Science | The Guardian

Scientists express concern over health impacts, with another study finding particles in arteriesMicroplastics have been found in every human placenta tested in a study, leaving the researchers worried about the potential health impacts on developing foetuses.The scientists analysed 62 placental tissue samples and found the most common plastic detected was polyethylene, which is used to make plastic bags and bottles. A second study revealed microplastics in all 17 human arteries tested and suggested the particles may be linked to clogging of the blood vessels. Continue reading...

Scientists discover how Danionella cerebrum, measuring width of adult human fingernail, can create noises exceeding 140 decibelsOne of the world's smallest fish, measuring about the width of an adult human fingernail, can make a sound as loud as a gunshot, scientists have said.The male Danionella cerebrum, a fish of about 12mm found in the streams of Myanmar, produces sounds that exceed 140 decibels, according to the study published in the PNAS journal, equal to an ambulance siren or jackhammer. Continue reading...

Four-minute video features drag queens, twerking, ballerinas, a classical Indian dancer and a bunch of friends from Canberra

Electric cars might seem like a no-brainer on a warming planet, but there are plenty of people who remain sceptical about everything from their battery life to their carbon impact and the environmental and human rights costs of their parts. Madeleine Finlay consults Auke Hoekstra, known as the internet's EV debunker in chief', to unpick the myths, realities and grey areas surrounding electric carsClips: Joe Rogan, Global RadioRead Jasper Jolly's EV mythbusters series here Continue reading...

Intuitive Machines, private company behind lander, says mission will end after five days rather than the expected seven to 10Flight control engineers expect to lose contact with the private US moon lander Odysseus on Tuesday, cutting short the mission five days after its sideways touchdown, the company behind the spacecraft, Intuitive Machines, said.It remained to be seen how much scientific data might be lost as a result of the shortened life of Odysseus, which, according to previous estimates from the company and its biggest customer, Nasa, would have otherwise operated on the moon for seven to 10 days. Continue reading...

Research compared access to radiotherapy and chemotherapy in Australia, Canada, Norway and UKCancer patients in the UK wait up to seven weeks longer to begin radiotherapy or chemotherapy than people in comparable countries, research has revealed.The stark findings are yet more damning evidence of the extent to which the UK lags behind other nations, as experts warn that people's chances of survival are being affected by long waits for treatment. Continue reading...

Patch on Earth-sized remnant of star covers larger fraction of pole than equivalent of Antarctica on EarthAstronomers have spotted a star with a dark metallic scar" on its surface, thought to be the imprint of a doomed planetary fragment that came too close to its host.The white dwarf star, called WD 0816-310, is a dense, Earth-sized remnant of a star about 63 light years away that would have been similar to our sun in its lifetime. Observations revealed a concentrated patch of metals on its surface, which appear to be the remnants of an ingested chunk of planet or an asteroid. Continue reading...

Dr Clive Boddy says assessment skews towards obvious male traits but female psychopathy is more subtleWhen it comes to a typical psychopath, the suited and booted Patrick Bateman from the novel American Psycho might spring to mind, but, according to one expert, the number of women with the neuropsychiatric disorder could be far greater than previously thought.Psychopaths are generally considered to lack empathy and guilt, exhibit antisocial behaviour, lie frequently and be ruthless, narcissistic and manipulative. Continue reading...

Writer and dementia campaigner who believed that people should have the right to choose their own deathThe writer-activist Wendy Mitchell, who has died aged 68, won hearts and minds by advocating for living positively with dementia. She was determined to remind people that those living with the disease are not sufferers" and that there is a beginning, a middle and an end to the disease - with so much life to be lived in between". She held strong beliefs that people should have the right to choose their own death, and campaigned for assisted dying laws in Britain - one of the subjects of her final book.Wendy wrote three bestsellers, Somebody I Used to Know (2018), What I Wish People Knew About Dementia (2022) and One Last Thing: How to Live with the End in Mind (2023) - I was fortunate enough to be her ghostwriter on all of them. They were translated into dozens of languages, and her advocacy work won her honorary doctorates from Bradford and Hull Universities, and a British Empire Medal last year. Continue reading...

People with aphantasia can't mentally visualize things. Mental imagery is a spectrum, and we lie outside it, in the darkI discovered I had aphantasia by accident. When you live your entire life without a mind's eye", it seems completely normal to visualize nothing when remembering people and places, or imagining the future.Two years ago, I wrote an article about pupillometry, or the measurement of a person's pupils to infer their cognitive state. Joel Pearson, a psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of New South Wales, was trying to use pupils as a biomarker to assess aphantasia, a condition thought to affect about 3.9% of people. Continue reading...

Unmanned Slim spacecraft responds to signal from Earth after touching down at awkward angle in JanuaryJapan's moon lander has responded to a signal from Earth, suggesting it survived the two-week lunar night, the country's space agency has said.The unmanned Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (Slim) touched down last month at a wonky angle that left its solar panels facing the wrong way. But as the sun's angle shifted, it powered up for two days and carried out scientific observations of a crater with a hi-spec camera. Continue reading...

As vets turn away from the profession citing poor mental health and high costs, experts say public health is at riskA longstanding shortage of veterinarians in areas across the US has caused crises for some pet owners; contributed to mental health issues among veterinary staff; and could leave the country at risk in terms of food safety and public health, experts have warned.The lack of veterinarians and veterinary professionals has been attributed to the high cost of entry, long hours and the stress of dealing with animal owners in life and death situations. Continue reading...

Exclusive: cytosponge detects precursor to oesophageal cancer, slashing NHS waiting times for endoscopiesA sponge on a string" used to identify a precursor to one of Britain's deadliest cancers is helping to reduce the long delays faced by patients who need a vital diagnostic test.An NHS trial of the innovative cytosponge" has found that almost eight out of 10 people who are assessed using the method do not then need to join the waiting list for an endoscopy. Continue reading...

Blue giant in Virgo constellation pumps out almost 21,000 times the light of the sunOnce again the moon is our guide this week, passing within about 1.5 of Spica, the brightest star in Virgo, the virgin. The full circle of the moon presents an angular diameter of about 0.5, so it will approach Spica to about six lunar widths.The chart shows the view looking south-east from London at 23.00 GMT on 28 February, shortly after the pair have risen. Having passed full moon, the waning moon will now rise later and later, with less and less of its visible surface illuminated. On 28 February, 83% of its Earth-facing hemisphere will be illuminated. By next week, it will be a thin crescent rising in the morning sky before the sun. Continue reading...

The spectre of the mob' has long been summoned to limit freedom. There's just one problem: protests almost never lead to violenceA spectre is haunting Westminster - the spectre of collective violence against MPs. Large crowds chant noisily outside parliament during debates on Palestine; protesters surround Tobias Ellwood's house; Jo Stevens' constituency office is vandalised - and all this against the backdrop of the murders of David Amess and Jo Cox. The parties are united in seeking to exorcise this spectre. It has already led to parliamentary procedure being changed in a way that made a mockery of the debate over violence in Gaza. It has also led to calls for new police powers to curb protests outside parliament. But is collective violence the problem here, and is the introduction of yet more curbs on protest the answer?Certainly, acts of vandalism and of violence against MPs cast a chill over our democracy and have no justification. But over the past months, a few individual acts have become conflated with the collective protests - and in turn, protest has been equated with violence, or the threat of it.Stephen Reicher is a professor of psychology at the University of St Andrews and a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the British AcademyDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. 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 conceptsIs it possible to think about nothing? Surely our consciousness is always whirring away. Paul Lambert, SouthamptonPost your answers (and new questions) below or send them to nq@theguardian.com. A selection will be published next Sunday. Continue reading...

Lab-grown meat could become a mainstay in restaurants if products win regulatory approval. Biologists and chefs share menu ideasWhether roasted, grilled, fried or stewed, the combination of fat, umami and texture in a premium cut of meat is difficult to recreate. With sales of plant-based meat stagnating, the hunt for cruelty-free, sustainable and meaty-tasting alternatives continues. Enter lab-grown meat. Fermented in tanks, using cells from long-dead donors, it promises a more climate- and animal-friendly form of meat for the carnivore with a conscience.Last week, researchers announced that they had created beef-cultured rice", which, while not exactly replicating the taste of a pan-fried steak, offers a pleasant and novel flavour experience" that could improve emergency food supplies or provide rations for astronauts and the military. At the opposite end of the spectrum, gourmet restaurants in the US and Singapore are already serving up cultured chicken to adventurous diners, while regulators in Singapore, Switzerland and Israel are considering whether to approve further products. Continue reading...

Studies suggest the BCG jab discovered a century ago could provide a cheap and effective way of boosting the immune system to protect people from developing the conditionScientific discoveries can emerge from the strangest places. In early 1900s France, the doctor Albert Calmette and the veterinarian Camille Guerin aimed to discover how bovine tuberculosis was transmitted. To do so, they first had to find a way of cultivating the bacteria. Sliced potatoes - cooked with ox bile and glycerine - proved to be the perfect medium.As the bacteria grew, however, Calmette and Guerin were surprised to find that each generation lost some of its virulence. Animals infected with the microbe (grown through many generations of their culture) no longer became sick but were protected from wild TB. In 1921, the pair tested this potential vaccine on their first human patient - a baby whose mother had just died of the disease. It worked, and the result was the Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine that has saved millions of lives. Continue reading...

Some projects to save species just don't work. Now, a Cambridge University team is amassing hard scientific evidence of best practiceIt seemed like a good idea at the time: build metal bridges over busy roads and bats would confuse them with trees, it was argued. They would then try to soar over the pylons and, having been tricked into flying higher than normal, would avoid being struck by lorries and buses travelling on the road below. A widespread wildlife problem for the UK would be solved at a stroke.It was a persuasive vision, and to realise it, a total of 2m was spent on building 15 bat bridges across Britain, from Cumbria to Cornwall. However, there was one problem," said Professor William Sutherland of the Conservation Science Group at Cambridge University. The bridges didn't work." Continue reading...

The footage put together by Sora looks swish, but closer examination reveals its doesn't understand physical realityFirst text, then images, now OpenAI has a model for generating videos," screamed Mashable the other day. The makers of ChatGPT and Dall-E had just announced Sora, a text-to-video diffusion model. Cue excited commentary all over the web about what will doubtless become known as T2V, covering the usual spectrum - from Does this mark the end of [insert threatened activity here]?" to meh" and everything in between.Sora (the name is Japanese for sky") is not the first T2V tool, but it looks more sophisticated than earlier efforts like Meta's Make-a-Video AI. It can turn a brief text description into a detailed, high-definition film clip up to a minute long. For example, the prompt A cat waking up its sleeping owner, demanding breakfast. The owner tries to ignore the cat, but the cat tries new tactics, and finally, the owner pulls out his secret stash of treats from underneath the pillow to hold off the cat a little longer," produces a slick video clip that would go viral on any social network. Continue reading...

Charity says the decline of invertebrates linked to chemicals in water while Environment Agency said Wiltshire river had not deteriorated

Researchers say toxic chemicals pose a pollution risk as oil and gas companies are allowed to leave pipelines to rotDecaying oil and gas pipelines left to fall apart in the North Sea could release large volumes of poisons such as mercury, radioactive lead and polonium-210, notorious for its part in the poisoning of Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko, scientists are warning.Mercury, an extremely toxic element, occurs naturally in oil and gas. It sticks to the inside of pipelines and builds up over time, being released into the sea when the pipeline corrodes. Continue reading...

From Tucker Carlson to Johnny Depp, a celebrity bromance is the must-have accessory for modern dictators, says Marina Hyde (1m50); the Libertines on feuds, friendship and their tortured reunion by Simon Hattenstone (9m03); and how habituation, a simple behavioural trick, can help you experience less pain and more pleasure by Cass Sunstein and Tali Sharot (35m49). Continue reading...

Intuitive Machines CEO says Odysseus tipped over and ended up on its side as it landed on to south polar regionOdysseus, the first US-built spacecraft to touchdown on the moon in more than half a century, is tipped over on its side, according to an update from Nasa and Intuitive Machines, the company that built and operated the lander.The robotic lander descended on to the south polar region of the moon on Thursday at 6.23pm ET. But several minutes passed before flight controllers were able to pick up a signal from the lander's communication systems. Continue reading...

Experiment records minuscule gravitational pull as a step to understanding how force operates at subatomic levelScientists have detected the pull of gravity on the microscopic scale in a feat that lays the groundwork for probing its nature in the mysterious quantum realm.In an experiment involving sophisticated superconducting apparatus cooled to within a whisker of absolute zero, and brass weights stuck to an electrical bicycle wheel, physicists recorded a minuscule gravitational tug of 30 quintillionths of a newton on a particle less than a millimetre wide. Continue reading...

My father's partner, Felicity Grainger, who has died aged 80, began her working life as a research scientist before moving into the world of academic libraries, eventually becoming head of the library services serving three major medical schools.Born in Bournemouth to Stuart Grainger, a bank manager, and Phyllis (nee Brett), after gaining a first-class honours degree in zoology in 1964 from Queen Mary College, London, Felicity received a doctorate in anatomy from University College London, after which she spent 10 years as a researcher in neuroscience in London and Cambridge. Continue reading...

Researchers hope the findings will inform policymakers planning cities for a warming worldFew things are as soothing on a hot summer's day as a walk through a beautiful botanical garden, but they are not just oases of calm. As climate breakdown fuels soaring temperatures, they could prove crucial in moderating the heat in the streets around them.A comprehensive review of research into the heat-mitigating effects of green spaces during heatwaves has found that botanical gardens are the most effective. It is a finding the team at the Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCCAR) hope will inform policymakers planning cities for a warming world. Continue reading...

Previously unknown settlement in Small Hythe was once an important infrastructure linkA very rare" clay figurine of the god Mercury, one of fewer than 10 ever found in Britain, has been discovered at a previously unknown Roman settlement that once sat next to a busy port - but is now 10 miles from the sea.The site of the settlement, in the modern hamlet of Small Hythe (or Smallhythe), near Tenterden in Kent, now sits among fields, but was once an important link in the Roman empire's import and infrastructure network in southern England and the Channel. Continue reading...

Intuitive Machines' spacecraft Odysseus lands after a 73-minute descent, touching down near moon's south poleThe United States has returned to the lunar surface for the first time in more than 50 years after a privately-built spacecraft named Odysseus capped a nail-biting 73-minute descent from orbit with a touchdown near the moon's south pole.Amid celebrations of what Nasa hailed a giant leap forward", there was no immediate confirmation of the status or condition of the lander, other than it had reached its planned landing site at crater Malapert A. Continue reading...

This blog has now closed, but you can read our latest story hereOdysseus has started its powered descent initiative", as it readies for a landing. The engine on the lander has started up, and it is slowing itself down. As it lowers, sensors on the it will look for a safe spot for a landing,As an example of the mixed payloads that private space missions are taking, Nasa administrator, Bill Nelson said of today's mission Nasa scientific instruments are on their way to the moon, a giant leap for humanity as we prepare to return to the lunar surface for the first time in more than half a century." Continue reading...

Proposal focuses on technique that fills atmosphere with particles, reflecting part of sun's heat and light back into spaceSwitzerland has initiated a global debate on whether the risks, benefits and uncertainties" of dimming the sun should be studied by a United Nations expert group.It is proposing that the world body should gather information about ongoing research into solar geoengineering, and set up an advisory panel that could suggest future options for the untested and controversial approach to reduce global heating, which would have implications for food supply, biodiversity, global inequality and security.This article was corrected on 22 February 2024. A previous version stated that 400 scientists had signed the appeal for a solar geoengineering non-use agreement, and also said that opponents of SRM had contributed to the One Atmosphere report. A further correction on 23 February 2024 clarified details around the research funding. Continue reading...

Arguments about sex differences in the brain have raged for centuries. As intriguing as they are, surely there are more urgent questionsThere seems to be an insatiable public appetite for information about sex differences in the human brain, eagerly harnessed by the media in many forms. A paper out this week from a research group at Stanford University made headlines for its innovative contribution to this form: using an AI neural network model to look at brain scans to see if it could reliably" and robustly" tell female and male brains apart. In other - more neutral - words, could the algorithm tell whether the brain patterns being looked at were from women or men?The answer was yes", though rather more guarded in the paper itself than in the reports about it. What was interesting about the study was that it seemed to have moved beyond the stereotypical size matters" agenda - asking whether male or female brains are bigger or smaller in different areas - instead measuring differences in the working brain using a method that looked at differences in blood flow to various brain regions.Prof Gina Rippon is emeritus professor of cognitive neuroimaging at the Aston Brain Centre, Aston University, and the author of The Gendered BrainDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

If barrier controlling substances entering and exiting brain is off balance, it can drive changes in neural functionFrom forgetfulness to difficulties concentrating, many people who have long Covid experience brain fog". Now researchers say the symptom could be down to the blood-brain barrier becoming leaky.The barrier controls which substances or materials enter and exit the brain. It's all about regulating a balance of material in blood compared to brain," said Prof Matthew Campbell, co-author of the research at Trinity College Dublin. Continue reading...

Hungarian-American physicist patented many pieces of technology that harness the sun's rays to create clean energy

Linguistic diversity on Earth is far more profound and fundamental than previously imagined. But it's also crumbling fastAt the heart of linguistics is a radical premise: all languages are equal. This underlies everything we do at the Endangered Language Alliance, an eccentric extended family of linguists, language activists, polyglots and ordinary people, whose mission is to document endangered languages and support linguistic diversity, especially in the world's hyperdiverse cities.Language is a universal and democratic fact cutting across all human societies: no human group is without it, and no language is superior to any other. More than race or religion, language is a window on to the deepest levels of human diversity. The familiar map of the world's 200or so nation-states is superficial compared with the little-known map of its 7,000 languages. Some languages may specialise in talking about melancholy, seaweed or atomic structure; some grammars may glory in conjugating verbs while others bristle with syntactic invention. Languages represent thousands of natural experiments: ways of seeing, understanding and living that should form part of any meaningful account of what it is to be human. Continue reading...

A record 10,000 research papers were retracted in 2023. To find out what's driving this trend, Ian Sample speaks to Ivan Oransky, whose organisation Retraction Watch has been monitoring the growing numbers of retractions for more than a decade, and hears from blogger Sholto David, who recently made headlines when he spotted mistakes in research from a leading US cancer institute. Continue reading...

More than 50 top researchers sign letter asking for philanthropic support to transform cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatmentLeading cancer experts from around the world are calling on wealthy individuals and philanthropists to dig into their deep pockets to accelerate a new golden age of cancer research.More than 50 senior scientists from the UK, Europe, North America and Asia, including three Nobel laureates, say advances in artificial intelligence and other technologies have created a unique opportunity" to transform cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment in the next 10 years. Continue reading...

People in areas of high PM2.5 concentrations had higher amounts of amyloid plaques in brainAir pollution from traffic is linked to some of the more severe forms of dementia, and could be a significant cause of the condition among those who are not already genetically predisposed to it, research suggests.Research carried out in Atlanta, Georgia, found that people with higher exposure to traffic-related fine particulate matter air pollution were more likely to have high amounts of the amyloid plaques in their brains that are associated with Alzheimer's. Continue reading...

ERS-2 breaks up into pieces and plummets into the ocean after reentering Earth's atmosphereAn uncontrolled satellite re-entered the Earth's atmosphere somewhere between Alaska and Hawaii on Wednesday, astronomers confirmed.The pioneering European satellite, known as ERS-2, entered the atmosphere at 17.16pm on Wednesday after almost 30 years in orbit, the European Space Agency said. It is thought to have broken into pieces, with the majority burning up and the remains plummeting into the ocean below. Continue reading...

Scientists describe small study as long overdue deep dive into biology of conditionScientists have uncovered compelling evidence for abnormalities in the brain and immune systems of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME).The findings, in one of the most rigorous investigations to date, begin to illuminate the biological basis for the illness that can cause disabling fatigue. The study is the first to demonstrate a link between imbalances in brain activity and feelings of fatigue, and suggests that these changes could be triggered by abnormalities in the immune system. Continue reading...

Researchers think undercounting goes beyond overloaded health systems to a lack of awareness of Covid and low levels of testingThe Covid death toll in the US is likely at least 16% higher than the official tally, according to a new study, and researchers believe the cause of the undercounting goes beyond overloaded health systems to a lack of awareness of Covid and low levels of testing.The second year of the pandemic also had nearly as many uncounted excess deaths as the first, the study found. Continue reading...

Watching at least five hours of TV a day associated with higher risk of nocturia, or needing to get up and urinate twice or more a nightSitting down to binge watch the latest TV drama might seem like the perfect way to unwind, but researchers have found that people who spend lengthy periods in front of the box are more likely to need to pee multiple times a night.Writing in the journal Neurourology and Urodynamics, researchers in China report how they analysed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in the US, focusing on responses collected from 2011 to 2016. Continue reading...

Fresh growth sprouted from buds under bark and deep inside trees, some buds having lain dormant for 1,000 yearsIn August 2020, wildfire burned almost the entire Big Basin Redwoods state park in California, scorching ancient redwood trees, some dating back more than 1,500 years and among the tallest living things on Earth.Redwoods are naturally fire resistant thanks to their thick bark, but the wildfire was so intense and flames so high the trees' foliage was destroyed, even in tree canopies more than 300ft high. Continue reading...

Traits associated with the neurodevelopmental disorder could have helped early humans when foraging for foodTraits common to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), such as distractibility or impulsivity, might have been an evolutionary advantage for our ancestors by improving their tactics when foraging for food, researchers have said.ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder with symptoms including impulsiveness, disorganisation and difficulty focusing. While estimates of prevalence have varied, diagnoses have been rising in many countries, including the UK. Continue reading...

People who tick at least three out of five boxes including not smoking and good sleep are found to have 42% lower riskCombining three healthy behaviours can reduce the risk of irritable bowel syndrome by 42%, a study suggests.IBS affects the digestive system and its symptoms include stomach cramps, bloating, diarrhoea and constipation. People can suffer for days, weeks or months at a time, and symptoms can come and go. IBS is thought to affect up to one in 10 people worldwide. Continue reading...

Four-person crew will inhabit 3D-printed replica of red planet to help develop and evaluate systems for missions slated for 2030sFor anybody already jaded by the news and joking about a trip to outer space to avoid it all, Nasa might just have you covered.The space agency is seeking four volunteers to spend a year living on Mars - or at least a 3D-printed replica of the red planet. Isolation is pretty much guaranteed. Continue reading...

In documentary The Space Race, the people involved with major progress within Nasa talk about their highs and lowsIn space, Victor Glover orbited the Earth every 90 minutes, witnessing 16 sunrises and sunsets in a single day. In America, Victor Glover got behind the wheel of his car and knew that, as a Black man, he might be pulled over by police.You still have to drive home from work and be worried about a busted tail light stop," he recalls of his early years training to be astronaut. I am the son of a police officer so I knew all those tactics. I've been pulled over. I had police officers harass and I would give them my ID and they'd be like, Oh, this is Victor Glover's kid,' and then I got treated differently. Continue reading...

Light from the celestial object, which is 500tn times brighter than our sun, travelled for more than 12bn years to reach Earth

Social affairs correspondent Robert Booth tells Madeleine Finlay why a class of synthetic opioids called nitazenes, first developed in the 1950s, is leading to a worrying number of fatal overdoses in the UK. And she hears from toxicology and addiction specialist Dr Joseph D'Orazio about a tranquilliser called xylazine that has been showing up in alarming volumes in the US illegal drug supply and is now starting to appear in toxicology reports in the UKClips: Sky News, CBS News Continue reading...

Authors hope data encourages women who may not get enough exercise that even relatively small amounts can be beneficialWomen experience greater benefits than men from the same amount of regular exercise, research suggests when it comes to avoiding an early grave.According to the NHS, men and women aged 19 to 64 should clock up at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise, or 75 of vigorous exercise a week, with muscle-strengthening activities at least twice a week. Continue reading...