For years, black rats have been blamed for spreading bubonic plague, but now scientists in Norway believe it was giant gerbilsName: Variable.Age: Immaterial. Just keep replacing them until your child is old enough to contemplate pet-death with equanimity. Continue reading...

Octopus versus crab. On land. Who will win? This may be the first time this remarkable octopus behaviour has been captured on video Continue reading...

‘Intelligent clothing’ will employ artificial muscles to assist people with reduced mobility, and could even replace stairlifts and wheelchairsA real-life version of The Wrong Trousers immortalised by Wallace and Gromit is being developed by a British team of robotic experts.The close-fitting “smart trousers” will employ artificial muscles to assist the mobility of frail elderly and disabled individuals. Continue reading...

Scientists launch annual ‘health check’ of world’s plantsScientists at Kew Gardens are launching an annual “health check” of the world’s plants to examine issues including wildlife loss, disease and invasive species.Results of the first “state of the world’s plants” assessment will be published in December, forming part of the new science strategy for the Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG) at Kew. Continue reading...

The Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, where Dolly spent her whole life, is to be presented with a sign to commemorate its contribution to advances in the science of cloningName: Dolly the sheep.Age: For ever six-and-a-half. Continue reading...

Alice Bell: Willie Soon has been criticised for taking money from the energy industry, but he’s more normal than much of science would like to admit.

Gerard ’t Hooft, Dutch Nobel laureate and ambassador for project, says he does not believe mission can begin in 2024 as plannedThe budget and timeline for plans by a Dutch organisation to colonise Mars are highly unrealistic, one of the project’s most eminent supporters has suggested.Gerard ’t Hooft, a Dutch Nobel laureate and ambassador for Mars One, said he did not believe the mission could take off by 2024 as planned.Related: Mars One mission: a one-way trip to the red planet in 2024 Continue reading...

Instead of travelling to remote locations in faraway countries, scientists sometimes discover a new species by looking a little more closely at an old specimen in a museum drawer. Continue reading...

Photographs from the Eyewitness series Continue reading...

The scientist whose research led to Channel 4’s The Cannabis Trial explains the point of the experiment“Skunk stole Snow’s soul”, “Just say no, Snow” – these were just some of the headlines this week in response to Jon Snow’s blogpost and video recounting his experience of smoking ‘skunk’-type cannabis as part of a scientific study at University College London (UCL) which will be shown in a live TV programme – Drugs Live: Cannabis on Trial – on Channel 4 on March 3.We wanted to answer some of the questions raised by people about the trial as well as providing some of the wider context about this study, plus its aims and rationale.

Politicians need to back a curriculum that allows pupils to study a broad range of subjects Continue reading...

Nobel prize-winner Steven Weinberg’s history of knowledge covers well trodden ground, barely straying from physics and astronomy“I confess that I find Aristotle frequently tedious, in a way that Plato is not,” writes Steven Weinberg, “but although often wrong Aristotle is not silly, in the way that Plato sometimes is.”It’s a school report to make the philosophers blush, but with his latest book, To Explain the World, Weinberg makes it clear he isn’t out to polish anyone’s pedestal. No, he has turned to the notes and theories from classical Greece to reveal how far our understanding, and investigative techniques, progressed between antiquity and the age of enlightenment. For, as Weinberg argues, while Aristotle prized theories based on mental rumination alone, it was the emergence of the scientific method, rooted in physical experimentation, that has allowed us to discover, explain and harness the laws of nature. Continue reading...

Palaeontologists of the past have fallen for some barely believable fakes. So what to think about ultra-sceptics who still question the existence of dinosaurs?The history of palaeontology is littered with examples of famous frauds and fakes, often with eminent researchers in the field being thoroughly hoodwinked by some fairly shoddy fabrications.One of the most famous is Piltdown Man. Discovered in a gravel pit in Sussex in 1912, a few ancient-looking fragments of a skull and jawbone quickly became hailed as evidence of a very early type of human, perhaps half a million years old. The specimens were named Eoanthropus dawsoni (“Dawson’s dawn man”), after their discoverer, amateur archaeologist Charles Dawson. Continue reading...

Doctors and scientists believe urgent action is needed to discover new medicines to tackle degenerative nerve ailment Continue reading...

Station commander Barry Wilmore and flight engineer Terry Virts set out on six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk, the first of three outings over the next eight daysA pair of US astronauts floated outside the International Space Station on Saturday to begin rigging parking spots for two commercial space taxis.Station commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore, 52, and flight engineer Terry Virts, 47, left the station’s Quest airlock shortly before 8am ET to begin a planned six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk, the first of three outings over the next eight days. Continue reading...

Quarks and gluons make weird slopes and shapes inside the proton. Understanding them precisely was important for the first results from Cern’s Large Hadron Collider, and continues to be so as we approach the restart over the next few weeks

Expert cautions that antibiotic-resistant bacteria needs to come under control but says ordinary Americans do not need to worryA “superbug” outbreak made national headlines this week, as up to 179 patients at the UCLA Ronald Reagan medical center in Los Angeles were potentially exposed to “nightmare” bacteria through a pair of specialized gastrointestinal tools. The germs may have been a contributing factor in the deaths of two people, doctors said.Related: Superbug at LA hospital linked to two deaths and 179 potential infections Continue reading...

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This week, I share my thoughts about four books that span a number of non-fiction genres; science and nature, atheism, philosophy and politics Continue reading...

A Ukip candidate recently asked the important question ‘what happens when renewable energy runs out?’ This is something science hasn’t considered, so what other curveballs could UKIP end up throwing at the scientific community? Continue reading...

Much scientific discovery is for the betterment, amusement and curiosity of a lucky few in this world. Those without water, meanwhile, are temporarily forgottenI read the news of the proposed one-way trip to Mars for up to 40 lucky Earthlings with curious fascination. First, I browsed through the 100 candidates who had made the shortlist. Of course there was a Nigerian, a certain Ighodalo whose upbeat personableness came across well in his application video. No matter how bizarre the enterprise, I am always glad to see Nigeria represented. Next, I discovered that to fund the mission, both the journey out and the first years on the red planet will be turned into a reality show: perhaps Big Brother Mars, The Only Way is Martian, The Real Housewives of the Athabasca Valles. I could go on for a whole episode of Star Trek.What struck me as I surfed through the profiles of shortlisted candidates and watched applicants’ interviews, was that the mission is surrounded by a certain rhetoric of progress. Going to Mars will move humanity forward and open up new frontiers; it will be a veritable leap for mankind. I watched a woman look forward to the day her statue will be planted on Mars’s red soil in honour of her services to mankind. I watched a father willing to leave his wife and children behind for a chance to make this jump for humanity. I watched a young man speak of his application as a “sacrifice” for the rest of us. Through the glories of modern science, mankind is once again forging ahead. Continue reading...

Don’t have an MRI scan while stoned out of your skull: that seems to be the one lesson we can safely draw from Channel 4’s Cannabis on Trial Continue reading...

Norman Doidge talks about the implications of neuroplasticity and his new book 'The Brain's Way of Healing', and from San Jose in California Ian Sample gives a roundup of key issues discussed at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Continue reading...

Oxford scientists warn parasite impervious to the key drug artemsinin has been found in testing near Indian border and could emerge in AfricaMalaria with total resistance to the antimalarial drug artemisinin has taken hold in Burma and spread close to the border with India, threatening to render crucial medicines useless, scientists have warned.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the world wide web, discusses his early career at CERN and how the web evolved from its initial concept.

High-quality studies, rather than drugs companies, are finally driving menopause treatment – but there’s a lot of ground to make up

Hannah Earnshaw explains why she wants to be part of the mission to colonise the red planetI have always been in awe of the night sky, trying to comprehend the vastness of space and the countless wonders it contains. But I have always felt a certain dissatisfaction with only being able to see it at a distance.One day I imagine that humanity will be able to visit other planets in the solar system, and venture even further to other stars, but this has always seemed very far away. That’s the reason why I applied for the Mars One mission, aimed at starting a human colony on Mars – it seemed like a real opportunity to get closer to the rest of the night sky, to give me a chance to be a part of taking humanity into the stars.Related: Mars One shortlist: five Britons among 100 would-be astronauts Continue reading...

This mission is a rekindling of our spirit of adventure. Let it be an inspiration for the scientists of the future

Facebook founder turns health champion and picks On Immunity by Eula Biss, as American public health officials tackle major measles outbreakMark Zuckerberg has tapped into an area of growing social anxiety with his fourth book club choice, announced on Wednesday.The Facebook founder showed his talent for surfing the zeitgeist by selecting On Immunity: An Inoculation, by essayist Eula Biss, which investigates the fears around vaccination in the context of her own terrors as a new mother.

A recent article in Nature suggests that biologists ‘now think’ the idea of two sexes is inaccurate; in fact, says Vanessa Heggie, for decades biologists have been at the forefront of campaigns against this simplistic understanding of sex Continue reading...

Global antibiotic resistance is imperilling our existence. We need clever ways to find new bug-beating drugs Continue reading...

Engineers have discovered that these molluscs’ teeth are made of the strongest biological material in the world. But instead of trying to exploit them, we should leave the limpets to cling to their rocky homes Continue reading...

The spectacular fall of the Japanese scientist who claimed to have triggered stem cell abilities in regular body cells is not uncommon in the scientific community. The culprit: carelessness and hubris in the drive to make a historic discoveryThe year 2014 was one of extremes for Haruko Obokata. A year of high highs and even lower lows. Barely 30 years old, she was head of her own laboratory at the Riken Center for Developmental Biology (CDB) in Kobe, Japan, and was taking the male-dominated world of stem cell research by storm. She was hailed as a bright new star in the scientific firmament and a national hero. But her glory was short-lived and her fall from grace spectacular, completed in several humiliating stages.

Today’s Google doodle might lead you to think that Alessandro Volta invented the light bulb. Charlotte Connelly sets the record straight Continue reading...

Ketamine is a vital medicine, and restricting it has harmed patients without cutting recreational use. Britain should stand up to the UN’s failed ‘war on drugs’ Continue reading...

Scientists say structure of teeth could be reproduced in high-performance engineering to make Formula One cars, boats and planes

Sales of cheap, credit card-sized units top 5m says company, eclipsing the Sinclair ZX Spectrum in the 1980sOver 5m Raspberry Pis have been sold since its inception in 2012, making it the best selling British computer ever, according to the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

He may be adored for his portrayal of Hawkeye the wisecracking doctor in MASH, but Alan Alda has a second passion: science. Which is why he has written a play, Radiance, about the hounding of Marie CurieAlan Alda works from an office in midtown Manhattan, around the corner from Grand Central station and in the shadow of the Chrysler Building. “It’s funny,” he says, looking up at the skyscraper while waiting for a cab. “I come here every day and I never saw it from this angle before.”The veteran actor, now 79, is used to approaching things from unusual angles – it is what he has been doing, forcefully, for most of his career: taking the lessons learned from one area of expertise and applying them to another. So it is that, having just finished appearing nightly on Broadway, opposite Candice Bergen in Love Letters, Alda now has a production up and running at a much smaller venue: the Tabard in west London. Continue reading...

Italian scientist, who invented an early form of the battery in 1799, would be 270 years old today