A flood of new research is overturning old assumptions about what animal minds are and aren’t capable of – and changing how we think about our own speciesGiraffes will eat courgettes if they have to, but they really prefer carrots. A team of researchers from Spain and Germany recently took advantage of this preference to investigate whether the animals are capable of statistical reasoning. In the experiment, a giraffe was shown two transparent containers holding a mixture of carrot and courgette slices. One container held mostly carrots, the other mostly courgettes. A researcher then took one slice from each container and offered them to the giraffe with closed hands, so it couldn’t see which vegetable had been selected.In repeated trials, the four test giraffes reliably chose the hand that had reached into the container with more carrots, showing they understood that the more carrots were in the container, the more likely it was that a carrot had been picked. Monkeys have passed similar tests, and human babies can do it at 12 months old. But giraffes’ brains are much smaller than primates’ relative to body size, so it was notable to see how well they grasped the concept. Continue reading...

Every year, the world’s leaders gather for the UN climate change conference. At Cop28, they will be faced with two stark warnings from scientists: we are likely to breach 1.5C warming above pre-industrial levels in the next five years, and we are on course to reach 2.7C of warming by the end of the century. Progress has never been more critical and this year it lies in the hands of the United Arab Emirates, a country that has plans to expand its already extensive oil and gas productions.With six months to go, Madeleine Finlay talks to environment correspondent Fiona Harvey about Cop28’s hosts and president, why this year is particularly key, and how close we are getting to irreversible climate tipping pointsRead more of Fiona Harvey’s reporting on Cop28 here Continue reading...

Research found 71-year-olds with high flavanol consumption had better memory functionPeople who have a diet rich in flavanols, which are found in tea, apples and berries, may be less likely to develop age-related memory loss, research suggests.A three-year study of 3,562 people aged about 71 found those with high regular flavanol consumption had better hippocampal memory function, which includes short-term memory-making, than those who didn’t. Continue reading...

Kate Bingham, who chaired UK’s Covid vaccine taskforce, tells Hay festival she hopes mind-altering drugs could treat mental illnessThe former chair of the UK’s Covid vaccine taskforce has described the use of psychedelics to treat depression as an “area of real excitement” in a talk at the Hay literary festival in Wales.Speaking at a panel event alongside the UK government’s former chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance, Kate Bingham said she was hopeful that the drugs could have a positive impact on mental ill health. Continue reading...

The answers to today’s mind-spinnersEarlier today I set you these three puzzles. Here they are again with solutions.1. Roll with it Continue reading...

Puzzles to put your head in a spinUPDATE: the answers can be read hereGather round. Today’s puzzles are all about going in circles. Onward with the revolution!1. Roll with it Continue reading...

Atmospheric methane and industrial pollutants suggested as reasons for lack of noctilucent cloud sightings before 1885Late spring, early summer marks the beginning of noctilucent cloud season in the northern hemisphere. The name derives from Latin, where noctilucent means “night shine”. These beautiful cloud formations can often be seen during the summer months shining with an electric blue colour against the darkening western sky about 30 minutes after the sun sets.The origin of the noctilucent clouds remains mysterious. They are the highest known clouds in Earth’s atmosphere, existing at an altitude of about 80km (50 miles), which is virtually the edge of space. They are regarded as being too high and too tenuous to have any effect on the weather at ground level. Continue reading...

Recently described as a public health emergency, profound loneliness can affect anyone craving deeper connectionsIn the UK 25 million people report they are occasionally, sometimes or often lonely, according to the Campaign to End Loneliness. In the US the surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, recently disclosed his own experience of “profound loneliness” as he released his national strategy highlighting just how many people experience loneliness as well as potential solutions to alleviate it. Murthy emphasised that loneliness has escalated into a public health emergency, affecting one in two Americans, with health impacts as serious as addiction and obesity, and warned it was as dangerous to health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.Murthy’s candid account of his own loneliness was picked up by multiple media outlets and resonated deeply with my client Murray*. Like many people, Murray struggled to understand that loneliness doesn’t just affect people who are socially isolated or who live alone. Murray is professionally successful, earns a higher-than-average income and lives with a partner and teenage children. He plays sport, helps with his children’s sport clubs and keeps a busy round of dinners and social events for work. Murray sought help for anxiety which he found scary and surprising. He’d begun experiencing overwhelming panic attacks that took hold of him at unpredictable times and seemingly without warning. Murray felt ashamed and helpless and just wanted the attacks to stop. In telling me about himself he didn’t mention any feelings of loneliness.These terms are often used interchangeably, but they’re actually different. Social isolation is the objective state of being alone. In contrast, loneliness is the subjective experience of disconnection. This means that you could be around other people, yet still feel lonely.Why might that be? Loneliness can arise from not feeling seen, understood, or validated. It can come from spending time with people who don’t share your values or interests. It can also come from too many superficial interactions and not enough deeper connections. Continue reading...

When this newspaper’s photographer and his 25-year-old daughter attempt the rarely climbed 1,700m spire in New Zealand’s Milford Sound the obstacles appear overwhelmingFive years ago, I stood at the end of a knife-edge ridge, a tangle of blue rope at my feet, my 25-year-old daughter Lilidh by my side. I knew we were beaten – we hadn’t made it anywhere near the top. I had pulled back from the brink, no longer able to feign competence. Despite my best efforts I realised I simply did not have the technical skills needed to proceed. Lilidh felt crushed by our defeat that day.It had begun casually enough. Lilidh lived and worked near Queenstown, New Zealand, as a trekking guide on multi-day hikes. When I visited her, we would head into the surrounding valleys and mountains for adventures. Back in 2018, two months before one of these trips, Lilidh had suggested we try Mitre Peak. Continue reading...

Threat posed by ‘provocative’ Russia and China has left US no choice but to prepare for orbital skirmishesThe US is ready for conflict in outer space, according to a senior military official, after developing anti-satellite technologies to counter the threats posed by “provocative” countries such as Russia and China.Brig Gen Jesse Morehouse at US Space Command, the arm of the military responsible for space operations, said Russian aggression and China’s vision to become the dominant space power by mid-century, had left the US with “no choice” but to prepare for orbital skirmishes. Continue reading...

The remarkable journey of Ben Abeles will be celebrated next week by the opening of a new archiveBen Abeles’ impact on science was out of this world. He helped develop alloys that were key components of the radioisotope generators that powered US robot space probes on their interplanetary journeys. Nasa was then able to reveal the wonders of the solar system, from the ancient river beds of Mars to the icy moons of Jupiter.One of the devices is still in use, providing electricity for the Perseverance robot rover that currently trundles across the surface of the red planet. Continue reading...

Frederick Cook claimed to have reached the top of the world, but a new book says he was lyingWho was the first person to reach the north pole? According to American adventurer Frederick Cook, it was him. But now a new book will set out the evidence that the explorer’s 114-year-old claim was an instance of fake news on a global scale.In The Explorer and the Journalist, author Richard Evans has examined the greatest scandal in polar history, reigniting a debate that has smouldered since September 1909, when Cook, who had been missing for a year, sent out a telegram announcing he had reached the pole in 1908. Continue reading...

Despite the demise of Virgin Orbit, the UK’s first spaceports should open in 2024‘Yesterday afternoon, shattering the moorland peace of Inverard, in North Argyll, powered jets burst into action. For the second time in two months a space ship took off, its fiery trail vanishing wisp-like into the blue autumn sky.”Thus Angus MacVicar began his novel Return to the Lost Planet, with words that have stayed with me since its publication in 1954 and its later serialisation by the BBC. Scotland was here depicted as an international centre of rocketry, with its glens and hills regularly reverberating to the sound of missions blasting their way to other worlds, in this case “the lost planet” of Hesikos. Continue reading...

More and more of us suffer from allergies, and medicine is struggling to keep up. Rebecca Seal talks to medical anthropologist Theresa MacPhailWhen Theresa MacPhail was four, her brother was killed in an accident. When she was 14, her mother died in a car crash. And when she was 24, her father died from anaphylactic shock after a bee flew in through the open window of his truck and stung him in the neck. For anyone else, these devastating experiences would almost certainly have been psychologically catastrophic. “I have several friends who are psychology professors, and they’re always saying, ‘No offence but, by rights, you should be a drug addict, or have severe emotional issues,’” she says, smiling, over Zoom from her home in New York, wearing a cheerful sweatshirt covered in luminous kittens.Instead, MacPhail decided to use what she’d been through as the bedrock for her PhD at UC Berkeley, and then her career as a medical anthropologist. She laughs. “I’m like the doyenne of death. I have been thinking my whole life about the things that make people ill and pass away, because of my history. These are the waters I’ve been in since I was a kid. Rather than ignoring it, I decided to go at all my fears and insecurities about mortality. And then I basically made it my profession.” Continue reading...

The Yale professor and long Covid expert on why the virus is causing ongoing illness for so many, and the challenges she faces as a woman of colour in scienceAccording to the most recent estimates, more than 65 million people worldwide may be living with some form of long Covid, a startling number that will only continue to increase, given the lack of available treatment options.One of the scientists leading the race to try to unravel the complexities of long Covid is Akiko Iwasaki, an immunology professor at Yale School of Medicine. Iwasaki has been at the forefront of numerous research breakthroughs throughout the course of the pandemic, from understanding why men were more vulnerable to the Sars-CoV-2 virus, the autoimmunity that made some people unexpectedly susceptible, and why a small minority have experienced heart inflammation in response to the Covid-19 vaccines. Most recently, Iwasaki has been awarded the prestigious Else Kröner Fresenius Prize for Medical Research, worth €2.5m (£2.2m), in part due to her ongoing work on long Covid. Continue reading...

The increased use of light-emitting diodes is obscuring our view of the Milky Way as well as taking a toll on human and wildlife healthThe Herefordshire hills basked in brilliant sunshine last weekend. Summer had arrived and the skies were cloudless, conditions that would once have heralded succeeding nights of coal-dark heavens sprinkled with brilliant stars, meteorites and planets.It was not to be. The night sky was not so much black as dark grey with only a handful of stars glimmering against this backdrop. The Milky Way – which would once have glittered across the heavens – was absent. Summer’s advent had again revealed a curse of modern times: light pollution. Continue reading...

Smarter Food ramps up production of its GRextra plant strain that helps lower elevated blood glucose levelsImagine eating a bowl of soup once a week that could help bring down your blood sugar levels and so reduce your risk of developing type 2 diabetes.This may sound like wishful thinking or the latest fad, but Smarter Food says this is already a reality for its customers. Continue reading...

Research provides a unique review of contact chemicals in packaging, utensils, plates, etc and how they contaminate foodRecycled and reused food contact plastics are “vectors for spreading chemicals of concern” because they accumulate and release hundreds of dangerous toxins like styrene, benzene, bisphenol, heavy metals, formaldehyde and phthalates, new research finds.The study assessed hundreds of scientific publications on plastic and recycled plastic to provide a first-of-its-kind systematic review of food contact chemicals in food packaging, utensils, plates and other items and what is known about how the substances contaminate food. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Injury research suggests training not keeping up with demands of elite women’s gameCoaching methods are failing to keep up with the rapidly increasing demands of women’s professional football, resulting in more hamstring injuries among top female players. Experts are calling for women to be trained at a higher level to prevent such injuries.The incidence of hamstring injuries in female footballers has historically been lower than in men, but these figures are changing at the elite level and the incidence is now similar. They are the most common injury subtype among elite-level female players, accounting for 12-16% of all time-loss injuries. Continue reading...

Succession creator, Jesse Armstrong, on why the show nearly didn’t happen (1m24s), Marina Hyde is amused by the idea of the home secretary being too famous to attend an online speed awareness course (15m15s), and a hostage negotiator reveals the secrets that could transform your life (23m32s). Continue reading...

It gives a whole new meaning to ‘going with the flow’ Continue reading...

Discovery of GS-9209, one of the furthest from the Milky Way, adds to evidence that large black holes prevent star formation, astronomers sayA supermassive black hole discovered at the heart of an ancient galaxy is five times larger than expected for the number of stars it contains, astronomers say.Researchers spotted the immense black hole in a galaxy known as GS-9209 that lies 25bn light-years from Earth, making it one of the most distant to have been observed and recorded. Continue reading...

Concerns about birth defects first raised in 1960s but evidence for causal link to pregnancy test remains contentious• Families lose bid for compensation over PrimodosThe high court in London has struck out a bid by families who believe their babies were harmed to sue the pharmaceutical company behind the hormone-based pregnancy test Primodos. Scientists first published concerns about birth defects in the 1960s, a decade before the tests were withdrawn, but the evidence for a causal link remains contentious. Continue reading...

Therapy could help you figure out why you still resort to this coping mechanism from your past – which is one I can relate toSince childhood I have bitten the skin off my fingers, often leaving them bloody and painful. I am in my 50s now and my poor fingers look dreadful after years of chewing.I understand this to be a form of self-harm but it is such ingrained behaviour I seem unable to stop. I feel embarrassed by the state of my hands and find myself often tucking my fingers under so people can’t see them. Continue reading...

The prehistoric age has been stuck in a cultural rut since Jurassic Park. As a palaeontologist, I’m glad to see this era is overThe utterly extraordinary Prehistoric Planet has returned this week for a second season and, as a palaeontologist, I remain utterly enthralled by the whole thing. You might think I’d be spoiled for choice with the apparently unending parade of movies, video games and documentaries featuring animated dinosaurs, but this programme stands head and shoulders above anything else in terms of the accuracy of its animals and the naturalism they evoke.The jump from Ray Harryhausen classics such as One Million Years BC in the mid-1960s to Jurassic Park in 1993 was massive. Jurassic Park showed dinosaurs in a new way to vast audiences and ushered in a new wave of interest and representation, most notably in the BBC’s Walking with Dinosaurs series in 1999. However, 30 years on, most dinosaurs in mainstream film and TV still follow its look and feel, despite our scientific understanding of dinosaurs and their contemporaries having advanced enormously since then. Prehistoric Planet is as much, if not more, of a leap forward in showing dinosaurs as we think they really were.Dr David Hone is a reader in zoology at Queen Mary, University of London, specialising in dinosaurs and pterosaurs. He blogs at Archosaur Musings, and presents the Terrible Lizards podcast. His latest book is The Future of Dinosaurs Continue reading...

Since being laid low with the virus more than a year ago, Catherine Heymans can only operate in half-hour bursts. But her work could still change the way we understand the universe Continue reading...

After the ‘great dimming’, the closest red giant star to Earth is pulsating twice as fast as usual and lighting up the southern hemisphere’s early evening skyOne of the brightest stars in the sky is behaving strangely, pulsating from bright to dim twice as fast as usual and giving scientists an unprecedented insight into how stars die.Betelgeuse, the closest red giant to Earth, has long been understood to move between brighter and dimmer in 400-day cycles. But from late 2019 to early 2020, it underwent what astrophysicists called “the great dimming”, as a dust cloud obscured our view of the star. Continue reading...

Package of measures for UK life sciences sector also includes overhauling regulatory process for new medicinesGPs could be offered financial incentives to help recruit patients for clinical trials under ambitious government plans to quadruple the participants in commercial clinical trials in the next four years.Unveiling a £650m package of measures for the UK life sciences sector, the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, said patients would get quicker access to new medicines and the government would cut the bureaucratic burden of approving clinical trials, which has been blamed for a rapid decline in NHS-based trials for cancer and Alzheimer’s drugs. Other measures announced include funding for an upgrade of the UK Biobank and details of a proposed train route between Oxford and Cambridge. Continue reading...

If discovery is feasible in humans it could be used to send astronauts into suspended animation, say scientistsIn science fiction, space crews are often spared the boredom and inconvenience of long-distance space travel by being placed into a state of suspended animation. Now this goal may have come a step closer after scientists showed that hibernation can be artificially triggered in rodents using ultrasonic pulses.The advance is seen as significant because the technique was effective in rats – animals that do not naturally hibernate. This raises the prospect that humans may also retain a vestigial hibernation circuit in the brain that could be artificially reactivated. Continue reading...

The Southern Ocean overturning circulation has ebbed 30% since the 90s, CSIRO scientist claims, leading to higher sea levels and changing weather

We need to know more about what goes into plastics in the first place and better regulation of how recycled products are used

People who have chronic pain without a visible injury are often not believed, but new research can help visualise that painMost people, including doctors, do not appreciate that the organ that produces pain is the brain. A broken bone, damaged tissue or a bleeding wound is often the focus, but the experience of pain is the sum total of more than just the physical injury – it is the result of information sent from our nerves being filtered through an individual’s unique psychological makeup, genetics, gender, beliefs, expectations, motivations and emotional context. Pain is therefore an individual experience, and often confounds and frightens us, as well as those we love and who love us.Acute pain is a life-preserving sensory and emotional experience, like hunger or thirst, and is produced by the brain to alert us to an actual or potential threat to our survival from damage to our bodies. It is a complex biological alarm system and, like all systems, may malfunction. When it becomes dysfunctional, the individual experiences pain without identifiable damage. The disease state that results is called chronic pain. At the moment, it cannot be cured – in other words, there is no bone that can be mended or wound that can be stitched that will cause the alarm to be switched off.Dr Abdul-Ghaaliq Lalkhen specialises in pain medicine and is a visiting professor at Manchester Metropolitan University. He is the author of Pain: The Science of the Feeling Brain Continue reading...

There is nothing quite like the spectacle of a tech bro with vast financial resources failing to grapple with his own mortalityThere are a lot of details to enjoy in the story of Bryan Johnson, the middle-aged almost-billionaire spending $2m (£1.6m) a year pursuing eternal youth. As described in the Times this week, Johnson has received “plasma infusions” from his 17-year-old son, had “33,537 images of his bowels” taken, and tried experimental treatments previously only tested on mice. But the one I like best, I think, revolves around his meal plan. As a man who made $800m (£646m) from the sale of his company to eBay, he enjoys a diet of “brown sludge” made of pureed vegetables – baby food, in other words. From the photos, these measures certainly seem to be working: the 45-year-old tech entrepreneur looks approximately 43.It is, of course, a source of reliable entertainment to study how the very wealthy set about ruining their lives. If excess is the quickest and most conventional route to self-destruction, self-denial is the more rewarding approach for the idle observer. There is nothing quite like the spectacle of a man with huge resources failing to grapple with his own mortality and spending what precious time he has left in joyless pursuit of a goal that is doomed to fail.Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Since it was introduced to the UK in 1850, Japanese knotweed has gone from novel ornamental plant to rampant invasive species. Madeleine Finlay speaks to journalist Samanth Subramanian about the huge costs associated with finding it on a property, and Dr Sophie Hocking explains what the plant, and our attempts to control it, might be doing to the environment. Continue reading...

A man who was paralysed in a cycling accident in 2011 has been able to stand and walk with an aid after doctors implanted a device that reads brainwaves and sends instructions to the spine to activate the right muscles.Gert-Jan Oskam, 40, was told he would never walk again after breaking his neck in a traffic accident in China, but has climbed stairs and walked for more than 100 meres at a time since having the operation. The 'digital bridge' is the latest from a team of neuroscientists in Switzerland who have a longstanding programme to develop brain-machine interfaces to overcome paralysis

Exclusive: Archaeologist says 5th-century BC wine vase with modern decoration widely regarded as fakeDays after Greece announced the recovery of hundreds of antiquities from a disgraced British dealer, its ministry of culture faces the accusation that one of those artefacts, a vase of the early 5th-century BC, bears a decoration that is in fact a “modern forgery” created in the 1990s.Christos Tsirogiannis, an archaeologist based in Cambridge, expressed astonishment that the ministry had included the olpe – a vase for wine – among treasured ancient objects that will be coming home. Continue reading...

Pioneering research could help development of miniaturised devices for stroke patients and paralysed peopleA man who was paralysed in a cycling accident in 2011 has been able to stand and walk with an aid after doctors implanted a device that reads his brain waves and sends instructions to his spine to move the right muscles.Gert-Jan Oskam, 40, was told he would never walk again after breaking his neck in a traffic accident in China, but has climbed stairs and walked for more than 100 metres at a time since having the operation. Continue reading...

Hurtling down trails on two wheels might not be the most obvious way to cope with a life-changing news but for Tracey Croke it helped her find inner peaceIt wasn’t the news my doctor expected from the scan. I could tell by the look on his face. Most partial hearing loss episodes are caused by infections. I was that rare, one-in-whatever-thousand case in which they’d discovered a squatter – which I now call “the thing” – was hanging out in my head.“It’s a brain tumour,” he said. Continue reading...

Citations of Chinese research have risen because of sequencing of Covid-19 genomeChina has overtaken the US to become the biggest contributor to nature-science journals, in a sign of the country’s growing influence in the world of academic research.The Nature Index, which tracks data on author affiliations in 82 high quality journals, found that authors affiliated with Chinese institutions are more prolific than their US counterparts in physical sciences, chemistry, Earth and environmental sciences. The only category in which the US is still in the lead is life sciences. Continue reading...

Research on gulls in Brighton found birds can work out which scraps are worth snaffling by watching what humans are eatingIt will take more than a bunch of signs declaring “do not feed the birds” to deter gulls from swooping down to pinch people’s snacks, a study has suggested.Research on herring gulls at Brighton beach found that the birds can work out which kinds of scraps are worth snaffling by watching what humans are tucking into themselves. Continue reading...

Radar imagery collected during Nasa’s Magellan mission in 1990s used to develop volcano databaseOur planet has more than 1,500 volcanoes – but if you think that’s a lot then take a look at Venus. A new map, created from radar imagery collected during Nasa’s Magellan mission in the 1990s, catalogues more than 85,000 volcanoes on Venus, 99% of which are less than 5km in diameter.“Our new database will enable scientists to think about where else to search for evidence of recent geological activity [on Venus],” says Paul Byrne from Washington University in St Louis. Continue reading...

California-based company will fold after selling off its assets and filing for bankruptcy in the USVirgin Orbit, the satellite launch company founded by British billionaire Richard Branson, will permanently cease operations, just months after a major mission failure.The California-based firm, which had already filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States in early April, has auctioned off its main assets, recovering just over $36m. That figure is barely 1% of the value the company reached in late 2021 on Wall Street, when it was valued at $3.5 billion. Continue reading...

Archaeologists begin excavation of two 500-year-old vessels filled with porcelain and timberTwo 500-year-old shipwrecks in the South China Sea, filled with Ming-era porcelain and stacked timber, provide significant clues about the maritime Silk Road trade routes, Chinese archaeologists have said.The two shipwrecks were discovered in October, and cultural and archaeological authorities have now begun a year-long process of deep-sea exploration and excavation, government officials announced. Continue reading...

My friend Mike Bruford, who has died aged 59 after a protracted illness, dedicated his career to unravelling the genetic consequences of biodiversity loss and was a professor of conservation genetics at Cardiff University.Respected by governments and researchers worldwide, Mike was determined and driven, and communicated science in a compelling manner. When asked, after a talk in 2022: “Can we afford to make all these changes to protect biodiversity?” his response was simple: “We cannot afford not to.” Continue reading...

Karelian bear dogs are being used to scare wild bears from human settlements and reduce human-wildlife conflictThe dog is moving through the grasses of the open meadow, closely followed by bear biologist Carrie Hunt, who is observing his reactions as he sees the grizzly bear carcass for the first time. “Find it,” says Hunt, encouraging the two-month-old puppy. The puppy’s ears and tail are up as he approaches the bear cautiously, but with the confidence that Hunt is looking for in a bear conflict dog.This is a Karelian bear dog, a hardy breed from Finland known to be fearless and capable of standing up to large mammals such as brown bears and moose. People once used the dogs to hunt big game in regions that now are part of Russia and Finland. Today, in Montana, Hunt is using the dogs to keep bears alive. Continue reading...

How a mind-altering, addictive substance was used as a weapon by one empire to subdue anotherHumans are an exquisitely intelligent and capable species of ape. Our physiology has been fine-tuned for efficient long-distance running; our hands are elegantly dextrous for manipulating and making; and our throats and mouths give us astonishing control over the sounds we make. We are virtuoso communicators, able to convey everything from physical instructions to abstract concepts, and to coordinate ourselves in teams and communities. We learn from each other, from our parents and peers, so new generations don’t have to start from scratch. But we’re also deeply flawed, physically and mentally. In many ways, humans just don’t work well.We’re also riddled with defects in our biochemistry and DNA – data-corrupted genes that no longer work – which means, for instance, that we must eat a diet more varied than almost any other animal to obtain the nutrients we need to survive. And our brains, far from being perfectly rational thinking machines, are full of cognitive glitches and bugs. We’re also prone to addictions that drive compulsive behaviour, sometimes along self-destructive paths. Continue reading...

Ministers to close loophole in 2018 Ivory Act that means animals other than elephants can be targetedIvory imports from hippopotamuses, orcas and walruses will be banned under new legislation to protect the endangered species from poaching.The Ivory Act, passed in 2018, targeted materials from elephants, but a loophole meant that animals other than elephants, including hippos, were being targeted for their ivory. Continue reading...

We now know that global temperatures are likely to temporarily rise by more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels in the next five years. Breaching this crucial threshold will give humanity an insight into what the next few decades could bring. It will undoubtedly have serious consequences in all aspects of our lives, including what we eat.In the second of our special series of episodes looking at what a future world might look like, science editor Ian Sample explores how our diets could change as the Earth heats up. Ian talks to Kew’s kitchen gardener Helena Dove about climate-resilient vegetables, visits Tiziana di Costanzo’s insect farm to try mealworms and crickets, and hears from Solar Food’s CEO, Pasi Vainikka, about making food from bacteria, electricity and airClips: ITV, BBC, SkyListen to episode one of our series of future-focused episodes: can cities help us fight climate change? Continue reading...

Discovery of ‘objective biomarker’ raises hopes for new treatments for people living with intractable painBrain signals that reveal how much pain a person is in have been discovered by scientists who say the work is a step towards radical new treatments for people living with debilitating chronic pain.It is the first time researchers have decoded the brain activity underlying chronic pain in patients, raising hopes that brain stimulation therapies already used for Parkinson’s and major depression can help those who have run out of other options. Continue reading...

Far from being the preserve of weirdos, fandoms offer a model of community and wellbeingOf the many films that dramatise the deranged behaviour of celebrity fans, one of the most popular is Der Fan, a German production from 1982 about a teenage girl obsessed with a pop singer. It begins predictably enough – she writes him dozens of letters – but the ending is a little less orthodox. When he doesn’t reply she intercepts him outside one of his gigs, hangs out in his dressing room, has sex with him, kills him with a statue, chops him up and puts the dismembered body parts in a freezer. Unsurprisingly, it has become a cult classic.Like most works of its genre, Der Fan taps into a stereotype that fans have had to endure since the emergence of popular culture. Characterised as hysterics, fantasists, psychopaths, geeks, misfits or mindless consumers, they are feared either as obsessive loners who spend their lives fretting in their bedrooms (like the protagonists of most fan movies) or as members of a frenzied mob (screaming teenagers at a Harry Styles gig). The word is still associated with “fanatic” in the public consciousness. We assume that anyone with a consuming interest in a celebrity or fictional universe is this way inclined (unless they are a sports fan, in which case their behaviour is likely to be applauded). Continue reading...