Science | The Guardian

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Almost 32 million people in the path of totality as moon's shadow crossed the Mexico-Texas border and then traversed 15 states

People in 15 US states, Mexico and Canada witnessed the awe-inspiring spectacle of a a total solar eclipse on Monday. Cities were plunged into sudden darkness and their inhabitants experienced a sharp drop in temperatures. The first such eclipse to cross the US in seven years swept ashore at the Mexican beach resort Mazatlan before crossing the Texas border at Eagle Pass and heading north-east towards Canada

The moon blocks the sun along a path that cuts across several countries

The weather largely cooperated as eclipse watchers were awarded with a heavenly event as clouds parted and sun and moon mergedIgnas Barauskas almost missed it.He bought plane tickets from his home in Lithuania to the United States about a month ago. After a series of flight delays, he landed in Dallas around midnight, ready for a once-in-a-lifetime total eclipse of the sun. Continue reading...

Each pregnancy is linked with an additional two to three months of biological ageing, researchers sayPregnancy may speed up biological ageing in women, a study has found.Scientists at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York looked at the reproductive histories and DNA samples from 1,735 people in a long-term, continuing health survey in the Philippines to investigate the influence pregnancy has on the ageing process. Continue reading...

Observers in Mazatlan were the first to witness a rare solar eclipse as the moon obscured the sun over Mexico. People in the US and Canada were also able to enjoy the spectacle. The most recent total solar eclipse in the USwas in 2017, but an interval of only seven years is unusual. The previous one before that took place in 1979, and the next one visible in the US will not be until August 2044

You might have to travel a bit - and wait a few years - but there will be another eclipse as long as the sun, moon and Earth are in orbit

More consensual touch helps ease or buffer against mental and physical complaints, meta-analysis showsWhether it is a hug from a friend or the caress of a weighted blanket, the sensation of touch appears to bring benefits for the body and mind, researchers say.The sense of touch is the first to develop in babies and is crucial in allowing us to experience the environment around us as well as communicate. Indeed, the loss of touch from others during the Covid pandemic hit many hard. Continue reading...

TikTokers and brands are getting in on the rare phenomenon, as astrological warnings and conspiracy theories abound

Frantic giraffes, barking gibbons, randy tortoises ... previous solar eclipses have revealed varied responses to sudden onset of darkness

Not half as much as we think, according to the evidence - and there are ways to break the cycle of mutual mistrustPolitics is a firestorm, sometimes literally. In 2023 in the Berkshire mountains of Massachusetts, someone threw petrol on a pro-Trump sign nailed to a tree and set light to it. Three years earlier in the same area, a 49-year-old Trump supporter started a huge blaze after igniting some hay bales that were emblazoned with a pro-Biden sign. This bucolic area of Massachusetts is not known for arsonists, but both here and everywhere else in the world, it's as though people are consumed by hate.And it's not just America where liberals and conservatives seem to detest each other. A UK survey in 2017 found that both Conservative and Labour supporters viewed the other side as much less intelligent, open-minded and honest than their own. Only 24% and 19%, respectively, would be happy with their child marrying someone from the other side of the ideological divide. Continue reading...

Patric Gagne has spent most of her life fighting terrible urges. She is also a loving sister, daughter, mother and wife. She talks about her remarkable journeyThere is a slight flash in her eyes as Patric Gagne describes what she calls the tug" - the moment she imagines something she really shouldn't do and thinks: Wouldn't that be fun?"She laughs. What would once have been a compulsion can now be overpowered by logic and consequences. You want to take that car for a joyride? Yes, but if I did that, I'm probably going to have to answer for it. And do I want to? Not really." This isn't to say that Gagne wouldn't jump at an opportunity, if she could argue she wasn't at fault. It happened recently, she says. Waiting for her car, parked by a valet, she was given the keys to someone else's and drove off in it. They handed me the keys! And then I was like" - she puts on a mock-surprised voice - Oh, this is not my car.'" Her husband, when he heard, didn't love it", she says. She smiles as if to say: but what did he expect? Continue reading...

The total eclipse visible in North America may be seen as a partial one in some UK areas - weather permittingMillions of people in the US, Canada and Mexico are planning to gather to watch Monday's solar eclipse, when the daylight skies will be momentarily engulfed in darkness as the moon passes between the sun and the Earth.More than 31 million people live in what is known as the path of totality - the area that will see a full total eclipse. Continue reading...

Georges-Louis Leclerc proposed species change and extinction back in the 1740s, a new book revealsShortly after Charles Darwin published his magnum opus, The Origin of Species, in 1859 he started reading a little-known 100-year-old work by a wealthy French aristocrat.

Global concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide climbed to unseen levels in 2023, underlining climate crisisThe levels of the three most important heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere reached new record highs again last year, US scientists have confirmed, underlining the escalating challenge posed by the climate crisis.The global concentration of carbon dioxide, the most important and prevalent of the greenhouse gases emitted by human activity, rose to an average of 419 parts per million in the atmosphere in 2023 while methane, a powerful if shorter-lasting greenhouse gas, rose to an average of 1922 parts per billion. Levels of nitrous oxide, the third most significant human-caused warming emission, climbed slightly to 336 parts per billion. Continue reading...

Travel agency rearranged lodging for dozens of people after two-year-old bookings were canceled - and resold at higher ratesHotel rates in states in the path of the solar eclipse on Monday have surged to astronomical prices, with some eclipse watchers traveling from across the country to find their reservations canceled and sold for several times the original price.Millions of Americans are expected to travel to witness one of the most spectacular celestial events in recent memory, with the moon's path of totality set to sweep across 15 states, along with parts of Mexico and Canada, bringing with it more than a billion dollars for local economies. Continue reading...

The Harvard professor reveals how everyday rituals can help us cope with pressure, unlock our emotions and define our identities - but can also become unhelpful and divisiveMichael Norton studied psychology and was a fellow at the MIT Media Lab before becoming professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. Known for his research on behavioural economics and wellbeing, Norton published his first book, Happy Money: The New Science of Smarter Spending, with Elizabeth Dunn, in 2013. For his latest, The Ritual Effect: The Transformative Power of Our Everyday Actions, out on 18 April, Norton spent more than a decade surveying thousands of people about the role of ritual in their lives.Rituals seem a tricky subject for scientific study. How do you categorise them and measure their effect?

Groundbreaking research finds dropping the third stage of standard MRI test for the disease doesn't hamper detection rates, and cuts costs in halfCutting the duration of MRI scans for prostate cancer by a third would make them cheaper and more accessible without reducing their accuracy. That is the key result of a UK trial which indicates that lowering costs could ensure more men are offered scans.According to Cancer Research UK, there are about 52,300 new prostate cancer cases every year in the UK, equal to more than 140 a day. Continue reading...

On Monday, the moon will block the sun in what many say will be one of the most spectacular celestial events in recent timesThe total solar eclipse that will traverse a large chunk of the continental US on Monday, along with parts of Mexico and Canada, will be one of the most spectacular celestial events in recent memory. Here's what you need to know: Continue reading...

The survival of ancient dialects matters not just for scholarship, but because of the wisdom they convey about how to live with natureThe launch of a last chance" crowdsourcing tool to record a vanishing Greek dialect drew attention back this week to one of the great extinctions of the modern world: nine languages are believed to be disappearing every year. Romeyka, which is spoken by an ageing population of a few thousand people in the mountain villages near Turkey's Black Sea coast, diverged frommodern Greek thousands of years ago. It has nowritten form.For linguists, it is a living bridge" to the ancient Hellenic world, the loss of which would clearly be a blow. But some languages are in even bigger trouble, with 350 that have fewer than 50 native speakers and 46 that have just one. A collaboration between Australian and British institutions paints the situation in stark colours, with a language stripes chart, devised to illustrate the accelerating decline in each decade between 1700 and today. Its authors predict that between 50% and 90% of the world's 7,000 languages will be extinct by 2150. Even now, half of the people on the planet speak just 24 of them. Continue reading...

Settlement in case allows six people to view the total eclipse after suing to oppose state's decision to lock down prisonA group of incarcerated people in New York will be allowed to watch Monday's total eclipse of the sun after suing the state's correctional department for its decision to lock down the prison during the celestial event.Six people at the Woodbourne correctional facility in southern New York state will be allowed to view the solar eclipse in outdoor space in accordance with their sincerely held religious beliefs", according to a statement from the group's lawyers. Continue reading...

The lauded burns pioneer and plastic surgeon on a paradigm shifting' project, coping with tragedy and the patients she will never forget

Cities expect huge crowds with millions gathering in 115-mile wide path of totality' for Monday's exceptionally large and long eclipseShould the weather gods grant their blessing, a celestial show for the ages will darken the heavens over a large swathe of the US from Texas to Maine on Monday, giving tens of millions of people a grandstand view of a rare phenomenon being billed as the Great American Eclipse".It will be another 20 years until the next total solar eclipse can be viewed anywhere in the contiguous US, lending extra incentive for many who live outside the 115-mile wide path of totality" to travel in and experience the moments of twilight, stillness and a sudden temperature drop the event will bring. Continue reading...

From Rafael Nadal's ball-bouncing to families' Christmas traditions, what purpose does ritualistic behaviour serve?The adjective ritual", from Latin via French, means related to religious rites. (A rite, according to the OED, is a prescribed act or observance in a religious or other solemn ceremony".) As soon as it appeared, however, the word ritual" could be used in a derogatory fashion to denote things empty of authentic spiritual content. In his Ecclesiastical History (1570), for example, the martyrologist John Foxe complained about two epistles erroneously (so he argued) attributed to the third-century pope Zephyrinus: they contained no manner of doctrine" but only certain ritual decrees to no purpose". Today one may disparagingly speak of some writer's ritual genuflection" to fashionable norms, to accuse them of a kind of moral and intellectual cosplay.

Largest study of its kind predicts 85% increase in deaths from the disease in same period as more men live longerThe number of men diagnosed with prostate cancer worldwide is projected to double to 2.9 million a year by 2040, with annual deaths predicted to rise by 85%, according to the largest study of its kind.Prostate cancer is already a major cause of death and disability, and the most common form of male cancer in more than 100 countries. But with populations ageing and life expectancy rising globally, a new analysis forecasts a dramatic surge in cases and deaths over the next 15 years. Continue reading...

Newsstand influence | Tax relief for charitable giving | Starter for 10 | Mind-body dualism | A period of silence from MPsArchie Bland notes the declining circulation of the Sun and the Times (Winning over the Times and the Sun won't decide the next election - but Starmer's Labour can't kick the habit, 2 April). But newspaper displays in supermarkets and motorway service areas act as billboards. Thousands of non-buyers still see the screaming tabloid headlines every day. Whether they are influenced would be an interesting research topic.

Researchers say findings from map with three times more galaxies than previous efforts could challenge standard idea of dark energyThe biggest ever 3D map of the universe, featuring more than 6m galaxies, has been revealed by scientists who said it raised questions about the nature of dark energy and the future of the universe.The map is based on data collected by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (Desi) in Arizona and contains three times as many galaxies as previous efforts, with many having their distances measured for the first time. Continue reading...

Some US schools are closing for the day, while other families plan to travel to more remote locations to watch the solar eventThe moon will completely block the face of the sun on Monday and, for a few minutes, people in the US, Mexico and Canada will experience a total solar eclipse.The alignment between the sun and the moon has to be precise and this gives rise to a narrow track of totality - roughly 71 miles (115km) across - from which the total eclipse can be seen. Continue reading...

Influential psychologist who studied how people make decisions and changed the way economists thinkThe psychologist Daniel Kahneman, who has died aged 90, won the 2002 Nobel prize for economics despite describing himself as mostly cheering ... from the sidelines" of the subject. He achieved celebrity status in 2011 with the pop psychology book Thinking, Fast and Slow, at the age of 77 and after a lifetime of rigorous academic research. Such unpredictable events were typical of his long and eclectic career, while also provoking him to ask the myriad questions about human behaviour that formed the basis of his often counterintuitive theories. His work revealed the extent to which human beings make erroneous judgments in everyday situations and base decisions on those judgments. Steven Pinker called him the world's most influential living psychologist".From early in his career, working at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Kahneman had been interested in obtaining results that could be applied to real-world situations. One of his first insights came when he was trying to persuade flight instructors that reward was more effective than punishment when training people in new skills. A member of his class flatly contradicted him, saying that cadets he praised for a successful manoeuvre invariably did worse the next time, and those he reprimanded for fluffing a skill did better. Continue reading...

More than 50 clinics will offer tests to about 5,000 people who are worried about their memory in five-year trialThousands of people across the UK who are worried about their memory will receive blood tests for dementia in two trials that doctors hope will help to revolutionise the low diagnosis rate.Teams from the University of Oxford and University College London will lead the trials to research the use of cheap and simple tests to detect proteins for people with early stages of dementia or problems with cognition, with the hope of speeding up diagnosis and reaching more people. Continue reading...

Psychologist Chris French has spent decades studying paranormal claims and mysterious experiences, from seemingly-impossible coincidences to paintings that purportedly predict the future. Ian Sample sits down with French to explore why so many of us end up believing in, what he terms, weird shit', and what we can learn from understanding why we're drawn to mysterious and mystic phenomena Continue reading...

Researchers say findings that diabetes drug lixisenatide can slow progression of motor symptoms could be exciting step forwardA drug similar to those used in skinny jabs" could help to slow the progression of symptoms of Parkinson's disease, research suggests.According to the Parkinson's Foundation, more than 10 million people around the world are living with Parkinson's - a condition in which nerve cells in the brain are lost over time causing problems with movement, balance and memory, among other effects. Continue reading...

Laverne Biser has traveled the world to witness the phenomenon - and what might be his final one will pass directly over his Texas houseLaverne Biser has traveled to several US states as well as a handful of foreign countries to gaze at and fawn over a dozen solar eclipses. But for what the 105-year-old retired engineer realizes may be his final one on 8 April, he won't have to go far.The total eclipse is expected to pass over his home in Fort Worth, Texas. And he has plans to soak in the occasion - what stands to be his 13th solar eclipse - with his daughter and granddaughter in nearby Plano. Continue reading...

Monitoring station detects predatory species using artificial intelligence and sends alert so nests can be tracedAn early warning system designed to track and trace predatory Asian hornets using artificial intelligence has been unveiled by experts from a British university.Researchers from the University of Exeter have invented a system that draws hornets to a monitoring station. They land on a sponge cloth impregnated with food and an overhead camera captures images. Continue reading...

Only private jabs are available to most, but annual shots could reduce healthcare costs and prevent deaths

The late Nobel laureate advocated deliberate thinking, but what rules now is haste and gut instinct. His passing should give us pauseHere is a simple maths problem: together a bat and ball cost 1.10. The bat costs one pound more than the ball. How much is the ball?It doesn't take long for most people to answer 10p. And most people get it wrong. If you are in the minority that pauses long enough to realise that the ball costs 5p and the bat 1.05, congratulations, smartypants. If you recognised the question as an exercise in misdirection to expose the foibles of human intuition, you are probably familiar with the work of Daniel Kahneman, psychologist and Nobel laureate, who died last week.Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Space agency tasked with establishing Coordinated Lunar Time, partly to aid missions requiring extreme precisionThe White House wants Nasa to figure out how to tell time on the moon.A memo sent on Tuesday from the head of the US Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has asked the space agency to work with other US agencies and international agencies to establish a moon-centric time reference system. Nasa has until the end of 2026 to set up what is being called Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC). Continue reading...

My colleague and friend John Midgley, who has died aged 88, was a scientist, biochemist and researcher best known for the invention and development of thyroid hormone blood tests in the 1980s.A pioneer in medical biochemistry, his work in the field of thyroid hormone detection hugely improved patient care. John was also a passionate advocate for patients - as a medical adviser to the charity Thyroid UK, commentator and writer. Continue reading...

Nasa investigates cylindrical slab believed to be part of discarded battery pallet that tore through Naples houseNasa is investigating after a sizable chunk of metal believed to be part of a discarded battery pallet from the International Space Station crashed through the roof and two stories of a house in Florida.Engineers for the American outer space exploration agency are analyzing the cylindrical slab, which weighs about 2lb and tore through the home in Naples on the afternoon of 8 March. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Multi-dose vials could push up charge per patient, with experts warning cost could widen inequalitiesCheaper private Covid jabs could end up being just as expensive as their pricier alternative because the vaccine must be given in groups of five, experts have warned.Boots and pharmacies that partner with the company Pharmadoctor are offering Pfizer/BioNTech jabs to those not eligible for a free vaccination through the NHS, with the former charging almost 100 a shot. The latter is also offering the latest Novavax jab, a protein-based vaccine, at a cost of about 50. Continue reading...

A majority of people imagine they're far fresher-faced than they actually are. So should we be battling our internalised ageism and embracing the ravages of time?Sit your old bones down, because I've got bad news: you probably look older than you think you do. Don't shoot the messenger - blame science. A recent study published in the journal Psychology and Aging found that 59% of US adults aged 50 to 80 believe they look younger than other people their age. Women and people with higher incomes were slightly more likely to say they thought they looked fresher than their peers; and only 6% of adults in the bracket thought (or realised) they looked older than others their age. In short, most of us are delusional.While the survey only included people over 50, I reckon they would have got the same results if they polled anyone over 30. Our brains have inbuilt denial mechanisms that stop us confronting our own mortality. Many people's biological age tends to differ from their subjective age" (or how old they feel). Mine certainly does: according to my passport I'm 40, but in my head I'm still a sprightly 29. Continue reading...

Lawsuit argues lockdown violates inmates' rights by preventing them from taking part in religiously significant eventInmates in New York are suing the state corrections department over the decision to lock down prisons during next Monday's total solar eclipse.The suit filed on Friday in federal court in upstate New York argues that the 8 April lockdown violates inmates' constitutional rights to practice their faiths by preventing them from taking part in a religiously significant event. Continue reading...

New research into the dying brain suggests the line between life and death may be less distinct than previously thoughtPatient One was 24 years old and pregnant with her third child when she was taken off life support. It was 2014. A couple of years earlier, she had been diagnosed with a disorder that caused an irregular heartbeat, and during her two previous pregnancies she had suffered seizures and faintings. Four weeks into her third pregnancy, she collapsed on the floor of her home. Her mother, who was with her, called 911. By the time an ambulance arrived, Patient One had been unconscious for more than 10 minutes. Paramedics found that her heart had stopped.After being driven to a hospital where she couldn't be treated, Patient One was taken to the emergency department at the University of Michigan. There, medical staff had to shock her chest three times with a defibrillator before they could restart her heart. She was placed on an external ventilator and pacemaker, and transferred to the neurointensive care unit, where doctors monitored her brain activity. She was unresponsive to external stimuli, and had a massive swelling in her brain. After she lay in a deep coma for three days, her family decided it was best to take her off life support. It was at that point - after her oxygen was turned off and nurses pulled the breathing tube from her throat - that Patient One became one of the most intriguing scientific subjects in recent history. Continue reading...

Being more flexible than the average person can have its advantages, from being great at games such as Limbo to feeling smug in yoga class.But researchers are coming to understand that being hypermobile can also be linked to pain in later life, anxiety, and even long Covid.Madeleine Finlay hears from the science correspondent Linda Geddes about her experience of hypermobility, and finds out what might be behind its link to mental and physical healthRead Linda Geddes' article on hypermobility here Continue reading...

Elite athletes and professional gamers may have higher than average visual temporal resolution, research suggestsIf you have wondered why your partner always beats you at tennis or one child always crushes the other at Fortnite, it seems there is more to it than pure physical ability.Some people are effectively able to see more images per second" than others, research suggests, meaning they're innately better at spotting or tracking fast-moving objects such as tennis balls. Continue reading...

The answers to today's questionsEarlier today I set you the following mini-pub quiz, based on wordplay puzzles from The Cryptic Pub Quiz Book by Frank Paul. Here they are again with answers. Continue reading...

CAP scheme, which pays more to farms that occupy more land, drives perverse outcomes for a food transition', says studyThe EU has made polluting diets artificially cheap" by pumping four times more money into farming animals than growing plants, research has found.More than 80% of the public money given to farmers through the EU's common agriculture policy (CAP) went to animal products in 2013 despite the damage they do to society, according to a study in Nature Food. Factoring in animal feed doubled the subsidies that were embodied in a kilogram of beef, the meat with the biggest environmental footprint, from 0.71 to 1.42 (61p to 1.22). Continue reading...

Get a few rounds inUPDATE: Swap papers. Answers up hereIn the world of pub quizzes, Frank Paul is a legend. Today's puzzles are taken from the fabulously fiendish quiz he has run at The Mill in Cambridge, and which appear in his latest book.I've chosen questions that involve wordplay rather than general knowledge. Like all great pub quiz conundrums, you will be able to work them out if you think hard enough (and maybe ask a friend for help.) Continue reading...