The never-ending stream of plastic pollution: could a global treaty help us turn off the tap? – podcast
Guardian Seascapes reporter Karen McVeigh tells Madeleine Finlay about a recent trip to the Gal ápagos Islands, where mounds of plastic waste are washing up and causing problems for endemic species. Tackling this kind of waste and the overproduction of plastic were the topics on the table in Ottawa this week, as countries met to negotiate a global plastics treaty. But is progress too slow to address this pervasive problem?Read more about Karen McVeigh ’s trip to the Galápagos IslandsFollow all the reporting from the Guardian ’s Seascapes teamContinue reading... (Source: Guardian Unlimited Science)
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - April 30, 2024 Category: Science Authors: Presented by Madeleine Finlay with Karen McVeigh, produced by Madeleine Finlay and Holly Fisher, sound design by Tony Onuchukwu, the executive producer is Ellie Bury Tags: Science Plastics Environment Biodiversity Conservation Wildlife Source Type: news
Healthy lifestyle may offset genetics by 60% and add five years to life, study says
Genetics alone can mean a 21% greater risk of early death, research finds, but people can improve their chancesA healthy lifestyle may offset the impact of genetics by more than 60% and add another five years to your life, according to the first study of its kind.It is well established that some people are genetically predisposed to a shorter lifespan. It is also well known that lifestyle factors, specifically smoking, alcohol consumption,diet and physical activity, can have an impact on longevity.Continue reading... (Source: Guardian Unlimited Science)
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - April 30, 2024 Category: Science Authors: Andrew Gregory Health editor Tags: Medical research Health & wellbeing Genetics UK news Fitness Life and style Science Biology Society Source Type: news
PFAS increase likelihood of death by cardiovascular disease, study shows
In a first, researchers were able to compare records of people who drank polluted water in Veneto, Italy, with neighbors who did notFor the first time, researchers have formally shown that exposure to toxic PFAS increases the likelihood of death by cardiovascular disease, adding a new level of concern to the controversial chemicals ’ wide use.Thefindings are especially significant because proving an association with death by chemical exposure is difficult, but researchers were able to establish it by reviewing death records from northern Italy ’s Veneto region, where many residents for decades drank water highly contam...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - April 29, 2024 Category: Science Authors: Tom Perkins Tags: PFAS Health US news Science Italy World news Source Type: news
Did you solve it? Tiler swift
The answer to today ’s puzzleEarlier today I set you this puzzle, about the tiling of a 4x4 grid. It requires a swift preamble, so here we go again.Consider the image below, which highlights adjacent rows in the grid.Continue reading... (Source: Guardian Unlimited Science)
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - April 29, 2024 Category: Science Authors: Alex Bellos Tags: Mathematics Education Source Type: news
Mysterious Roman dodecahedron to go on display in Lincoln
There are no known descriptions or drawings of object in Roman literature, making its purpose unclearThey are known as one of archaeology ’s great enigmas – hollow 12-sided objects from the Roman era with no known purpose or use.Only 33 of these mysterious dodecahedrons have ever been found in Britain and now one, unearthed during an amateur archaeology dig after 1,700 years underground, is going on public display in Lincoln as part of a history festival.Continue reading... (Source: Guardian Unlimited Science)
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - April 29, 2024 Category: Science Authors: Jessica Murray Midlands correspondent Tags: Roman Britain Archaeology UK news Science Lincolnshire Museums Culture Heritage Source Type: news
Can you solve it? Tiler swift
The tortured puzzlers departmentApologies to any Antipodean Swifties arriving on this page. Today ’s puzzle is about tiles, and whether or not you can solve it swiftly.The puzzle concerns black and white tiles on a 4x4 grid. Consider the image below, which highlights adjacent rows in the grid.Continue reading... (Source: Guardian Unlimited Science)
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - April 29, 2024 Category: Science Authors: Alex Bellos Tags: Mathematics Education Science Source Type: news
Starwatch: getting to know the Great Bear
Ursa Major covers a little more than 3% of the entire night sky, making it the third largest constellation by areaThe seven brightest stars in Ursa Major, the Great Bear, form the shape known as the Plough, or the Big Dipper, or by a number of other names in different cultures.The association with a bear dates to antiquity, when it was listed in Ptolemy ’s original 48 constellations from the second century AD. Now incorporated into the International Astronomical Union’s list of 88 modern constellations, it covers a little more than 3% of the entire night sky, making it the third largest constellation by area.Continue r...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - April 29, 2024 Category: Science Authors: Stuart Clark Tags: Science Astronomy Source Type: news
The new science of death: ‘There’s something happening in the brain that makes no sense’ – podcast
New research into the dying brain suggests the line between life and death may be less distinct than previously thought. By Alex BlasdelContinue reading... (Source: Guardian Unlimited Science)
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - April 29, 2024 Category: Science Authors: Written by Alex Blasdel and read by Parker Sawyers. Produced by Nicola Alexandrou. The executive producer was Ellie Bury Tags: Death and dying Consciousness Biology Neuroscience Hospitals Source Type: news
‘Unlike anything today’: Gippsland fossil unlocks secrets of kangaroo that died out 46,000 years ago
Abrupt extinction of short-faced kangaroo a reminder to protect the environment, palaeontologists sayFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesWhen a caver andGippsland local, Joshua Van Dyk, stumbled across the fossilised remains of a kangaroo species that had been extinct for about 46,000 years, it seemed as though the macropod was making eye contact with him.“It had fallen behind some rocks … and was looking straight at me,” Joshua recalls of the 2011 discovery he made in a cave near Buchan in east Gippsland.Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best readsContinue reading... (Source: Guardian Unlimited Science)
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - April 28, 2024 Category: Science Authors: Sharlotte Thou Tags: Fossils Wildlife Evolution Environment Australia news Palaeontology Victoria Source Type: news
MMR jab uptake among young people in England up by 23% since 2023, says NHS
Exclusive: Vaccinations rise amid national campaign, but reported measles cases have increased by 40% since MarchThe number of young people receiving their MMR jab is up nearly a quarter from last year, official figures show.Anational campaign to boost uptake was launched in January amid concern over measles rates in England, when the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) declared a national incident after a major outbreak in the West Midlands. The growth in infections shows no sign of abating, with a40% increase in reported cases in England since March.Continue reading... (Source: Guardian Unlimited Science)
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - April 28, 2024 Category: Science Authors: Anna Bawden Health and social affairs correspondent Tags: MMR Vaccines and immunisation Infectious diseases Children's health Young people England London West Midlands UK news Science Society Source Type: news
What have I learned from 20 years of parenting? Never to underestimate how wrong I can be | Emma Beddington
We often have as much in common with strangers as our relatives, according to studies – so why do we still love to say our children are like us?How alike areparents and kids? Quite, right? Surely we all play that game. I, for example, am competitive like my dad (but without a shred of his energy); my sister got my mother ’s compassion and I got her lust for crispy potato products and staying in bed. My husband and his mum, meanwhile, share a lively debating style (I’m choosing my words carefully); it’s why their conversations get so … animated.It ’s an assumption that transcends geography: there are “the appl...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - April 28, 2024 Category: Science Authors: Emma Beddington Tags: Parents and parenting Children Family Life and style Society Psychology Science Source Type: news
That yearning feeling: why we need nostalgia
Often misused by politicians, nostalgia is a positive emotion that could do with a makeoverI have always been prone to homesickness. As a child, I didn ’t really enjoy holidays, I dreaded going away on school trips and I hated sleepovers. At the beginning of 2021, when I first started thinking about the history of nostalgia, and in the midst of the pandemic, I moved across the Atlantic from London to Montreal, Canada, for work. Far from home and away from my family and friends, I felt a kind of grief whenever I thought about the life I’d left behind. There was so much to love about my new life but I felt anxious, worry...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - April 28, 2024 Category: Science Authors: Agnes Arnold-Forster Tags: Life and style Health & wellbeing Psychology Source Type: news
We must learn the lessons of Covid before another deadly disease strikes | Letters
Why has so little been done to make indoor spaces safer, to stop the spread of airborne viruses?Robin McKie ’s article rings alarm bells for global health and our failure to control airborne pathogens (“What virus will cause the next pandemic? It ’s flu, say scientists”).We are rightly looking with concern at the spread of H5N1 and the risk it poses to humans, but we have still not applied the hard-won lessons learned from Covid 19. While all agencies and experts now (belatedly) admit to Covid ’s airborne spread, very little has been done to make indoor spaces safer for us all, and the clinically v...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - April 28, 2024 Category: Science Authors: Guardian Staff Tags: Infectious diseases Health policy Coronavirus Science World news Society Source Type: news
‘Plasma was called liquid gold’: the true story of the UK infected blood scandal
Documents examined by inquiry show officials knew people were being given infected blood products, but sanctioned their use• Read more:government was warned of infected blood risks in 1970s; plus:‘My mum gave the injections that killed my brothers’On a former slave owner ’s cotton plantation in Arkansas, the sprawling Cummins state farm prison covers 6,700 hectares (16,500 acres) and can house nearly 1,900 inmates.It is a working farm with vegetable crops, a dairy and livestock, but for more than two decades its most lucrative product was the blood plasma harvested from the convicts.Continue reading... (Source: Gua...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - April 27, 2024 Category: Science Authors: Jon Ungoed-Thomas and Robin McKie Tags: Contaminated blood scandal Aids and HIV Infectious diseases Bayer Microbiology NHS Health Society Hepatitis B Hepatitis C Medical research UK news Source Type: news
‘We live in a golden time of exploration’: astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger on the hunt for signs of extraterrestrial life
Austrian astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger has spent her life hunting for signs of life in the universe. Here she talks about aliens, space exploration and why studying cosmology is like eating pizzaStaring into the abyss … Am I really reaching anyone out there?” Lisa Kaltenegger is laughing about the unsatisfactory experience of teaching astrophysics over Zoom during Covid lockdowns, but she could be talking about her vocation: trying to discover if there’s life beyond our solar system.Kaltenegger foundedthe Carl Sagan Institute in 2015 to investigate just that. A burst of sunny energy and infectious enthusiasm on a grey ...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - April 27, 2024 Category: Science Authors: Emma Beddington Tags: Alien life Space Science Source Type: news
