The ability of two German shepherds to identify the most common form of cancer in British men has sparked hopes of finding a practical application Surviving prostate cancer: a prostate surgeon’s story Hopes that man’s best friend can help medics detect prostate cancer have been boosted by research suggesting that trained German shepherd dogs can sniff out the chemicals linked to the disease from urine samples with remarkable accuracy.The reliability rate reported by an Italy-based team in the Journal of Urology comes from the latest of several studies stretching back decades and raises the prospect of canines’ sense of smell helping doctors identify a number of human cancers and infectious diseases. Continue reading...

This week’s books include a biochemist’s reasoning that protons are the fundamental reason that life evolved in the way it did; a botanist’s assertion that plants are intelligent beings; and an exploration of one of the basic principles of geology, plate tectonics Continue reading...

Three states blindsided by activists - Oregon, Washington and North Carolina - pull back from or kill bills as battleground moves to California Continue reading...

The greatest particle accelerator ever built is up and running again - but what will it find this time? Continue reading...

Two hundred years ago a volcanic eruption cooled the Earth. Could it help us tackle global warming today?The island of Sumbawa in what is now Indonesia began to crack apart 200 years ago this week. On 10 April 1815, an explosion that could be heard a thousand miles away announced the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history. Mount Tambora, once among the highest peaks in the East Indies, was blown in half. Thousands in the immediate vicinity were killed by lava, wind, ash, fire and tsunamis, but the volcano’s effects echoed far further and longer. The force of the explosion catapulted millions of tonnes of sulphur miles upwards into the stratosphere where it was held aloft. A haze encircled the planet, providing it with a temporary sunshade. Over the next three years, Tambora cooled the surface of the planet by a degree celsius.In Europe and America, crops failed, diseases flourished and riots and famine broke out. The year 1816 became known as the “year without a summer”. Farmers, philosophers, artists and writers struggled to make sense of their new weather. In a recent book Gillen D’Arcy Wood describes the indelible mark the volcano has left on our culture. In England, Constable and Turner used unusual quantities of red paint as they reproduced the vivid volcanic sunsets. In June 1816, as snow fell in New York, four friends on the shores of Lake Geneva were kept inside by relentless rain and storms. The ghost stories that they told one another led to Tambora’s most famous cultural offshoot, Frankenstein. Mary Shelley described in her introduction the “wet, ungenial summer” that inspired her parable of irresponsible science, which she subtitled “The Modern Prometheus”. Continue reading...

The processes in their brains during hibernation are exciting scientistsThis month, Arctic ground squirrels emerge in Alaska after eight months’ hibernation. It hasn’t been easy: during hibernation, their body temperature can drop as low as -2.9C, a record for mammals, and stay there for two to three weeks before they undergo a bout of shivering to warm up. Scientists are scrutinising this mechanism to see how temperature management can help humans to recover from cardiac arrests and strokes.“We and others have identified at least one mechanism that the [squirrel] brain uses to control this onset of hibernation,” says Professor Kelly Drew, who studies hibernation biology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “That mechanism has potential to guide development of drugs that uses the same mechanism to cool people.” Continue reading...

Nick Lane’s book The Vital Question attempts to solve one of the universe’s biggest conundrums: why life is the way it is Continue reading...

Stress from serious events in first 14 years of life may be risk factor and one trigger for disease, finds Swedish study of 10,000 families

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Although it seems counterintuitive, tests indicate that plucked follicles ‘communicate’, causing an immune response that leads to regrowthBaldness is often dreaded by men and there are few, if any, satisfactory options for reversing it. Now scientists have discovered a potential solution, after showing that plucking hair out could actually stimulate growth.The counterintuitive discovery, in mice, demonstrates a previously unknown method for triggering hair regeneration. Although the work is at an early stage, the authors believe the same process could be helpful for tackling hair loss in men or people with alopecia. Continue reading...

Researchers are facing up to methodological flaws that plague functional magnetic resonance imaging, but the interpretative problems might be harder to solve Continue reading...

As an experiment in online book reading clubs, I will share a series of pieces about a group of scientists that is reading and discussing the book, Island Biogeography Revisited -- are you willing to join us? Continue reading...

Although an effective therapy is still some years off, trial using high doses of antibody reduced HIV levels in patients’ blood systems 300-foldResearchers are a step closer towards an antibody treatment for HIV, after trials of an experimental therapy reduced the amount of virus in patients’ blood.A small trial in 17 HIV patients found that high doses of an antibody could slash levels of virus in patients’ bodies, though scientists warned that an effective therapy was still years off. Continue reading...

Lynne Featherstone accepts advisory council’s recommendation of 12-month ban on substances including most widely used alternative to cocaineFive legal highs, including an alternative to cocaine that is one of the most common in Britain, are to be banned from midnight on Thursday, ministers have announced.The drug minister, Lynne Featherstone, said she had accepted a recommendation from the government’s official drug advisers that the five legal highs should face a temporary ban of 12 months while a full assessment of the harm they posed was undertaken.Related: The hidden dangers of legal highsEthylphenidate-based products are a growing issue and their use is associated with bizarre and violent behaviourRelated: Legal high drug deaths soar in UK Continue reading...

Neuroscientists have come far in improving our understanding of the human brain. But just how far can the science take us? Continue reading...

Fully autonomous weapons should be banned by international treaty, says a report by Human Rights Watch and Harvard Law SchoolFully autonomous weapons, already denounced as “killer robots”, should be banned by international treaty before they can be developed, a new report urges the United Nations .Under existing laws, computer programmers, manufacturers and military commanders would all escape liability for deaths caused by such machines, according to the study published on Thursday by Human Rights Watch and Harvard Law School.

Male relatives of sex offenders five times more likely to commit similar crimes, and 40% of risk is genetic, study suggestsBrothers of men convicted of sexual offences are five times more likely than average to commit the same types of crimes, scientists have found.The study suggests that genetic factors are largely responsible for the effect and that environmental factors, such as sons learning from fathers, have only a minor influence. The authors urged authorities to consider interventions for the male relatives of sexual offenders, including counselling on appropriate sexual behaviour or even offering medications designed to lower sex drive. Continue reading...

University of Leicester study finds that someone who is 5ft tall faces a 32% greater risk than someone who is 5ft 6in

Zookeeper Tim Brys and his son Wylie excavate dinosaur fossil that could be a nodosaur, found behind a grocery store Continue reading...

It’s no surprise people have such strong feelings about chocolate Continue reading...

Scientists investigate why sea ice is retreating faster than expected as cover falls to new low, confounding predictions Continue reading...

Lifelogging uses modern digital technologies to record, track, measure and share everything from heartbeats to heartbreaks. An exhibition at Science Gallery Dublin uses science, art and technology to explore the ethics, consequences and potential future uses of lifelogging Continue reading...

The solar-powered plane that wings it without carbon output Continue reading...

In his pivotal contribution to the US-Iran nuclear negotiations, Ernest Moniz, US Secretary of Energy, offers a role model of how to integrate science and politics. Continue reading...

Average height of a male in the Netherlands has gained 20 cm (eight inches) in the last 150 years, according to military recordsThe Netherlands is the land of giants: on average, its women stand almost 1.71 metres (5.6 feet) tall, and its men 1.84 metres.

Campaigners point finger at austerity as Public Health England report shows first decline across all age groups in nearly two decadesCuts to social care may have contributed to a shock fall in life expectancy for older women, campaigners have said.Life expectancies for women aged 65, 75, 85 and 95 all fell in 2012 compared with a year earlier, the first slip in all age groups in nearly two decades. Continue reading...

As I recently found out, donating money is as much about making ourselves feel good as it is helping others. But it’s something that we should embrace Continue reading...

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Despite its relegation to a subset of the Apatosaurus family in 1903, new research suggests that the Brontosaurus is distinct enough to be a genusThe Brontosaurus has been consigned to extinction not once, but twice – the second time when scientists concluded it was too similar to other long-necked dinosaurs to deserve its own genus.Now the “thunder lizard” looks set to make a comeback, after a new analysis suggests that Brontosaurus specimens are sufficiently distinct from other species after all. Continue reading...

A new analysis restores Brontosaurus to the ranks of the dinosaurs, but why? Continue reading...

Across England, the education and outreach work of the four museums in the Science Museum’s Group covers far more than simply a casual afternoon’s entertainment Continue reading...

The rapid growth and interest in drones has outpaced the technology available to support effective regulation. Without it, the industry may remain grounded Continue reading...

Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and Victor Chang Institute in Sydney make discovery which may have major implications for heart attack sufferersUnlike animals such as the salamander and the zebrafish, humans are unable to easily regenerate heart cells, making it difficult to recover from the permanent damage caused by heart attacks.But scientists from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and the Victor Chang Institute in Sydney have discovered a way to stimulate heart muscle cells to grow, which could have major implications for heart attack sufferers in the future.Related: The spread of western disease: 'The poor are dying more and more like the rich' Continue reading...

Plant pathologist who did much to ensure food security in Africa with his work on cassava virus pandemics Continue reading...

It might surprise you to learn that astronomers maintain collections, although these collections are quite different to those maintained by other departments in natural history museums, as we learn in today’s “Museum Monday” video Continue reading...

Don’t write-off corpse medicine – the remarkable discovery by Nottingham University shows what treatments can be extracted from a cow, or indeed a human Continue reading...

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