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All of us will experience pain and stress, but the brain has some smart ways to protect us. Here is how to get prepared for periods of adversityOur minds are more resilient than we know. According to a growing body of research, first popularised by psychologists Daniel Gilbert and Tim Wilson in the early 2000s, the brain has a remarkable capacity to make the best of bad events: when we encounter negative situations we subconsciously activate what is known as our psychological immune system.A self-protective mechanism analogous to the body's own immune system, the psychological immune system is a series of processes that our brain initiates to help us make sense of the adverse environment we might be in, assign meaning to what is happening, and ultimately find positives for the future. If we fail to land a job we had wanted, for instance, our brain might reason that the interviewer was rude and biased, therefore it wasn't the role for us. Or, we will speak to a friend and gain a new perspective on the benefits of our existing job. Continue reading...

Physicist Samuel Peralta's Lunar Codex project has seen the work of 30,000 artists from 158 countries carried on into space - and the effect on them has been profoundBefore the age of space exploration, all artists could do was look up and gaze, sketch and write about a moon they could never reach. But Samuel Peralta, a semi-retired physicist living in Canada, has changed all that with the launch of the Lunar Codex, a project that sends art to the moon, converted into Nanofiche files (think microfiche but smaller) and left on the surface in time capsules.The whole thing started with the realisation that Nasa was going to privatise lunar landers," he tells me on a video call. This enabled him to buy payload space - room on a rocket - for an artwork he created called Moonstone, which was etched on a metal disc. Continue reading...

Erin Patterson tells police she bought the fungi from a supermarket chain and an Asian grocery store

After reading that they are far heavier than you think, I abandoned the housework, the dog - and my grip on reality - and got out the kitchen scalesSummer makes me go a bit odd. A case in point - I spotted a headline recently that read: Your hands are probably about twice as heavy as you think they are", and I became instantly obsessed. How heavy are mine, and how could I weigh them? If I estimated their weight, would I mentally factor in this bombshell headline, skewing the result? I mean, have you ever thought about the weight of your hands? Go on: how heavy do you think they are?Then I found myself wondering whether heavy hands were bad, like heavy legs are in France. Every pharmacy there will offer you a selection of products at varying prices to deal with what is, I believe, a fictional condition, and if you tell a medical professional that your legs are heavy, they will take this entirely seriously and may even prescribe a trip to walk around in some knee-high seawater, like a racehorse, in a coastal spa somewhere. I've seen (and envied) it. Has the scourge spread? What is happening to our hands?Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

In today's newsletter: The Eris' strain of Covid is a reminder that the virus has never fully gone away - but what will it mean for Britain? Sign up here for our daily newsletter, First EditionGood morning. Covid has become a polarising topic that many people just want to forget about. Earlier this year, the World Health Organization officially declared an end to the global public health emergency. Cases, hospitalisations and deaths are at their lowest levels, though infections have undoubtedly become more difficult to track as monitoring systems are dismantled. But even so, experts have made it clear that Covid will be with us for many years to come even though the acute phase of the health emergency is over.Like an unwelcome guest that does not know when the party is over, Covid has continued to mutate and shape shift, creating a viral, ever expanding family tree through its numerous variants and sub-variants, with Eris the latest of interest to the WHO. Many thousands of vulnerable people are still shielding in the UK - poorly protected by a government that would rather ignore the problem. And with record waiting lists in the NHS, is the country any better prepared for a future pandemic than it was in 2020? Continue reading...

One of the finest constellations on show in the northern sky, Cygnus's body lies right along the Milky WayFrom the northern hemisphere, summer is the time for Cygnus, the swan, to fly high in our skies. A large constellation, it is definitely one of the finest on show in the northern sky.Cygnus is shaped like a cross but it doesn't take much imagination to see it as a swan. The central star in the constellation is Sadr. From this point, the swan's great neck stretches out towards the star Albireo, and the body back towards Deneb, which is Arabic for tail. The wings reach out to either side along a line of fainter stars. The body and neck of Cygnus lie right along the Milky Way, the misty band of light that can be seen from more rural locations and is the combined light from the billions of stars that make up our galaxy. Continue reading...

Evidence is mounting on the health costs of these products. The real culprit is financialised growth, not inadequate individual willpowerIf we are what we eat, then we are increasingly composed from substances including synthetic emulsifiers, flavour compounds, bulking agents and stabilising gums (one of the most common being a slime produced by bacteria). Well over half of the average diet in the UK and US now consists of ultraprocessed food (UPF) - or, as one scientist prefers to put it, industrially produced edible substances. Though defining it technically is complex, the simple explanation is that it contains items you wouldn't normally find in a kitchen.Sometimes UPF looks like junk food - obviously artificial and high in salt, fat and sugar. But it often comes in reassuring forms such as soup, muesli or yoghurt. Almost every food that comes with a health claim on the packet is a UPF," notes Dr Chris van Tulleken drily in Ultra-Processed People, one of several recent books on the subject. Continue reading...

Three people have died and a man remains in hospital after attending a lunch in Leongatha, Victoria, more than two weeks ago.Police say mushrooms are the suspected cause of death and are investigating.Jane Lee speaks to Guardian Australia science reporter Donna Lu about the case Continue reading...

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers' questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical conceptsWhy are human eyes different colours? Gabrielle Kuper, aged 5, LondonSend new questions to nq@theguardian.com. Continue reading...

My partner, however, always assumed that one day he would be a dadI didn't become a childfree woman. I was born childfree, much like everyone else, then I simply stayed that way. There was no need to go through a future-mother phase to know that in my home there would be no chirpy children's laughter or tippety-tap of bare toddler feet.Poor David then, my partner. He most definitely was in his future-father phase when we met, aged 20, 21. Continue reading...

If departing the EU has failed to deliver, why is the UK still so divided? Seven years on, we ask behavioural psychologists if cognitive dissonance can be overcomeOne of the most significant political events of the past few months, it has seemed to me, wasn't strictly a bit of politics at all, but an emotional catch and quaver in the voice of a politician. The politician was the Conservative MP Steve Baker and the sudden sob in his throat came about during a TV interview about the efforts to resolve the Northern Ireland protocol.Baker, you will recall, was one of the most strident voices in the Brexit argument, a leader of the Tory European Research group, the ERG, which frustrated Theresa May's efforts to find a compromise deal with the EU. The sob in his voice and the tears in his eyes prefaced a short, heartfelt confession about the extreme private stress that those Brexit machinations - and subsequent arguments over Covid lockdown - had caused him. Speaking subsequently to the Times, Baker expanded on that state of mind. I felt absolutely worthless," he said. I felt repugnant, hateful, to blame for all of the troubles that we had, absolutely without any joy, constantly worried about everything to the point of mental torment. A constant state of panic attacks and anxiety. It's not a state anyone should live in." Continue reading...

Susannah Boddie, 27, who advised on Covid response, thrown from bike on downhill trail near Lake GardaTributes have been paid to a government scientist who helped steer Britain through the Covid pandemic after she died in a cycling crash in Italy aged 27.Susannah Boddie was thrown from her bike as she descended a steep downhill trail on a woodland path on the Brescia side of Lake Garda on Saturday morning, the Daily Mail reported. Continue reading...

The Egyptian-American scientist on falling in love with the stars, the problems faced by women of colour in her field, and her preventive double mastectomyEgyptian-American astrophysicist Sarafina El-Badry Nance's debut memoir, Starstruck, offers a window on what it is like growing up to be a scientist today as a woman of colour. Nance, 30, is a passionate communicator of cosmology, and an advocate for women's health, after a preventive double mastectomy. The book intertwines her personal story with explanations of what we know about the universe. Nance is completing her PhD at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is studying exploding stars or supernovae.Isn't this a young age to be writing a memoir? You still have so much of your personal and professional life ahead of you.

Two new shows at the festival question senses of hearing and sight in engaging and eccentric waysSeeing is believing, right? That is a phrase used repeatedly by Mamoru Iriguchi and co-star Gavin Pringle in What You See When Your Eyes Are Closed/What You Don't See When Your Eyes Are Open (). It is an amusingly hand-stitched investigation into ways of seeing, performed in one of Summerhall's small basement rooms at the Edinburgh fringe. The production treats the challenges faced by people who are blind or visually impaired as a creative resource. The costumes are bold, the lines distinct, the faces larger than life and, in the most idiosyncratic way, everything is captioned and described. It is surreal and, despite its deliberate repetitions, never predictable.If seeing really was believing, we would accept that the man in the outsize Mamoru Iriguchi mask, his grey suit outlined in thick black lines, his enormous glasses showing sleeping eyes, was indeed Mamoru Iriguchi. We would also surmise that the giant cyclops standing in the centre of the room, in a bushy coat of orange tassels and a purple head concealing a live video projector behind its gigantic single eye, was his husband, Gavin. Continue reading...

While meteors are active from July, Perseids will be most visible in northern hemisphere this Saturday and SundayStargazers will be in for a treat this weekend as the best meteor shower of the year is expected to peak.The Perseids are named after the Greek hero Perseus because the meteor shower appears to come from the eponymous constellation. Continue reading...

We look at the health hazard of the bacteria discovered on the Bibby Stockholm barge and who is most at risk

From a heart-shaped stem cell colony to purple gold and science candies', these are the 12 finalists for the 2023 Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology image contest. Each year in the lead up to National Science Week, researchers at the University of Queensland's AIBN have a competition to find the best image taken using imaging equipment and microscopes. This year's winner will be announced on 14 August

Creation of hundreds of signs aimed at making conversations about climate more accessible for deaf peopleScientists and British Sign Language users have created new signs for greenhouse gases, carbon footprint, and more than 200 other environmental terms.It is hoped the effort to rewild" BSL will make climate and biodiversity science more accessible for deaf people.Carbon footprint: Left hand as a C shape with right hand fingers moving away from the left hand to resemble carbon being released to the environment.Greenhouse gases: Both hands in circular shapes move around to represent gases, then put the left hand at the horizontal position and move the right hand, with the index finger pointing, down and back up to the left hand to show the sunlight reflecting on Earth's surface.Carnivores: Two five-fingered claws coming together as sharp teeth.Herbivores: Closed fists together, palms facing, with right hand on top + slide knuckles against each other in a circular teeth grinding" motion.Omnivores: Sign for carnivores" + sign for herbivores"Cetaceans (marine mammals including whales, dolphins and porpoises): Bring hands together to form a circle that faces the ground (sign for group") + link thumbs, palms facing the body, and fan palms up and out to resemble whale tail fin".Natural selection (the natural process whereby the best-adapted individuals survive longer, have more offspring, and thereby spread their characteristics): Two index fingers moving forward and the right hand, index still pointed, falls down", and the left index finger continues to stay upright and moves forward.Rewilding (the process of creating habitats that are similar to the conditions present before the natural habitat was changed by human actions): Two flat hands, palms facing down, then drop palms while pulling hands back (sign for habitat" but upside down). Then right hand at a distance from the body turns from palm facing up to down. Continue reading...

Experts closing in on potentially identifying new force after surprise wobble of subatomic particleThe tantalising theory that a fifth force of nature could exist has been given a boost thanks to unexpected wobbling by a subatomic particle, physicists have revealed.According to current understanding, there are four fundamental forces in nature, three of which - the electromagnetic force and the strong and weak nuclear forces - are explained by the standard model of particle physics. Continue reading...

Lioness's penalty against Nigeria makes Women's World Cup record and beats fastest strike of Premier League last seasonArms out, leg cocked: as England's Chloe Kelly took her penalty against Nigeria the forward was, she later said, confident of scoring. She not only won the game for the Lionesses, she set the record for the fastest shot in the Women's World Cup so far.According to data from the official match ball, the shot on Monday reached 110.79km/h (69mph) - a speed that beats the most powerful strike of the 2022-23 Premier League campaign, by West Ham's Said Benrahma, that clocked in at 107.2km/h (66.6mph). Continue reading...

Everybody thinks it's an amazing superpower, but there's another side to itRecently, I was sitting on a tightly packed plane as it circled up to 19,000ft. It was making loads of noise, and I could see the people around me were scared. But I felt nothing.In 2005, I was diagnosed with Cushing's syndrome, after years of misdiagnosis - doctors would often tell me I was just overweight. Cushing's is a rare condition that affects one to two people in a million per year in the UK, and is caused by the body producing too much cortisol. Cortisol is a hormone that regulates a range of processes, including the stress response; if it's not treated, it can be very serious. Symptoms can range from severe weight gain to high blood pressure. Continue reading...

Although designers do have a lot of power, AI is just a tool conceived to benefit us. Communities must make sure that happensSuperpower. Catastrophic. Revolutionary. Irresponsible. Efficiency-creating. Dangerous. These terms have been used to describe artificial intelligence over the past several months. The release of ChatGPT to the general public thrusts AI into the limelight, and many are left wondering: how it is different from other technologies, and what will happen when the way we do business and live our lives changes entirely?First, it is important to recognise that AI is just that: a technology. As Amy Sample Ward and I point out in our book, The Tech That Comes Next, technology is a tool created by humans, and therefore subject to human beliefs and constraints. AI has often been depicted as a completely self-sufficient, self-teaching technology; however, in reality, it is subject to the rules built into its design. For instance, when I ask ChatGPT, What country has the best jollof rice?", it responds: As an AI language model, I don't have personal opinions, but I can provide information. Ultimately, the question of which country has the best jollof rice is subjective and depends on personal preference. Different people may have different opinions based on their cultural background, taste preferences, or experiences." Continue reading...

DNA technology confirmed Talpa hakkariensis and Talpa davidiana tatvanensis as distinct from other molesScientists have identified two types of mole that they believe have been living undiscovered in Turkey.DNA technology confirmed the creatures were biologically distinct from other moles. Both inhabit mountainous regions in eastern Turkey and can survive in temperatures of up to 50C (122F) in summer and under 2 metres (about 6ft) of snow in winter. Continue reading...

A Soyuz-2 Fregat rocket carrying a lunar landing craft blasted off on what Russia hopes will be its first successful moon landing mission in nearly 50 years. The unmanned Luna-25's mission to the moon that is expected to take about five days and will seek to land near the south pole of the moon, collecting geological samples from the area. India's Chandrayaan-3 space probe entered the moon's orbit earlier this week, and will also explore the water-rich area near the south pole

Virgin Galactic has succeeded in flying three tourist into space for the first time. They were former Olympian Jon Goodwin, Antiguan health and wellness coach Keisha Schahaff and her 18-year-old daughter, Anastasia Mayers. "You are so much more connected to everything than you would expect to be. You felt like a part of the team, a part of the ship, a part of the universe, a part of Earth," said Anastasia.

Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity, the reusable rocket-powered space plane carrying the company's first crew of tourists to space, has successfully launched and landed. Aboard the spacecraft were six individuals in total, including three private passengers. Following liftoff, Virgin Galactic's carrier plane, VMS Eve, transported VSS Unity to an altitude of about 44,300ft. Eve then dropped Unity, which fired its own rocket motor and ascended to suborbital space

Team converts polyethylene into fatty acids, soap's main ingredient, but say it is not panacea for plastic pollutionScientists have discovered a method to give new life to old plastic - by converting it into soap.Plastics are chemically similar to fatty acids, which are one of the main ingredients in soap. For Guoliang Liu, an associate professor of chemistry at Virginia Tech and author of the paper published in the journal Science, this similarity suggested it should be possible to convert polyethylene into fatty acids, and then into soap. The problem was size: molecularly, plastics are very large, about 3,000 carbon atoms long, whereas fatty acids are much smaller. Continue reading...

My friend Bob Reid, who has died aged 92, was a cosmic ray physicist who studied these mysterious particles in Jamaica, on the moors of North Yorkshire and at the South Pole.Bob also had a fascination with boomerangs and was a member of the British Boomerang Society. In December 1988, while searching for cosmic rays from Supernova 1987A, he threw one around the South Pole, which technically stayed aloft for 24 hours and nine seconds as it travelled through 24 time zones. Continue reading...

Cosmologist who explored the clustering of galaxies as a way of establishing the distribution of dark matter in the universeBetween 1984 and 1992 the cosmologist Nick Kaiser, who has died of heart failure aged 68, created many of the ideas now used by astronomers to map the large-scale distribution of dark matter in the universe. His analysis of the clustering of galaxies and the distortion of galaxy shapes by gravitational light deflection are at the heart of the leading modern cosmological experiments, particularly the recently launched Euclid satellite.Kaiser's research concentrated on the large-scale structure of the universe. Galaxies such as our own, the Milky Way, are congregated in a vast pattern of density fluctuations - superclusters that extend for at least 100m light years. All this structure probably represents the relic of primordial fluctuations that collapsed under their own gravity, generating galaxies and the stars and planets within them. We see these patterns in the clustering of the galaxy distribution, but much evidence tells us that the galaxies are embedded in invisible underlying dark matter, which dominates the gravity - dragging gas with it, which in turn forms into the stars of the visible galaxies. Continue reading...

The Luna-25 mission will try to land near the south pole of the moon, seeking signs of water or its componentsA Soyuz-2 Fregat rocket carrying a lunar landing craft has blasted off on what Russia hopes will be its first successful moon landing mission in nearly 50 years.The unmanned Luna-25 mission launched in the early hours of Friday on a journey to the moon that is expected to take about five days. A landing date has not been announced. Continue reading...

Previously unknown Tutcetus rayanensis is just 2.5 metres long and oldest of ocean-living whales recorded in AfricaA pint-size whale that lived around 41m years ago has been discovered by palaeontologists in Egypt, who say the species may have lived a short, speedy life.Researchers say they unearthed the fossils near Wadi el-Hitan in Egypt, a site where many fossils of ancient whales can be found. At first, they said, it was unclear what they had found. Continue reading...

Vets receive medication originally meant for people amid virulent feline coronavirus that has killed thousands of catsVeterinary services in Cyprus have received a first batch of anti-Covid pills, from a stockpile originally meant for humans, as efforts intensify to stop the spread of a virulent strain of feline coronavirus that has killed thousands of cats.The island's health ministry began discharging the treatment on 8 August - long celebrated as International Cat Day - in what is hoped will be the beginning of the end of the disease that has struck the Mediterranean country's feline population. Continue reading...

Global accord aims to avoid the damage caused during Covid-19 and ensure vaccines and medical equipment are distributed equally to allCovid-19 caught the world unprepared; the scramble it prompted for treatments, tests, protective equipment and vaccines favoured the world's richest nations. To avoid the same thing happening in future pandemics, a group of world leaders has proposed a pandemic treaty, which is being negotiated in a series of international meetings hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO).The draft treaty is aimed at ensuring equity in distributing all that is needed to handle a future pandemic, instead of the coronavirus free-for-all. Continue reading...

Eating even a very small amount of the mushrooms at the centre of the suspected poisoning in Victoria can be fatal, and treatment is often only effective if administered very quickly

In this episode from March 2023, Ian Sample hears from Scotland's Astronomer Royal, Prof Catherine Heymans, about her experience of long Covid and how it has affected her life. He also speaks to Prof Danny Altmann, an immunologist at Imperial College London, about the scientific understanding of the condition, and whether we're any closer to a treatment Continue reading...

Health risk of EG.5, which is related to Omicron subvariant, judged to be low but may drive larger wave of infectionsA new strain of Covid-19 has been designated as a variant of interest by the World Health Organization, although the public health risk has been judged as low.The variant, known as EG.5 or Eris", is related to an Omicron subvariant called XBB.1.9.2, and is growing in prevalence globally, with countries including the UK, China and US among those affected. Continue reading...

After generations of inaction and very few novel ideas, researchers and activists are hopeful a new path is being charted in understanding and treating the crippling chronic conditionThere's an excitement at the moment," says Andrew Horne. After decades of inaction, something is happening in endometriosis.Now, says the professor of gynaecology and reproductive sciences at the University of Edinburgh, I do think things are changing. There are more people working on it, so it's bringing in people from different disciplines with new ideas." Continue reading...

Researchers hail very important discovery' that sheds light on unexplored Italian seabedAfter a weeks-long deepsea expedition, researchers from several universities around the world have discovered three underwater volcanoes off Sicily's south-west coast.According to scientists, the newly discovered volcanoes are at least 6km wide and rise more than 150 metres above the surrounding seabed. They join a series of other volcanic cones discovered in 2019 by the National Institute of Oceanography and Experimental Geophysics (OGS) in the marine area between Mazara del Vallo in the Sicilian province of Trapani and Sciacca, a town in Agrigento. Continue reading...

Despite recent scandals of research misconduct and error, the academic world still seems determined to look the other wayScientific misconduct has enjoyed some limelight lately. The president of Stanford, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, resigned last month after a series of investigations exposed serious problems in his research; an independent review of Tessier-Lavigne's work found no evidence that he falsified data himself but concluded that his research failed standards of scientific rigor and process" and that he failed to correct the record on multiple occasions.And in June it was revealed that a scholar at Harvard Business School, Francesca Gino, was accused of having falsified research about - wait for it - honesty. Continue reading...

It's very doable', according to the man who co-founded the submersibles company OceanGate. In fact, it's just like a caravan holiday!Guillermo Sohnlein is a man of many ideas. One of those ideas was OceanGate: the company that used to send people to the bottom of the sea in submersibles until one of those submersibles imploded, killing all five people on board, including Sohnlein's co-founder. It's 10 years since Sohnlein left the company, but after a tragedy like that you'd think he'd want to stay away from risky ventures for a while. But no, the businessman recently told Insider that he is intent on colonising Venus. This isn't some lofty vision of the far future: he wants to send 1,000 people to Venus's atmosphere by 2050. He lays out all his plans in an extremely unimpressive website for his foundation called Humans2Venus.While all this may sound completely ridiculous, don't worry: Sohnlein has looked into the logistics and concluded that getting to Venus is very doable". I think it is less aspirational than putting 1 million people on the Martian surface by 2050," he mused. You should trust him on this - he's been researching the matter for a very long time. I think I've been driven to help make humanity a multiplanet species since I was 11 years old," he told Insider. I had this recurring dream of being the commander of the first Martian colony." I've had a recurring dream that I forgot to do any of my maths homework for a year and then I had to sit a test, but I haven't spun that into a business venture.Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Study also finds each additional 1,000 steps daily are associated with a further 15% reduction in riskWalking just 4,000 steps a day may reduce your risk of dying from any cause, the largest analysis to date suggests - although the more you walk, the greater the health benefits.The idea that a sedentary lifestyle is linked to poorer health is now well established, yet, until now, it has been unclear what the optimal number of steps people should aspire to is, or if there is an upper limit beyond which further health gains are minimal. Continue reading...

Research suggests behaviour may reflect evolutionary response to previous outbreaks of diseaseAerial surveys of the North Sea have revealed that seals practise social distancing - and the discovery may have profound implications for the spread of disease among the marine mammals.In a paper published today by the Royal Society, researchers conducting censuses of grey and harbour seals detail new evidence that the two species not only maintain distances between their own kind (unlike walruses, for instance, who cluster close together) but also that this behaviour may reflect an evolutionary response to viral susceptibility". Continue reading...

Uncertainty over Britain's post-Brexit version of the CE mark has hampered the development of medical devices, says Roger Bayston. Plus a letter from Ian WhiteThe enormous waste of resources due to red tape described by Polly Toynbee (Business is haunted by Brexit - and this safety mark fiasco is its latest nightmare, 4 August) is not just confined to British business - it has severely affected UK research in the area of medical devices.Scientists need to partner with manufacturers in order to get these devices out of the lab and into the clinic. But we and others have experienced our industrial partners withdrawing support and pulling out of agreements because it has been simply too costly to embark on double certification of potential products. Continue reading...

What are the best exercises to reduce your blood pressure? The plank and the wall sit. Here is how to do them - and some other great poses - whatever your current fitness levelCould the secret to lifelong health be ... staying still? It sounds counterintuitive, but in a recent study, researchers assessing 270 randomised controlled clinical trials (involving more than 15,000 participants) found that isometric exercises, in which muscles are working but remain motionless, were more effective than a range of other options for reducing blood pressure.To be clear, aerobic exercise training, dynamic resistance training, combined training and high-intensity interval training all helped, compared with non-exercise control interventions. But isometrics were most likely to reduce blood pressure, with full-body movements such as the wall squat showing bigger benefits than moves such as hand-gripping or leg extensions. Continue reading...

First study to compare absorption of period products using human blood finds that discs can hold the mostThe first study to compare the absorption of period products using human blood suggests diaphragm-shaped menstrual discs may be better than traditional pads or tampons for dealing with heavy monthly blood flow.The findings could also help doctors better assess whether heavy menstrual bleeding could be a sign of underlying health problems, such as a bleeding disorder or fibroids. Continue reading...

Some of the winning images from Central West Astronomical Society's annual astrophotography competition named after the British-Australian astronomer and photographer.From a smartphone capturing the aurora over Tasmania's mountains to craters on the moon, Australian astrophotographers bring the wonders of our universe into frame

A fireball flying across Australia's night sky that left onlookers in disbelief was likely tonnes of space junk burning up in the Earth's atmosphere, experts say. The mysterious light show shone above Melbourne for almost a minute before disappearing into the darkness, with any surviving debris likely landing in the ocean

Installing artificial grass is becoming an increasingly popular way to achieve a neat, green lawn without much effort. But with environmental and potential health costs associated with plastic turf, many campaigners and gardeners would like to see it banned. In this episode from April 2023, Madeleine Finlay speaks to Guardian feature writer Sam Wollaston and urban ecologist Prof Rob Francis about why people go for artificial grass, its environmental impact, and whether it's time we rid ourselves of the idea of the perfect lawn altogetherRead about the plastic lawn backlash here Continue reading...

Beam of light that crossed Victoria's night sky burned for almost a minute and caused a loud boom, and Australia's space agency says it was incinerating space junk

The emergence of a possible link between air pollution and antibiotic resistance shows why action to clean up air is so badly neededA decade ago, Britain's top health official issued a grim warning: antibiotic resistance posed an apocalyptic threat, with patients having simple operations at risk of dying from routine infections that could no longer be treated.Sally Davies, then the chief medical officer for England, said global action was required to fight antibiotic resistance and fill a drug discovery void by researching and developing medicines to treat mutating infections. Continue reading...