiny and fragile thing, and that it takes a vanishingly small amount of effort on the part of a mountain range to kill a human.I say “something like fear”, incidentally, because the experience wasn’t wholly unpleasant: the frisson had a distinctly pleasurable component. Actually, there’s a word for this combination of terror, euphoria and smallness in the face of vastness, which constitutes the oddest and least understood of emotions: awe. Continue reading...

He may have won the most recent election against all expectations, but how would David Cameron manage as captain of Star Trek’s USS Enterprise?Yes, silly season is in full swing round here.I’ve seen this image doing the rounds online lately. Although it’s clearly a massive partisan oversimplification of diverse political ideologies, it did end up putting modern politics and Star Trek in my head at the same time. This lead to the following thought experiment; what if David Cameron was captain of the USS Enterprise, from Star Trek? What would that be like? This is the sort of question that can keep you awake at night. Continue reading...

A tigon, a cross between a tiger and lion, goes on display at the Manchester Museum. It is stuffed.Name: Maude

Tarragona has threatened to use a DNA database of registered dogs to match droppings found on the street to dog ownersSpain’s north-eastern city of Tarragona has threatened to use DNA analysis of dog droppings to track down owners who fail to clear up their pet’s mess.

Ancient aquatic plant thought to be world’s first flower; studying it could provide a solution to modern pollination issues linked to decline of bee populationA beautiful aquatic plant, dating back to the start of the Cretaceous period, is believed by scientists to be the oldest flowering plant on Earth.New analysis of the fossilised remains from central Spain and the Pyrenees show that the plant is about 130 million-years-old, meaning it was around at the same time as feathered dinosaurs.

Shattered skulls and shin bones of 7000-year-old skeletons may point to torture and mutilation not previously observed in early Neolithic Linear Pottery cultureThe chance discovery of a mass grave crammed with the battered skeletons of ancient Europeans has shed light on the lethal violence that tore through one of the continent’s earliest farming communities.In 2006, archaeologists were called in after road builders in Germany uncovered a narrow ditch filled with human bones as they worked at a site in Schöneck-Kilianstädten, 20km north-east of Frankfurt.

Canadian space firm granted US and UK patents for elevator designed to take astronauts 20km (12 miles) above Earth so they can then be propelled into spaceA Canadian space firm is one step closer to revolutionizing space travel with a simple idea – instead of taking a rocket ship, why not take a giant elevator into space?Thoth Technology Inc has been granted both US and UK patents for a space elevator designed to take astronauts up into the stratosphere, so they can then be propelled into space.

In his obituary of Paul Spencer, Richard Waller talks of Paul’s nine years with the Tavistock Institute in the 1960s as a period in which he carried out “sociological research unrelated to his work in Kenya”.I had the opportunity to work closely with Paul during four of those years – on an interdisciplinary Nuffield Foundation project that was intended to shed light on, and if possible suggest changes to, the processes of policymaking in city government. Continue reading...

The solutions to today’s two puzzlesBoth questions today were sequence puzzles. In the first case you had to work out the letter than came next, and in the second you had to decipher the pattern.1)I don’t know why, but most of us get a perverse pleasure out of making up sequence puzzles. While invigilating an exam, I was reading a puzzle book and the following pattern occurred: SENT. I then realised that this can be continued as: SENTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT. What is the next letter? Continue reading...

Earlier, Alex set two different sequence problems by puzzle expert David Singmaster. Were you able to work out what came nexttttttttt? For a written version of the solution, click here. See you in two weeks for the next puzzle! Continue reading...

North American velvet ants are one of the world’s largest complexes of mimics. Although these beautiful insects produce an intensely painful venom, neighbouring species still mimic each other’s many warning signals, a trait that effectively protects them all from predatorsA team of American scientists report they’ve discovered of one of the world’s largest complexes of mimics, New World velvet ants. These brilliantly-coloured insects produce an intensely painful venom, yet neighbouring species still resemble each other so closely that they are barely distinguishable, an unusual trait known as Müllerian mimicry.

Keepers are hoping the notoriously infertile bears can produce a cub at the third attempt after Tian Tian was artificially inseminated in MarchThe panda enclosure at Edinburgh zoo has been closed to the public as keepers hope for the arrival of a rare cub.Britain’s only female giant panda, Tian Tian, was artificially inseminated for the third time earlier this year. Experts said she had conceived, but they still do not know for sure if she is pregnant. Continue reading...

The old Cockney dialect is dying out, as younger people don’t have a Scooby how to use itAge: About 175 years.Appearance: Diminishing by the minute, me old china. Continue reading...

In footage filmed from the International Space Station, the aurora borealis, or northern lights, can be seen shrouding the Earth during a sunrise. The brightly-coloured timelapse video footage was shot by astronaut Scott Kelly on Thursday, his 141st day of a year spent on the space station Continue reading...

Two conundrums today from David Singmaster, the puzzle aficionado’s puzzle aficionadoHello Guzzlers,Here’s a definition from the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. Continue reading...

This week Alex has two problems for you today, both set by puzzle supremo (or metagrobologist) David Singmaster. One involves letters, the other numbers. Can you solve them? For a written version of the puzzles, click here. Continue reading...

In 1968, eroding dunes at Lake Mungo in New South Wales exposed human remains of a woman thought to have lived 42,000 years ago. For the Aboriginal people of the area, Mungo Lady’s unearthing was the beginning of a long battle that is still far from over, as explored in the documentary Message from Mungo, made over eight years and screening on Tuesday, 18 August on NITVMessage from Mungo: mother of all battles to bring Aboriginal ancestors home Continue reading...

Despite the warnings, many of us still overdo it in the summer sun. Here are the main types of skin damage to watch for and what to do about themSummer holidays still mean one thing for many people; basting in the sun until their skin tingles. But though it may top up vitamin D levels, too much sun is undoubtedly a bad thing, especially if you have light skin. One in five of us will get skin cancer at some stage, and there are more cases of skin cancer than all the other cancers put together. Consultant dermatologist Howard Stevens of Skin Care Network says the key messages are simple; avoid the sun between 11am and 3pm, cover up and use sunblock. “Look at your skin and examine your own back. If you see something that isn’t healing after three to four weeks or is growing, you need to seek medical advice.”Most skin cancers are non-melanoma; 75% of those are basal cell carcinomas (BCC) related to sunburn, 20% the more serious squamous cell carcinomas (SCC) related to long-term sun exposure and 5% are rarer types. Melanomas are less common, but more dangerous. They are in fact being seen more often, and although survival rates have improved substantially, they still kill three or four in every 100,000 people in the UK. Continue reading...

How much care do you take when composing your holiday snaps? One scientist dares to suggest that with the right methods, your results might easily be improvedI am not being altogether serious but my goal here is to dismantle C.P. Snow’s separation of the sciences and the humanities into ‘two cultures’ to help you take better photographs.The division is for the most part imaginary – a self-fulfilling prophecy. People of intelligence are interested in all manner of things and unfazed by the artificial boundaries erected around so-called disciplines. You might not probe very deep into the fields beyond your dearest interests but I suspect most people are sufficiently undisciplined to poke an inquisitive finger into all manner of things. Continue reading...

From Isis to Ukraine, life is busy for a section of Britain’s intelligence network specialising in stings, mind games and psychological ‘stage magic’Amid disclosures of mass surveillance and government hacking, the Snowden revelations have exposed a hitherto unknown branch of the British intelligence services dedicated to influencing human behaviour with psychological science. Reporting has focused on the political implications of the revelation, but the leaked files also give a fascinating insight into new methods deployed by the secret services. The Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group, or JTRIG, specialises in attempting to “discredit, disrupt, delay, deny, degrade, and deter” opponents and has been branded by the press as GCHQ’s “deception unit”.Controversially, not only were terrorists and hostile states listed as opponents who could pose a national security threat, but also domestic criminals and activist groups. JTRIG’s work seems primarily to involve electronic communications, and can include practical measures such as hacking computers and flooding phones with junk messages. But it also attempts to influence people socially through deception, infiltration, mass persuasion and, occasionally, it seems, sexual “honeypot” stings. The Human Science Operations Cell appears to be a specialist section of JTRIG dedicated to providing psychological support for this work. Continue reading...

Only a handful of powerful female figures come swiftly to mind. But that’s because the research is lackingNefertiti’s tomb may have been found behind that of her son, Tutankhamun. Or it may not. Yet the possibility has spawned excitable headlines across the globe.The story here is not simply the hypothesis, advanced by a British Egyptologist from the University of Arizona, Dr Nicholas Reeves, whose digital study of Tutankhamun’s burial chamber has, perhaps, revealed two unopened side doors. It’s more that this bronze age queen has such pulling power. Nefertiti is an exception that proves a rather worrying rule – only a handful of women, living or dead, have the power to command such attention. Continue reading...

Specialists fear cuts to mental health services have led to children being inappropriately prescribed drugsNearly a million prescriptions for Ritalin and related drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were dispensed last year – more than double the number of a decade ago.The figures have prompted a damning indictment of the system from experts who claim that the running down of mental health services has led to children being misdiagnosed and inappropriately prescribed drugs. Continue reading...

Author Michelle Moran brought the famous Egyptian queen to life in her popular book Nefertiti – and is thrilled by what the possible discovery of Nefertit’s tomb could teach us about her lifeIn the windswept, hot, sandy Egyptian desert in 1912, a German archaeological team headed by Ludwig Borchardt was excavating a long-forgotten city that had a mysterious history. Borchardt unearthed a stunning bust that had been buried in the rubble for more than 3,300 years, a face that would soon become famous worldwide: Nefertiti.Over the next 100 years, archaeologists and Egyptologists would slowly piece together the story of a controversial cultural and religious revolution that swept across ancient Egypt under the reign of Pharaoh Akhenaten and his Great Royal Wife Nefertiti. Continue reading...

A comet plunging into the sea could have triggered a tidal wave that devastated bronze age settlements on the island, say scientistsHomer talks of Poseidon lashing out, Plato refers to a massive marine disaster. What happened on Sardinia in the second millennium BC? What dramatic event swept away the Tyrrhenian civilisation and the “tower builders” cited by Strabo and the poet Hesiod in antiquity? Was it an earthquake or a tidal wave? A comet? Was it punishment meted out by Zeus, as Plato suggests in Critias, acting pitilessly to improve the behaviour of these people who had been spoiled by living in a land where it was always spring? Certainly they occupied a beautiful, fertile island, endowed with all sorts of metal, both hard and malleable, such as zinc, lead and silver.Writer and journalist Sergio Frau, one of the founders of Italian daily La Repubblica, has been investigating the subject for more than 10 years, drawing on the texts of the ancients. A dozen or so Italian scientists joined him when he visited Sardinia in early June. They included historian Mario Lombardo; archaeologist Maria Teresa Giannotta; Claudio Giardino, a specialist in ancient metallurgy; cartographer Andrea Cantile; archivist Massimo Faraglia; and Stefano Tinti, a geophysicist and expert on tidal waves. Continue reading...

When the National Trust offered the lease of Wakehurst Place in Sussex, Kew’s director and the Ministry of Agriculture jumped at the chance“Generally regarded as the largest and best-equipped gardens in the world,” says the encyclopedia of Kew. Certainly it is the centre of at least the Commonwealth’s entire botanical research.Encroaching industry and London’s smoke (even though those menacing gasworks have now been closed) have made the cultivation of delicate plants and trees increasingly difficult at Kew however, and in 1964, when the National Trust offered the lease of Wakehurst Place in Sussex, Kew’s Director, Sir George Taylor, and the Ministry of Agriculture jumped at the chance. Continue reading...