Science | The Guardian

Kelly and Zach Weinersmith's book overturns Elon Musk's claim that we could live on the red planet within years while stressing the good reasons to pursue space settlementA book debunking Elon Musk's claims that humans could live on Mars in the near future has won the 25,000 Royal Society Trivedi science book prize.A City on Mars by American couple Kelly and Zach Weinersmith was announced as the winning book at a ceremony at the Royal Society in London on Thursday evening.A City on Mars by Dr. Kelly Weinersmith & Zach Weinersmith (Penguin Books Ltd, 25). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply. Continue reading...

Official hails discovery of great significance' on Port Island, with remains of as yet unknown species to go on display in shopping district on FridayHong Kong officials say they have discovered dinosaur fossils in the city for the first time, on a remote and uninhabited island.The fossils were part of a large dinosaur from the Cretaceous period, about 145m to 66m years ago, the government said in a statement. They will need to conduct further studies to confirm the species of the dinosaur. Continue reading...

Those who have a stroke are 35% less likely to have another if drugs given earlier than they are now, research findsPeople with irregular heartbeats who have a stroke are 35% less likely to have a second stroke if they are given blood-thinning drugs earlier than currently recommended, research has found.There are more than 1.6 million people in the UK with atrial fibrillation - an irregular heartbeat. The condition can lead to a clot forming inside the heart, which can travel to the brain, blocking the blood supply and causing a stroke. Continue reading...

News of the 20m scheme comes as new drug for Alzheimer's was rejected for use on NHS in EnglandTens of thousands of dementia patients are to be enrolled in clinical trials designed to dramatically speed up the hunt for a cure, leading scientists have announced, as a second treatment was rejected for use on the NHS.Dementia presents a rapidly growing threat to health and social care services, with soaring numbers of people affected. But despite the urgent need for cheap and effective drugs to treat the condition, only 61 patients took part in trials in the UK in 2021-22. Continue reading...

With less than two weeks until the US election, Madeleine Finlay speaks to climate activist and author Bill McKibben to find out what a win for Donald Trump could mean for the environment and the world's climate goalsIf Trump wins the election, this is what's at stakeSupport the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod Continue reading...

Superhuman' technology known as Aire can detect potential problems doctors cannot see from ECG resultsThe NHS in England is to trial a superhuman" artificial intelligence tool that predicts a patient's risk of disease and dying early.The new technology, known as AI-ECG risk estimation, or Aire, is trained to read the results of electrocardiogram (ECG) tests, which record the electrical activity of the heart and are used to check for problems. Continue reading...

Researchers say findings differ from previous theories that words are understood one by oneWhether it is news headlines or WhatsApp messages, modern humans are inundated with short pieces of text. Now researchers say they have unpicked how we get their gist in a single glance.Prof Liina Pylkkanen, co-author of the study from New York University, said most theories of language processing assume words are understood one by one, in sequence, before being combined to yield the meaning of the whole sentence. Continue reading...

Surprising' finding by Australian-led study is first recorded instance of one antibiotic causing resistance to another in a different classThe rise of an almost untreatable superbug has been linked to a common antibiotic, an Australian-led study has found.The study - published in Nature - found that rifaximin, an antibiotic used to treat liver disease, causes resistance to another antibiotic, daptomycin. Continue reading...

Researchers hope to recreate entire bodies of ancient creatures using paleo-inspired roboticsA robotic Tyrannosaurus rex might seem best placed in a Jurassic horror movie but researchers say machines based on extinct animals could help shed light on evolution.Scientists say the nascent field of paleo-inspired robotics" can bring fossils to life and help researchers explore how changes in anatomy have affected the way animals move, their speed, and how much energy they use. Continue reading...

Cases of bonebreak fever' are on the rise, mostly in Latin America, Africa and south-east Asia. But incidences in Europe and the US are also being recorded - with an estimated 4 billion people at risk worldwideThe fatigue was so bad I couldn't stand, and that's terrible when you need to take care of a child, right? My head hurt, my eyes hurt - I couldn't keep them open for long," remembers Ana Luisa Braga.The 38-year-old, a social worker and mother of a three-year-old, from Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais state in Brazil, fell ill with dengue fever in March. Continue reading...

Myths about the madness of crowds, long propagated by politicians and the establishment, have been overturned by new researchI don't expect measured analysis from Suella Braverman, but even so I was taken aback this time last year when I heard that she had described the Palestine solidarity demos as hate marches". Earlier that week I had walked with my friends - some Jewish like me, some not - in a crowd of 500,000 others over Waterloo Bridge, and looked west down the Thames towards parliament, as a British Muslim girl of about eight years old led chants through a loudhailer: Gaza, Gaza, don't you cry / We will never let you die."In many years of attending and reporting on protests, rallies, general strikes and riots, I have rarely experienced more orderly, peaceful, family-oriented mass gatherings than these demonstrations. Continue reading...

Jab could bring huge health and economic benefits as virus often spreads rapidly and can be seriousDoctors have begun trialling the world's first mRNA vaccine against the vomiting bug norovirus in the hope the jab could bring huge health and economic benefits.Norovirus causes sickness and diarrhoea and can spread very rapidly between people who are in close contact, with outbreaks often occurring in hospitals, care homes, schools and nurseries. Continue reading...

The US sociologist's study of psychoactive fungi to treat little-known medical conditions such as cluster headaches is well researched and wide-rangingOf all the symptoms with which illness acquaints us, pain is famously the most difficult to quantify. Both a somatic and psychic experience, pain is a chameleon and stubbornly private. As Virginia Woolf observes in her essay On Being Ill, how can prose capture the nature of this monster, this body, this miracle, its pain without slipping into mysticism"?If pain is challenging for a writer, it is even more so for a doctor. Is a patient who is presenting with pain in as much discomfort and distress as they say they are? And, if so, how to treat them? And what if they are a malingerer or a hysteric and by alleviating their symptoms you reinforce their psychopathology? Continue reading...

Peter White, Trudie Chalder and Michael Sharpe, and Dr Jake Hollis, respond to an article by George MonbiotWe agree with George Monbiot that the death of Maeve Boothby O'Neill was tragic and should have been avoided. Unfortunately, Monbiot draws generalisations from her sad death that are based on a view of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) that is itself outdated (Maeve Boothby O'Neill died because of a discredited view of ME. How was this allowed to happen?, 18 October).Monbiot suggests such illnesses are generally thought of as either physiological or psychological. This is an outdated dualistic view of any illness, let alone ME/CFS. It has been shown that many such illnesses are the result of a dynamic interaction between biological, psychological and social mechanisms. Just one example of our own research showed the important role of certain viruses in triggering the illness. Continue reading...

People with working sense of smell sniff more than those with anosmia, with possible implications for healthPeople born without a sense of smell breathe differently to those with one, researchers have found, which could help explain why problems with odour perception are associated with a host of health issues.While some have dismissed the sense of smell as unimportant - Charles Darwin said it was of extremely slight service" to humans - studies have associated its loss with depression, feelings of personal isolation and even an increased risk of early death. Continue reading...

Madeleine Finlay hears from Ted Schultz, curator of ants at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, about his recent study into the origins of fungi farming in ants. He tells Madeleine about the incredibly complex way that ants cultivate and protect their fungi gardens, and how the asteroid that hit Earth 66 million years ago could have kickstarted it allSupport the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod Continue reading...

Using cutting-edge methods, Alexandra Morton-Hayward is cracking the secrets of ancient brains - even as hers betrays herAlexandra Morton-Hayward, a 35-year-old mortician turned molecular palaeontologist, had been behind the wheel of her rented Vauxhall for five hours, motoring across three countries, when a torrential storm broke loose on the plains of Belgium. Her wipers pulsed at full speed as the green fields of Flanders turned a blurry grey. Behind her sat a small, black picnic cooler. Within 24 hours, it would be full of human brains - not modern specimens, but brains that had contemplated this landscape as far back as the middle ages and had, miraculously, remained intact.For centuries, archaeologists have been perplexed by discoveries of ancient skeletons devoid of all soft tissue, except what Morton-Hayward cheerfully described as just a brain rattling around in a skull". At Oxford, where she is a doctoral candidate, she has gathered the world's largest collection of ancient brains, some as old as 8,000 years. Additionally, after poring over centuries of scientific literature, she has tallied a staggering catalogue of cases - more than 4,400 preserved brains as old as 12,000 years. Using advanced technologies such as mass spectrometry and particle accelerators, she is leading a new effort to reveal the molecular secrets that have enabled some human brains to survive longer than Stonehenge or the Great Pyramid of Giza. Continue reading...

Findings from phase two trial suggest patients could receive treatment without having to attend a clinicPeople with major depression could alleviate their symptoms by self-administering a form of electrical brain stimulation at home, according to a clinical trial of the therapy.Patients who took a 10-week course of the treatment were about twice as likely to see their depression go into remission than those in a control group who performed the same procedure with the current switched off. Continue reading...

I have unbridled lust when faced with a buffet - as do many others. But penalties for overfilling our plates are only one possible answer ...Should you be penalised for having eyes bigger than your belly? A Cornish pub is trying it out: Mark Graham, the landlord of the Star Inn, now charges 2.40 a person for buffet excess leftovers". A few spuds is obviously no problem," Graham told a customer who complained, but said that buffet behaviour was out of control, citing a plate piled so high you could put a ladder and a flag on top of it".I can believe it. I lose my mind faced with a buffet, although I usually clean my plate (gravely regretting my choices in the hours that follow). Are we our best selves as we take up tongs in the glow of the heating lamps? That depends which side of the chafing dish you are standing on. Our hunter-gatherer instincts are capable of making any food and beverage professional quake; call it Homo Harvester. Continue reading...

Delegates from 196 countries are discussing progress in preserving biodiversity. So what are the sticking points?Every two years, leaders from around the world gather to discuss the state of life on Earth, negotiating agreements to preserve biodiversity and stop the destruction of nature. This week, representatives of 196 countries are gathering in Cali, Colombia, for the 16th UN Conference of the Parties summit (Cop16).It is the first biodiversity-focused meeting since 2022, when governments struck a historic deal to halt the destruction of ecosystems. Scientists, Indigenous communities, business representatives and environment ministers from nearly 200 countries will discuss progress towards the targets and negotiate how they will be monitored. Here are the main things to look out for during the summit.Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow the biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on X for all the latest news and features Continue reading...

Project examines how switch to winter time affects wellbeing - either positive or negative - and time perceptionDoes the prospect of darker evenings make you feel gloomy, or will you relish the extra hour in bed for one morning? Scientists are launching a study to better understand how the annual switch back to winter time affects people's wellbeing and time perception - and they need your help.In the UK, the clocks are due to go back at 2am on Sunday 27 October. Previous studies have largely focused on the negative effects of the spring transition to daylight saving time (DST) on people's sleep, cognitive performance and propensity to accidents, but less is known about the impact of the autumn change - or how these biannual events affect our perception of the passage of time. Continue reading...

Everyone feels like a shrinking violet now and then, but it needn't hold you back. Experts share their tips for speaking out, socialising and leaving timidity behindWhen Laura, 34, was growing up in a genteel neighbourhood in Edinburgh, her parents taught her that the worst thing a person could do was make a show of themselves. By that, they meant wearing bright colours, laughing or talking loudly; doing anything at all to attract attention."Although she deplored their attitude, Laura finds she has inherited their mindset. The other Sunday, I had to have a difficult conversation with a neighbour about their incessantly barking dog. They ended up shouting at me and I wanted the earth to swallow me up. There were other people around and I'm sure they were all wondering what I had done to create this scene. I can't stop replaying it in my mind." Continue reading...

Space agency has expanded its diplomatic reach in recent months, signing 12 of 45 signatories since JanuaryIt was a simple pledge made amid the excitement of a landmark moment in space exploration: We go together," Bill Nelson, the head of Nasa, promised the world as the agency prepared to launch Artemis 1, its first moon-capable rocket in more than half a century.Now, nearly two years on from that successful uncrewed mission, and as the US - despite delays - edges ever closer to placing humans on the lunar surface for the first time since 1972, the resonance of Nelson's message has become clear. Continue reading...

By writing a book about Korean myths, a writer learned that the old stories ran deep in her familyIn my childhood homes, I grew up with Korean culture all around me. For years we had a woodblock print of a tiger (intended to ward off evil spirits) on top of our bookcase, a print of the 10 symbols of longevity and a shamanic dance mask of a syphilitic monk mounted on our wall, ancient Silla-style and celadon pottery on a bookshelf and carved wooden wedding ducks on a side table. All of these things were like background noise to me - they were just normal.When I was an infant, my father would lift me up and chant the Korean phonemes, Ga, na, da, ra..." to me to ensure I would be able to pronounce all the sounds of the language. As I grew, he would sing me Korean children's songs and say rhymes. I still remember all the words to Mountain Rabbit and Forsythia. Sythia, sythia, forsythia, pluck one, put it in your mouth." Still, I used to have trouble pronouncing the plosive letters, of which there are no equivalent in English, and telling the difference between the short and long o" sounds. Continue reading...

Research at the Francis Crick Institute could lead to new drugs to counter progress of diseases like Alzheimer'sBritish scientists are about to launch a remarkable research project that will demonstrate how the air we breathe can affect our brains. This work will be vital, they say, in understanding a major medical problem: how atmospheric pollution can trigger dementia.In recent years, scientists have discovered that air pollution is one of the most pernicious threats to human health and have shown it is involved in causing cancer, heart disease, diabetes, low birthrates, and many health conditions. Continue reading...

The researcher spent 10 years studying how attitude affects mood and behaviour, and her new book shares ways in which we can learn to value the colder monthsKari Leibowitz holds a PhD in social psychology from Stanford University, where she studied the role of our mindsets on our health and wellbeing. For the past 10 years, Leibowitz has been investigating people's attitudes to winter and the ways they can powerfully affect our mood and behaviour - research that has culminated in her debut book, How to Winter: Harnessing Your Mindset to Thrive in Cold, Dark Or Difficult Times.As a Fulbright scholar, you moved from Atlanta to the University of Tromso in Norway. The polar night there lasts for almost two months. How did that experience inform your views of winter?

Recognized as a religion by the IRS, the group uses the religious right's tactics, and their victories, against themThe devil works hard, but the Republican party works harder. Not a day seems to go by without anti-abortion zealots on the right advancing some cunning new plan to strip women of their bodily autonomy. As well as shutting down abortion clinics, Republican states are trying to essentially outlaw abortion pills: on Friday, Missouri, Kansas and Idaho renewed a legal push to drastically reduce access to mifepristone. Continue reading...

Researchers hope to uncover how people died and how diseases have developed over 1,000 yearsDeep beneath the streets of Paris, thedead are having their last word. They are recounting 1,000 years of death in the city: how many are buried in the labyrinth of tunnels that make up Les Catacombes, what killed them and how the diseases that may have led to their demise have developed over the centuries.In the first ever scientific study of the site, a team of archeologists, anthropologists, biologists and doctors is examining some of the skeletons of an estimated 5-6 million people whose bones were literally dumped down quarry shafts at the end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th. Continue reading...

From chaotic collisions to depletion of the ozone layer, the thousands of satellites in orbit around Earth have the potential to wreak havoc in coming decades. What are the solutions to a growing menace?Since the start of the space age, we've had a throwaway culture - a bit like plastics in the ocean," says Nick Shave, managing director of Astroscale UK, an in-orbit servicing company headquartered in Japan.Getting a satellite into orbit around the Earth used to be a big deal. From the launch of the first, Sputnik, in 1957, as it became easier and cheaper to put satellites into space, the numbers have boomed. In 2022, there were about 6,000 and by 2030, one estimate suggests there will be nearly 60,000 satellites in orbit around our planet. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Lack of formal oversight means anyone can set up in practice and continue to work after misconduct cases, campaigners say

Guardian and Hope Not Hate investigation has raised the stakes' over threat posed by rightwing ideologyHealth institutions and policymakers need to wake up" to the danger posed by scientific racism and attempts to normalise an ideology that poses a significant threat to minority communities, thinktanks have warned.The Institute of Race Relations, the Race Equality Foundation and Race on the Agenda say they have been raising their voices about the return of race science" beliefs as a subject of open public debate over the past few years, with little response from national institutions. Continue reading...

Researchers urge caution after Jordan tomb excavation and say new clues about Nabataean culture may lie elsewhereFor one of the most famous ancient sites on the planet, there is a surprising amount about the city of Petra - and the Nabataean people who built it - that we don't know for sure.What exactly were their origins? How did their society operate? And why did they hand-carve such spectacular monuments into the reddish rock of the Jordanian desert? Continue reading...

Deborah Anna Luepnitz and Desmond Hewitt respond to Jacqueline Rose's article on the great psychoanalystI agree with Jacqueline Rose about Freud's continued relevance to our understanding of sexualities (What Sigmund Freud can teach us about the Middle East and #MeToo, 10 October). One could argue that the contemporary movement for marriage equality began with Freud, given his refusal to pathologise homosexuality. Many people assume that the Oedipus complex is meant to produce boys who will grow up loving women, and girls who will love men (I would call that Oedipus simplex").I wish Rose had mentioned what Freud called the complete Oedipus complex", which suggests that every child forms both same-sex and cross-sex attractions. Littleboys can have romantic feelings for Daddy as well as Mommy, as his famous case of Little Hans showed. For whatever reason, it does seem to be true that younger people are giving Freud a second look. In the past five years, 12 universities in the US have made it possible for students to obtain aminor - study a secondary subject - in psychoanalytic studies". At the University of Pennsylvania,whereIhave taught, these courses are attracting a surprising number of students.

Study finds that breaking up your exercise is more effective, but Tim Dowling remains to be convincedLet me start by saying that I am not looking for ways to be more tired. I'm tired enough. However, a study suggesting that exercise punctuated by frequent breaks requires more energy than steady-state" exertion has a certain counterintuitive attraction: I can exercise better by resting more.The results of the study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, are striking. Volunteers on treadmills and stair climbers used 20-60% more oxygen when walking in bursts of 10-30 seconds than they did covering the same distance without stopping. This apparently has something to do with the sheer inefficiency of stop-start activity. We found that when starting from rest, a significant amount of oxygen is consumed to start walking," said the study's author, Francesco Luciano. We incur this cost regardless of whether we then walk for 10 or 30 seconds, so it proportionally weighs more for shorter rather than longer bouts." Would this strategy, I wondered, work for me? Continue reading...

A startup in the US, Heliospect, appears to be preparing to launch a service to enable parents to select desirable' traits

Heliospect's services were marketed at up to $50,000 for 100 embryos, undercover footage shows

Chronic fatigue syndrome is as physiological as a broken leg. For the sake of those who have it, we must learn all we can from this tragic caseHow could this happen in the 21st century? This question could apply to many issues, but this one sends you reeling. A brilliant and lively young woman with a common illness was repeatedly disbelieved, dismissed and given inappropriate treatment, until she starved to death. It is a terrible result of the most remarkable situation I've ever encountered in either medicine or journalism.Last week, the coroner at the inquest into the death of Maeve Boothby O'Neill published her damning report on the prevention of future deaths. Maeve was suffering from myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), a condition afflicting hundreds of thousands in the UK. ME/CFS robs those who have it of energy. Severe cases can shut down every aspect of their lives. Continue reading...

Research is one of 11 projects part of a 12m government plan to reduce drug overdoses with new technologyResearchers are building a virtual reality world to help people overcome their cocaine addiction by repeatedly exposing them to tempting scenarios in a safe environment.The project draws on the experiences of drug users to create tailored 3D experiences, such as being alone in a flat or at a party with friends, where people can be immersed via a VR headset in realistic situations that trigger the urge to take drugs. Continue reading...

Once thought extinct after the fall of empire, this debunked practice has re-emerged with support from rogue experts and rich backersCivilisation is going to pieces ... if we don't look out the white race will be - will be utterly submerged. It's all scientific stuff; it's been proved." Sentiments like this will be familiar to those who lurk in the less wholesome corners of the internet, where racism and other bigotries flourish. As a geneticist who specialises in racism and eugenics, I lurk so that you don't have to.However, this particular phantom threat comes from Tom Buchanan, Daisy's brutish husband, barking these unsolicited words at supper in the opening pages of The Great Gatsby. F Scott Fitzgerald paints a picture of upper-class ghouls that is fundamentally accurate: eugenics, race and the menace of immigrants were defining campaigning issues in Jazz-era America, as they were in Edwardian Britain.Dr Adam Rutherford is a lecturer in genetics at UCL and the author of How to Argue With a RacistThis article was updated on 18 October 2024 to add details of partners participating in a recent Guardian investigation into a race science" network. Continue reading...

We would like to hear from people who volunteered for UK Biobank after a possible breach of controls on dataWe would like to hear from people who donated their health information to UK Biobank. The Guardian has revealed that a group of race science" researchers claim to have obtained a large" haul of the data UK Biobank holds.

Exclusive: Fringe network recorded boasting of securing data from UK Biobank trove donated by 500,000 volunteers

An artful account of a scientific genius and her female disciples leaves Marie Curie's inner life an enigmaTo write a biography of a figure as well known as Marie Curie and still offer something fresh or surprising is no easy undertaking. The double Nobel prizewinner is, as author Dava Sobel acknowledges, the only female scientist most people can name. She has inspired more biopics and biographies than I can count, including those written by her two daughters. Parents of young children will have encountered her story in almost every one of the worthy children's anthologies that adorn school bookshelves: she features in Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls, She Persisted Around the World and Little People, Big Dreams.To help shed new light on such an iconic figure, Sobel, a bestselling writer of science histories, has interwoven her account of Curie's life and scientific discoveries with those of dozens of female scientists who passed through her lab in Paris. Continue reading...

Institute for AI and data science sends memo saying it will concentrate on fewer projectsThe UK's national institute for artificial intelligence and data science has launched a consultation process that could lead to redundancies among its 440 staff.In a memo sent to staff this month the Alan Turing Institute gave an update on its new strategy, under which it will concentrate on fewer projects. Continue reading...

As the sleep tracking industry booms, some worry that it could be driving orthosomnia, the medical term for an unhealthy obsession with attaining perfect sleep, usually driven by a wearable device. Madeleine Finlay speaks to consultant neurologist and sleep physician Dr Guy Leschziner to find out whether this tech is helping or hindering our chances of maximising sleep's health benefitsClips: @sabreenawadhwani, @_bryan_johnson_, @everythingemmaleseSleep perfectionists: the exhausting rise of orthosomnia Continue reading...

The world has long been in thrall to the idea that Japan is a haven of controlled, ordered minimalism. But the reality is much different - and far messier - than you might expect

A well-preserved thylacine head was a gruesome sight - but it also contained RNA molecules crucial to reconstructing the extinct animal's genomeBreakthroughs sometimes turn up in unexpected places. The researchers working on the international push to bring back the thylacine say they found theirs in a long-ignored bucket in the back of a cupboard at a Melbourne museum.It contained an astonishingly well-preserved head of the extinct marsupial, also known as the Tasmanian tiger. Continue reading...

Research suggests the marine animals are inhaling pollutants when they come up for air, with even rural populations affectedMicroplastics have been found in dolphin breath for the first time, according to a study that suggests the marine mammals are inhaling the potentially harmful contaminants when they come up for air.The US research team, whose preliminary findings are published in the journal, Plos One, are concerned about the potential impact of inhaled plastics on the animals' lungs. Continue reading...

Researchers say people who sit or stand for long periods should schedule regular movements throughout the dayThey have been billed as the ultimate antidote to sitting in front of a screen all day at the office. But a study suggests standing desks, which have soared in popularity in recent years, do not compensate for being inactive and may even increase the risk of conditions such as swollen veins and blood clots in the legs.Research involving more than 80,000 adults in the UK has also discovered that standing does not reduce the risk of diseases such as stroke and heart failure, despite the widely held belief that it does. Continue reading...

Ordaining women | Zeno's walking paradox | Mating mallards | Billionaires' boats | Google goes nuclear | Not in for a pennyConcerning your editorial (The Guardian view on women in the Catholic church: let down yet again, 13 October), it may be worth pondering that the great defender of Catholicism, Thomas More, included in his Utopia (1516) the following description: Male priests are allowed to marry - for there's nothing to stop a woman from becoming a priest, although women aren't often chosen for the job, and only elderly widows are eligible."

Clues in painting suggest Francis Williams successfully managed to compute and witness trajectory of Halley's comet over Jamaica in 1759It was painted to celebrate the groundbreaking achievements of a mathematical genius who was Black and had been born into slavery. But for more than 260 years, that great scientific intellect of Francis Williams went unnoticed.Now, clues exposed by an X-ray and high-resolution scans of the painting have finally revealed the extraordinary secret that 18th-century advocates of slavery sought to keep hidden. Continue reading...