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...

Our father, Ramesh Vyas, who has died aged 82, was a gentle, modest man who had an unerring sense of justice; someone who took pleasure in quietly challenging whatever prevailing prejudices and unfairness he encountered.He was the second of four children born to Harakhji, a shop owner, and Nirmala, a housewife, in Hansot, Gujarat, India. When he was a young boy the family moved to Akyab (now Sittwe) Island in former Burma, but they fled back to Gujarat when Burma was invaded by the Japanese during the second world war in 1942. Witnessing poverty and suffering in both countries profoundly influenced him, and led him to abandon his traditional Hindu upbringing in favour of atheism, and to become a lifelong socialist. Continue reading...

Part game, drama and self-help quiz, this app from artists’ group Blast Theory sees users interact with curious but dangerous divorcee Karen

Not content with their version 1.0 bodies, biohackers are installing USB drives in their fingertips, giving themselves night-vision eyedrops and growing third ears on their arms (that can go online). Welcome to the world of DIY cyborgsWhen the director of a research institute called the Alternate Anatomies laboratory says he’s got something up his sleeve, you can safely assume it’s not just a figure of speech.For Professor Stelarc, an Australian performance artist whose previous party tricks have included using a robotic third arm and letting his muscles be remotely controlled by a computer, growing a human ear on his arm was the obvious next step. Now, he wants to connect it to the internet. Continue reading...

American composer Eric Whitacre takes his inspiration from the Hubble Space Telescope’s Deep Field image for a premiere at the BBC PromsTonight on BBC4, a unique piece of music will be broadcast. Commissioned by the BBC, in association with the Minnesota Orchestra, Deep Field is a 25 minute-long soundscape of epic ambition. It was recorded on Sunday 9 August at its European premiere, as part of the BBC Proms 2015 at the Royal Albert Hall.Related: Hubble at 25: the space telescope's timeline - in pictures Continue reading...

A huge cloud of smoke bursts from the A-1 test stand as scientists ignite a ‘hot fire’ test, designed to measure the engine’s ability to withstand intense temperature and pressure conditions at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi on Thursday. The RS-25 engine could eventually propel astronauts to places such as Mars Continue reading...

Astronomers find 51 Eridani b, an infant at 20m years old that is still cooking and throwing off clues about methane-rich biggest planet in Earth’s solar systemRelated: Rosetta captures images of jet-blasting cometAstronomers have taken a photograph of a young planet beyond the solar system that may reveal clues as to how planets such as Jupiter are formed and influence their planetary siblings, a study released on Thursday shows. Continue reading...

In the wake of editor-in-chief Stephen Leeder’s sacking from the Medical Journal of Australia, academics are challenging the control of a select group of publishing houses over scientific journalsThe academic publishing industry is a “gigantic web of avarice and selfishness”, an eminent public health professor has said, as Australian academics seek to challenge the domination of a few publishing houses over scientific research.Emeritus professor Stephen Leeder was sacked by the Medical Journal of Australia (MJA) in April after challenging a decision to outsource some of the journal’s functions to the world’s biggest scientific publisher, Elsevier. This month he will address a symposium at the State Library of NSW where academics will discuss how to fight what they describe as the commodification of knowledge. Continue reading...

Number of research participants soared to 22,000 during last year as Downing Street aims to find a cure or disease modifying therapy by 2025The government’s ambition to find a cure for dementia by 2025 has been boosted by a big rise in people volunteering to take part in groundbreaking research studies.During the last year, almost 22,000 people have taken part in research studies to tackle the condition – a 60% rise – according to figures from the National Institute for Health Research. Continue reading...

The 10-15% of Americans living in opposition to the right-handed world are a curious bunch whose brains have been found to work differently in many waysThursday marks Left Handers Day, a chance for 10-15% of the US population to share their pride as lefties and raise awareness about the issues faced by those living in a right-handed world.Ink smudges and a lack of suitable scissor options have always plagued left-handed people, but according to scientists , those are only minor peculiarities compared to the underlying psychological differences at play. Continue reading...

Nasa engineers are wrestling with a $915m (£586m) satellite that began to malfunction just six months after launch.The Soil Moisture Active Passive (Smap) spacecraft was launched on 31 January into a polar orbit with an altitude of 685km. It is designed to measure the water content of the top 5cm of soil everywhere on Earth. Continue reading...

Cheesy, catchy, cliched? Soppy, sexy, stupid? Search your shelves for songs that produce such a strong, ripe reaction they will help sort the bad from the Gouda

Cameras of European Space Agency craft get within 330km of comet 67P as it hurtles past sun, rattles its ‘guest’, Philae, and spews out gas and boulders

Researchers say new biological manufacturing method using modified yeast instead of opium poppies could slash both manufacturing time and costScientists have genetically modified yeast cells to make them churn out painkillers that are normally harvested from opium poppies.

An editorial published in the BMJ this week makes a welcome call for a calmer and more evidence-based approach to dealing with concerns about how technology affects young peopleOne of the reasons that I got into science writing was because of Baroness Susan Greenfield. Actually, she’s also one of the reasons that I got into video game research as well. In that sense, I guess, I owe a lot to her. In another, more realistic sense, the reason that she acted as a catalyst for those things is because of her regular appearances in the media, claiming that the internet, social media and video games are damaging our brains.Over the years, Greenfield has appeared in newspaper articles claiming that computer games “leave children with dementia”; that internet use is linked to autism; and that social media harms children’s brains. When criticised about the comments, the Baroness has been quick to claim that she’s been misrepresented, although no retractions or corrections of pieces like those mentioned above have ever surfaced. A call from Ben Goldacre for Greenfield to publish her claims in a scientific journal, so that they can be placed under an appropriately rigourous level of scrutiny, has been dismissed. Instead, we’ve had two books – the disastrous science fiction novel 2121, and the equally problematic popular science book, Mind Change. Both advance Greenfield’s view that the internet generally, and social media and video games more specifically, are having a huge and negative impact on our brains. Continue reading...

Number of babies dying shortly after birth has also dropped by almost 8%, according to researchStillbirths have dropped by almost 8% in England since the smoking ban was introduced, research has shown.

The annual meteor display, so-called because it appears to radiate from the constellation Perseus in the north-eastern sky, is a result of Earth’s orbit passing through debris from the comet Swift-Tuttle. This weekend is considered the peak of the shower, which is visible every August Continue reading...

Sci-fi helps us think ahead and predicts future technologies, but most importantly it creates debate by asking – what if?

Mandageria fairfaxi, a 370m-year-old fossil found in 1993 near Canowindra, will join the kookaburra, platypus, blue groper and black opal as NSW emblemsA 370 million-year-old fish fossil will join the kookaburra, platypus, blue groper and black opal on the list of New South Wales state emblems.With the scientific name Mandageria fairfaxi, named for a local creek and publisher James Fairfax, the fish fossil is one of the largest in the world, measuring up to 1.7m in length. Continue reading...

The endangered cape parrot really is a distinct species, according to a newly-published molecular study -- a finding that could impact conservation decisions and strategies in South Africa for decades to comeThe taxonomy of the Cape parrot, Poicephalus robustus robustus, has long been controversial, particularly amongst conservation biologists and policymakers. But today, a team of South African scientists published a study that agrees with previously published morphological, ecological, and behavioural assessments indicating that this taxon should be elevated to full species status. In this study, the authors analysed genetic data from five Poicephalus parrot species and found that the Cape parrot is genetically distinct from all of its closest relatives. This taxonomic revision could facilitate better planning and implementation of international and local conservation management strategies for protecting this critically endangered parrot. Continue reading...

Comet 67P/ Churyumov-Gerasimenko, shadowed by the Rosetta spacecraft, will make its closest approach to the sun at 3.03 am BST on Thursday morningMission scientists have prepared the Rosetta spacecraft for a cosmic fireworks display as it chaperones the speeding comet 67P/ Churyumov-Gerasimenko through its closest encounter with the sun.Related: Scientists to get ringside view as comet 67P reaches closest point to Sun Continue reading...

My play about the cancer gene BRCA1, Goodstock, raises honest issues about preventive surgery in a funny, uplifting way. I should know, I’ve tested positiveMy theatre company, Lost Watch, and I have made a show about biomedical misfortune, the BRCA1 gene mutation, and my family – without their permission. It’s called Goodstock and it opened last week at the Pleasance Courtyard as part of the Edinburgh festival fringe. Now my cover is officially blown.Related: Angelina Jolie and the complex truth about breast cancer | Judith Soal Continue reading...

Coral reefs, New York from space and an erupting volcano are among images captured by European Space Agency and Nasa satellites last monthTwo typhoons, one tropical storm, one formation alert and one large area of increased convection makes for a busy day in the northern Pacific Ocean in this image from 7 July. From left to right: Tropical Storm Linfa in the South China Sea meanders northward with winds near 55 knots ; Typhoon Chan-Hom has winds near 100 knots and strengthening, heading west-northwest toward the East China Sea; Typhoon Nangka is east of Guam heading west-northwest with winds intensifying near 140 knots in a couple of days. The large area of convection southwest of Hawaii was not expected to develop into a tropical system, despite its satellite presentation. Continue reading...

My play about the cancer gene BRCA1, Goodstock, raises honest issues about preventive surgery in a funny, uplifting way. I should know, I’ve tested positiveMy theatre company, Lost Watch, and I have made a show about biomedical misfortune, the BRCA1 gene mutation, and my family – without their permission. It’s called Goodstock and it opened last week at the Pleasance Courtyard as part of the Edinburgh festival fringe. Now my cover is officially blown.Related: Angelina Jolie and the complex truth about breast cancer | Judith Soal Continue reading...

The apparent discovery, based on scans of King Tutankhamun’s burial chamber, could yield treasure beyond what was found in his famous resting placeHidden doorways in the ancient Egyptian tomb of King Tutankhamun may lead to the long-lost resting place of Queen Nefertiti, a scientist has claimed.Related: The case of the Frankenstein Nefertiti: it's time to revolt against ugly public art Continue reading...

One Health holds that humans and the world around us thrive and suffer for the same reasons. As the idea grows more popular, health solutions developed for your dog might just end up helping you, tooEvery two to three months, Elizabeth Roberts says goodbye to her kids and husband and loads up Scooby Doo, the family’s three-legged, 12-year-old Labrador retriever, into the back of her SUV. She drives to the ferry from where they live on Martha’s Vineyard and takes the 45-minute boat ride to the mainland.From there, she has another six to seven hour drive to her parents’ home outside Philadelphia, where she and Scooby Doo spend the night before driving to University of Pennsylvania in the morning. All this for an experimental osteosarcoma clinical trial that has extended Scooby Doo’s life expectancy from one year to going on three years now. Continue reading...

In the last week alone, abortion has caused controversy in the US, the UK and in Chile. Medical science is often invoked on both sides of the debate. So what is the evidence on some of the main claims around abortion?There are few topics in modern discourse quite as divisive, as fraught with misunderstanding and as rooted in deeply-held conviction as abortion.Those on the pro-choice side of the spectrum argue that it is a woman’s right to choose whether she carries a pregnancy to term or not. On the other side, anti-abortion activists insist that from the moment of conception a foetus has an inalienable right to existence. In recent years, polarisation has increased and the topic has become exceptionally politically partisan, with the personal and political aspects increasingly difficult to separate. Continue reading...

A Guardian science writer recently had a minor meltdown after being unable to find a picture of a normal cake. This, in a roundabout way, resulted in a search for science themed cakes, many of which are represented here. Continue reading...

Early signs of this year’s Perseid meteor shower – the annual display of natural fireworks – in Europe. The shower is set to be particularly spectacular on Wednesday evening, with extra-dark skies expected to create optimal stargazing conditions – the best place to watch in the UK is tipped to be north-east EnglandHow to see the Perseid meteor shower in the UK Continue reading...

Researchers in Australia have developed a new way of printing 3D structures that closely resemble layered brain tissueIn the latest effort to build an artificial laboratory model of the brain, Australian researchers have developed a novel method for constructing layered biological structures that looks just like cerebral cortex tissue using a handheld 3D printer.Neuroscientists rarely get the opportunity to study the human brain directly, and so work on cells or tissue slices that have been dissected from animals and grown in Petri dishes. These in vitro methods are useful for studying development and processes such as neurodegeneration and cell-to-cell signalling, but are severely limited in that they do not resemble the complex three-dimensional structure of the brain. Continue reading...

Twenty amendments made to legislation – including rules over how money would be spent – means House of Representatives must now reconsider itThe Abbott government’s $20bn medical research future fund has cleared the Senate despite concerns about the potential for its funding decisions to be politicised.

Radio telescope, which was in danger of closing down due to federal government funding cuts, wins reprieve from project funded by Russian internet billionaireA $135m search for extraterrestrial life backed by physicist Stephen Hawking has thrown an unlikely lifeline to the Parkes radio telescope in New South Wales, which was facing closure after successive federal government funding cuts.The 54-year-old telescope, located in a sheep paddock five hours’ west of Sydney, is one of only two observatories chosen for the Breakthrough Listen project, an unprecedented search for alien signals starting in January 2016. Continue reading...

Archaeologists find evidence that survivors of epidemic still used coffins and buried victims in Christian east-west position

Across the globe, initiatives such as food-sharing clubs and projects aimed to reducing post-harvest losses for poor farmers are making a differenceA group of volunteers stand in the FareShare depot in Deptford, south-east London, as shift coordinator James Souteriou calls out items. They are putting together grocery orders to be delivered to organisations across London – to a branch of the homelessness charity Thames Reach, to the Holborn Community Association and a local nursery and infants’ school. Continue reading...

Wenlock Edge, Shropshire A controversial theory claims the reason butterflies and their caterpillars look so dissimilar is down to hybridogenesisIt’s hard to imagine a creature less like a butterfly than its own caterpillar. This is particularly true for the peacock butterfly – a blue-eyed beauty blinking through the dog days of summer until it’s time to sleep behind the bedroom curtains.But here comes the peacock caterpillar – like a train made of black polka-dot upholstery armed with great spines, undulating on suckers, propelled by a single idea of destiny behind its blank mask. The last journey the caterpillar takes is alone; it moves away from its writhing knot of siblings in the nettle clump to a safe place to pupate and become something else completely. Continue reading...