Science | The Guardian

Researchers find the longest-living mammal is particularly good at fixing faulty DNA - and cold water may helpWith a maximum lifespan of more than 200 years, the bowhead whale lives longer than any other mammal. But how the 80-tonne beasts survive so long has never been fully explained.Now scientists have found hints of an answer and are drawing up plans to see whether the same biological trick can be performed in humans. If so, it raises hopes for boosting healthy ageing and protecting organs and tissues during surgery and transplantations, they say. Continue reading...

Videos about personality science are going viral on social media, but beware of giving them credence ...In the 1950s, a secretary in a San Francisco medical office noticed something weird: some of the chairs in the waiting room needed to be reupholstered more frequently than others. Patients with coronary disease, she realised, nearly always arrived on time and gravitated towards hard upholstered chairs rather than comfy sofas. They'd then sit on the edge of the chair, fidget, and aggressively leap up when their names were called.This insight took on a life of its own. First it helped inspire the cardiologists she reportedly mentioned it to - Dr Ray Rosenman and Dr Meyer Friedman, who wrote a 1959 paper that essentially invented the idea of a type A" personality. It classified competitive, productivity-obsessed workaholics as demonstrating overt behaviour pattern A", and argued they were more likely to get heart attacks. They later wrote a book, Type A Behaviour and Your Heart, which became a bestseller. Familiar story, eh? A woman has an insight which is then monetised by two men. Continue reading...

Study finds lapses of attention in sleep-deprived people coincide with wave of fluid flowing out of the brainIt's never a great look. The morning meeting is in full swing but thanks to a late night out your brain switches off at the precise moment a question comes your way.Such momentary lapses in attention are a common problem for the sleep deprived, but what happens in the brain in these spells of mental shutdown has proved hard to pin down. Continue reading...

Young people are eschewing medical trials, to their own detriment. Maybe my tales of pills, tubes and paydays can inspire a generationGen Z has a reputation for being boring". Not only do they reportedly prefer going to the gym than the pub, and staying at home and going to bed at 9pm rather than going clubbing, now they are refusing to sign up for medical trials. Back (way back) when I was a lad, it was all pubbing, clubbing and medical trials. And I've still got the scars to prove it.The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency states that all human medicines must undergo human testing before they are made widely available. This is mainly to investigate any unwanted side-effects. The cure for the common cold is no good if it also makes your genitals fall off. Alternatively, the side-effect may be useful when studied further: aspirin works as a blood thinner; some antidepressants curb nicotine withdrawal. It must have been a hell of a day when they tested Viagra and discovered some unexpected side-effects: its original purpose was to treat chest pain caused by angina. Continue reading...

A charismatic, tweed-wearing grower from Perthshire falsely claimed to be able to create thriving tea plantations in Scotland. His elaborate deception took in luxury hotels, media outlets and tea growers across the countryWith its large silver pouch, artistic label and delicate leaves, Dalreoch Scottish white tea might be expected to grace elegant cups with saucers, perhaps with a scone served on the side. Instead, it is nestled with an array of numbered polythene packets in a room just off a laboratory at the University of Aberdeen.This is not an ordinary afternoon tea but evidence in a crime that science helped solve. Continue reading...

Science correspondent Nicola Davis investigates the strange story of Tam O'Braan and his attempts to grow tea in Scotland.In episode one, Nicola looks back on her first meeting with Tam while working on a feature about tea plantations in the UK. He was selling his award-winning Scottish-grown tea to some of the UK's finest hotels, but something didn't quite add up. And Nicola wasn't the only person taking an interest in his storyClips: BBC, Food.NDTVSupport the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod Continue reading...

The answers to today's puzzlesEarlier today I set these puzzles by quizmaster extraordinaire Frank Paul. Here they are again with solutions.It strikes me that it would be a good coding challenge to find all possible examples of these puzzles using words in a standard English dictionary. Particularly number 2 - are there any strings of more than three words? I'd love to know. Continue reading...

Researchers suggest sex-specific strategies' after analysis of cardiovascular health improvementsMen may need to exercise twice as much as women to achieve the same reduction in coronary heart disease risk, according to researchers, who say healthy living guidelines should take account of the sex differences.Scientists analysed physical activity records from more than 80,000 people and found that the risk of heart disease fell 30% in women who clocked up 250 minutes of exercise each week. In contrast, men needed to reach 530 minutes, or nearly nine hours, a week to see the same effect. Continue reading...

Research shows 4K or 8K screens offer no distinguishable benefit over similarly sized 2K screen in average living roomMany modern living rooms are now dominated by a huge television, but researchers say there might be little point in plumping for an ultra-high-definition model.Scientists at the University of Cambridge and Meta, the company that owns Facebook, have found that for an average-sized living room a 4K or 8K screen offers no noticeable benefit over a similarly sized 2K screen of the sort often used in computer monitors and laptops. In other words, there is no tangible difference when it comes to how sharp an image appears to our eyes. Continue reading...

Conundrums for the crossword connoisseurToday's teasers come from pub quiz legend, Only Connect champion, and wizard of wordplay Frank Paul.One of his fortes is puzzles based on letter or word patterns, such as the ones below. Continue reading...

Catching this distinctive but faint zigzag constellation will require a dark sky, well away from street lightsTime to track down a faint gem of the northern skies. Nestled between the bright constellations of Cygnus, the swan, and the mythical mother-daughter pair of Cassiopeia and Andromeda, Lacerta, the lizard, is admittedly a faint constellation.However, picking out its distinctive shape on a cold, dark night brings a tremendous sense of accomplishment at knowing the night sky. Continue reading...

Electronic implants are helping people to see again. Their promise is profound, but so are the risks. Progress must be guided by ethics and accessibilityIn medical terms, the eye is not the window to the soul, but to the mind. The retina and the optic nerve are outgrowths of neural tissue, and the remarkable success of electronic implants in restoring sight shows how far brain-computer interfaces have come. These have not delivered a sci-fi vision of augmented humans with incredible new powers but, perhaps more happily, significant progress has been made, restoring ability and agency to those who have suffered injury or disease.People with age-related macular degeneration face a fading world. The disease, affecting about 600,000 people in the UK, causes progressive loss of central vision. There is no cure, but new trials offer something else: a new way of seeing. Continue reading...

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers' questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical conceptsWhy aren't more animals hermaphrodites? Snails and worms seem to have been successful using that method for sharing genes between any two individuals, but vertebrates evolved away from it. Why? Janet Lesley, Kent, UKSend new questions to nq@theguardian.com. Continue reading...

Given that we've literally grown up with them, we often know surprisingly little about how our bodies work. This new series aims to fill the gapsAll vertebrates yawn, or indulge in a behaviour that's at least recognisable as yawn-adjacent. Sociable baboons yawn, but so do semi-solitary orangutans. Parakeets, penguins and crocodiles yawn - and so, probably, did the first ever jawed fish. Until relatively recently, the purpose of yawning wasn't clear, and it's still contested by researchers and scientists. But this commonality provides a clue to what it's really all about - and it's probably not what you're expecting.When I poll audiences and ask: Why do you think we yawn?', most people suggest that it has to do with breathing or respiration and might somehow increase oxygen in the blood," says Andrew Gallup, a professor in behavioural biology at Johns Hopkins University. And that's intuitive because most yawns do have this clear respiratory component, this deep inhalation of air. However, what most people don't realise is that that hypothesis has been explicitly tested and shown to be false." Continue reading...

Vaccine production must be expanded to combat this ancient disease, especially in Africa. But a lack of political will is holding us back

Oxfordshire: One minute you're looking at an old, wet tree stump, the next you're looking at some veiled poisonpie or smoky polyporeMy local nature reserve used to be a Victorian rubbish dump, but now it is full of wildlife. And if you look closely on old logs on a mild, damp day you will probably see some wonders: fungi.I went to visit last week. The brightly coloured leaves were painted across the forest floor and the droplets of water on some of the berries were like diamonds. In the winter and autumn, fungi are very common. At first I didn't see many, but the deeper we went into the woodland the more we saw. They were all hard to identify, but we managed it using a couple of nature books and Shroomify, an app that identifies mushrooms. Continue reading...

Analysis of DNA from teeth of troops buried in mass grave suggests soldiers had paratyphoid fever and relapsing feverWhen Napoleon ordered his army to retreat from Russia in October 1812, disaster ensued. Starving, cold, exhausted and struggling with sickness, an estimated 300,000 soldiers died.Researchers now say they have identified two unexpected diseases among soldiers who died in the retreat - paratyphoid fever and relapsing fever - which provide fresh insights into their plight. Continue reading...

A new wave of socially engaged movies is storming the box office and changing how we think about the genreIt should surprise no one to learn that 2025 is being hailed as a golden year for horror films. All horrormovies are a reflection of their time, and oursare pretty scary.Tech dystopianism means that Frankenstein's monster has become a byword for AI, while Bram Stoker's Dracula has always drawn on a dark strain of English xenophobia. So it is no coincidence that these 19th-century gothic villains, stars of the earliest horror films in the 1920s and 30s, are back in cinemas with new adaptations from directors Guillermo del Toro and Luc Besson. Maggie Gyllenhaal is bringing out another Frankenstein, The Bride!, next year.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Successive governments criticised for doing virtually nothing' to reduce risk in decade since cancer link foundBacon and ham sold in the UK should carry cigarette-style labels warning that chemicals in them cause bowel cancer, scientists say.Their demand comes as they criticise successive British governments for doing virtually nothing" to reduce the risk from nitrites in the decade since they were found to definitely cause cancer. Continue reading...

Scientists warn of insidious risks' of increasingly popular technology that affirms even harmful behaviourTurning to AI chatbots for personal advice poses insidious risks", according to a study showing the technology consistently affirms a user's actions and opinions even when harmful.Scientists said the findings raised urgent concerns over the power of chatbots to distort people's self-perceptions and make them less willing to patch things up after a row. Continue reading...

Bharatiya Janata party launches first test flight as brown haze blankets city after Diwali - but experts decry gimmick'The Delhi regional government is trialling a cloud-seeding experiment to induce artificial rain, in an effort to clean the air in the world's most polluted city.The Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) has been proposing the use of cloud seeding as a way to bring Delhi's air pollution under control since it was elected to lead the regional government this year. Continue reading...

Dating of rock formation in New Mexico casts doubt on theory that species was already in declineDinosaurs would not have become extinct had it not been for a catastrophic asteroid strike, researchers have said, challenging the idea the animals were already in decline.About 66m years ago, during the late Cretaceous period, a huge space rock crashed into Earth, triggering a mass extinction that wiped out all dinosaurs except birds. However, some experts have argued the dinosaurs were already in decline. Continue reading...

Study of the drink beloved by Hollywood reveals chemical difference in beans passed through civets' digestive systemIt is a coffee beloved by Hollywood and influencers - now researchers say they have found an ingredient that could help explain the unique flavour of kopi luwak.Also known as civet coffee, kopi luwak is produced from coffee beans that have passed through the digestive system of the Asian palm civet. The resulting product is not only rare, but very expensive - costing about 130 for 500g. Continue reading...

Humans have been selectively breeding animals for millennia. If we can help species survive by tweaking their DNA in a lab, I say bring it onDo you think we should genetically modify wildlife? What if we could make seabirds resistant to the flu that has been exterminating them en masse, just by tweaking their DNA a smidgen? Or make fish that can shrug off pollution, or coral that can survive warming waters? Engineer in the sorts of change that could occur naturally, given enough time, if only the wildlife would stop dying already.Thanks to newly emerging methods, such as Crispr, these feats are within reach. Recently, conservationists met at the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) 2025 World Conservation Congress where they debated GM wildlife and voted on a proposed moratorium that would stymie their release into the wild. Ahead of the meeting, a group of more than 90 NGOs issued a press release urging the IUCN to say no to engineered wild species." But humans have been altering the DNA of other species for millennia.Helen Pilcher is a science writer and the author of Bring Back the King: The New Science of De-Extinction Continue reading...

Deal between Airbus, Leonardo and Thales is expected to create company with annual revenue of 5.6bnAirbus, Leonardo and Thales have struck a deal to combine their space businesses to create a single European technology company that could rival Elon Musk's SpaceX.The deal is expected to create a company with annual revenue of about 6.5bn (5.6bn). The French aerospace company Airbus will own 35% of the new business, with Leonardo and Thales each owning stakes of 32.5%. Continue reading...

The NHS warns against using GLP-1s while breastfeeding - for the baby's sake as well as the mother's. But how much does that count when they're so readily available and there's so much pressure to bounce back'?Lydia* first started thinking about weight-loss drugs during pregnancy. Everyone was talking about them and the advertisements were everywhere," she says, as her baby son naps upstairs. I remember thinking: That's how I'll lose weight for my wedding next year.'"When Lydia explains that most of her life before pregnancy was spent in a welter of yo-yo dieting and body dissatisfaction, I say to her that I think most of us can relate. Her pregnancy, however, brought a level of body acceptance and contentment that the 33-year-old from Wales had never had before. Continue reading...

An electronic eye implant half the thickness of a human hair has helped people with incurable sight loss to see again, opening up a potential new era' in tackling blindness. Madeleine Finlay hears from Mahi Muqit, a surgeon from Moorfields eye hospital in London, about what this implant has meant for his patients and what the future could hold for vision-loss therapiesClips: BBC Continue reading...

Semaglutide study suggests such drugs could have wider benefits, though researchers find shrinking waistlines linked to better heart outcomesThe weight-loss drug semaglutide cuts the risk of heart attack or stroke regardless of how many kilograms people lose, the largest study of its kind has found.However, shrinking waist size - a sign of less belly fat - was linked to better heart outcomes, according to the research. Continue reading...

Scientist whose research into transuranic elements revised the understanding of nuclear fissionDarleane Hoffman's research into superheavy radioactive elements at the University of California's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and, prior to that, at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, enhanced and extensively revised our knowledge of those elements and, consequently, our understanding of nuclear fission. Her success led, in 2002, to Discover magazine declaring her one of the 50 most important women in science.Hoffman, who has died aged 98, explored the chemical and nuclear properties of transuranic elements - those heavier than uranium. All are radioactively unstable. Most have a short half-life: existing for only a brief period before decaying, sometimes mere milliseconds. This makes them difficult to study, but, during the 1950s, Hoffman realised that characterising their properties could help us better comprehend the emerging science of nuclear fission, which involved splitting the atoms of these heavy elements to release the large amounts of energy necessary to power the first generation of commercial nuclear reactors. Continue reading...

Notable variations between different medications were found in weight gain or loss, heart rate and blood pressurePeople taking certain types of antidepressants can gain up to 2kg (4.5lbs) in weight within the first two months of treatment, while patients taking other drugs can lose the equivalent or more, according to a major review of potential side-effects.The research, led by academics at King's College London and the University of Oxford, found that while some antidepressants can cause notable changes in body weight, heart rate and blood pressure, others do not cause such physical changes. Continue reading...

Gene-edited animals remained healthy when exposed to highly contagious deadly diseasePigs that are resistant to a deadly viral disease have been created by scientists at Edinburgh's Roslin Institute.The gene-edited animals remained healthy when exposed to classical swine fever (CSF), a highly contagious and often fatal disease. The virus was eradicated in the UK in 1966, but there have been several outbreaks since and it continues to pose a major threat to pig farming worldwide. Continue reading...

In writing about my mother, Jenny Cox, I mentioned that she was refused permission to do her botany PhD research on the island of South Georgia purely because she was a woman. Though she saw this as an injustice for the rest of her life, she never revealed any details of what happened.The efficient archive service at the British Antarctic Survey have now made available a letter from Sir Vivian Fuchs dated 7 October 1959. He still wanted my mother to do UK-based lab work on existing specimens. However, he refused her or any other women access to the island, citing accommodation and severe conditions in the field. Continue reading...

Scientists are using DNA from sediments to learn more about Earth's past, including new revelations about the woolly mammothFossilisation is rare. Most living things disappear without trace, recycled back into planet Earth.But in some environments the DNA from living things binds to the soil and rock, leaving a marker of their existence for hundreds of thousands or even millions of years. Continue reading...

Researchers say the target significantly reduces risk of dying and lowers likelihood of cardiovascular diseaseOlder people who only walk 4,000 daily steps once a week still reduce their risk of dying early by a quarter, a study suggests.Staying active is known to bring a wide range of health benefits. But many people in their 60s, 70s and beyond may struggle for a variety of reasons to maintain the step count they used to reach. Until now it has been unclear how much people need to do as they age to reap the rewards. Continue reading...

SpaceX owner said Sean Duffy was trying to kill Nasa' after acting head said agency would reopen contracts for Artemis missionElon Musk attacked Sean Duffy, the US secretary of transportation, on Tuesday in a series of posts on X, accusing him of trying to kill NASA", suggesting he should be fired and calling him Sean Dummy". The posts intensified a long-running feud between Duffy, who is also the acting head of Nasa, and Musk, whose company SpaceX is central to the US space program.Musk's tirade against Duffy followed a statement from the transportation secretary on Tuesday that Nasa would reopen contracts for the agency's Artemis mission to land humans on the moon, which SpaceX had previously secured. Duffy said that SpaceX had fallen behind on its timelines. Duffy suggested the contract might go to another billionaire's rocket company, Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin. Continue reading...

Theoretical physicist who won the Nobel prize for his work on the forces acting on fundamental subatomic particlesChen-Ning Yang, the Chinese American theoretical physicist, who has died aged 103, won the Nobel prize in physics in 1957.It was during a period at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New Jersey, in 1950 that Yang (also known as CN Yang, or Frank Yang) befriended another young Chinese emigre, Tsung-Dao Lee. They shared the Nobel prize for work that overthrew the widely accepted parity laws" - that the forces acting on fundamental subatomic particles are symmetric between left and right. In the popular description, they overthrew the concept of mirror symmetry". Although the Nobel was for this work, performed in 1956, the most far-reaching of Yang's many contributions to theoretical physics had come earlier. Continue reading...

After overdoses left them with brain injuries and lasting complications, Americans are struggling to get proper care. Experts call it another epidemic

Iida Turpeinen's novel has been a sensation in her native Finland. On the eve of its UK publication, she talks about her compulsion to tell of the sociable giant's plightIida Turpeinen is the author of Beasts of the Sea, a Finnish novel tracing the fate of a now-extinct species: the sea cow. Similar to dugongs and manatees, the sea cow was only discovered in 1741 by the shipwrecked German-born naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller but by 1768 it had already become the first marine species to be eradicated by humans.Translated into 28 languages and shortlisted for the country's most prestigious literary award, the Finlandia Prize, Beasts of the Sea was described by the Helsinki Literacy Agency as the most internationally successful Finnish debut novel ever. Turpeinen, 38, a PhD student of comparative literature, is now a resident novelist at Finland's Natural History Museum. Her book will be published in the UK on 23 October. Continue reading...

As biodiversity declines, locating and conserving the planet's plant life is becoming more important. The Millennium seed bank in Wakehurst, West Sussex, has been doing just that for 25 years, collecting and storing seeds and keeping them in trust for countries all over the world should they ever be needed. To mark the anniversary, Patrick Greenfield took a tour of the site. He tells Madeleine Finlay about the journey a seed takes from arrival to cold storage, and how some are already helping to return endangered plant species to the wildSupport the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod Continue reading...

Expected reduction in contributions by wealthy countries likely to cost millions of lives and billions in lost growthSlashed contributions from wealthy countries to an anti-malaria fund could allow a resurgence of the disease, costing millions of lives and billions of pounds by the end of the decade, according to a new analysis.The fight against malaria faces new threats, including extreme weather and humanitarian crises increasing the number of people exposed, and growing biological resistance to insecticides and drugs, the report warns. Continue reading...

Unrelated cases mark first time clade I of disease formerly known as monkeypox has spread within US, officials sayThree California residents have been infected with clade I mpox, a more severe strain of the virus formerly known as monkeypox - marking the first time this type of mpox has spread within the US, health officials said on Friday.The unrelated cases, identified in Long Beach and Los Angeles county, involve patients who had not recently traveled abroad. All three were hospitalized and are now recovering, according to the California department of public health. Continue reading...

Nasa head said agency is opening up contracts for crewed lunar program Artemis after SpaceX had to delay timelinesNasa is looking to contract with other companies for its crewed lunar program as Elon Musk's SpaceX is behind" on its timeline, the space agency said on Monday.In an interview with CNBC, Sean Duffy, transportation secretary and interim head of Nasa, said the agency was not going to wait for one company" as it pushes forward with its Artemis program to get astronauts on to the moon. Continue reading...

Sight of 84% of people with form of age-related macular degeneration restored after being fitted with deviceAn electronic eye implant half the thickness of a human hair has helped people with incurable sight loss to see again, opening up a potential new era" in tackling blindness.Doctors who implanted the sim card-shaped prosthetic devices say they have helped many of the 38 elderly patients in the trial regain their ability to read letters, numbers and words. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Data shows gen Z could miss out on new treatments because so few sign up for trials and studies in England

Early birds on the east coast will have the best chance of seeing this annual astral light show

The speed of the shower creates swift, bright streaks across the night sky, at a typical rate of 20 meteors an hourAs seasoned meteor spotters will tell you, each meteor shower has its own peculiar characteristics. Earlier in the month, the Draconids were characterised by their slow-moving meteors. The Orionids, on the other hand, are zippy.Barrelling into the atmosphere at about 66 km/s, they create swift, bright streaks that linger for a few moments after the meteor has passed. The chart shows the view looking east from London at 00.30 BST in the early hours of 22 October. Continue reading...

Why are the online far right so successful in shaping our political language? With Dr Robert TopinkaAt a press conference in September, Reform UK announced a seismic policy proposal - the end of indefinite leave to remain for immigrants. This change, which would drastically transform the UK immigration system, was justified by a supposed need to tackle the Boriswave".At first glance, the Boriswave portmanteau might be understood as merely a description of the post-Brexit pattern of heightened migration but, as the reactionary digital politics expert Dr Robert Topinka explains to Helen Pidd, the term was generated by the extremely online far right" and originally used as a racial epithet. Topinka describes how it carries a right-leaning framing, whether its users are aware of it or not. Continue reading...

Triple-action therapy drug amivantamab could be given as an injection to help treat recurrent or metastatic cancersDoctors have hailed incredibly encouraging" trial results that show a triple-action smart jab can shrink tumours in head and neck cancer patients within six weeks.Head and neck cancer is the world's sixth most common form of the disease. If it spreads or comes back after standard treatment, patients may be offered immunotherapy and platinum chemotherapy. But if this fails, there is often little else doctors can do. Continue reading...

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers' questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical conceptsWhy aren't more animals hermaphrodites? Snails and worms seem to have been successful using that method for sharing genes between any two individuals, but vertebrates evolved away from it. Why? Janet Lesley, Kent, UKPost your answers (and new questions) below or send them to nq@theguardian.com. A selection will be published next Sunday. Continue reading...

Once dismissed as a sign of low intelligence, researchers now argue the power' of taboo words has been overlookedWhen researchers asked people around the world to list every taboo word they could think of, the differences that emerged were revealing. The length of each list, for example, varied widely.While native English speakers in the UK and Spanish speakers in Spain rattled off an average of 16 words, Germans more than tripled this with an average of 53 words ranging from intelligenzallergiker, a person allergic to intelligence, to hodenkobold, or testicle goblin", someone who is being annoying. Continue reading...