Natural aquatic supplement could be used to make up for lack of key vitamin B12 in plant-based dietsVitamins for vegans made from algae could soon prove to be the most effective solution to replacing an important nutrient missing from plant-based diets, thanks to recent research by scientists at Cambridge University.The popularity of meat- and dairy-free foods in western diets is leaving many people potentially exposed to vitamin deficiency. In particular, they can suffer from a lack of the vitamin B12, a key nutrient involved in blood and nerve cell manufacture. Continue reading...

More and more youngsters are experiencing serious reactions to everyday foods - and even our pets are suffering. We meet one family who lost a son to anaphylaxis and ask what can be doneWhen five-year-old Benedict Blythe woke up on the morning of 1 December 2021, he was excited that Christmas was coming. He came downstairs to open the first box in his Advent calendar containing a plastic springy frog and a dairy-free white chocolate (Benedict was allergic to milk, along with many other foods including soy, sesame, eggs and nuts). It was Benedict's first term at school - Barnack primary in Stamford - and he loved it so much that back in September, he had cried when he learned that there were no classes at the weekend. That morning, he went off cheerfully to school with a small packet of dairy-free McVitie's Gingerbread Men for snack time. He seemed happy and healthy when he arrived but by the afternoon, he was dead, having collapsed with anaphylaxis.I meet Benedict's mother, Helen Blythe, for coffee one spring morning in a country hotel not far from Stamford where she lives. We sit in a quiet back room and talk for two hours. To start with, there's another person in the room, but when he hears what we will be talking about, he offers awkward condolences and leaves. The random pity of strangers is just one of the many things Helen has had to endure since the death of her son. She tells me that when she meets someone new she has to decide whether to say that she has one child or two (Benedict's younger sister, Etta, also has multiple allergies). When our coffee arrives, it comes with a piece of buttery shortbread but Helen says I should take hers. She went vegan in 2020 when she realised she effectively was already as a vegetarian cooking for two children with milk and egg allergies. Continue reading...

Climate breakdown and crop losses threaten our survival, but the ultra-rich find ever more creative ways to maintain the status quoAccording to Google's news search, the media has run more than 10,000 stories this year about Phillip Schofield, the British television presenter who resigned over an affair with a younger colleague. Google also records a global total of five news stories about a scientific paper published last week, showing that the chances of simultaneous crop losses in the world's major growing regions, caused by climate breakdown, appear to have been dangerously underestimated. In mediaworld, a place that should never be confused with the real world, celebrity gossip is thousands of times more important than existential risk.The new paper explores the impacts on crop production when meanders in the jet stream (Rossby waves) become stuck. Stuck patterns cause extreme weather. To put it crudely, if you live in the northern hemisphere and a kink in the jet stream (the band of strong winds a few miles above the Earth's surface at mid-latitudes) is stuck to the south of you, your weather is likely to be cold and wet. If it's stuck to the north of you, you're likely to suffer escalating heat and drought. Continue reading...

The UK's former chief scientific adviser, a familiar face during Covid, talks about his new role as chair of the London museum and putting its collection at the heart of our climate responseSir Patrick Vallance is sitting in a back office at the Natural History Museum talking about his childhood love of dinosaurs. I was obsessed," says the UK's former chief scientific adviser from behind his trademark tortoiseshell glasses. When I was young, I wanted to be a palaeontologist. I failed at that so I did something else," he says.His favourite exhibit as a boy? Dippy the diplodocus in the hall was definitely one that inspired me. The whale, too. When I walk around now, I think about the meteorites and what that's telling us about outer space." Continue reading...

Nottingham University researchers are simulating black holes with a tiny vortex inside a bell jar of superfluid heliumAt the end of a nondescript corridor at the University of Nottingham is a door labelled simply: Black Hole Laboratory. Within, an experiment is under way in a large, hi-tech bathtub that could offer a unique glimpse of the laws of physics that govern the real thing.The lab is run by Prof Silke Weinfurtner, a pioneer in the field of analogue gravity, whose work has demonstrated uncanny parallels between the mathematics describing fluid systems on Earth and some of the most extreme and inaccessible environments in the universe. Continue reading...

Results reveal activities such as using computer or writing journal associated with 11% drop in risk over 10-year periodTaking part in activities such as chess, writing a journal, or educational classes in older age may help to reduce the risk of dementia, a study has suggested.According to the World Health Organization, more than 55 million people have the disease worldwide, most of them older people. Continue reading...

We would like to hear from anyone who has experienced significant delays after a referral for suspected cancer or during treatmentThe latest cancer waiting time figures in England show that four key waiting time targets have been missed.

Discovery that some species build nests from anti-bird spikes highlights growing awareness in UK that deterrents don't workIt seems like the ultimate revenge: birds have been found constructing nests from the very spikes meant to deter them from perching on buildings. But while humans have no shortage of tactics to wage against unwanted birds, experts say it's time to abandon the war.Though there are myriad ways to deter or remove birds from city roofs, train stations and other settings - from spikes to fire gel, professional falconers and even plastic owls - it seems many lead to only a temporary reprieve. Continue reading...

India's space agency launched a rocket on Friday that will attempt to land a spacecraft at the lunar south pole, an unprecedented feat that would advance the country's position as a significant space power. Television footage showed the Indian Space Research Organisation's launch rocket blast off from the country's main spaceport in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, leaving behind a plume of smoke and fire. The Chandrayaan-3 mission is designed to deploy a lander and rover near the moon's south pole around 23 August

Chandrayaan-3 launches from island in southern India in follow-up to failed effort four years agoAn Indian spacecraft has blazed its way towards the far side of the moon in a follow-up mission to its failed effort nearly four years ago to land a rover softly on the lunar surface, India's space agency said.Chandrayaan-3, the word for moon craft" in Sanskrit, took off from a launch pad in Sriharikota, an island in southern India, with an orbiter, a lander and a rover, in a demonstration of India's emerging space technology. The spacecraft will embark on a journey lasting slightly over a month before landing on the moon's surface later in August. Continue reading...

A rocket engine exploded during a test in Japan on Friday, the latest in a series of failures that have deflated Tokyo's space ambitions. The explosion took place about a minute into the test of the second-stage engine at a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency testing site in Noshiro city, in Akita prefecture, officials said. Footage showed flames shooting out the side of the test facility, before the small building was engulfed in flames and the roof blew off. No injuries were reported

Up to 14 cans of diet drink a day considered safe for 70kg person, as WHO says sweetener is possibly' carcinogenic in larger amountsA widely used artificial sweetener deemed a possible" cause of cancer is safe in limited quantities, such as consuming fewer than nine to 14 cans of soft drink a day, experts have said.The sugar substitute aspartame, used in thousands of products including diet fizzy drinks, ice-cream and chewing gum, was classified as possibly carcinogenic to humans" in a report released on Thursday by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Continue reading...

The notion of boundaries' is a seductive metaphor for how our relationships should work - but where did it come from?

The Chandrayaan-3 is set to blast off from a spaceport in the southern state of Andhra PradeshIndia's space agency has made final preparations for the launch of a rocket that will attempt to land a rover on the moon and mark the country's arrival as a power in space exploration.Only the United States, the former Soviet Union and China have made successful lunar landings. An attempt by a Japanese start-up earlier this year ended with the lander crashing. Continue reading...

Polissoir', discovered in Valley of Stones nature reserve, was used about 5,000 years ago to hone tools such as axesAt first glance it looked like nothing more than a rugged boulder jumbled among many others on the floor of a valley in the West Country.But a smooth, glossy dip in the stone indicated that it was something very special - a vanishingly rare polissoir", or polishing stone, used 5,000 years ago by Neolithic people to hone tools such as axes. Continue reading...

My friend and colleague Alan Bull, who has died aged 87, was an internationally renowned microbiologist and pioneer of biotechnology, developing procedures that opened up new approaches to studying microbial ecology and pathogenicity. Such developments led to Alan chairing an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development working party on the potential of biotechnology for industrial sustainability (1996-98).Collaboration was central to Alan's work. Together with Ian Swingland, a conservation biology professor at the University of Kent, where Alan spent most of his career, he was a founding trustee in 1989 of the Durrell Trust for Conservation Biology, and in 1992 launched a new journal, Biodiversity and Conservation, which is still going strong. Continue reading...

As research focuses on richer parts of world, people in less developed countries suffer from lack of awareness and supportIn the Hospital del Norte of El Alto, a working-class city in Bolivia, visibly sick patients queue for a consultation with a surgeon. At their feet, two stray dogs sleep on a floor strewn with coca leaves.Dr Silverio Condori, 49, was here when the coronavirus pandemic arrived in Bolivia. He fell sick in June 2020 and spent two months in one of the country's few intensive care units. I came back from another world," he said. Continue reading...

Words such as boundaries' have become common parlance both online and in person - but at what cost to our relationships?What sort of words do you think of when I mention the phrase therapy speak"? Gaslighting? Trauma-dumping? Triggered? Even words like toxic, perhaps. Or, and this is a personal favourite: self-care. In recent years, these terms have started cropping up everywhere: on TikTok, Instagram and sometimes even in our personal lives, especially within romantic scenarios, where we have to balance another person's needs" against our own.These shiny, businesslike phrases have become catch-all ways to describe the way others treat us, and how we ought to treat ourselves, ostensibly from the mouths of therapists. Words like boundaries" have dominated headlines this month after alleged messages between the actor Jonah Hill and his ex-partner Sarah Brady were published online, in which he says she should not post pictures of herself in a bathing suit, go surfing with men, or have friendships that he doesn't approve of, among other things, if they are to continue to have a relationship (demands that, to me, seem far-removed from anything a therapist might endorse as reasonable boundaries").Daisy Jones is a writer and author of All the Things She SaidDo 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...

Twenty-five years ago in a German bar, neuroscientist Christof Koch bet philosopher David Chalmers that we'd understand the neural basis for consciousness by 2023. Last month, the winner of the bet received a case of wine. Ian Sample talks to Christof and David about why they made the bet, who won, and where we are now in our understanding of this most fundamental aspect of existence.Learn more about the science of consciousness by joining leading neuroscientist professor Anil Seth for a Guardian masterclass. Book here Continue reading...

Scientists studied jewelry made from now extinct creatures and theorize that humans arrived in Americas 27,000 years agoNew research suggests humans lived in South America at the same time as now extinct giant sloths, bolstering evidence that people arrived in the Americas earlier than once thought.Scientists analyzed triangular and teardrop-shaped pendants made of bony material from the sloths. They concluded that the carved and polished shapes and drilled holes were the work of deliberate craftsmanship. Continue reading...

A CSIRO team at Murriyang has been tracking millisecond pulsars for 18 years and say they have evidence supporting the existence of gravitational waves

Study finds MRI scans led to different diagnosis or change in care in 6% of casesPatients experiencing psychosis for the first time should be routinely given brain scans to rule out underlying physical illnesses, according to psychiatrists.A review involving more than 1,600 patients with a first episode of psychosis who underwent an MRI brain scan found that about 6% had a scan abnormality that led to a different diagnosis or a change to their clinical care. Continue reading...

Volume of debris in the unexplored twilight zone is an emerging threat' to reefs already stressed by climate crisis, say scientistsNo part of the planet is free of plastic waste, and coral reefs are no exception, but scientists have now made the discovery that the deeper the reef, the more plastic debris it is likely to have.A study published in Nature found that not only is every coral reef encumbered with plastic, but almost three-quarters of the larger items were from ghost gear" - fishing paraphernalia such as ropes, lines and nets. Food wrappers and plastic bottles were also common. The plastic constitutes an emerging threat" to reefs already stressed by the climate crisis and overfishing, the researchers said. Continue reading...

Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex image released to celebrate first year of operation of James Webb telescopeAn unprecedented" closeup image of the nearest star-forming region to Earth was released by Nasa on Wednesday to mark the first year of operation of the James Webb space telescope.The vivid view of sun-like" stars in the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex 390 light years away is the first time researchers have been able to see the area in fine detail, minus the distraction of foreground stars. Continue reading...

Dutch study identifies several examples of corvids' amazing' ability to adapt to the urban environmentBirds have never shied away from turning human rubbish into nesting materials, but even experts in the field have raised an eyebrow at the latest handiwork to emerge from urban crows and magpies.Nests recovered from trees in Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Antwerp in Belgium were found to be constructed almost entirely from strips of long metal spikes that are often attached to buildings to deter birds from setting up home on the structures. Continue reading...

What do you get if a code reads a list of existing swearwords and spits out its new favourite? Arguably, an anticlimaxName: The ultimate swearword.Age: Ber! Mind your own business. Continue reading...

A pod in the strait of Gibraltar has sunk three boats and damaged dozens of others, and their story has captivated the world. What explains this unprecedented behaviour?What's going on with the #orcauprising? You've probably gathered the basics: orcas are attacking" yachts. To be strictly factual, since 2020, a small pod of orcas in the strait of Gibraltar has been interacting with sailing boats in a new way: ramming vessels, pressing their bodies and heads into the hulls and biting, even snapping off, the rudders. Over three years, more than 500 interactions have been recorded, three boats sunk and dozens of others damaged. Last month, the first instance of this behaviour was recorded in another place, when an orca rammed a boat near Shetland. What I felt [was] most frightening was the very loud breathing of the animal," said the Dutch yachtsman targeted, Dr Wim Rutten, who had been fishing for mackerel. Maybe he just wanted to play. Or look me in the eyes. Or to get rid of the fishing line."There are two fascinating things about this. First, of course, what are the orcas doing? But the second is about another species entirely: us. Why do we like this story so much? Because we do: people - including me - love the idea of orcas attacking boats. Browsing through orca memes, there's an orca as the sickle in the hammer and sickle, with the headline eat the rich", and a Soviet-style graphic of a heroic orca emerging under a superyacht. What if we kissed while watching the orcas take back the ocean," reads one tweet with 1m views, while a much-used image of an arm holding a microphone up to a captive orca has been repurposed endlessly to highly entertaining effect - I like one where it's singing" a bespoke version of the Meredith Brooks classic: I'm a bitch / I'm an orca / Sinking yachts /Just off Majorca [sic] / I'm a sinner I'm a whale / Imma hit you with my tail." We're taking great pleasure in projecting extremely human narratives and motivations on orcas. But how wrong is that, and why does it appeal? Continue reading...

Madeleine Finlay speaks to science correspondent Nicola Davis about why octopuses are more similar to us humans than we might believe. She also hears from Prof David Scheel about our increasing understanding of the sophistication of these cephalopods, and how that should influence our treatment of themClips: Netflix, Voice of AmericaRead more of Nicola Davis' reporting on octopuses here Continue reading...

My grandmother Joan Krakover Hall, who has died aged 94, was a passionate teacher and linguist, who worked for a time at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge. She was married for more than 50 years to the atomic physicist Theodore Hall, whom she met as a teenager in Chicago after the second world war.As a young scientist working on the Manhattan Project, Ted had passed secrets of the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union, believing that a US nuclear monopoly would be highly dangerous. Identified as an agent in 1949, he was never prosecuted by the US authorities and his role remained unknown to the public until the mid-1990s. Continue reading...

Arexvy could help NHS deal with virus that causes about 8,000 deaths among older people in UK each yearThe UK's medicines regulator has approved the first vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in older adults.The virus typically causes cold-like symptoms, but is a leading cause of pneumonia in infants and elderly people, with infections in older adults accounting for about 8,000 deaths, 14,000 hospitalisations and 175,000 GP appointments in the UK each year - more than influenza during a typical winter season. Continue reading...

Over half of essays written by people were wrongly flagged as AI-made, with implications for students and job applicantsComputer programs that are used to detect essays, job applications and other work generated by artificial intelligence can discriminate against people who are non-native English speakers, researchers say.Tests on seven popular AI text detectors found that articles written by people who did not speak English as a first language were often wrongly flagged as AI-generated, a bias that could have a serious impact on students, academics and job applicants. Continue reading...

No corner of the planet is free from minuscule fragments of plastic packaging, textiles or utensils. We ask scientists what this means for our health - and what we should do to protect itInvisible specks of eroded plastic from long-forgotten toothbrushes, sweet wrappers and stocking-filler toys are everywhere. They live in our laundry bins, the Mariana trench and the human bloodstream. Microplastic particles can be small enough to infiltrate biological barriers such as the gut, skin and placental tissue. We are all now partially plastic - but how worried should we be, and is there any way to minimise our exposure?At the moment, says Stephanie Wright, an environmental toxicologist at Imperial College, London, a lack of epidemiological and in-human data means we don't yet know the harmful effects of microplastics, but I would say reducing particle exposure in general (including microplastic) is likely to be beneficial". But avoiding the stuff is a tall order, considering it's in the air, drinking water, dust and food". Continue reading...

The solutions to today's puzzlesHere are the questions I set today, repeated with the solutions, and a discussion at the bottom.Both puzzles are about binary codes, which are a way of encoding information using only the binary digits 0 and 1, called bits". Continue reading...

The world is split into 10 types of people, those that can solve this puzzle, and those that can'tLast month an example of binary code was cleverly displayed on the door of 10 Downing Street, to promote London Tech Week.A binary code is a way of encoding information (in this case, letters) in the binary digits 0 and 1, called bits". In the standard encoding used on the PM's door, every letter is represented by eight bits. The first line spells L, the second T and the third W. Continue reading...

The Mori new year festivities can begin when the Pleiades star cluster is seen and the moon reaches its next last quarter phaseThe moon moves into its last quarter phase this week, heralding a new moon on 17 July next week. In New Zealand, this means it is time for the celebration of Matariki. In Mori culture, this marks the new year and is a time of reflection for the previous 12 months and a chance to look ahead. The timing of the celebration is determined by the interplay of both stars and moon.Matariki itself is the Mori name for the Pleiades star cluster. It disappears from the skies of New Zealand in May for around a month. When it is spotted again, rising in the dawn sky just before the sun, the festival of Matariki can begin once the moon reaches its next last quarter phase. Continue reading...

Often dismissed by the medical establishment, people with complex illnesses such as ME and long Covid are taking the hunt for treatments into their own handsIn 2019, years after developing the myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS) that had kept her bedridden in a state of chronic pain and exhaustion, Tamara Romanuk experienced something miraculous". After taking antibiotics prescribed to treat a separate infection, she experienced a short-term remission in symptoms. I went from being bedbound to twirling outside," Romanuk says. I had no idea that life could be so different from what I'd become adjusted to."Sharing her experience online, Romanuk, a former biology professor, discovered that she wasn't the only person who had had this experience. Both she and Tess Falor, an engineer with a PhD, had developed ME/CFS years before and had picked up a bacterial infection that required antibiotic treatment. Doctors had advised them to take probiotic supplements to help the microbiome recover. Afterwards, both experienced a dramatic remission in ME/CFS symptoms. They called it a remission event". Romanuk and Falor have named their project to investigate the experience the RemissionBiome. Continue reading...

From cabin dwellers to chateau owners, it's a zest for life - even the small things - that makes us flourishWhen my partner, Zan, and I drove our van out of the parking lot in Buenos Aires in 2006 - and faced southwards towards Patagonia - we had rules for the trip ahead: no computer, no phone, no social media, no camera, no compass, no internet. These were the rules. But, more importantly, no plans. Instead, we hauled dozens of books on philosophy, like The Art of Happiness by Epicurus and Conversations of Socrates, and some odd sprinklings of sociology and psychology texts. The question as to how to live was once the focus of thought foremost in the minds of ancient philosophers. What could we learn from them?For almost two decades I've been travelling the world searching for an answer to the question: what makes for a flourishing life? Is it riches, success, fame, a shiny sports car, a mansion with a pool, or is it something more elusive, much like hidden treasure on a map? Continue reading...

Charity calls on government to do more to restrict unhealthy lifestyle choicesOne of the country's leading health charities is calling for urgent action to reduce the carcinogenic effects" of cheap alcohol and unhealthy food after a 40% increase in deaths from liver cancer in a decade.Liver cancer is now the fastest rising cause of cancer death in the UK, warns the British Liver Trust. Since the early 1970s, liver cancer mortality rates have more than tripled. Continue reading...

Gene editing or selective breeding hold promise of a non-toxic variety of the protein-rich and drought-resistant plantIt is grown in some of the world's most inhospitable, arid regions and is noted for being rich in protein. But the grass pea - although hardy and nutritious - comes with a catch. It contains a poison that can occasionally trigger irreversible paralysis, particularly among individuals who are already undernourished.As a result, it is often grown only as an insurance crop, to provide short-term food supply when harvests of other crops have failed. Nevertheless, poisoning from Lathyrus sativus still occurs in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Ethiopia and Algeria. Continue reading...

Humanoid robots speak - with some awkward pauses - in world first' press conference at Geneva AI summitRobots have no plans to steal the jobs of humans or rebel against their creators, but would like to make the world their playground, nine of the most advanced humanoid robots have told an artificial intelligence summit in Geneva.In what was described as the world's first human-robot press conference", one robot, Sophia, said humanoid robots had the potential to lead with a greater level of efficiency and effectiveness than human leaders" but that effective synergy" came when humans and AI worked together. AI can provide unbiased data while humans can provide the emotional intelligence and creativity to make the best decisions. Together, we can achieve great things," it said. Continue reading...

The novelist was in her early teens when her mother, the writer and film-maker Katie Pearson, died of cancer. She reflects on the insights, inspiration and comfort she's found in journals written over 27 yearsWhen my mother died in 2010 at the age of 52, she left behind two teenage daughters, a devoted husband, innumerable friends and an archive of beautifully written diaries chronicling nearly every year of her life from the age of 25 until her final days. My sister and I were aware of this growing collection throughout our childhood; her past selves were stacked neatly at the bottom of the living room bookcase, preserved in their various jackets of worn leather or patterned fabrics. These diaries have been the only constant ritual of my life," one entry reads. After writing, I feel immediately better." Convinced of the psychological benefits, she encouraged my sister and me to take up the habit. When I was seven, she bought me a miniature copy of the book she was filling at the time. It was a magnificent object composed of thick cream parchment, soft Italian suede and an impractically long tie that was always dangling out of my school bag, trailing in puddles or dripping in orange juice. We wrote in our matching books together in the evening, before bed. It was the only diary I ever managed to fill cover to cover.Some writers are natural diarists. I am not one of them. As a child, I was far more interested in writing stories, disappearing into the lives and minds of others. I see now that this stems, in part, from an early distrust of my own voice, which struck me as so irregular, so various and so utterly contradictory that I believed it genuinely dangerous; the first person was a tool to be wielded only with the utmost caution. It is still only under the guise of fiction that I feel I can travel confidently towards any kind of authentic truth. But for my mother - a documentary maker for much of her life - it was effortless. Continue reading...

Expected' return could help retain scientists and researchers lost after grants were cancelled in Brexit rowBritish scientists and academic researchers will be able to reapply to the prestigious European Research Council (ERC) for grants if, as expected, the UK rejoins the flagship Horizon European programme, it has been confirmed.The re-entry comes almost a year after 115 grants approved for British candidates were terminated by the council because of the delay in ratifying the UK's associate membership of the 85bn Horizon funding scheme. Continue reading...

If I don't save things, they will either end up buried in landfill or be burnt, writes Stephen Lyons; Paula Terry-Lancaster asks why billionaires who hoard money are not reviledSamira Shackle presents hoarding behaviour as if it were some kind of sickness situated in the individual (You reach a point where you can't live your life': what is behind extreme hoarding?, 4 July). I prefer to see hoarding objects that, in the words of the NHS definition, most people would consider rubbish" - such as cardboard boxes and empty plastic bottles - as a perfectly sane and rational response to living in an extreme throwaway society. A society that is itself incurably sick and destroying the planet by pointlessly wasting resources.I hoard all sorts: used Jiffy bags, cardboard boxes and tubes, single-use plastic bottles, obsolete consumer electronics, and even the odd second-hand book. I know that if I don't save these precious objects from the binperson they will either end up buried in landfill or be recycled", which in reality means being burned for energy (releasing CO2) or exported and very possibly dumped at sea. Continue reading...

Machine learning can help with analysis of gliomas, most common brain tumor, and reduce time patients are in operating roomA new artificial intelligence tool could help neurosurgeons treat brain tumors, according to a study released this week by Harvard Medical School.Neuroscience researchers for decades have struggled to understand gliomas, an umbrella term for the most common brain tumor in cancer patients. One particularly aggressive type of glioma is responsible for the death of Beau Biden and the Arizona senator John McCain. Continue reading...

Backhug's 26 mechanical fingers offer personalised joint care. How much can it do for me in six weeks?Imagine having a live-in masseur available to pummel away at your aching back at the end of each day; one who never gets tired, or suggests that maybe it is time for you to return the favour.Enter the Backhug: a robotic therapist equipped with 26 mechanical fingers to scan the unique curvature of your spine and press away stiffness in the joints of your back, neck and shoulders, with nothing more than a whirr and occasional squeak of complaint. Continue reading...

Loopholes in proposed post-Brexit laws could allow preventive use to continue, raising risk of resistance, says coalition of groupsProposed laws to curb antibiotic use on UK farms contain loopholes that could undermine the fight against deadly drug-resistant bacteria, campaigners say, adding that they were drafted after closed-door meetings with industry.The government published the draft legislation, designed to replace EU rules post-Brexit, after consultations with pharmaceutical, veterinary medicine and farming lobby groups, according to freedom of information requests filed by the investigative journalism site DeSmog. Continue reading...

Cancer Research UK says melanoma cases could soar' by 50% over next 20 years and warns against sunburnThe number of people in the UK being diagnosed with skin cancer has hit a record high with a sharp rise among over-55s.Melanoma cases across all age groups have reached 17,500 a year in the UK, the highest since records began, according to Cancer Research UK. Continue reading...

Expected return also greeted with dismay at UK's decision to avoid being a net contributor to EU's flagship programmeScientists including the physicist Brian Cox have reacted with a mixture of caution, anger and relief that the UK appears set to rejoin the EU's flagship 85bn Horizon science research programme after a protracted Brexit row.Sources indicate that an announcement could come in days, possibly next week when Rishi Sunak is scheduled to meet the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, at a Nato summit. Continue reading...

Next generation cells surpass limits of today's cells and will accelerate rollout of cheaper, more efficient solar powerSolar power cells have raced past the key milestone of 30% energy efficiency, after innovations by multiple research groups around the world. The feat makes this a revolutionary" year, according to one expert, and could accelerate the rollout of solar power.Today's solar panels use silicon-based cells but are rapidly approaching their maximum conversion of sunlight to electricity of 29%. At the same time, the installation rate of solar power needs to increase tenfold in order to tackle the climate crisis, according to scientists. Continue reading...

Sapiens author tells Geneva summit proliferation of fake people on social media could lead to collapse in democracyThe creators of AI bots that masquerade as people should face harsh criminal sentences comparable to those who trade in counterfeit currency, the Israeli historian and author Yuval Noah Harari has said.He also called for sanctions, including prison sentences, to apply to tech company executives who fail to guard against fake profiles on their social media platforms. Continue reading...