On a former cattle farm in the remote outback, scientists are laying the ground for the biggest science project of the next 20 years: a radio telescope capable of picking out something like an airport radar on a planet in another solar system. Turn on your phone at your peril, because preserving radio quiet here is priority number one• The world’s most powerful radio telescopeIn outback Western Australia, around 350k northeast of the small town of Geraldton, lies an area of land about the size of the Netherlands, but with only 100 humans living in it: the shire of Murchison.The land looks beautiful but far from unusual as you head up the long red road north – mostly pancake flat and scrubby, with here or there the spark of a winter flower, a kangaroo or a sudden, luminous outcrop. Continue reading...

As a physicist, I never cease to be amazed by the miraculous insights that continue to be garnered via scientific exploration (Pluto: the furthest frontier, 16 July). To successfully send a spacecraft billions of miles away to photograph and study a tiny, forbidding, cold and alien body demonstrates how far the human race has come. If only our leaders would set their sights on furthering the human race rather than destroying it, one could only imagine how far we may travel in the future.

Stephen Hawking’s right: we explore because we’re human. But those who shout the loudest will get the most money, regardless of the social dividendThe two headlines were next to each other. “Prisons worst for 10 years”, and “Snow on Pluto”. The juxtaposition may seem unfair, but how to react? Presumably to the first with anger, and the second with excitement. Compared with the remorseless grime of humans, astronomy offered an escape, a cause for joy, a vision of futurity. Stephen Hawking congratulated the Pluto team. “We explore because we are human beings,” he said, “and we want to know.”The trouble is that those baffled by Britain’s obsession with incarceration might say the same. Each week we tip more people into prison and treat them a little worse. We know it is a waste and doesn’t work, but don’t know why or what to do about it. Continue reading...

Study on human screaming at New York University reveals how rapid rate of wide unperceived volume changes or ‘roughness’ elicits emotional responseHuman screams have a unique acoustic property that triggers the brain’s fear centre more effectively than almost any other sound, scientists have found.After testing a variety of noises, including human speech and musical instruments, the only other sounds that appeared to activate the brain in a similar way were car alarms and police sirens, the study found – perhaps explaining why they are so unpleasant to listen to and almost impossible to ignore. Continue reading...

The photos of Pluto this week were the latest in a long line of first shots taken of the planets in our solar system Continue reading...

Nasa unveils a sequence of images that show how human understanding of Pluto has evolved since the 1930s. On Wednesday night, the dwarf planet was revealed in a high-resolution image for the first time in a picture taken by Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft. Pluto was once considered an icy, dead world – but the images reveal signs of geological activity Continue reading...

Beautifully preserved skeleton fossil discovered of raptor two metres long with impressive plumage that lived 125m years ago in northeastern China

With Shell planning to begin drilling in the Chukchi Sea within days, Gore said that Obama was wrong to ever allow drilling in the ArcticThe former US vice-president and climate champion Al Gore has made a rare criticism of Barack Obama as Royal Dutch Shell prepares to drill an exploratory well in the Arctic Ocean, denouncing the venture as “insane” and calling for a ban on all oil and gas activity in the polar region.With Shell planning to begin drilling in the oil-rich Chukchi Sea within days, Gore said in an interview with the Guardian that Obama was wrong to ever allow drilling in the Arctic. Continue reading...

Mission culminates in images of former ninth planet that show mountain ranges of ice and suggest surface has recently been ‘paved over’ by geological activityFor 85 years, it was little more than a featureless grey blob on classroom maps of the solar system. On Wednesday night, Pluto was revealed in high resolution for the first time, revealing dramatic mountain ranges made from solid water ice on a scale to rival the Alps or the Rockies.The extraordinary images of the former ninth planet and its large moon, Charon, beamed 4 bn miles back to Earth from the New Horizons spacecraft, marks the climax of a mission that has been quietly underway for nearly a decade. Continue reading...

Spacecraft clocked fastest launch speed, recorded first video of volcanic eruption off Earth and carries the ashes of the man who discovered the dwarf planet

Mainstream theory presents autism as an “epidemic”, disease or deficit. But what about the strengths and abilities that can be found within the spectrum?Autism may represent the last great prejudice we, as a society, must overcome. History is riddled with examples of intolerance directed at the atypical. We can sometime fear that which diverges from the “norm”, and sometimes that fear leads us to frame those who are different as being in some way lesser beings than ourselves.Intolerances take generations to overcome. Racism is an obvious, ugly example. Other horrifying examples are easy to find: take, for instance the intolerance faced by the gay community. Countless gay people were diagnosed with “sociopathic personality disturbance” based upon their natural sexuality. Many were criminalised and forced into institutions, the “treatments” to which they were subject akin to torture. How many believed they were sociopathic and hated themselves, wishing to be free from the label they had been given? How many wished to be “cured” so that they could live their lives in peace? The greatest crime was the damage perpetuated by the image projected upon them by those claiming to be professionals. Continue reading...

The four species of bushmaster, found in the rainforests of Central and South America, are the world’s longest vipers. Naturalist Dan Eatherley tells the captivating story of Lecky, “the Mahatma Gandhi of reptiles”Name: Lecky

Weardale, County Durham: With no leaves or chlorophyll the plant’s survival depends upon a complex ménage à troisIt is 15 years since we last discovered a bird’s-nest orchid. It was hidden among dog’s mercury in an old hazel coppice. The withered brown flower spike was well past its best but its botanical charisma more than compensated for a lack of beauty.This is an orchid that challenges preconceptions of how a plant can be defined. With no leaves and no chlorophyll, its survival depends on a single species of fungus that also forms a symbiotic association with nearby trees. The trees supply the fungus with sugars and extract minerals from it. Continue reading...

Devastating terrorist attacks which cause structures to collapse are helping researchers come up with safer building plans. The 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre, as well as the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, are just two which have been studied at the University of New South Wales to help researchers in their quest for more stable structures.

In the small Arizona town where Pluto was spotted in 1930, more than 1,000 residents gathered to celebrate the Nasa mission: ‘It was total pandemonium’As Nasa’s New Horizons mission made first contact with Earth with dazzling photos of the dwarf planet more than 3bn miles away, one small town in northern Arizona was abuzz like no other.Related: Pluto pictures: Nasa reveals first high-resolution images of planet's surface Continue reading...

Nasa unveils new high resolution photographs and data sent back to Earth from the New Horizons spacecraft of Pluto and its moons. Among the images are the first ever close-up of Pluto's surface, the first high resolution image of Charon, the dwarf planet's largest moon, and a grainy but revealing image of Hydra, another of its moons Continue reading...

New Horizons could have spoiled our imaginative view of Pluto by revealing nothing very special – instead it has uncovered all sorts of amazing thingsWe have all been marvelling at the New Horizons images of Pluto – 134340 Pluto, to give it its official, rather distractingly Beverley Hills 90210-ish designation. And we marvelled with good cause.The whole mission is marvellous. I have difficulty navigating my left foot into my left trouser leg first thing in the morning, yet somehow human beings like me managed the extraordinary feat of shooting a robot the size and shape of a grand piano 3bn miles through space to fly so close past Pluto it could virtually kiss the surface. Continue reading...

Team at Nasa unveils and describes new high-resolution photographs and data sent back to Earth from the New Horizons spacecraft of Pluto and its moons4.19pm ETWe’re going to close our live coverage of the New Horizons mission to Pluto with a quick summary of Nasa’s most recent revelations from the edge of our solar system.4.02pm ETThere’s something about these two worlds that’s “very very different,” Stern says. One has an atmosphere, the other doesn’t, one is covered in water ice, the other in volatiles (a category of active chemicals).“It’s a puzzle, it’s a real puzzle.” Continue reading...

Nasa unveils new high-resolution photographs sent from New Horizons, the most detailed ever of Pluto and its moons

It just doesn’t feel like a complete solar system without the little planet for which we searched for so long, and let go far too soonRelated: Pluto photographs thrill Nasa scientists after nine-year missionDearest Pluto, Continue reading...

We’ve seen the hair. We’ve heard the thing about Mexicans all being drug dealers and criminals. But, Donald – what’s your line on evolution?Does Donald Trump believe in evolution? I ask only because a USA Today poll puts him top of the Republican nominees among likely primary voters at 17%, just ahead of Jeb Bush on 14%. This news comes as the Trump campaign tweeted a photomontage featuring soldiers who, upon closer inspection, turned out to be Nazi soldiers. It’s been a big week for Trump.He has a stated view on most issues. He’s “very pro-life” (now) and also “very pro-choice” (a while back). He thinks global warming is a hoax, and that Mexican immigrants are mostly drug dealers and rapists. But no one seems to have ever asked him where he stands on evolution. I don’t imagine his answer would make a tremendous amount of sense, but he wouldn’t be alone there. Continue reading...

Pentagon says it has no plans to remove five psychologists, who are said to participate in forced tube feedings, even as APA signals desire to end relationshipThe Pentagon has said it has no plans to divest Guantánamo Bay of its psychologists even as the American Psychological Association signals a desire to end its decade-long association with US military and intelligence interrogations and detentions.

Passion still flare on both sides, with some saying it should never have been a planet to begin with while others call the dwarf planet designation ‘vindictive’Pluto lost its title as our ninth planet nearly a decade ago, not long after Nasa launched a 3bn-mile mission to the celestial body that reached its destination this week, and not nearly enough time for passions to cool over its demotion.

The internet’s dwarf planet-watchers gaze into Pluto’s newly revealed landscape and see everything from the Death Star to a Wrecking BallIt took Nasa’s New Horizons probe nine years to reach Pluto and complete its historic flyby, but it only took the internet about nine minutes to transform the incredible new image into a canvas for pop culture fun.With anticipation for the new Star Wars film reaching astronomical heights, it’s no surprise that George Lucas’s world was pulled into our own solar system. The threat from Death Star Pluto remains low for now, but let’s just hope it hasn’t received news of its planetary downgrade.

As Nasa releases New Horizons’ latest photographs of Pluto, we take a look at images of the planet over the years – from its discovery in 1930 to the present day Continue reading...

A public vote to find names for the dwarf planet’s mountains and craters is drawing inspiration from science fiction greats and fantasy charactersI have lately been glued to Stephen Baxter’s novels Proxima and Ultima, about a mission to colonise a planet of Proxima Centauri, but, already in a space exploration mindset, I’ve wrenched myself away to pore over the incredible Pluto image from the New Horizons spacecraft. And in the course of doing so, I’ve seen that the team behind the mission have a list of proposed names for the craters and mountains on the dwarf planet and its moons that is deeply satisfying.Related: Pluto: New Horizons probe makes contact with Earth Continue reading...

Nasa’s spacecraft made its historic flypast of Pluto yesterday, and scientists are standing by for data. Here’s a guide to the mission and what happens next.New Horizons blasted off in January 19 2006, and was the fastest launch recorded, reaching speeds of over 36,000 miles per hour. The spacecraft passed the Moon after just nine hours, around eight times quicker than the Apollo programme, and reached Jupiter the following year. Continue reading...

A diagnosis of autism can make it tempting to turn to alternative treatments. But weighing up the scientific evidence is crucial - and potentially life-savingAs a rule of thumb, the more desperate and vulnerable you are the easier you are to exploit, with anything from financial advice to lifestyle tips. A diagnosis of an incurable disease; a child with a serious developmental disorder: these are circumstances that see many people seek unorthodox solutions, either as a way of coming to terms with what has happened, or in an attempt to find a treatment that perhaps the mainstream has not yet embraced, but which will give relief or cure.However, some alternative products and techniques are not merely controversial, they are potentially dangerous. Recently in mainland Ireland, a number of parents have been interviewed by police as part of an on-going investigation with the Health Products Regulatory Authority. These parents are thought to have administered a substance known as MMS to their autistic children. MMS has been known variously as Master Mineral Solution, Miracle Mineral Solution and Miracle Mineral Supplement. Continue reading...

Whether it’s extreme abseiling, travelling around the world or becoming an anti-austerity activist, age can focus the mind on enjoying the time we have leftWhen I was a lad, a Traveller read my palm at a fairground near our doss in Bradford. From a mouth of broken teeth, she lisped my fate and said I would see the wonders of the world and be showered with good fortune, but that I had to be brave and always accept wherever the winds of fate blew me. Her pronouncement sent shivers of anticipation down my six-year-old spine.Yet it wasn’t until my retirement that I had the time or the resources to fulfil some of the dreams and ambitions that had fuelled my imagination and kept me sane during my working life. So I was thrilled to read about Doris Long – nicknamed Daring Doris – who at 101 broke her own record for being the world’s oldest abseiler. Her feat of extreme rappelling, descending 94m down the Spinnaker tower in Portsmouth on Sunday, reminded me that the spirit of adventure, of discovery and the need to defy death are innate in all of us regardless of our age. Continue reading...

British team ‘pleased as punch’ with four silver medals and 22nd place overall in annual contest, held this year in ThailandThis was the final question at the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), an annual “maths World Cup” for secondary school-age students, held this year in Thailand, which ended on Wednesday with the US as winners: Continue reading...

While the New Horizons flyby is cause for celebration, Pluto’s demotion to dwarf planet seems to have passed the mission by. We should reinstate its full planetary rightsHiding behind the cheers and the whoops that accompanied the triumph of Nasa’s New Horizons mission, there was an elephant in the room every bit as large as the world that the spacecraft had been sent to study. Embarrassingly, Pluto is no longer a planet according to the International Astronomical Union, the astronomers’ regulating body.That didn’t stop the mission’s principal investigator, Alan Stern, referring to it in passing as a planet during the press conference at closest approach. Nor did it stop Nasa’s chief administrator, Charles Bolden, using the P-word in the days leading up to the flyby. But the reality is that the argument over Pluto’s status has been rancorous, and highlights both the lofty ambition of science and the pettiness of its practice. Continue reading...

Drama as first contact with probe after its Pluto flyby is made, meaning vast amounts of data from mission can be transmittedNasa’s New Horizons spacecraft has made contact with Earth, confirming its successful flypast of Pluto, after a journey to the far reaches of the solar system that has taken nine-and-a-half years and 3 billion miles (4.88bn km).At precisely 8.52.37pm Eastern US time, the probe “phoned home” to mission control in Maryland, 13 hours after it flew within 7,750 miles (12,472km) of Pluto. Continue reading...

Live coverage as spacecraft successfully re-establishes contact with Nasa, bringing proof of its mission to reach the distant dwarf planet

Every day, millions of internet users ask Google life’s most difficult questions, big and small. Our writers answer some of the commonest queriesTo illustrate how horrible it was, being in jail in a wheelchair with four broken limbs after the car accident that prompted me to get sober ... was much, much easier and less painful.Comedian Rob Delaney’s description of severe depression is enough to stop you in your tracks. How can a mental illness, a disorder of thought and emotion, feel so much worse than the most intense physical discomfort? And yet it’s not unusual to read about metaphorical bouts between illnesses in which the black dog always wins. “It’s a piece of cake in comparison with depression,” said Majella O’Donnell, of breast cancer. Even in the realm of mental anguish, it pummels all competitors into submission. Lewis Wolpert found it “more terrible even than watching my wife die”. A pain worse than fractured bones, cancer and grief. What is this state, which around 10% of us can expect to experience at least once in our lives? Where does it come from, and what can be done about it? Continue reading...

About 13 hours after its closest approach to Pluto, New Horizons phones home, signalling that it has survived its 49,000km/h (31,000mph) blitz through the planet's system. The signal took four and a half hours to travel the 4.88bn km (3bn miles) back to Earth at light speed. With 99% of the data gathered during the encounter still on the spaceship, New Horizons' survival was critical to the mission Continue reading...

Is it desirable for everybody to speak English in the same accent?That admirable watchdog of the English language, Professor Brander Matthews, of Columbia University, discusses once again, in the “North American Review,” the possibility of attaining a universal standard of pronunciation for our mother tongue. France has done it for hers; Italy and Spain have done it, and Germany, very late in the day, made an attempt to submerge her dialects in a common speech for the educated Teuton. What can we do? It is conceivable that we could establish a standard, and, having done it, make a person brought up in Glasgow or Lancashire talk like a Londoner, and all of them speak so that no one could tell that they had not come from either New York or New South Wales? The answer is, it is not possible; and even if it were the English-speaking peoples would not want to do it. Most of them delight in the endless variations of spoken English, and if they think about the matter at all they recognise that pronunciation is only one element of an exceedingly complex process in which pace and pitch and cadence all play their part. Professor Matthews, like the rest of us, has in his mind an ideal of perfect English. He would say that it cannot be described, but you know it when you hear it; and he has heard fine speakers from both sides of the Atlantic whose speech “was English pure and simple, not betraying itself as either British or American.” They must be excessively rare; indeed, so decisive are the geographical influences that even when no differences of pronunciation are discernible the subtle distinction created by distance almost invariably remains. It is certain, however, that most of the great speakers of the past would have scorned the idea of an academic standard. Gladstone and Bright kept to the last the marks of their northern origin, and we may hazard the guess that they would have been horrified at hearing a speech from Lincoln or Daniel Webster in the accent of Oxford. Regional variations, we may be sure, will not disappear; but it is plain that the schools and other modern influences tend to wear down the greater dialectical differences. The special danger of this country is, however, not the single standard, but something altogether different: a uniform speech for the specially educated, and one of infinite variation for the majority of the nation. And that means a serious obstacle to the establishment of genuine democracy. Continue reading...

Rise in anaphylaxis admission rates over 14-year period reveals urgent need to prevent food allergies from developing, say researchersAustralians are increasingly being hospitalised for severe and life-threatening allergic reactions, known as anaphylaxis, researchers from the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute in Melbourne have found.Researchers analysed 14 years of hospital data to 2012, extracting admissions for anaphylaxis. Anaphylaxis admission rates increased by 50% over this period, they found. Rates increased rapidly in the final half of the period, with 5.6 people per 100,000 hospitalised with food anaphylaxis in 2005, compared with 8.2 by 2012. Continue reading...

British physicist Stephen Hawking praises Nasa's 'pioneering, decade-long mission' after the New Horizons spacecraft completed a dramatic flyby of Pluto, considered the last unexplored world in our solar system. The probe's journey to reach the dwarf planet spanned nine years and a distance of three billion miles (4.8bn km)

50m-year-old worm sex cells are the oldest found by 10m years, but although incredibly well-preserved contain no organic material

Nasa spacecraft makes history as the first spacecraft to reach distant dwarf planet, the last unexplored world in solar system

United Nations’ cultural body dismisses Maine archaeologist’s claim that he found the legendary pirate’s ship and a silver ingot near MadagascarUnesco has thrown cold water over an American explorer’s claims that he had discovered the sunken treasure of infamous 17th-century pirate William Kidd off the coast of Madagascar.Related: 'Captain Kidd's treasure' found off Madagascar Continue reading...

People in their 40s and 50s report feeling increasingly isolated. Social media can seem like a magic potion, but can end up making us feel worseIn all the recent statistical analysis and commentary on the epidemic of loneliness, perhaps the most striking is that, more than any other age group, it’s middle-aged people who are now reporting feelings of isolation. According to the Office for National Statistics, loneliness afflicts around one in seven of those between 45 and 54.Middle age is that phase of life in which our possibilities and freedoms seem to contract most dramatically, where our sense of who we are and will be is liable to feel most constrained by pressures from all sides. The disappointments and anxieties of unfulfilling work, unhappy family life, and our own or others’ poor health are intensified by the conviction that there is no escape: this is simply the hand fate has dealt us. It’s not hard to imagine what a lonely feeling that can be. Continue reading...

Margot Lee Shetterly’s forthcoming book Hidden Figures, about unsung black women recruited as mathematicians during the space race, to receive major film adaptationKatherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, Dorothy Vaughan, Kathryn Peddrew, Sue Wilder, Eunice Smith and Barbara Holley – all names that have been largely forgotten by the American public. And yet these black, female mathematicians were crucial in the success of the Nasa space missions during the 1950s and 60s. Now their story is being placed back into the public eye in a new film.Shakespeare in Love producer Donna Gigliotti, screenwriter Allison Schroeder and St Vincent director Ted Melfi are adapting Margot Lee Shetterly’s forthcoming book Hidden Figures for the big screen, according to Deadline. Actors rumoured for the lead roles include Oprah Winfrey, Taraji P Henson, Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer. Continue reading...