Science | The Guardian

Chloe Hamilton reflects on her intense relationship with Lydia, her twin sisterMy birthday in 2016 was a bit bleak. The paper I was working for had announced a tranche of redundancies and as a result I had to cancel a skiing holiday with my identical twin and our friends, so I could stay at home and fight for my job. At 8am, while Lydia was whizzing down pristine white slopes in Val d'Isere, I was sitting in front of my editor, an expanse of pristine white desk between us, trying to convince him to keep me on. It was the first birthday my twin and I had spent apart. Through 25 years of twinhood - even when studying at opposite ends of the country - we had always blown out our candles together.I can't remember whose idea it was for my sister's new boyfriend to take me out that evening, but I'm pretty sure it was his. They'd only been seeing each other for a couple of months and I'd met him just once, briefly, at a local pub. But that night, my birthday night, we went to a restaurant in Soho in London and he bought me dinner and drinks. We talked about my job interview; our experiences of living in London; his love of football; my feelings about the gender pay gap; and, of course, our shared interest - my sister. I got home at 1am. I was tipsy, happy and convinced Lydia should marry him. Five years later, she did. Continue reading...

European Space Agency brought down defunct Aeolus weather monitoring craft in unprecedented manoeuvreA British-built weather monitoring spacecraft has been deliberately guided into the Atlantic Ocean, the first time a defunct satellite has been manoeuvred to perform an assisted crash on Earth.Aeolus, a satellite that has provided data to weather centres across Europe since 2018, was successfully helped to its final resting place by mission controllers at the European Space Agency (Esa). Continue reading...

Leading scientists and medics back London and other clean air schemes and urge politicians to keep their nerveLeading doctors and scientists have warned politicians against watering down plans to expand city-wide schemes aimed at reducing traffic pollution levels linked to thousands of deaths each year.They urged politicians not to lose their nerve over plans to improve poor air quality, such as the expansion of the ultra low emission zone (Ulez) in London, which they said were central to tackling unacceptably high" levels of illness and child deaths, and called for more ambitious policies to reduce toxic air. Continue reading...

Genetically manipulated females in research went on to reproduce - but method unlikely' to work in humansVirgin births may sound biblical, but researchers have said they have found a way to induce female fruit flies to produce offspring when there are no males around.Scientists said they identified the genes that enable one species of fruit fly to produce young without their eggs being fertilised by sperm. They then genetically tweaked another species that normally reproduces sexually to do the same. Continue reading...

The vessel, from the first or second century BC, contains hundreds of jars, giving archaeologists insight into ancient maritime trade routes'An ancient Roman cargo ship dating back to the first or second century BC has been found at the bottom of the Mediterranean in what has been described as an exceptional" discovery.The vessel, which was loaded with hundreds of jars, was found at a depth of about 160 metres (524ft) close to Civitavecchia, an Italian port city about 80km (50 miles) from Rome. Continue reading...

Archaeologists hail exceptional finds' at venue whose existence was previously known only from mentions in ancient textsThe ruins of Nero's Theatre, an imperial theatre referred to in ancient Roman texts but never found, have been discovered under the garden of a future Four Seasons hotel, steps away from the Vatican.Archaeologists in Rome have excavated deep under the walled garden of the Palazzo della Rovere since 2020 as part of planned renovations on the frescoed Renaissance building. The palazzo, which takes up a city block along the broad Via della Conciliazione leading to Saint Peter's Square, is home to an ancient Vatican chivalric order that leases the space to a hotel to raise money for Christians in the Holy Land. Continue reading...

One nuclear expert says the film is unrealistic because it portrays quantum mechanics as hard'

Head of World Meteorological Organization also warns climate action is not a luxury but a must' as temperatures soar

European Space Agency to attempt unprecedented manoeuvre despite craft not being designed for controlled re-entryA defunct European satellite is expected to make an unprecedented return to Earth on Friday when mission controllers guide the spacecraft into a fiery dive over the Atlantic Ocean.The Aeolus weather-monitoring satellite was not designed for a controlled re-entry at the end of its mission, but the European Space Agency (Esa) has decided to use what little fuel remains onboard to steer the probe to a watery grave. Continue reading...

Wildfires spread across nine Mediterranean countries, killing at least 40 people, most of them in Algeria. Algerian authorities said 34 people had died in the mountainous northern region, with neighbouring Tunisia similarly battling wildfires.Across the Mediterranean, Sicily and large parts of Calabria were among dozens of wildfires, Italian authorities reported, amid a record-breaking heatwave. Two people were killed in their homes, said officials in Sicily. Firefighters also battled blazes in Turkey, Croatia, Syria, Gran Canaria and a natural park near Lisbon in Portugal.The frequency and intensity of the blazes were 'unequivocally' linked to the human-induced climate emergency, said the scientist Izidine Pinto: 'In terms of heatwaves, more often we see that every study that we do, we see the fingerprint of climate change intensifying these type of events, of heatwaves. So, it's pretty clear'

DNA analysis of tooth enamel solves puzzle of 2,000-year-old grave on Bryher also containing sword and mirrorScientists have solved the mystery of a 2,000-year-old grave on the Isles of Scilly, raising intriguing questions about warfare in iron age Britain.For decades archaeologists have puzzled over whether the stone-lined burial chamber, which was discovered in 1999 on Bryher, contained the remains of a man or a woman. Continue reading...

Is our tendency to expect the worst of people preventing us from supporting those who really need help?In 2007, three experimental psychologists, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, coined the word sugrophobia", which would translate to something like a fear of sucking". The researchers - Kathleen Vohs, Roy Baumeister and Jason Chin - were looking to name the familiar and specific dread that people experience when they get the inkling that they're being a sucker" - that someone is taking advantage of them, partly thanks to their own decisions. The idea that psychologists would study suckers academically seems almost ridiculous at first. But, once you start to look for it, it becomes clear that sugrophobia is not only real, it is a veritable epidemic. Its influence extends from the choices we make as individuals to the society-wide narratives that sow distrust and discrimination.The number of sucker synonyms alone suggests a cultural obsession: pawn, dupe, chump, fool, stooge, loser, mark and so on. Public debates about a wide range of social policies and technological advances feature inchoate fears about who's going to be swindled next. Will ChatGPT help students cheat unwitting teachers? Is remote work popular since the Covid-19 pandemic because employees can slack off more easily? Does forgiving student-loan debt let slacker baristas" exploit hardworking taxpayers, as one US politician suggested? Continue reading...

Plutonium from nuclear weapons, industrial waste, and human activity more broadly have left such a mark on the Earth that a new epoch called the Anthropocene has been proposed. Scientists are debating the specific geological site to define this epoch, with the frontrunner being an unassuming lake in Canada: Crawford Lake.What is it about this spot that holds the secrets to this period of history? From hydrogen bombs to hens' bones, how do we define the Anthropocene, the beginning of the human era on Earth? Ian Sample asks Damian Carrington Continue reading...

Whistleblower David Grusch claims non-human' beings found as issue of alien life receives highest-profile airing before US Congress

The former intelligence officer David Grusch says he faced very brutal' retaliation after going public with claims that the US government conducted a multi-decade programme that collected, and attempted to reverse engineer, crashed UFOs.Grusch took part in a congressional hearing where he laid out allegations against his former employee, stating information came from multiple colleagues but that he could not go 'into specifics' over the cover-up claims

British professor elected chair of UN's expert panel, which warned in March that 1.5C threshold could be hit in 10 yearsThe British professor Jim Skea has been elected to head the UN's climate expert panel, taking the helm of the organisation charged with distilling the best science to guide global policy in a crucial decade in human history.Skea, who is a professor of sustainable energy at Imperial College London and who co-chaired the report on solutions in the panel's latest round of publications, said in a statement he was humbled" to have been elected chair at a meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Nairobi, Kenya. Continue reading...

Rare volcanic blasts of kimberlites happen about 25m years after continental plates tear apart, researchers findPowerful volcanic eruptions that blast diamonds high into the sky and scatter the precious stones across the Earth's surface have long mystified researchers. But now, scientists have worked out what unfolds more than 100 miles underground to propel the crystals upwards with such spectacular force.The work sheds light on the enigmatic processes that cause the rare eruptions and where diamond-rich deposits are most likely to be found. Continue reading...

You all told us it would be bad but did you think it would get this bad this fast?

Research suggests iron and steel industry waste could be used to lock away carbon for millenniaAs recent extreme weather events in the northern hemisphere have demonstrated, global heating is so far advanced that we will have to rely on some forms of carbon capture to prevent the worst impacts of the climate emergency.Research presented at the Goldschmidt conference in Lyon, France, this month suggests that slag, the waste produced by the iron and steel industry, could be used to lock away carbon dioxide for thousands of years. Continue reading...

Loss of communications with International Space Station forced Nasa to rely on Russian systems insteadA power outage at Nasa's building in Houston disrupted communication between mission control and the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday, forcing the space agency to rely on backup control systems for the first time.The outage meant mission control lost command, telemetry and voice communications with the station in orbit. The power outage hit as upgrade work was under way in the building at Houston's Johnson Space Center. Continue reading...

Zambia study finds egg variability and random nest selection by cuckoos helps fork-tailed drongos rumble impostorsCuckoos might be the ultimate avian con artists, laying lookalike eggs in the nests of other birds to avoid raising their own young, but researchers say at least one potential victim is remarkably good at rumbling the fraud.Scientists studying the African cuckoo have revealed that while the birds are able to produce almost identical-looking eggs to those of the fork-tailed drongo, the latter is likely to reject an impostor egg about 94% of the time. Continue reading...

The thing about doppelgangers is that despite looking almost identical, they aren't biologically related. So, what makes them appear so similar? How do totally different people end up with the same face? And, can studying doppelgangers tell us anything about the age-old question of nature v nurture? Madeleine Finlay speaks to Dr Manel Esteller to find out Continue reading...

People could live longer if they make changes such as managing stress and avoiding cigarettes, study findsAdopting eight lifestyle changes, such as eating well and getting a good night's sleep, could add more than 20 years to your life, research suggests.The study found that people were likely to live longer when they made only minor changes, even if they delayed embracing the healthier habits until middle age.Eat well.Avoid cigarettes.Get a good night's sleep.Be physically active.Manage stress.Avoid binge drinking.Be free from opioid addiction.Have positive social relationships. Continue reading...

We should think of the cosmos as more like an animal than a machineIt is hard to come to terms with the sheer scale of space: hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy and, at a minimum, trillions of galaxies in the universe. But to a cosmologist there is something even more intriguing than the boggling numbers themselves, which is the question of how all these stars and galaxies were created over a period of 13.8 billion years. It's the ultimate prehistoric adventure. Life cannot evolve without a planet, planets do not form without stars, stars must be cradled within galaxies, and galaxies would not exist without a richly structured universe to support them. Our origins are written in the sky, and we are just learning how to read them.It once seemed that, for all its immensity, the cosmos could be understood through the application of a small number of rigid physical laws. Newton encapsulated this idea, showing how apples falling from trees and planetary orbits around our sun arise from the same force, gravity. This kind of radical unification of earthly and heavenly phenomena survives in modern teaching: all the innumerable molecules, atoms and subatomic particles in the universe are expected to obey the same set of laws. Most of the evidence suggests that this assumption holds true, so it should follow that perfecting our understanding of these laws will resolve any remaining questions about cosmic history. Continue reading...

Negotiations stalling over London's request to quit atomic research organisation and for financial rebateThe UK's return to the EU's 85bn Horizon science research programme appears to be hanging by a thread after London's request to quit the associated atomic research organisation, Euratom.The delays are causing huge anxiety in the scientific community. Continue reading...

Extreme weather puzzlesIf you are reading this during your UK staycation, there's a good chance it's bucketing down. Or at least drizzling. If you are on holiday in the Med, you are probably uncomfortably hot. Puzzled by the weather? Try these weather puzzles:1. The weather forecast Continue reading...

The solutions to today's puzzlesToday I set you the following puzzles about the weather.1. The weather forecastThrow it off the top and time how long it takes to reach the bottomMeasure its shadow, and compare to the shadow of the buildingGive it as a gift to someone who knows the answer already, such as the architect or building manager. Continue reading...

As the twilight gives way to night, the waxing gibbous moon and Antares will be shownThe silver light of the moon meets the blood red starlight of Antares this week. The chart shows the view looking due south at 22.00 BST on 28 July.As the twilight dims into the darkness of the night, the waxing gibbous moon and Antares will be revealed. To the eye, they will appear to be just one or two finger widths apart, when holding your hand at arm's length. In reality of course they are at vastly different distances. The moon is literally next door on the cosmic scale while Antares is way beyond our entire solar system, at a distance of about 550 light years from Earth. Continue reading...

Trafalgar Square monument would stand in stark contrast' to treatment codebreaker received in his lifetimeAn LGBTQ+ armed forces charity has backed proposals to erect a statue of the second world war codebreaker Alan Turing on Trafalgar Square's fourth plinth - a high-profile platform for contemporary art commissions.The defence secretary, Ben Wallace, originally made the suggestion in the House of Commons last week in response to an independent review into the service and experience of LGBTQ+ veterans who served under the pre-2000 ban on homosexuality in the armed forces. Continue reading...

The rocker astrophysicist is co-author of a three-dimensional atlas of Bennu, an asteroid explored by the Osiris-Rex probe in 2020A new book on the world's first complete atlas of an asteroid is set to be released by University of Arizona planetary science expert Dante Lauretta and the more unlikely figure of Queen's lead guitarist and little-known astrophysicist Brian May.The duo have teamed up to author Bennu 3-D: Anatomy of an Asteroid, a book that has been described as the first complete and three-dimensional atlas of an asteroid. Continue reading...

My journey into the world showed me that adventures are for me, tooWhen my mum handed me the notebook, I was excited. It was from a trip she'd taken in the 1970s, visiting her aunt in Omaha, Nebraska. I had just done the exact same trip - a flight to New York City, then a Greyhound bus across the Midwest. I had made this trip to research the ebb and flow of women's rights over a generation, but also to understand my mother better, and to tell the story of both in a book. This, therefore, was primary source gold: her private thoughts of that moment in time, perfectly preserved from nearly half a century ago.Or at least some of them were. Because when I took the thin yellow pad in my hands, the faded paper covered in her unmistakable scrawl, I began to notice something. Pages had been removed. Some had parts missing, neatly cut off, as if folded along the line of a ruler and defiantly torn away. It had been redacted by my mother, like a document of national security, and forced into the light by a freedom of information request, by me, her daughter. Continue reading...

Observer investigation shows that majority of Nice drug appraisals involve groups financially linked to maker of pharmaceuticalsDrug companies are systematically funding grassroots patient groups that lobby the NHS medicines watchdog to approve the rollout of their drugs, the Observer can reveal.An investigation by the Observer has found that of 173 drug appraisals conducted by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) since April 2021, 138 involved patient groups that had a financial link to the maker of the drug being assessed, or have since received funding. Continue reading...

Homo naledi was claimed to be artistic, make tools and bury its dead, but warring experts now ask, where's the evidence?It was an announcement that astounded the world of science and made headlines around the globe. Researchers reported last month that they had discovered burials, carved symbols and tools made by an ancient species of small-brained humans. The finds, in South Africa's Rising Star cave system, suggested Homo naledi displayed sophisticated behaviour almost a quarter of a million years before modern humans began making graves and art, even though this primitive species had brains little bigger than those of chimpanzees.The revelations were described online in papers that had still to be peer-reviewed but were nevertheless hailed by the authors as an intellectual revolution, a paradigm shift that challenged previous assumptions about human evolution. Religion and art were in our lineage long before we developed big brains, it was argued. Continue reading...

Charlotte Edwardes meets Kit Connor (11m12s); Marina Hyde implores us to stay angry about the Post Office scandal (1m32s); and Lily Scherlis explores the genesis of boundaries' in the world of therapy (35m25s) Continue reading...

Growing interest in native fungi as enthusiasts across New Zealand hunt for the unusual specimens, from gilled oyster mushrooms to fleshy brains'

Symptoms of infection can last two years, but researchers find no lasting cognitive impairment after individuals fully recoverThe so-called brain fog" symptom associated with long Covid is comparable to ageing 10 years, researchers have suggested.In a study by King's College London, researchers investigated the impact of Covid-19 on memory and found cognitive impairment highest in individuals who had tested positive and had more than three months of symptoms. Continue reading...

Kai Bird, author of American Prometheus, says technology is too dangerous to gamble with' and supports senator's attempt to bar itA biographer whose Pulitzer prize-winning book inspired the new movie Oppenheimer has expressed support for a US senator's attempt to bar the use of artificial intelligence in nuclear weapons launches.Humans must always maintain sole control over nuclear weapons," Kai Bird, author of American Prometheus, said in a statement reported by Politico. Continue reading...

Gavin Schmidt of Goddard Institute for Space Studies warns of likelihood of new high as heatwave bakes large parts of planetJuly will likely be Earth's hottest month in hundreds if not thousands of years, Gavin Schmidt, the director of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told reporters on Thursday, as a persistent heatwave baked swaths of the US south.Schmidt made the announcement during a meeting at Nasa's Washington headquarters that convened agency climate experts and other leaders, including Nasa administrator Bill Nelson and chief scientist and senior climate adviser Kate Calvin. Continue reading...

Is golf culture to blame? | Fish and chips in The Road to Wigan Pier | Derek Malcom's Magnum Fart | Coutts questionMy psychotherapy colleagues and I are fed up with the grim Jonah Hill situation being put down to the inadequacies of therapy, so it was nice to see Daisy Jones speaking to qualified therapists and putting some distance between unqualified opinions being shared via TikTok and the profoundly delicate and valuable work of long-term psychotherapy (Are Jonah Hill's texts really therapy speak'? I asked a therapist, 13 July). However, it's still grating that the unpleasant actions of a famous actor are being conflated with therapy at all. Hill plays a fair amount of golf, too - perhaps it's golf culture that's really to blame?

Males show fewer tooth-rake marks when mothers are present and have stopped breeding, research showsPost-menopausal killer whales protect their sons from getting injured in fights with other whales, scientists have found.The study showed that males showed fewer tooth-rake marks - scars left when whales scrape their teeth across another's skin - when their mother was still present and had stopped breeding. But the protective effect did not extend to daughters. Continue reading...

For years the corporate diktat has been that happiness must be achieved alone, but many are turning to communities for joyThere are 11-year-olds with dyed blue hair, ripped men in their 40s and dirtbag hipsters in their 20s, all hanging from plastic crimps on the walls of a high-ceilinged gym. As electronic dance music plays loudly, Gatorade and microbrews are being served to the audience. They dance and clap in unison. Some gather to chat and cheer at those climbing the walls around them. It's exuberant, anarchic, and although I am not a climber, I am in the middle of it, sitting cross-legged on the sweaty floor.I'm not attending the event, which was organized by a Brooklyn climbing gym, because I love dim lighting, relentless bass and beer - although I do like these things. I am here because my tween daughter has a gift for climbing, and my attending those competitions turned parties is a requirement - she's still a kid - but it also further connects us to this community. Watching her do beta" with dance-like hand and arm movements to figure out a climb before she gets on the wall or smile shyly at the crowd when she tops" and waves to her friends make me proud: she is thinking with her body, but also anchored in a group of enthusiasts I had never known of before she showed them to me. Continue reading...

As record temperatures spread across the world, Ian Sample sets out to understand what heat does to our bodies and what we can do to mitigate it without causing more damage to the environment. He visits Prof Lewis Halsey's team at the University of Roehampton and learns first-hand about the body's response to heat. He also hears from scientists Prof Jean Palutikof and Dr Aaron Bach about how we can adapt buildings and working conditions in a changing climate.Read more Guardian reporting on the climate crisis Continue reading...

A five-year study has revealed that regular and weekend-only exercise give similar cardiovascular health benefitsName: Weekend warriors.Age: The term weekend warrior" probably came out of the US, where, after the second world war, national guard reservists were seen as having it easy compared with regular soldiers on active duty. Continue reading...

White dwarf nicknamed Janus could be in transition from one element dominating at its surface to the other

Research published in journal Nature uncovers first genetic link to strong immunity against the illness

Australian Space Agency working to identify the mysterious cylinder that washed up on a remote beach 250km north of Perth

Searing temperatures from Spain to Greece underline that the climate emergency cannot be put on hold while other crises are prioritisedThe weather map of southern Europe remains a deep, sinister red, as the heat soars above 40C in places and closer to 50C in Sicily and Sardinia. In Madrid, some nights are equatorial rather than tropical, as the temperature stays above 25C. June was the hottest month recorded on Earth for 120,000 years. The hottest week came early this month. Very dangerous long-duration heat", to use the language of the recent alert issued by the US National Weather Service in Arizona, sums up the experience of the last few weeks across much of the northern hemisphere. Extreme heat, wildfires and floods are ravaging parts of the US, Canada, Japan, South Korea, India and China.Global heating is not the sole explanation for the hellish impact of Cerberus and Charon, the heatwaves named after mythical denizens of Hades. As in 2016 - the hottest year ever recorded - an emerging El Nino weather pattern is helping drive the barometer upwards. But each time this natural and sporadic event recurs, typically adding 0.2C to the average global temperature, it heats up a planet that is already warmer than before as a result of greenhouse gas emissions. Continue reading...

Weekend warriors' have similarly low risk of heart disease and stroke as those who spread out their physical activityPeople who fit an entire week's recommended exercise into a couple of days have a similarly low risk of heart disease and stroke as those who spread out their physical activity, researchers say.The results from a major study on weekend warriors" against more regular exercisers suggest that even when people are too busy to exercise in the working week, making up for the inactivity at the weekend can still improve cardiovascular health. Continue reading...

Alarming' reports of sudden rise in feline infectious peritonitis thought to point to more virulent strainThousands of cats have died in Cyprus, according to experts who are warning that a more virulent strain of a feline coronavirus is causing severe illness. Separately, dozens of cats have died after being infected with avian flu in Poland.The reports have raised questions about whether there is any connection between the rises in deaths and whether, given that many have pet cats at home, there is any evidence of an increased risk to people. Continue reading...

Discovery in China challenges view of early mammals as fodder' for dinosaurs, say researchersWhether they had sharp teeth, vicious claws or were simply enormous, dinosaurs were creatures to be feared. But a newly identified fossil shows that, at least sometimes, the underdog bit back.Experts revealed the 125m-year-old fossil that froze in time after being taken on by a small mammal a third of its size. They are tangled together, the mammal's teeth sunk into the beaked dinosaur's ribs, its left paw clasping the beast's lower jaw. Continue reading...