Trio landed safely in Kazakhstan on Thursday after return from ISS was delayed by Russian rocket failureTwo Western astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut have landed in Kazakhstan, safely returning to Earth after their flight back home was delayed for a month by a Russian rocket failure.Both Russian mission control and Nasa showed a capsule carrying Russian Anton Shkaplerov, Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti and Terry Virts of the United States landing on schedule in the steppes of Kazakhstan after 199 days in space. Continue reading...

Your fate is sealed before you are even born: new study shows nutrition advice to adolescent girls before pregnancy could avert preterm births and brain defectsRelated: Gender equality: empowered women raise healthier childrenA mother’s diet before conception can affect her unborn child’s genetic make-up and immune system, according to new findings with profound implications for policy and development work. Continue reading...

Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti returns to Earth on Thursday after a record 200 days in space. Cristoforetti became something of an online celebrity during her time in orbit, thanks to regular videos posted online about life on board the International Space Station. We look back at highlights from her weird and wonderful time in space Continue reading...

In 1861, a dissection of a dead killer whale revealed the presence of 27 large mammals in its stomach. It was so surprising that Jules Verne wrote the beast into Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.Name: The greedy orca

T. rex Autopsy hit screens last Sunday, so I can finally lift the lid on the special effects behind the dinosaur dissection

Oxford scientist finds evidence that left-handers are born, not madeCats, unlike men, are inclined to be left-handed. This is the conclusion of Mr J. Cole of the Oxford University Laboratory of Physiology, after an experiment with 60 cats “selected at random.” Parrots, it seems, show a similar left-handed tendency and, in fact, a large proportion of all the animals tested by various workers have shown a preference for using one or other forelimb.

The cannibalistic practice helped the Fore tribe develop genetic resistance to a mad cow-like disease. This is useful for scientists studying diseases like dementiaResearch involving a former brain-eating tribe from Papua New Guinea is helping scientists better understand mad cow disease and other so-called prion conditions and may also offer insights into Parkinson’s and dementia.People of the Fore tribe, studied by scientists from Britain and Papua New Guinea, have developed genetic resistance to a mad cow-like disease called kuru, which was spread mostly by the now abandoned ritual of eating relatives’ brains at funerals. Continue reading...

Proton pump inhibitors are one of the most commonly prescribed drugs, but patients are 16%-21% more likely to suffer a heart attack, study suggestsCommon heartburn drugs could increase the risk of heart attacks, scientists have warned. A major US study drawing on the health records of nearly three million patients showed that people taking indigestion drugs called proton pump inhibitors were 16 to 21% more likely to suffer a heart attack.Nick Leeper, a cardiologist at Stanford University in California, who led the investigation, said: “At first glance you may think a 16% increase in risk is modest and say what’s the big deal? But heart disease is by far the leading cause of death in the western world and PPIs are so commonly prescribed. This is potentially a big deal from a public health perspective.”

Early trial showed use of computer algorithm to produce diet tailored to a person’s unique biological make-up had benefits for pre-diabetic subjectsScientists have created bespoke diets using a computer algorithm that learns how individual bodies respond to different foods.

New results of fossil analysis will help scientists to understand why the camels went extinct 13,000 years ago and to re-examine other speciesMiners in north-western Canada have discovered ice age camel bones whose DNA is forcing scientists to redraw the family tree of the now-extinct species.Grant Zazula, a paleontologist with the Yukon’s department of tourism and culture, said three fossils recovered from a gold mine in the Klondike in 2008 are the first western camel bones found in the territory or Alaska in decades. Continue reading...

The Nobel prizewinner’s ‘trouble with girls’ comments are toxic as well as nonsense – discrimination in science is endemicWomen, eh? Can’t work with ‘em, can’t complain about them without all bloody hell breaking loose on Twitter. What’s a scientist to do?I’m a great fan of the different varieties of outrageous sexism that we get exposed to on a fairly regular basis – I particularly like the “no woman is my equal” kind – and this week we’re seeing another variety being taken for a gentle canter around the ring, with Nobel prize-winning scientist Tim Hunt’s comments about the problems of having women in the lab. Continue reading...

Hospital in Khartoum that has become a world leader in complex heart operations agreed to perform critical procedure for free

Professor Tim Hunt’s comments on women are not just ridiculous: they endanger the future of equality in scienceSo this happened - at The World Conference of Science Journalism, at a lunch sponsored by Korean female scientists and engineers - just yesterday. Continue reading...

72-year-old Nobel prize winner Tim Hunt has caused controversy by saying laboratories should be segregated along gender lines. However, there is evidence to suggest that science should be more exclusive. It should exclude old menTim Hunt, 72-year-old Nobel laureate, is currently at the centre of a big controversy for his remarks about women in science. He argued that gender-segregated labs were the answer, because “they cause men to fall in love with them and cry when criticised”. In his defence, Tim Hunt is the product of gender-segregated education himself, and it clearly hasn’t left him with a warped perspective on the opposite sex.Related: Cry, cry, cry (for backwards Nobel laureates) Continue reading...

The Nobel prizewinning scientist accuses women of being over-emotional in the male world of rationalist truth-seeking. Perhaps it’s not his female colleagues who are the problemThe mask has not so much slipped as crashed to the floor. Stand up and be thanked, Sir Tim Hunt, fellow of the Royal Society (at the time of writing, at least) and the winner of the 2001 Nobel prize for physiology for his work on regulators of the cell cycle. Here at last is someone who has come out with it. Women at work are a nuisance.Hunt chose his moment of public revelation at, of all places, a women’s convention on science and journalism in South Korea. Perhaps he thought they’d be flattered when he told them that the trouble with women in labs was that they fall in love and cry when they’re criticised. Continue reading...

Nobel laureate Tim Hunt apologises for recent comments suggesting female scientists were a distraction in the lab and easily offended. Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Wednesday, Hunt says he didn't mean to cause offence but added he 'did mean the part about having trouble with girls', saying 'emotional entanglements' in the past between male and female scientists had made work very difficult Continue reading...

Nobel laureate caused outrage after telling conference he had reputation as a chauvinist and said of women in labs, ‘when you criticise them, they cry’The Nobel laureate Tim Hunt has apologised for comments he made about female scientists.

Online quizzes claim to unmask the psychopaths among us. But just how accurate are these tests?

Wenlock Edge, Shropshire: The fungi create a bright yellow expanding universe, continuing the pact with immortality inside the yewAn old yew tree above the holloway has a bright yellow growth emerging from its trunk. This brilliant, sulphur-yellow, stuff seems weirdly at odds with the shadowy woods of early summer. The vividness is caused by the fungus Laetiporus sulphureus, aka “chicken of the woods”. The name is derived from its flavour, apparently.We had gone to the gardens at Morville Hall, near Bridgnorth, a few miles away. It’s a country house owned by the National Trust but with gardens that are managed by individual tenants. One of the plots is the Dower House garden, which was created by Katherine Swift. It’s a real joy, particularly when the old roses and wild flowers are out. Continue reading...

Inhabitants of forests in Bossou, south-eastern Guinea, enjoy rich, alcoholic brew fermented from sugary sapThe boozing starts from 7am. Though large amounts are often drunk, the sessions are orderly, even sociable. A skinful later, and always before nightfall, enough is enough and they rest.They are the chimpanzees of Bossou, south-eastern Guinea, and their secret is finally out. With 17 years of evidence in hand, scientists have declared the troop the first wild chimpanzees to indulge in regular, habitual drinking.

Ovarian tissue frozen when patient underwent chemotherapy as a teenager successfully grafted onto remaining ovary, allowing natural conceptionA young woman in Belgium has become the first to give birth to a healthy baby after having her fertility restored by a transplant of ovarian tissue that was removed and frozen when she was a child.The pioneering treatment could lift the spectre of infertility for girls who undergo harsh chemotherapy or radiotherapy treatments at a young age when they do not yet have mature eggs that can be stored for use in the future. Continue reading...

A community of chimps in West Africa is partial to the occasional alcoholic beverage. There are “behavioural signs of inebriation,” note researchersLast week, we learned that chimps like to “cook”. This week, we discover that a community of wild chimpanzees in West Africa is partial to the occasional alcoholic beverage.

Hanna Koper, 95, and her two siblings thought to be last remaining speakers of N|uu and are working with linguists to preserve oldest surviving San languageA 95-year-old woman is helping a last ditch effort to preserve an ancient African language before it goes extinct.Hanna Koper and her two sisters are thought to be the last remaining speakers of the San language N|uu, rated as critically endangered by Unesco. The San, also known as “bushmen”, were the first hunter-gatherers in southern Africa. Continue reading...

Proton pump inhibitors are one of the most commonly prescribed drugs, but patients are 16%-21% more likely to suffer a heart attack, study suggestsCommon heartburn drugs could increase the risk of heart attacks, scientists have warned. A major US study drawing on the health records of nearly three million patients showed that people taking indigestion drugs called proton pump inhibitors were 16 to 21% more likely to suffer a heart attack.Nick Leeper, a cardiologist at Stanford University in California, who led the investigation, said: “At first glance you may think a 16% increase in risk is modest and say what’s the big deal? But heart disease is by far the leading cause of death in the western world and PPIs are so commonly prescribed. This is potentially a big deal from a public health perspective.”

One in 25 teens attempt suicide and one in eight think about doing so. Yet teens are especially ill-served by mental health services

A podcast from Laura Jeanty and Tova Holmes gives a very good flavour of a thousand coffee, pub or conference discussions in particle physics right now

Co-founder of technology company insists AI is not a danger to humanity, but will help tackle lack of clean water, financial inequality and stock market risks

Nasa's test flight to land vehicles on Mars comes to an end on Monday when the saucer-shaped vehicle's parachute failed to inflate and tore away high over the Pacific. The initial launch from the US navy's launch site on the island of Kauai, Hawaii, using a giant helium balloon was successful. But several hours later, the 100ft supersonic parachute, designed to slow down the descend onto Mars, failed to inflate Continue reading...

Birds once abundant in Europe and Asia could share the same fate as passenger pigeon as they are killed in millions for foodA bird that was once one of the most abundant in Europe and Asia is being hunted to near extinction because of Chinese eating habits, according to a study published on Tuesday.

Animator Drew Berry explains how he brings the molecules of life to lifeYesterday I was trying to figure out why it seems to be so difficult to connect to the biological molecules that we are made of – proteins, DNA and such like. My piece might have ended on a frustrated note but I have no wish to be negative, especially since the problem has only arisen because animators like Drew Berry are now able to use the results of structural biology to make quite exquisite movies of the molecules of life at work inside the cells of our bodies. As I was working though my difficulties, I wrote to ask Berry how he approached the task of representing molecular complexity in ways that would make sense to people. This is his considered and insightful reply:“The goal of my work is to show non-experts – the general public aged 4 to 99, students of biology, journalists and politicians, and so on – what is being discovered in biology, in a format that is accessible, meaningful, and engaging. I hope that my work provides some sense of what biologists and medical researchers are discovering and thinking about, to provide the public with a framework of understanding to discuss these important new discoveries and the impact it will have on us as a society as we head into the future. Continue reading...

The scientist and bestselling writer has become the face of a new crusading atheism. But even his closest allies worry that his online provocations do more harm than goodIn Dublin, not long ago, Richard Dawkins visited a steakhouse called Darwin’s. He was in town to give a talk on the origins of life at Trinity College with the American physicist Lawrence Krauss. In the restaurant, a large model gorilla squatted in a corner and a series of sepia paintings of early man hung in the dining room – though, Dawkins pointed out, not quite in the right chronological order. A space by the bar had been refitted to resemble the interior of the Beagle, the vessel on which Charles Darwin sailed to South America in 1831 and conceived his theory of natural selection. “Oh look at this!” Dawkins said, examining the decor. “It’s terrific! Oh, wonderful.”Over the years, Dawkins, a zoologist by training, has expressed admiration for Darwin in the way a schoolboy might worship a sporting giant. In his first memoir, Dawkins noted the “serendipitous realisation” that his full name – Clinton Richard Dawkins – shared the same initials as Charles Robert Darwin. He owns a prized first edition of On The Origin of Species, which he can quote from memory. For Dawkins, the book is totemic, the founding text of his career. “It’s such a thorough, unanswerable case,” he said one afternoon. “[Darwin] called it one long argument.” As a description of Dawkins’s own life, particularly its late phase, “one long argument” serves fairly well. As the global face of atheism over the last decade, Dawkins has ratcheted up the rhetoric in his self-declared war against religion. He is the general who chooses to fight on the front line – whose scorched-earth tactics have won him fervent admirers, and ferocious enemies. What is less clear, however, is whether he is winning. Continue reading...

Alex set two puzzles this week. Some of you couldn't stand the suspense, so here's how to solve them, or head on over to the blog if you prefer to see a written solution. Continue reading...

How did you get on with this week’s puzzle post? Here are the answers ... and another puzzle, just in case two weeks seems like too long a wait between puzzles!I hope you enjoyed solving today’s odd-one-out problem, because it was meant to be funny, as well as fun.Puzzle maven Tanya Khovanova, who devised it, intended it to be taken that way. Tanya - like many of you who posted comments - does not like odd-one-out puzzles. Continue reading...

Edinburgh University researchers hope findings may lead to new treatments to stop progression of breast cancer in its tracksNew therapies to stop the progression of breast cancer could emerge from a fresh study into the disease, researchers believe.Scientists at the University of Edinburgh said they have discovered a “trigger” that allows breast cancer cells to spread to the lungs. Continue reading...

When a legal gadget can induce calm, energy or euphoria, what chance have MPs trying to police altered states?Mind control may not have been one of the stated aims of the Conservative manifesto, but the psychoactive substances bill does read like an attempt to wedge shut the doors of perception. Its scope is any material that “affects the person’s mental functioning or emotional state”. The list of exemptions shows that practically anything we put in our bodies can do that; “food”, for instance. Even so, such is the pace of innovation that the law might already be unable to stop people getting high. Thync, a US company, allows its customers to choose from a menu of “mental alertness”, “bursts of physical energy”, “detachment from stressful thoughts”, even “mild euphoria”.Related: Queen's speech: the day ‘psychoactive drugs’ tripped off the royal tongue Continue reading...