by Presented by Phoebe Weston, produced by Madeleine on (#6DXJJ)
In this special Age of Extinction mini-series from Science Weekly, Guardian biodiversity reporter Phoebe Weston explores the illegal killing of birds of prey on grouse moors, and asks why it is so difficult to solve these crimes. In the third and final episode, Phoebe finds out more about the pressures that drive people to commit raptor persecution, discovers how the police investigation into the case of Susie's crushed chicks unfolded, and how Susie is doing nowListen to episode one here Continue reading...
People not eligible for autumn booster programme should have option to pay for jab, experts argue, amid new wave concernsCovid vaccines should be made available for people to buy privately in Britain, leading scientists have urged, amid concerns over a new wave of the virus which could worsen in autumn and winter.Unlike flu jabs, which individuals or employers can buy for about 15 from high street pharmacies, Covid jabs are only available on the NHS in the UK. Continue reading...
We look at the current levels of the coronavirus and who will be offered a booster jabWith Covid in the UK on the rise once more, we take a look at the current situation and what the plans are for vaccination. Continue reading...
Medical breakthrough marks longest pig kidney has functioned in a human, setting stage for operations in living patientsA pig's kidney transplanted by surgeons into a brain-dead man has continued to function normally for more than a month - a critical step toward an operation the New York team hopes to eventually try in living patients.The latest experiment, announced on Wednesday by New York University Langone Health, marks the longest a pig kidney has functioned in a person, albeit a deceased one, and it's not over. Researchers will track the kidney's performance for a second month. Continue reading...
by Denis Campbell Health policy editor on (#6DXDM)
Giving women painkiller piroxicam alongside levonorgestrel found to prevent 95% of pregnanciesWomen who take a painkilling tablet alongside the world's most widely used morning-after pill have a far smaller risk of becoming pregnant than those who rely on emergency contraception alone.Sexual health experts have hailed the finding, reported on Thursday in the Lancet (paywall), as a significant and very exciting" potential breakthrough that could make it easier to prevent pregnancy after unprotected sex. Continue reading...
The Asia native was found in Georgia, prompting concern that it could devastate important pollinators including the honeybeeA yellow-legged hornet has been found in the US for the first time, prompting concerns among experts about the agricultural threat the invasive Asian species poses, not least to honeybees and other pollinators.The Georgia department of agriculture (GDA) said a beekeeper in Savannah spotted the insect on his property and reported it to authorities. It was subsequently confirmed as a yellow-legged hornet. Continue reading...
Genome analysis reveals new physical details of mummified corpse found in ice of Italian AlpsDark eyes, receding black hair, few or no freckles and a darker skin tone. This is how Otzi the iceman, the mummified corpse found trapped in the ice of the Italian Alps, would have looked while living.Researchers who conducted a higher-coverage analysis of the genome to learn more about Otzi's genetic history and the mummified man's physical appearance have found genes associated with male-pattern baldness and darker skin tone. Continue reading...
Urban gulls are often treated as nuisances but humans could learn a lot from the screeching snack-snatchersThey tear open rubbish bags looking for food, swoop down on passersby and steal their sandwiches, and even swallow rats and squirrels whole.Many people complain about the menace of urban gulls, but with the wild populations of some species in severe decline, our parks and high streets are increasingly the only places where gulls are thriving. Continue reading...
Some of the ancient plants have curious pouches that can trap tiny creaturesLiverworts are ancient green land plants that look like flattened liver-shaped pads, or they have stems and leaves and often get mistaken for mosses, their distant cousins.
Stanhope, Weardale, County Durham: Out on a walk, I dust off my identification skills for some tricky grassland toadstoolsThe grassland toadstool season started early this year. These inkcaps weren't here last week and they'll soon vanish, leaving just a dark stain on the lawn. I think they must be the glistening inkcap but it's hard to be certain. Heavy rain has washed away the diagnostic powdery scales that normally cover the cap. Earlier torrential downpours softened the earth, hard-baked by early summer drought, allowing these smooth, conical caps to shoulder it aside on their way to the surface. Now they are ragged around their rim, a sign of impending deliquescence into inky, spore-laden goo that will stick to flies' feet, to be carried away to pastures new.Every year, I struggle to refresh my identification skills for tricky brown grassland toadstools, without ever acquiring enough confidence for a fungal foray with a meal in mind; sitting on the edge of uncertainty isn't conducive to comfortable eating. Scientific advances based on DNA analysis, renaming and reordering species have not helped, rendering some of my old field guides obsolete. They've renamed this one, learned in my youth as Coprinus, meaning of dung", as a Coprinellus. A misnomer either way: it doesn't digest dung. This troop of toadstools is probably growing on decayed tree roots under the neatly mown grass. Continue reading...
by Presented by Phoebe Weston, produced by Madeleine on (#6DWFG)
In this special Age of Extinction mini-series from Science Weekly, Guardian biodiversity reporter Phoebe Weston explores the murky world of the illegal killing of birds of prey on grouse moors, and asks why it is so difficult to solve these crimes. In episode two, Phoebe speaks to the people trying to protect these rare birds, but as she digs deeper encounters a surprising silence around the killing of Susie's chicksRead more reporting from the Age of Extinction team Continue reading...
Researchers conclude there is potential value' in testing heart patients' urine for substances such as marijuana, ecstasy and cocaineMore than one in 10 patients admitted to cardiac intensive care have taken recreational drugs, research has found.Researchers in France tested the urine samples of all patients admitted to cardiac intensive care in 39 French hospitals during a fortnight in April 2021. They found 11% had taken drugs such as marijuana, ecstasy and cocaine. Continue reading...
Breakthrough raises hopes that musicality of natural speech can be restored in patients with disabling neurological conditionsScientists have reconstructed Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall by eavesdropping on people's brainwaves - the first time a recognisable song has been decoded from recordings of electrical brain activity.The hope is that doing so could ultimately help to restore the musicality of natural speech in patients who struggle to communicate because of disabling neurological conditions such as stroke or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis - the neurodegenerative disease that Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with. Continue reading...
Researchers in Italy uncover inscribed sections of marble chronicle linked to previous finds at Ostia Antica archaeological parkSome of the daily activities of the Roman emperor Hadrian, who built monuments including the Pantheon during his more than two-decade reign, have been revealed after the discovery of fragments of marble slabs in Ostia Antica, an archaeological park close to Rome that was once the city's harbour.The details were inscribed on fasti ostienses, a type of calendar chronicling events involving emperors and other officials in ancient Rome which were drafted by the pontifex Volcani, the highest local religious authority. Continue reading...
According to a study of more than 3,000 people, heterosexual women take longer than men to make a verbal commitment to a new romanceName: I love you.Well, this is all very sudden. You're supposed to ask my age and appearance here. Continue reading...
Family and friends delight in telling me tall tales about rodents and now my unfortunate phobia has been passed on to my childrenWhile I couldn't spontaneously name them, I feel sure there were good qualities I wanted to pass on to my children. But all I've managed to transmit is a violent fear of rodents, and even that, to only one of them. I didn't realise how successful I'd been until a couple of years ago, when we saw a mouse in my son's bedroom. I screamed; he screamed. I jumped on the bed; he jumped on a chair - but it was a revolving one, so he started spinning round, screaming, and I screamed more. Mr Z ran in expecting an intruder, though I notice he didn't bring anything to use as a weapon. As much as I reviled it, I felt a bit sorry for the mouse. It was all so ultra.Consequent to this very noisy, melodramatic phobia, it pleases my associates to tell me stories about mice and rats, which, generally speaking, aren't true. My brother-in-law told me that, if they have a rat problem on a building site, they contain all the rats in a zone where the only food source is each other, until finally they have one giant rat, and they shoot it in the head. It stalks my dreams, this mutant rat cannibal, even though it makes no sense. On holiday, my friend told me there was a rat in the kitchen, and while I could recognise this at 50 paces as the title of a popular song, I nevertheless believed that there was also a real rat, in the kitchen. Continue reading...
Study of skills suggests practicalities of living among branches was precursor to advanced abilitiesWhether it's drumming a steady beat against a tree to attract a mate, weaving an intricate nest or just lifting food to their beaks, some birds engage in some truly fancy footwork.Now researchers say the evolution of such dexterity may have been driven by the creatures taking up residence in trees. Continue reading...
US research linked to dopamine release finds macaques decreased consumption by up to 90% after treatmentA form of gene therapy that is already being trialled in patients with Parkinson's disease might provide a one-off treatment for severe alcohol addiction.A study in macaque monkeys that were predisposed to heavy drinking found that it dramatically curbed their alcohol consumption. Drinking went down to almost zero," said Prof Kathleen Grant, at Oregon Health and Science University's National Primate Research Centre in Beaverton, US, who co-led the research. For months on end, these animals would choose to drink water and just avoid drinking alcohol altogether." Continue reading...
Michigan State discovery of building demolished in 1920s provides rare on-campus experience for archaeology studentsConstruction workers at Michigan State University hit something hard earlier this summer while installing hammock poles into the ground outside a residence hall.A closer inspection then revealed it was the foundation of a 140-year-old observatory that was demolished in the 1920s and - over the course of a century - became buried underground. Continue reading...
While the ultra-wealthy spend millions on bizarre elixirs, the rest of us can follow these simple steps to enjoy a better lifeIn the words of Taylor Swift, I might be feeling 22" but the reality is that my 39th birthday approaches and with that the slow creep to 40: official midlife territory. The desire to stay young feels like a universal pursuit, whether you are Swift, Madonna or Jeff Bezos. Indeed, it is an obsession that transcends the centuries: in 1513, explorer Juan Ponce de Leon discovered Florida while searching for the fountain of youth and eternal life.Fast forward just more than 500 years and American tech centimillionaire Bryan Johnson is on his own voyage of discovery. Johnson reportedly spends $2m (1.6m) a year on an intensive regime designed to reduce his biological age from 45 to 18. He recently made headlines for injecting himself with his 17-year-old son's plasma, after studies in mice showed young blood can rejuvenate old tissue.Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh Continue reading...
All of us will experience pain and stress, but the brain has some smart ways to protect us. Here is how to get prepared for periods of adversityOur minds are more resilient than we know. According to a growing body of research, first popularised by psychologists Daniel Gilbert and Tim Wilson in the early 2000s, the brain has a remarkable capacity to make the best of bad events: when we encounter negative situations we subconsciously activate what is known as our psychological immune system.A self-protective mechanism analogous to the body's own immune system, the psychological immune system is a series of processes that our brain initiates to help us make sense of the adverse environment we might be in, assign meaning to what is happening, and ultimately find positives for the future. If we fail to land a job we had wanted, for instance, our brain might reason that the interviewer was rude and biased, therefore it wasn't the role for us. Or, we will speak to a friend and gain a new perspective on the benefits of our existing job. Continue reading...
Physicist Samuel Peralta's Lunar Codex project has seen the work of 30,000 artists from 158 countries carried on into space - and the effect on them has been profoundBefore the age of space exploration, all artists could do was look up and gaze, sketch and write about a moon they could never reach. But Samuel Peralta, a semi-retired physicist living in Canada, has changed all that with the launch of the Lunar Codex, a project that sends art to the moon, converted into Nanofiche files (think microfiche but smaller) and left on the surface in time capsules.The whole thing started with the realisation that Nasa was going to privatise lunar landers," he tells me on a video call. This enabled him to buy payload space - room on a rocket - for an artwork he created called Moonstone, which was etched on a metal disc. Continue reading...
After reading that they are far heavier than you think, I abandoned the housework, the dog - and my grip on reality - and got out the kitchen scalesSummer makes me go a bit odd. A case in point - I spotted a headline recently that read: Your hands are probably about twice as heavy as you think they are", and I became instantly obsessed. How heavy are mine, and how could I weigh them? If I estimated their weight, would I mentally factor in this bombshell headline, skewing the result? I mean, have you ever thought about the weight of your hands? Go on: how heavy do you think they are?Then I found myself wondering whether heavy hands were bad, like heavy legs are in France. Every pharmacy there will offer you a selection of products at varying prices to deal with what is, I believe, a fictional condition, and if you tell a medical professional that your legs are heavy, they will take this entirely seriously and may even prescribe a trip to walk around in some knee-high seawater, like a racehorse, in a coastal spa somewhere. I've seen (and envied) it. Has the scourge spread? What is happening to our hands?Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
In today's newsletter: The Eris' strain of Covid is a reminder that the virus has never fully gone away - but what will it mean for Britain? Sign up here for our daily newsletter, First EditionGood morning. Covid has become a polarising topic that many people just want to forget about. Earlier this year, the World Health Organization officially declared an end to the global public health emergency. Cases, hospitalisations and deaths are at their lowest levels, though infections have undoubtedly become more difficult to track as monitoring systems are dismantled. But even so, experts have made it clear that Covid will be with us for many years to come even though the acute phase of the health emergency is over.Like an unwelcome guest that does not know when the party is over, Covid has continued to mutate and shape shift, creating a viral, ever expanding family tree through its numerous variants and sub-variants, with Eris the latest of interest to the WHO. Many thousands of vulnerable people are still shielding in the UK - poorly protected by a government that would rather ignore the problem. And with record waiting lists in the NHS, is the country any better prepared for a future pandemic than it was in 2020? Continue reading...
One of the finest constellations on show in the northern sky, Cygnus's body lies right along the Milky WayFrom the northern hemisphere, summer is the time for Cygnus, the swan, to fly high in our skies. A large constellation, it is definitely one of the finest on show in the northern sky.Cygnus is shaped like a cross but it doesn't take much imagination to see it as a swan. The central star in the constellation is Sadr. From this point, the swan's great neck stretches out towards the star Albireo, and the body back towards Deneb, which is Arabic for tail. The wings reach out to either side along a line of fainter stars. The body and neck of Cygnus lie right along the Milky Way, the misty band of light that can be seen from more rural locations and is the combined light from the billions of stars that make up our galaxy. Continue reading...
Evidence is mounting on the health costs of these products. The real culprit is financialised growth, not inadequate individual willpowerIf we are what we eat, then we are increasingly composed from substances including synthetic emulsifiers, flavour compounds, bulking agents and stabilising gums (one of the most common being a slime produced by bacteria). Well over half of the average diet in the UK and US now consists of ultraprocessed food (UPF) - or, as one scientist prefers to put it, industrially produced edible substances. Though defining it technically is complex, the simple explanation is that it contains items you wouldn't normally find in a kitchen.Sometimes UPF looks like junk food - obviously artificial and high in salt, fat and sugar. But it often comes in reassuring forms such as soup, muesli or yoghurt. Almost every food that comes with a health claim on the packet is a UPF," notes Dr Chris van Tulleken drily in Ultra-Processed People, one of several recent books on the subject. Continue reading...
by Presented by Jane Lee with Donna Lu. Produced by J on (#6DTAH)
Three people have died and a man remains in hospital after attending a lunch in Leongatha, Victoria, more than two weeks ago.Police say mushrooms are the suspected cause of death and are investigating.Jane Lee speaks to Guardian Australia science reporter Donna Lu about the case Continue reading...
The long-running series in which readers answer other readers' questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical conceptsWhy are human eyes different colours? Gabrielle Kuper, aged 5, LondonSend new questions to nq@theguardian.com. Continue reading...
My partner, however, always assumed that one day he would be a dadI didn't become a childfree woman. I was born childfree, much like everyone else, then I simply stayed that way. There was no need to go through a future-mother phase to know that in my home there would be no chirpy children's laughter or tippety-tap of bare toddler feet.Poor David then, my partner. He most definitely was in his future-father phase when we met, aged 20, 21. Continue reading...
If departing the EU has failed to deliver, why is the UK still so divided? Seven years on, we ask behavioural psychologists if cognitive dissonance can be overcomeOne of the most significant political events of the past few months, it has seemed to me, wasn't strictly a bit of politics at all, but an emotional catch and quaver in the voice of a politician. The politician was the Conservative MP Steve Baker and the sudden sob in his throat came about during a TV interview about the efforts to resolve the Northern Ireland protocol.Baker, you will recall, was one of the most strident voices in the Brexit argument, a leader of the Tory European Research group, the ERG, which frustrated Theresa May's efforts to find a compromise deal with the EU. The sob in his voice and the tears in his eyes prefaced a short, heartfelt confession about the extreme private stress that those Brexit machinations - and subsequent arguments over Covid lockdown - had caused him. Speaking subsequently to the Times, Baker expanded on that state of mind. I felt absolutely worthless," he said. I felt repugnant, hateful, to blame for all of the troubles that we had, absolutely without any joy, constantly worried about everything to the point of mental torment. A constant state of panic attacks and anxiety. It's not a state anyone should live in." Continue reading...
Susannah Boddie, 27, who advised on Covid response, thrown from bike on downhill trail near Lake GardaTributes have been paid to a government scientist who helped steer Britain through the Covid pandemic after she died in a cycling crash in Italy aged 27.Susannah Boddie was thrown from her bike as she descended a steep downhill trail on a woodland path on the Brescia side of Lake Garda on Saturday morning, the Daily Mail reported. Continue reading...
The Egyptian-American scientist on falling in love with the stars, the problems faced by women of colour in her field, and her preventive double mastectomyEgyptian-American astrophysicist Sarafina El-Badry Nance's debut memoir, Starstruck, offers a window on what it is like growing up to be a scientist today as a woman of colour. Nance, 30, is a passionate communicator of cosmology, and an advocate for women's health, after a preventive double mastectomy. The book intertwines her personal story with explanations of what we know about the universe. Nance is completing her PhD at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is studying exploding stars or supernovae.Isn't this a young age to be writing a memoir? You still have so much of your personal and professional life ahead of you.
Two new shows at the festival question senses of hearing and sight in engaging and eccentric waysSeeing is believing, right? That is a phrase used repeatedly by Mamoru Iriguchi and co-star Gavin Pringle in What You See When Your Eyes Are Closed/What You Don't See When Your Eyes Are Open (). It is an amusingly hand-stitched investigation into ways of seeing, performed in one of Summerhall's small basement rooms at the Edinburgh fringe. The production treats the challenges faced by people who are blind or visually impaired as a creative resource. The costumes are bold, the lines distinct, the faces larger than life and, in the most idiosyncratic way, everything is captioned and described. It is surreal and, despite its deliberate repetitions, never predictable.If seeing really was believing, we would accept that the man in the outsize Mamoru Iriguchi mask, his grey suit outlined in thick black lines, his enormous glasses showing sleeping eyes, was indeed Mamoru Iriguchi. We would also surmise that the giant cyclops standing in the centre of the room, in a bushy coat of orange tassels and a purple head concealing a live video projector behind its gigantic single eye, was his husband, Gavin. Continue reading...
While meteors are active from July, Perseids will be most visible in northern hemisphere this Saturday and SundayStargazers will be in for a treat this weekend as the best meteor shower of the year is expected to peak.The Perseids are named after the Greek hero Perseus because the meteor shower appears to come from the eponymous constellation. Continue reading...
From a heart-shaped stem cell colony to purple gold and science candies', these are the 12 finalists for the 2023 Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology image contest. Each year in the lead up to National Science Week, researchers at the University of Queensland's AIBN have a competition to find the best image taken using imaging equipment and microscopes. This year's winner will be announced on 14 August
Creation of hundreds of signs aimed at making conversations about climate more accessible for deaf peopleScientists and British Sign Language users have created new signs for greenhouse gases, carbon footprint, and more than 200 other environmental terms.It is hoped the effort to rewild" BSL will make climate and biodiversity science more accessible for deaf people.Carbon footprint: Left hand as a C shape with right hand fingers moving away from the left hand to resemble carbon being released to the environment.Greenhouse gases: Both hands in circular shapes move around to represent gases, then put the left hand at the horizontal position and move the right hand, with the index finger pointing, down and back up to the left hand to show the sunlight reflecting on Earth's surface.Carnivores: Two five-fingered claws coming together as sharp teeth.Herbivores: Closed fists together, palms facing, with right hand on top + slide knuckles against each other in a circular teeth grinding" motion.Omnivores: Sign for carnivores" + sign for herbivores"Cetaceans (marine mammals including whales, dolphins and porpoises): Bring hands together to form a circle that faces the ground (sign for group") + link thumbs, palms facing the body, and fan palms up and out to resemble whale tail fin".Natural selection (the natural process whereby the best-adapted individuals survive longer, have more offspring, and thereby spread their characteristics): Two index fingers moving forward and the right hand, index still pointed, falls down", and the left index finger continues to stay upright and moves forward.Rewilding (the process of creating habitats that are similar to the conditions present before the natural habitat was changed by human actions): Two flat hands, palms facing down, then drop palms while pulling hands back (sign for habitat" but upside down). Then right hand at a distance from the body turns from palm facing up to down. Continue reading...
Experts closing in on potentially identifying new force after surprise wobble of subatomic particleThe tantalising theory that a fifth force of nature could exist has been given a boost thanks to unexpected wobbling by a subatomic particle, physicists have revealed.According to current understanding, there are four fundamental forces in nature, three of which - the electromagnetic force and the strong and weak nuclear forces - are explained by the standard model of particle physics. Continue reading...
Lioness's penalty against Nigeria makes Women's World Cup record and beats fastest strike of Premier League last seasonArms out, leg cocked: as England's Chloe Kelly took her penalty against Nigeria the forward was, she later said, confident of scoring. She not only won the game for the Lionesses, she set the record for the fastest shot in the Women's World Cup so far.According to data from the official match ball, the shot on Monday reached 110.79km/h (69mph) - a speed that beats the most powerful strike of the 2022-23 Premier League campaign, by West Ham's Said Benrahma, that clocked in at 107.2km/h (66.6mph). Continue reading...
Everybody thinks it's an amazing superpower, but there's another side to itRecently, I was sitting on a tightly packed plane as it circled up to 19,000ft. It was making loads of noise, and I could see the people around me were scared. But I felt nothing.In 2005, I was diagnosed with Cushing's syndrome, after years of misdiagnosis - doctors would often tell me I was just overweight. Cushing's is a rare condition that affects one to two people in a million per year in the UK, and is caused by the body producing too much cortisol. Cortisol is a hormone that regulates a range of processes, including the stress response; if it's not treated, it can be very serious. Symptoms can range from severe weight gain to high blood pressure. Continue reading...
Although designers do have a lot of power, AI is just a tool conceived to benefit us. Communities must make sure that happensSuperpower. Catastrophic. Revolutionary. Irresponsible. Efficiency-creating. Dangerous. These terms have been used to describe artificial intelligence over the past several months. The release of ChatGPT to the general public thrusts AI into the limelight, and many are left wondering: how it is different from other technologies, and what will happen when the way we do business and live our lives changes entirely?First, it is important to recognise that AI is just that: a technology. As Amy Sample Ward and I point out in our book, The Tech That Comes Next, technology is a tool created by humans, and therefore subject to human beliefs and constraints. AI has often been depicted as a completely self-sufficient, self-teaching technology; however, in reality, it is subject to the rules built into its design. For instance, when I ask ChatGPT, What country has the best jollof rice?", it responds: As an AI language model, I don't have personal opinions, but I can provide information. Ultimately, the question of which country has the best jollof rice is subjective and depends on personal preference. Different people may have different opinions based on their cultural background, taste preferences, or experiences." Continue reading...
DNA technology confirmed Talpa hakkariensis and Talpa davidiana tatvanensis as distinct from other molesScientists have identified two types of mole that they believe have been living undiscovered in Turkey.DNA technology confirmed the creatures were biologically distinct from other moles. Both inhabit mountainous regions in eastern Turkey and can survive in temperatures of up to 50C (122F) in summer and under 2 metres (about 6ft) of snow in winter. Continue reading...
A Soyuz-2 Fregat rocket carrying a lunar landing craft blasted off on what Russia hopes will be its first successful moon landing mission in nearly 50 years. The unmanned Luna-25's mission to the moon that is expected to take about five days and will seek to land near the south pole of the moon, collecting geological samples from the area. India's Chandrayaan-3 space probe entered the moon's orbit earlier this week, and will also explore the water-rich area near the south pole
Virgin Galactic has succeeded in flying three tourist into space for the first time. They were former Olympian Jon Goodwin, Antiguan health and wellness coach Keisha Schahaff and her 18-year-old daughter, Anastasia Mayers. "You are so much more connected to everything than you would expect to be. You felt like a part of the team, a part of the ship, a part of the universe, a part of Earth," said Anastasia.
Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity, the reusable rocket-powered space plane carrying the company's first crew of tourists to space, has successfully launched and landed. Aboard the spacecraft were six individuals in total, including three private passengers. Following liftoff, Virgin Galactic's carrier plane, VMS Eve, transported VSS Unity to an altitude of about 44,300ft. Eve then dropped Unity, which fired its own rocket motor and ascended to suborbital space
Team converts polyethylene into fatty acids, soap's main ingredient, but say it is not panacea for plastic pollutionScientists have discovered a method to give new life to old plastic - by converting it into soap.Plastics are chemically similar to fatty acids, which are one of the main ingredients in soap. For Guoliang Liu, an associate professor of chemistry at Virginia Tech and author of the paper published in the journal Science, this similarity suggested it should be possible to convert polyethylene into fatty acids, and then into soap. The problem was size: molecularly, plastics are very large, about 3,000 carbon atoms long, whereas fatty acids are much smaller. Continue reading...
My friend Bob Reid, who has died aged 92, was a cosmic ray physicist who studied these mysterious particles in Jamaica, on the moors of North Yorkshire and at the South Pole.Bob also had a fascination with boomerangs and was a member of the British Boomerang Society. In December 1988, while searching for cosmic rays from Supernova 1987A, he threw one around the South Pole, which technically stayed aloft for 24 hours and nine seconds as it travelled through 24 time zones. Continue reading...
Cosmologist who explored the clustering of galaxies as a way of establishing the distribution of dark matter in the universeBetween 1984 and 1992 the cosmologist Nick Kaiser, who has died of heart failure aged 68, created many of the ideas now used by astronomers to map the large-scale distribution of dark matter in the universe. His analysis of the clustering of galaxies and the distortion of galaxy shapes by gravitational light deflection are at the heart of the leading modern cosmological experiments, particularly the recently launched Euclid satellite.Kaiser's research concentrated on the large-scale structure of the universe. Galaxies such as our own, the Milky Way, are congregated in a vast pattern of density fluctuations - superclusters that extend for at least 100m light years. All this structure probably represents the relic of primordial fluctuations that collapsed under their own gravity, generating galaxies and the stars and planets within them. We see these patterns in the clustering of the galaxy distribution, but much evidence tells us that the galaxies are embedded in invisible underlying dark matter, which dominates the gravity - dragging gas with it, which in turn forms into the stars of the visible galaxies. Continue reading...
The Luna-25 mission will try to land near the south pole of the moon, seeking signs of water or its componentsA Soyuz-2 Fregat rocket carrying a lunar landing craft has blasted off on what Russia hopes will be its first successful moon landing mission in nearly 50 years.The unmanned Luna-25 mission launched in the early hours of Friday on a journey to the moon that is expected to take about five days. A landing date has not been announced. Continue reading...