Electricity is involved in every aspect of life. But could the new science of bioelectricity help cure diseases and ‘upgrade’ humans?I was back at the checkpoint. The traffic moved as normal. Bored-looking soldiers waved through civilians on foot, dusty cars and rickety trucks full of livestock and produce.Then the Humvee in front of the gate blew up. Out of the eye-searing blast, I made out the figure of a man running at me, full-speed. He was wearing an explosive vest. I shot him. Continue reading...

Kisspeptin found to bolster sexual responses by increasing brain activity linked to arousal and attractionPeople with a low sex drive could benefit from injections of a hormone called kisspeptin, according to clinical trials that found the shots can boost sexual responses.The trials are the first to show the hormone can increase activity in brain regions linked to arousal and attraction in men and women who are distressed by their low libidos. Continue reading...

Scientists suggest a patient’s own cells could eventually be grown in the lab and used to repair injuries caused by stroke or traumaBlobs of human brain tissue have been transplanted into the brains of rats in work that could pave the way for new treatments for devastating brain injuries.The groundbreaking study showed that the “human brain organoids” – sesame seed-sized balls of neurons – were able to integrate into the rat brain, linking up with their blood supplies and communicating with the rat neurons. Continue reading...

As rich people plough money into ventilation to protect themselves, those with long Covid are treated as an embarrassmentYou could see Covid-19 as an empathy test. Who was prepared to suffer disruption and inconvenience for the sake of others, and who was not? The answer was often surprising. I can think, for instance, of five prominent environmentalists who denounced lockdowns, vaccines and even masks as intolerable intrusions on our liberties, while proposing no meaningful measures to prevent transmission of the virus. Four of them became active spreaders of disinformation.If environmentalism...

Sent into apoplexy by whistling noses? Can’t bear the sound of people eating? You could be one of the many people affected by this potentially debilitating conditionAs a teenager, I remember being moved almost to tears by the sound of a family member chewing muesli. A friend eating dumplings once forced me to flee the room. The noises one former housemate makes when chomping popcorn mean I have declined their invitations to the cinema for nearly 20 years.I am not proud of myself for reacting like this – in fact, I am pretty embarrassed – but my responses feel unavoidable. It is probable...

Medical training is in demand, but hesitancy on body donation means students have little to work with, while an illicit trade in transplant organs flourishesScalpel in hand, Carl Mwangi, a first-year medical student at the University of Nairobi, slices through the brain tissue. “To figure out where the vessels are, you have to dig in deeper,” he says, excited to be dissecting a human brain for the first time. But if he wants to do more dissections, the aspiring neurosurgeon will have to secure one of only 10 places on the anatomy programme here.Only postgraduate students and those...

How cigarette smoke – something I’d always been repelled by – finally unlocked my headful of roiling emotions a month after my beloved father diedI have never been a smoker. Even from a very young age, I’ve been actively repelled by it. I confess I did eventually try a cigarette as a drunken student, largely due to peer pressure, and ended up with a scorched larynx and a mouth that tasted like a neglected car’s exhaust, which just reaffirmed my opinions on the matter.So it was quite surprising when, nearly two decades later, an encounter with secondhand cigarette smoke ended up easing...

Swimming-induced pulmonary oedema involves the accumulation of fluid in the lungs of swimmers without it having been inhaledA potentially life-threatening condition that can affect fit and healthy open-water swimmers causing them to “drown from the inside” may involve a buildup of fluid in the heart muscle, researchers have suggested.Swimming-induced pulmonary oedema – SIPE – is a form of immersion pulmonary oedema and involves the accumulation of fluid in the lungs of swimmers without it having been inhaled. The condition is thought to be a result of increased pressure on the body’s...

If global heating continues at current rate of 2.7C, losses will be greater with 68% of glaciers disappearingHalf the planet’s glaciers will have melted by 2100 even if humanity sticks to goals set out in the Paris climate agreement, according to research that finds the scale and impacts of glacial loss are greater than previously thought. At least half of that loss will happen in the next 30 years.Researchers found 49% of glaciers would disappear under the most optimistic scenario of 1.5C of warming. However, if global heating continued under the current scenario of 2.7C of warming, losses...

Rural communities facing the climate crisis, gender inequality and conflict may prosper through a project helping women cultivate fungi rather than cotton and cashewsAt the forest’s edge, a scientist is giving a lesson on the mushrooms that grow here in the damp ground around the trees of Toui-Kilibo reserve in Benin. Olyvia Fadeyi is a mycologist – she studies fungi – and is teaching the women from the village of Yaoui how best to harness the economic value of this strangest of crops. Mushrooms can be cultivated year round, in back gardens, on vertically stacked shelves, rather than...

It’s been a year of huge news on Earth, but how are things looking from up above? Plus: Waterloo Road returns. Here’s what to watch this evening Continue reading...

It’s a well-established therapeutic tool for allowing couples to make sense of each other, but now social media has given the idea of ‘love languages’ a real boostRecently, my boyfriend and I had a check-in. He told me that he felt as if I’d grown complacent when it came to physical affection. I bristled at the accusation, but clamped my mouth shut, mostly because he was right. Truthfully, it’s not the first time I’ve been given this relationship feedback.When it comes to physical touch, my factory setting is “awkward”. But I am truly excellent at small, thoughtful gestures...

It was a great year for a slight lifting of the veil on the final frontier – from redirecting an asteroid to a glimpse into creationThe year has been a blast in space exploration, from Nasa’s big step in returning to moon missions, to glimpses at the origins of the universe and hope that humanity could survive the doomsday scenario of an asteroid hurtling towards Earth.These are the events that shaped 2022 in space advances: Continue reading...

With the success of Artemis, lunar travel is back on the agenda – and a way to produce water on moon is vital for human presenceIn 1970, Neil Armstrong predicted there would be people living in Antarctica-style lunar research bases “within our lifetime”. He was wrong: it’s been 50 years since the last Apollo crewed mission.Perhaps not so very wrong, however. Ten years after Armstrong’s death, lunar travel is back on the agenda, with teams of scientists around the world working to fulfil Nasa’s aspiration to have humans living on the moon within the decade. Continue reading...

My parents weren’t rich but they always made me feel I could have exactly what I dreamed ofI was three and Christmas 1969 was approaching. Neil Armstrong walked on the moon that summer and I wanted what millions of kids must have wanted for Christmas: the Apollo 11 rocket. I announced this and went off to listen yet again to my favourite record: Puff, the Magic Dragon.Our house on a nice new estate in Wrexham was full of craft furniture. My dad, who taught woodwork at the town’s grammar school, made our tables and chairs and the abstract copper-wire artworks on the walls. The space age was...

Experts monitoring the loss of Scythian artefacts have been shocked at scale of theft by Putin’s forcesThe people the Greeks called Scythians were formidable warriors and nomads who dominated the Eurasian steppe for more than 1,000 years from about 800BC – long before the creation of national borders.The fabulous gold weapons and ornaments they left behind ended up in museums across the region, many of them in Ukraine. Since Russian troops invaded Ukraine in February, however, much Scythian gold – along with millions of other priceless artefacts – has been looted or “evacuated...

Coolant leak on Soyuz capsule forced last-minute cancellation of spacewalk by two cosmonautsThe temperature in the Soyuz capsule docked with the International Space Station has risen but the crew was not in danger, the Russian space agency said on Friday.On Thursday, Roscosmos and the US space agency Nasa said a coolant leak had been detected on the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft. The leak forced the last-minute cancellation of a spacewalk by two Russian cosmonauts on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Nasa footage showed a torrent of snowflake-like particles spraying from the rear section of the Soyuz MS-22 capsuleA planned spacewalk by two Russian cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station has been cancelled after mission controllers noticed “significant leaking” from a docked Soyuz spacecraft.A “visible stream of flakes” was first observed about 7.45pm EST (12.45am GMT Thursday) prompting Russian flight controllers to abort the mission, a Nasa livestream showed. Continue reading...

As the party season kicks in, so will the effects of having one too many. Here are the sobering facts behind hangovers and tactics that might help you avoid them“Alcohol is a ‘dirty drug’,” says Emily Palmer, a researcher at Imperial College London, who studies hangovers. “It impacts multiple systems in the brain.”Scientists are not exactly sure what is going on in our bodies during a hangover, but they do know it is caused by a variety of biochemical and neurochemical changes. “It doesn’t just affect the liver or the brain,” says Palmer, “it affects almost every organ...

It’s important for patients to know past relapses don’t define you, and ongoing help from professionals and friends is critical to recoveryThe modern mind is a column where experts discuss mental health issues they are seeing in their workBen* has been battling a drug and alcohol addiction for more than a decade. At 32 years old, he has experienced more than the average person his age.Ben suffered a horrific injury in a car accident when he was 21 and became dependent on painkillers. From there, he tells me in his first group therapy session in rehab that he began experimenting with a range...

Manipulating your body clock can improve health and productivityIt’s 8.30pm on a gloomy November evening and I’m sitting on the sofa under a tartan blanket and wearing a pair of orange-lensed specs. My other half regards me with bemusement. A man who disapproves of paracetamol and plasters, Tim has lived through my audio-bathing phase, my steps-tracker phase and the notorious 2015 installation of our bedroom air-quality monitor, a period during which I informed him he should breathe out less carbon dioxide (could he, I asked, just tape his mouth in bed at night so I didn’t wake up groggy...

The stress-reducing, life-extending benefits of religion can offer useful strategies even for non-believers, say scientistsIn his Pensées, published posthumously in 1670, the French philosopher Blaise Pascal appeared to establish a foolproof argument for religious commitment, which he saw as a kind of bet. If the existence of God was even minutely possible, he claimed, then the potential gain was so huge – an “eternity of life and happiness” – that taking the leap of faith was the mathematically rational choice.Pascal’s wager implicitly assumes that religion has no benefits in the...

The UK is in the middle of its worst outbreak of bird flu. The current strain of H5N1 avian influenza has devastated wild bird populations, killing thousands and affecting threatened species such as puffins and hen harriers. Bird flu has also been wreaking havoc on poultry, and since 7 November, all captive birds in England have been kept indoors to prevent them catching the virus.How are both wild and captive bird populations coping with the current strain of avian flu? And is the UK prepared to deal with another major animal disease outbreak? Ian Sample speaks with Phoebe Weston, a...

With digital bioacoustics, scientists can eavesdrop on the natural world – and they’re learning some astonishing thingsScientists have recently made some remarkable discoveries about non-human sounds. With the aid of digital bioacoustics – tiny, portable digital recorders similar to those found in your smartphone – researchers are documenting the universal importance of sound to life on Earth. By placing these digital microphones all over Earth, from the depths of the ocean to the Arctic and the Amazon, scientists are discovering the hidden sounds of nature, many of which occur at...

In Melbourne’s family court, Lucy visits hearings, legal interviews and mediations – all to relieve people’s stress as they navigate the justice systemGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastWhen Lucy enters a court-room at the federal circuit and family court in Melbourne, she bows to the judge – as is customary. Only Lucy is no ordinary court attender. She is a five-year-old chocolate labrador deployed as a “court facility dog” as part of a pilot program to provide support for people in court .Lucy, who is Instagram-famous through her handle @...

Attacks on satellites could take out GPS systems, banking systems, power grids, and impact on military operations, panel at space conference saysIt would no longer be “life as we know it” if a space war destroyed the satellites that the world now relies on, space commanders have warned, and China and Russia have demonstrated that they’re capable of doing just that.Top brass from the US and Canada are in Sydney for an Australian Strategic Policy Institute conference on space as the new frontier in “commerce, industry, competition and war”. They have discussed the importance of working...

It’s supposed to be the first ever carbon neutral World Cup. Organisers Fifa and host Qatar say they have implemented sustainability initiatives, taken measures to limit carbon output and will offset greenhouse gas emissions by purchasing credits. Fifa has admitted, however, that the tournament’s carbon footprint will bigger than any of its predecessors, and experts believe emissions have been underestimated, calling into question the claim of carbon neutrality.Madeleine Finlay speaks to sports reporter Paul MacInnes about the environmental burden of building stadiums, flying in players and...

Civil Aviation Authority gives regulatory approval for Newquay site to send satellites into spaceThe prospect of a “historic” space mission being launched from the far south-west of Britain before Christmas has taken a giant leap forward after an operating licence was granted to Spaceport Cornwall.There had been growing concern at the time it was taking for the issuing of licences that will allow the first launch of satellites from UK soil, but on Wednesday morning the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) announced that the site in Newquay could be used for sending satellites into space. Continue...

Rocket blasts off from Cape Canaveral in Florida, on its way to send its Orion capsule on a 25-day crewless test flight around the moon and backWe are now four minutes into the flight.The Artemis 1 is travelling at more than 5,000 miles an hour. Continue reading...

The Vascones, an Iron Age tribe from whose language modern Basque is thought to descend, were previously viewed as largely illiterateMore than 2,000 years after it was probably hung from the door of a mud-brick house in northern Spain to bring luck, a flat, lifesize bronze hand engraved with dozens of strange symbols could help scholars trace the development of one of the world’s most mysterious languages.Although the piece – known as the Hand of Irulegi – was discovered last year by archaeologists from the Aranzadi Science Society who have been digging near the city of Pamplona since...

World-first pilot in England helps identify those who could be offered statins, who would otherwise be ‘invisible’ to NHSGPs in the north of England have used predictive genetic tests to identify people most at risk of heart disease in the world’s first pilot of the technology.The NHS study, called Heart, offered genetic tests to nearly 1,000 people aged 45 to 64, in the hope of better predicting their risk of developing cardiovascular disease over the next 10 years. Continue reading...

Neuroscientists show clubbers move more to very low frequencies, even though they are not consciously detectableWhen it comes to getting into the groove on the dancefloor, it really is all about the bass, researchers have found.Scientists say when very low frequency (VLF) sound was introduced during a live electronic music event, gig-goers moved more even though they could not hear the frequencies. Continue reading...

The dramatic vanishing of polar ice sheets will cause catastrophic sea level rise that will threaten cities, according to a major new studyThe climate crisis has pushed the planet’s stores of ice to a widespread collapse that was “unthinkable just a decade ago”, with Arctic sea ice certain to vanish in summers and ruinous sea level rise from melting glaciers now already in motion, a major new report has warned.Even if planet-heating emissions are radically cut, the world’s vast ice sheets at the poles will continue to melt away for hundreds of years, causing up to three metres of sea...

The theoretical physicist and martial arts expert has written a new book that uses magic and wizardry as a portal to engage people with the important but overlooked field of condensed matterFelix Flicker is a theoretical physicist working on the quantum underpinnings of matter. Born in Devon, he studied at Oxford, the Perimeter Institute in Ontario, Canada, and Bristol University, where he completed his PhD. Now a physics lecturer at Cardiff University, he is also a kung fu teacher and former British champion of shuai jiao (Chinese wrestling). Flicker, 35, has just published his first book, The...

Huge chunk of the Long March 5B rocket launched four days previously re-entered the atmosphere on FridayA hefty and uncontrolled chunk of the massive rocket used to deliver the third module of China’s Tiangong space station fell back to Earth on Friday morning, triggering the closure of some of Spain’s air space and leading to hundreds of flight delays.Four days after blasting off from southern China, a large part of the Long March 5B (CZ-5B) rocket broke up as it re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere over the south-central Pacific ocean at 10.01 UTC, according to European and US space...

A masterclass in cell function that will leave you in awe of biology Cells build organisms from the ground up, and therefore to choose to write about them is to give oneself permission to explore almost any aspect of the living world. They are “a life within a life” as Siddhartha Mukherjee puts it in his latest book, which takes advantage of that licence to offer a comprehensive account of basic biology, alongside a history of the many great minds that have helped us to see beyond widespread misconceptions to scientific truth.This is not just about clear-cut successes: alongside the stories...

Research could help explain how virus got so out of control this year, while also refining efforts to combat itBritish researchers have identified evidence of “considerable” transmission of monkeypox in the few days before symptoms of the virus emerge.If replicated, the finding would upend received wisdom about how the virus spreads. It could help explain how monkeypox, which causes sometimes excruciatingly painful lesions, got so out of control this year, while also refining efforts to combat it. Continue reading...

Nearly third of patients on largest trial using psychedelic compound went into rapid remissionThe psychedelic compound found in magic mushrooms can help alleviate severe depression when combined with psychotherapy, according to a trial that raises hopes for people failed by existing antidepressants.Nearly a third of patients with severe depression went into rapid remission after a single 25mg dose of psilocybin followed by therapy sessions, which aimed to help patients identify causes and potential solutions to their depression, researchers said. Continue reading...

The Royal Society calls for the delivery of a UK-wide land-use framework to clear up confusion.

New research reveals dolphins struggle to communicate and work together as noise pollution increases.

A modified jumbo jet will fly out of Cornwall on a mission to send nine satellites to orbit.

A nurse says she is heartbroken that nothing can be done to save her house from coastal erosion.

Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn will be visible with the naked eye from many areas.

Countries are promising new funds to help protect 30% of the planet for nature but will it secure a deal?

US researchers have overcome a major barrier to achieving low-carbon nuclear fusion.

Industry watchdog Ofwat, said that despite some improvements it remains deeply concerned.

Genetic material extracted from soil has revealed the ancient plants and animals of North Greenland.

About 600,000 birds have been culled or have died in the UK's worst avian flu outbreak.

Scientists are searching through a museum's wheat collection to find the crop of the future.

A British man is one of 17 new recruits to Europe's space agency's astronaut training programme

The American space agency is trying once again to get its giant new Moon rocket off Earth.

Changes to our planet's shine is just one of the stranger side effects of rising temperatures.

The prime minister will travel to the COP27 summit in Egypt on Sunday to discuss climate change.

The UN's 27th annual climate conference opens in Egypt with world leaders attending on Monday.