The writer's scripts for a TV series about the nurse were among those recovered from her old computer by the British LibraryHad it been made, the television drama would have begun with a middle-aged Mary Seacole, the British-Jamaican woman who nurses hundreds of British soldiers during the Crimean war, introducing herself to staff at the British military hospital at Scutari, near Istanbul, in 1855. Among them is Florence Nightingale, who briskly asks Seacole what she wants. This, at least, is the way the late author Andrea Levy planned to start to tell the extraordinary life story of Seacole in a series that never happened.Digital forensics work at the British Library now shows just how Levy, best known for her prizewinning book Small Island, wanted to turn the 1857 memoir of the famous wartime nurse into a compelling TV drama. Her revisions and edits of this 2012 screenplay, alongside other unpublished projects, have been recovered by archivists from defunct computer files. Continue reading...
We are slowly beginning to understand how our immune systems work, which will help us prevent allergies - but more research is desperately neededIf it seems as though everyone around you has been sneezing, coughing and wheezing more often this summer, you're not imagining things. Allergies are both becoming more common and getting worse. In some ways, this is not news. Respiratory allergy, asthma, eczema and food allergy rates have all been ticking upward for at least the past 50 years. Currently, approximately 30-40% of the global population has at least one allergic condition.Industrialisation, urbanisation, changing diets, overuse of antibiotics and the climate crisis - with its warming temperatures, increased flooding and wildfires - are all exacerbating the difficulties our immune systems face as they are exposed to more and more things. So recently, if you've felt like your body is becoming more and more irritated by the world around it, you're probably correct. In essence, our immune cells are being overwhelmed by modern life - more pollen in the air from both native and invasive plants; all the chemicals that we use in products, from detergents to shampoos; particulate matter from the fuels we burn. Even our companion animals - all the dogs, cats and birds that live inside our homes - are developing allergies. All of our immune systems are struggling to keep up with the changes we've been making over the past 200 years.Theresa MacPhail is a medical anthropologist and author of Allergic: How Our Immune System Reacts to a Changing World Continue reading...
Historians hope to find remains of animal from one of Britain's Victorian travelling menageriesThey are more used to excavating prehistoric, Roman and Anglo-Saxon sites, but archaeologists are now embarking on an extraordinary hunt for the fabled burial site of a 19th-century elephant - in south Gloucestershire.This was a famous beast" that drew crowds as part of a travelling menagerie that toured the length and breadth of Britain. It is thought to be the mighty mammal identified as Nancy in contemporary reports, which praised her considerable intelligence" and ability to achieve many astonishing feats". According to local legend, she died in 1891 after escaping and chewing on poisonous yew leaves, and she was buried somewhere in the town of Kingswood. Continue reading...
I was in denial about climate action - until I realised that you might just have to despair to care...Have you ever felt, Climate breakdown, argh, oh shite"? And then felt, But what am I supposed to do about it?" And then spent an hour listlessly researching electric cars, before getting overwhelmed by the whole extinction-level endeavour and doing sweet FA?My new film, My Extinction, charts my transformation from self-absorbed, guilty, inactive dad to self-absorbed, guilty, slightly less inactive dad. That is, it shows how a journey from total inaction to climate action turned out not to be as radically transformative as I might have supposed. And I mean that in a positive sense. Continue reading...
I was in denial about climate action - until I realised that you might just have to despair to care...Have you ever felt, Climate breakdown, argh, oh shite"? And then felt, But what am I supposed to do about it?" And then spent an hour listlessly researching electric cars, before getting overwhelmed by the whole extinction-level endeavour and doing sweet FA?My new film, My Extinction, charts my transformation from self-absorbed, guilty, inactive dad to self-absorbed, guilty, slightly less inactive dad. That is, it shows how a journey from total inaction to climate action turned out not to be as radically transformative as I might have supposed. And I mean that in a positive sense. Continue reading...
It's no wonder 30,000 women are awaiting a cream that claims to make skin actually youngerThat the launch of a - purportedly - rejuvenating moisturiser is now considered national news is, you have to admit, a kind of progress.Well within living memory, face cream manufacturers would have found coverage of their triumphs hidden away, if they made it out of women's magazines, somewhere within the lifestyle pages. And even there someone might ridicule the more absurd claims. Or some feminist muscle memory might respond adversely to the expectation that women should fall upon anything claimed to alleviate signs of non-youth, a project that Susan Sontag described in 1972 as women's passionate, corrupting effort to defeat nature: to maintain an ideal, static appearance against the progress of age". Continue reading...
European Space Agency mission launches on SpaceX rocket from Florida to shed light on dark energy and dark matterA European-built orbital satellite was launched into space on Saturday from Florida on a mission to shed new light on dark energy and dark matter, the mysterious cosmic forces scientists say account for 95% of the known universe.The Euclid telescope, named for the ancient Greek mathematician known as the father of geometry", was carried in the cargo bay of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket which blasted off about 11am EDT (1500 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Space Force station. A live stream of the liftoff was shown on Nasa TV. Continue reading...
A rocket carrying the European Space Agency's Euclid telescope, named after the Greek mathematician, has taken off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The launch was broadcast live via Nasa. Euclid is being sent into orbit to help scientists study dark matter and dark energy, which are believed to account for 95% of the known universe. The mission is expected to last at least six years
Big tech now has even more to answer for. But salvation could come from an unlikely sourceIn The Beginning Was The Internet, which was first switched on in January 1983 and designed from the outset as a platform for what became known as permissionless innovation". If you had a good idea that could be implemented using the network - and were smart enough to write the software to make it work - then the internet would do it for you, no questions asked.In the early 1990s, the physicist Tim Berners-Lee used it as the foundation on which to build a new platform for permissionless innovation called the world wide web". The non-technical world discovered this new platform in 1993 and spent the next 30 years using it as the foundation on which to build lots of new things - online shopping, social media, Amazon, Google, blogging etc, etc. The web also enabled Wikipedia, an improbable project to create an encyclopedia that anyone, but anyone, could contribute to and edit, and which is now one of the wonders of the networked world. Continue reading...
A recent breakthrough in the race to create synthetic' embryos has sparked criticism. But the findings could be valuable in understanding miscarriages and genetic disordersThe news on 14 June that scientists had made synthetic human embryos" caused widespread surprise and alarm. Sounds scary, right? Perhaps even, as an editorial in the Guardian suggested, like playing God" and paving the way towards a dystopian brave new world".The reality is different. For one thing, calling these synthetic embryos" is rather misleading, even prejudicial - most scientists prefer the term embryo models", and they are made from ordinary human cells. And they are not new - the earliest ones were made years ago, although the scientists behind the latest work say they have been able to grow them for longer than before. What's more, these embryo models are not being created out of Frankenstein-like hubris just to see if it's possible, but could offer valuable new insights into embryology, disease and pregnancy. None has the potential to grow into a human being, nor is there any reason why scientists would want them to. Continue reading...
European Space Agency's 1bn probe will travel 1m miles from Earth to shed light on dark universeFinal preparations are under way to launch a space telescope that aims to produce the largest, most accurate 3D map of the cosmos and unravel the dark forces that shape it.The European Space Agency's 1bn (862m) Euclid probe will observe more than a third of the sky and billions of galaxies to shed light on the mysterious dark matter and dark energy that together account for 95% of the universe. Continue reading...
Flight is milestone for space tourism venture founded by British billionaire Richard Branson, after years of setbacksSir Richard Branson officially entered the billionaire space tourism race on Thursday when his Virgin Galactic rocket plane, Unity, reached an altitude of about 53 miles.Two Italian air force colonels and an aerospace engineer from the National Research Council of Italy joined a Virgin Galactic instructor and the plane's two pilots on the 90-minute suborbital ride, which was streamed around the world. Continue reading...
Will artificial intelligence destroy humanity? That remains to be seen. For now, gen up on the dangers and delights with this selection of moviesForget the more recent TV show, which ended up so frustratingly opaque as to render it pointless. The most fun version of Westworld is Michael Crichton's original movie. A robot cowboy comes to life and goes nuts in a theme park. What more could anyone need? Continue reading...
The E numbers in food make bread softer and ice-cream silkier. But there is growing concern about how they might affect our microbiomeAs if excess salt, fat and several types of sugar weren't bad enough, the ingredient lists of much ultra-processed food often end with a befuddling number of additives. Either written as E numbers or given their full chemical names, this information is unsettlingly opaque to non-experts, prompting many of us to just refer to them derogatively as chemicals", even though, technically, everything is made of chemicals.One category of these additives - emulsifiers - has hovered below the radar for many years. But as scientific understanding of the gut microbiome has grown, they have emerged as potential culprits in the modern western diet's attack on gut health. And, as we now understand, gut health means general health because it governs everything from mood and metabolism to inflammation and immune response. Continue reading...
A science writer charts the monumental impact of having children from every angleMotherhood changes a person. We all know this. Yet in so-called Weird countries (western, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic) there is very little in the way of ritual to acknowledge this rite of passage, this fundamental transformation. How can this be, Lucy Jones asks, when it is a transition that involves a whole spectrum of emotional and existential ruptures"?Unlike adolescence, matrescence" is scarcely marked. Instead, we are expected to get on with it, sublimate all our needs to our new baby, and weather this most fundamental of human shifts without making too much of a fuss. We don't properly recognise the psychological and physiological significance of becoming a mother: how it affects the brain, the endocrine system, cognition, immunity, the psyche, the microbiome, the sense of self". Continue reading...
by Presented by Ian Sample with Andrew Pontzen, produ on (#6CJRP)
Ian Sample speaks to the cosmologist Dr Andrew Pontzen about the European Space Agency's Euclid mission, which hopes to uncover more about two of the universe's most baffling components: dark energy and dark matter. Pontzen explains what the probe will be looking for and how its findings will contribute to our understanding of the structure and evolution of the cosmosClips: BBC, CBSRead more coverage of the Euclid mission here. Continue reading...
by Hannah Devlin Science correspondent on (#6CJPG)
Sound comes from the merging of supermassive black holes across the universe, according to scientistsAstronomers have detected a rumbling cosmic bass note" of gravitational waves thought to be produced by the slow-motion mergers of supermassive black holes across the universe.The observations are the first detections of low-frequency ripples in the fabric of spacetime and promise to open a new window on the monster black holes lying at the centres of galaxies. Continue reading...
The largest study of its kind may prove a link between vitamin D levels and the risk of cardiovascular diseaseVitamin D supplements may cut the risk of serious cardiovascular events such as heart attacks in older people, according to the largest study of its kind.Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is one of the main causes of death globally. The number of cardiovascular events is predicted to surge as populations continue to age and chronic diseases become more common. Continue reading...
Discovery could pave way for new treatments for condition that affects 2.9m people worldwideResearchers have discovered a genetic variant that appears to influence the speed at which multiple sclerosis (MS) progresses, potentially paving the way for new treatments.According to the MS International Federation, about 2.9 million people worldwide have MS, a condition in which the insulating coating of the nerves in the brain and spinal cord is damaged by the immune system. The nerve fibres themselves can also become damaged. Continue reading...
Scientists in India believe they can explain why the region has less gravitational pullSomewhere roughly in the middle of the Indian Ocean is the deepest dent in Earth's gravitational field - the place where Earth's gravitational pull is the weakest. That's because there is less mass under that spot on our planet - but why?Many possible explanations have been put forward, but proving any of the theories has turned out to be tricky. Now Debanjan Pal and Attreyee Ghosh, of the Centre for Earth Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru, India, think they have the answer. They reconstructed the last 140m years of plate tectonic movements and the stirring in the underlying mantle that accompanied the rearrangement of Earth's crustal jigsaw. Continue reading...
US space agency plans to send Americans to the moon by 2025, including the first women and person of colorUS space agency Nasa has ambitions to mine resources on the moon in the next decade, with the goal of excavating the soil there by 2032.Nasa plans to send Americans back to the moon by 2025 for its Artemis mission, including the first women and person of color, the first humans to land on the moon since Nasa's Apollo 17 astronauts in 1972. Continue reading...
Discovery means targeted solutions can be directed to avian flu viruses sooner to prevent spillover into humans, say scientistsScientists have discovered that a gene present in humans is preventing most avian flu viruses moving from birds to people. The gene is present in all humans and can be found in the lungs and upper respiratory tract, where flu viruses replicate. It was already known to scientists, but the gene's antiviral abilities are a new discovery.A six-year investigative study led by the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research found that the BTN3A3 gene is a powerful barrier against most avian flu viruses. Continue reading...
by Sally Weale Education correspondent on (#6CJ62)
Social and economic upheaval since the pandemic has resulted in many more families strugglingThe reasons for increased levels of pupil absence in England are multiple and complex. Some were an issue before the Covid pandemic closed schools and disrupted the education of millions, but all have become more acute since, affecting huge numbers of pupils and their families. They include: Continue reading...
Scientists say the cephalopods have stages similar to REM sleep seen in vertebrates including humansOctopuses may be the subject of many mariners' nightmares but new research has added to growing evidence the cephalopods may themselves dream while asleep.Octopuses are thought to undergo two different stages of sleep: quiet sleep" and active sleep", the latter of which involves twitching body parts and rapid changes in the texture and patterning of the skin. Continue reading...
As the climate crisis forces migration, so native tongues wither, too. But it's not too late to interveneRising sea levels already pose an existential threat to the populations of Tuvalu, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands and other low-lying Pacific atolls. In these places, however, it is not just homes, crops and community cohesiveness that are at risk: it is Tuvaluan, Kiribati and Marshallese - the languages native to these islands.The impact of the climate crisis on languages may be new, but the relationship between language and climate is old. As humans populated the Earth, climate and geography were enormous factors in where they settled and flourished. The equatorial region, with its consistent temperatures, predictable rainfall and abundant agricultural opportunities, was particularly agreeable. Continue reading...
Metals could be extracted from magmatic brines while producing geothermal power at same time, say scientistsOne hurdle in the transition to a low carbon future is the huge increase in demand for metals associated with renewable energy technologies. By 2050, it is anticipated lithium production will need to have increased by tenfold, cobalt by sixfold and silver by half as much again. Even the most efficient recycling system cannot meet this demand, and conventional mining practices are energy-intensive and environmentally damaging.Some mining companies are looking to the deep sea, but as well as being technically challenging, this risks irreversible damage to unique ocean environments. Writing in Geoscientist, Olivia Hogg and Jon Blundy suggest harnessing the power of volcanoes instead. Volcanic magmas are rich in metals, with active volcanoes such as Mount Etna in Italy releasing about 20 tonnes of copper and 10kg of gold a day in volcanic gases. Extracting metals from volcanic gas is implausible, but mining it from the underlying hot magmatic brines does have real potential. Metals are super-concentrated in these brines and the hot fluids could be used to produce geothermal power, potentially making the mining process carbon neutral. Continue reading...
Finding may help fight against diseases spread by flies and make traps more effectiveBiting flies are strongly attracted to blue objects because they mistake the colour for an animal they want to feast on, scientists have said.The finding may help the fight against diseases that are spread by flies, such as sleeping sickness, by making traps more effective. Continue reading...
I want to see films that respond to our real-life experiences. But few film-makers are willing to tackle this shared traumaIn March 2022, I went with some friends to see The Worst Person in the World, Joachim Trier's wistful film about a young woman's flailing search for fulfilment. In the epilogue - set some time after the film's events - the protagonist, Julie, is wearing a face mask, as are others onscreen.Leaving the cinema, I struggled to articulate why I found this detail moving. The mask signalled that Julie was now on the other side of not just profound personal losses, but also the global shutdown that rattled us all. It anchored the film's uncertain heroine in an uncertain present. As Paul Thomas Anderson remarked: Something about it made me feel like I had seen something that had genuinely happened." For those of us who turned 30 amid the agonies of lockdown, this little nod to the pandemic deepened the movie's elegy to millennial youth. Continue reading...
A new book, I Feel Love, explores the rollicking history of the 90s club drug turned 21st-century therapeutic treatmentIt was in 1975, when Carl Resnikoff and his girlfriend, Judith Gipson, took a bucolic ferry ride to Sausalito, a city located on the north end of Golden Gate Bridge, that a revolution in youth culture, music, emotion and imagination would take place. It was on that ride that the two undergraduates took capsules filled with MDMA powder for the very first time. Resnikoff, a biophysics major at Berkeley, had synthesized the drug himself. As the boat cut through the water of the San Francisco Bay, Gipson began to feel a floating sense of euphoria ... like some guy could come walking up to us asking for help and his guts are spilling out, and we'd be grooving on how beautiful it was.'"According to Rachel Nuwer's book I Feel Love: MDMA and the Quest for Connection in a Fractured World, Resnikoff and his girlfriend's romp was the first-ever documented instance of people taking MDMA recreationally. Continue reading...
Nice says more evidence needed on effectiveness of tirzepatide, sold under brand name MounjaroA weight-loss jab has been rejected for NHS use by England's drugs watchdog.The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), which provides recommendations and guidance to health practitioners, said further evidence was needed on the clinical and cost-effectiveness of tirzepatide, which is sold under the brand name Mounjaro, before it could be recommended for NHS use. Continue reading...
by Presented and produced by Madeleine Finlay, sound on (#6CGGZ)
Since 2020, orcas off the coast of Spain and Portugal have been ramming boats, biting rudders and, in a few cases, sinking entire vessels. Now it has been reported that a similar encounter has happened off Shetland. Madeleine Finlay speaks to marine biologist and orca expert Hanne Strager about what might be behind these incidents and where our fascination with orcas comes fromThis podcast was amended on 27 June 2023. An earlier version contained audio of the calls of a humpback whale, not an orca. This audio has now been removed.Clips: CBC News, The Ocean RaceWatch orcas nudge the rudder of a yacht near Gibraltar Continue reading...
New species named Pinanga subterranea as Kew botanists admit they have no idea how its flowers are pollinatedA new-to-science palm species has been discovered in Borneo with the remarkable ability to flower and fruit underground. How the rare palm - named Pinanga subterranea - has survived is a mystery, as most plants have evolved to develop their flowers and fruit above ground to facilitate pollination and the dispersal of seeds.Pinanga subterranea is the only known species of palm to flower and fruit below ground," said Dr Benedikt Kuhnhauser, a future leader fellow at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, who was part of the research team that collected specimens and ascertained that it was a new species. Flowering and fruiting below ground is mind-boggling and seemingly paradoxical because they appear to prevent pollination and dispersal. We now know bearded pigs eat and disperse Pinanga subterranea's fruits, but we've yet to find out how and by whom the flowers are pollinated." Continue reading...
The answers to today's stencil stumpersEarlier today I set you these six stencil puzzles, based on a IQ test for children devised by the American psychologist Grace Arthur in the 1920s.In each puzzle there is a patterned square at the top. The challenge is to work out how to create this square by placing some of the available stencils and coloured blocks on top of each other. Continue reading...
One in three products including shampoos, deodorants and wet wipes found to contain skin allergensMore than a third of personal care products, such as shampoos and body washes, marketed as hypoallergenic at Boots and Superdrug have been found to contain common skin allergens, research shows.As a large proportion of the population have sensitive skin or allergies, products are increasingly using the term hypoallergenic" to advertise goods. But the British Association of Dermatologists said there needed to be more regulation as some brands were stretching the terms to their limit" and could not match these claims. Continue reading...
The stencil puzzle that revolutionised IQ testingUPDATE: The answers can be read hereToday's puzzles are an intelligence test for children invented a century ago by an American psychologist, Grace Arthur.You will be presented with a patterned square. The challenge is to work out how to create this square by placing some of the available stencils and coloured blocks on top of each other. Continue reading...
The giant planets are not favourably placed right now, but in the pre-dawn light they are visible while few stars areIt is easy to forget the two giant planets of the solar system at the moment. Neither Jupiter nor Saturn are favourably placed, but for early risers they are both visible in the pre-dawn sky.The chart shows the view looking southeast at 04.00 BST on 30 June, although the view will not charge markedly throughout this week. As the breaking dawn light fills the sky, few stars will be visible, but Jupiter and Saturn will be shining. Jupiter will be the brighter of the two, shining its white light off to the east. It is located in the constellation of Aries, the ram. Meanwhile, Saturn will be dimmer and yellow in colour off to the south-south-east. It is located in the constellation of Aquarius, the water bearer. Continue reading...
The Italian physicist puts the fiendishly tricky theory of complex systems in terms of birds and bus rides, as his new book aims to make his branch of science accessible to allThe multi-prize-winning theoretical physicist Giorgio Parisi was born in Rome in 1948. He studied physics at the Sapienza University in the city, and is now a professor of quantum theories there. A researcher of broad interests, Parisi is perhaps best known for his work on spin glasses" or disordered magnetic states, contributing to the theory of complex systems. For this work, together with Klaus Hasselmann and Syukuro Manabe, he won the Nobel prize in physics in 2021. His first popular science book, In a Flight of Starlings: The Wonder of Complex Systems, which charts some of the highlights of his life's work and makes a passionate case for the value of science, is published on 11 July.How did you get interested in physics?
Most people are honest, but when I was lied to it left me questioning all my own opinionsWhen were you last lied to? To your knowledge, obviously. Was the lie something that mattered? Was the liar convincing? Did they confess, or did you find them out? And how did you react? Maybe with anger. Maybe with hurt bemusement. Or contempt - like my grandmother, who had a stock retort for anyone who tried to pull the wool over her eyes: I hate liars. They're worse than thieves."Did you feel, afterwards, that you'd been easy to fool? If so, you'd be in good company. It's the norm to assume communication is honest - and that's something to be thankful for, because we'd live in a miserable, suspicious world otherwise. Less helpfully, it's common to assume that body language gives away dishonesty when it does arise. Liars look shifty, in the popular imagination. They cough before they speak, fidget and don't look you in the eye. Unfortunately, none of these cues are very reliable. Continue reading...
A series of surprising studies in psychology shows how deeply our own beliefs influence the outcome of experiments, turning the science on its head. The self-help industry should take noteWant to lose weight? Buy smaller plates." Mindfulness at work: a superpower to boost productivity." Leaving Facebook can make you happier." That's what the headlines and Ted Talks would have you believe. But are any of these psychological tricks - or life hacks, as they are often called these days - actually true? The truth is, we don't know; and, in a very real sense, we can't ever know, because of limitations that are inherent in the design of the relevant experiments - not just those on weight loss, mindfulness or social media, but just about all experiments in what we might call lifestyle science". That, at least, is the implication of a new study by a pair of Stanford psychologists, Nicholas Coles and Michael Frank. We'll get to their work in a minute, but first I'd like to take you back to the German city of Mannheim in 1988.It was here that psychologist Fritz Strack conducted a study that has since been cited almost 3,000 times and become a staple of psychology textbooks and New York Times bestsellers, including Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow. In the experiment, participants were given a cover story: that previous research using questionnaires had excluded participants who were unable to use their hands to fill in the form, and that this study would explore the feasibility of instead holding the pen in your mouth. Half the participants were asked to hold the pen in their teeth (which forced their mouth into a smile) and half in their lips (which forced their mouth into a neutral pout) while they viewed a selection of cartoon strips. Sure enough, the participants who were smiling when they saw the cartoons rated themselves as more amused than the participants who were pulling a neutral (if slightly odd) expression. Importantly, when they were asked afterwards whether they'd suspected anything fishy was going on, none of the participants showed any sign of realising that the pen-in-mouth cover story was simply a way to get them to smile. Strack seemed to have shown that - at least sometimes - our facial expressions determine our moods, rather than vice versa. Continue reading...
Perhaps we don't need to know why someone inscribed an everyday pot as it dried in a workshop: it is enough to know they did itThere are moments when an ancient object emerges from the soil and seems, for a second, to close the gap between you and the deep and slumbering past. Then, almost as soon as a picture has shifted into bright focus, the illusion of connection passes: one is left with the same old sensation of puzzle, of seeing a long-distant world indistinctly and partially, as if through a misted-up pane of glass.This week, one of those moments of brief and magical clarity arrived in the form of an unassuming shard of Roman terracotta, 6cm by 8cm, found in Andalucia's Guadalquivir valley. Continue reading...
Four-page declassified report said while extensive work' had been conducted, no evidence of an incident at the Wuhan lab was foundUS intelligence agencies found no direct evidence that the Covid-19 pandemic stemmed from an incident at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology, a report declassified on Friday said.The four-page report by the office of the director of national intelligence (ODNI) said the US intelligence community still could not rule out the possibility that the virus came from a laboratory, however, and had not been able to discover the origins of the pandemic. Continue reading...
Study with 2,155 participants at Sainsbury's stores leads to atrial fibrillation diagnosis for 39 people unaware they had conditionSupermarket trolleys may be known for their wonky wheels and rusty frames, but researchers say the carts could be used to save lives by helping to identify people at risk of stroke through sensors in their handles.According to the British Heart Foundation, one in 45 people in the UK are living with atrial fibrillation (AF), which causes an abnormal heart rhythm and can increase the risk of stroke. While people may be unaware they have the condition, early detection and diagnosis is important as treatments are available. Continue reading...
Number worldwide expected to double, with rises in every country and across every age groupThe number of adults living with diabetes worldwide will more than double by 2050, according to research that blames rapidly rising obesity levels and widening health inequalities.New estimates predict the number will rise from 529 million in 2021 to more than 1.3 billion in 2050. No country is expected to see a decline in its diabetes rate over the next 30 years. The findings were published in The Lancet and The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology journals. Continue reading...
by Jonathan Watts Global environment editor on (#6CCTR)
Amazon rainforest and other ecosystems could collapse very soon', researchers warnEcological collapse is likely to start sooner than previously believed, according to a new study that models how tipping points can amplify and accelerate one another.Based on these findings, the authors warn that more than a fifth of ecosystems worldwide, including the Amazon rainforest, are at risk of a catastrophic breakdown within a human lifetime. Continue reading...
by Presented by Madeleine Finlay with Hannah Devlin; on (#6CC75)
Scientists have created synthetic human embryos using stem cells in a groundbreaking advance that sidesteps the need for eggs or sperm. Madeleine Finlay speaks to science correspondent Hannah Devlin about her world exclusive story on this development, what it could mean for medical research, and whether the ethical and regulatory classifications of these embryos are keeping pace with the scienceRead more of Hannah Devlin's reporting on this story here. Continue reading...
Hundreds of faint stripes, dots and wavy lines at Loire valley site were created more than 57,000 years ago, say scientistsHundreds of faint stripes, dots and wavy lines that adorn a cave wall in central France are the oldest known engravings made by Neanderthals, according to scientists who analysed the ancient markings.The patterns, called finger flutings, appear on sections of the longest and most even wall of the cave in La Roche-Cotard in the Loire valley, and were created more than 57,000 years ago, before modern humans arrived in the region, the researchers say. Continue reading...
Science | The Guardian