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Source: Guardian Unlimited Science
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Total 200 results found since Jan 2013.
Ice age art at the British Museum was crafted by 'professional' artists
The best art by ice-age Homo sapiens are masterpieces that took hundreds of hours to produce, says curatorIt's smaller than your thumb: a little piece of mammoth ivory delicately carved into the shape of a woman's head. But this miniature sculpture, with one wonky eye and rather elongated, slightly Modigliani-esque proportions, is the oldest known portrait in the world, and is about to go on show to the public for the first time in Britain in a new exhibition at the British Museum, Ice Age Art: Arrival of the Modern Mind.Some 26,000 years ago, in a valley teeming with game in what is now Moravia, a man or woman carved this...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - January 24, 2013 Category: Science Authors: Charlotte Higgins Tags: Museums Culture News Archaeology guardian.co.uk Art and design Exhibitions Anthropology UK news Science Source Type: news
Lucy Mangan: wanted – mother for Neanderthal baby
'Don't you long, occasionally, for something really, really interesting, something different, something overwhelmingly "other" to happen?'It's possible that the snow has driven me stir crazy. Although, as someone who, when under stress, still draws diagrams of the underground, Womble burrow-based home that she plans to build when she wins the lottery, I think that is highly unlikely. In any case, I have been seized by the idea of having another baby.Not just any old baby – I've already got one of those – but a Neanderthal baby. Earlier this week Professor George Church, a genetic researcher at Harva...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - January 26, 2013 Category: Science Authors: Lucy Mangan Tags: The Guardian Family Genetics Evolution Biology Parents and parenting Anthropology Features Life and style Neanderthal man Science Source Type: news
Humble Aspirin could cut risk of heart attack - from Guardian archive, 28 Jan 1988
Twenty-five years ago, a study claimed that heart problems could be avoided by taking tablets designed for mild pain reliefMen with outwardly healthy hearts can cut the future risk of heart attacks by 47 per cent if they take an aspirin every two days, a United States study claims today.Advance word of its publication in the New England Journal of Medicine brought warnings from specialists about the danger to stomach linings of a rush to the aspirin bottle by either sex.Work in Europe and the US over the past two years has commended aspirin as an anti-blood clotting agent for heart and stroke sufferers. Advice on dosage we...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - January 28, 2013 Category: Science Tags: Heart attack Pharmaceuticals industry Health guardian.co.uk Medical research Aspirin Editorial From the Guardian Source Type: news
Ariel Sharon showing brain activity seven years into comatose state
Former Israeli PM responding to external stimuli including son's voice and family pictures, say team of Israeli and US scientistsA team of Israeli and US scientists say new tests on comatose former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon show significant brain activity.Ben-Gurion University on Sunday said Sharon responded to external stimuli at Soroka Hospital in Beersheba.He was shown pictures of his family and listened to recordings of his son's voice while undergoing a special brain imaging scan. The university said "significant brain activity was observed ... indicating appropriate processing of these stimulations."However, Sharon...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - January 27, 2013 Category: Science Tags: Ariel Sharon United States Israel World news guardian.co.uk Medical research Coma Science Source Type: news
Families face battle with GSK over dangerous diabetes drug
Exclusive: Pharmaceutical giant resists claims despite settlement with victims in USThousands of families in the UK could be deprived of compensation for the death or harm of a relative caused by the diabetes drug Avandia, even though the British maker has agreed to pay billions of dollars to settle similar claims in the US.The licence for Avandia was revoked in Europe, in September 2010, because of evidence that it could cause heart failure and heart attacks. The drug can still be prescribed in the US, but not to patients at risk of heart problems.A scientist with the Food and Drug Administration estimated that Avandia co...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - January 29, 2013 Category: Science Authors: Sarah Boseley Tags: The Guardian United States World news Pharmaceuticals industry Medical research Legal aid Law UK news Diabetes GlaxoSmithKline Business Source Type: news
Paralysed people could get movement back through thought-control
Brain implant could allow people to 'feel' the presence of infrared light and one day be used to move artificial limbsScientists have moved closer to allowing paralysed people to control artificial limbs with their thoughts following a breakthrough in technology that gave rats an extra sense.A brain implant that allows the animals to "feel" the presence of invisible infrared light could one day be used to provide paralysed people with feedback as they move artificial limbs with their thoughts, or it could even extend a person's normal range of senses.Miguel Nicolelis, a neurobiologist at Duke University in North Carolina w...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - February 17, 2013 Category: Science Authors: Alok Jha Tags: The Guardian Animal research United States AAAS World news Technology Neuroscience Source Type: news
Brain-to-brain interface transmits information from one rat to another | Mo Costandi
Electronically-linked brains could facilitate rehabilitation and revolutionize computingIn Star Trek, the Borg is a menacing race of cybernetically-enhanced beings who conquer other races and assimilate them. They do not act as individuals, but rather as an interconnected group that makes decisions collectively. Assimilation involves integrating other life forms into the Collective, using brain implants that connect them to the "hive mind," such that their biology and technology can help the Borg to become the perfect race. This is a popular concept that can be found elsewhere in science fiction, but scientists have now mo...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - February 28, 2013 Category: Science Tags: Blogposts guardian.co.uk Technology Neuroscience Source Type: news
With a broken promise, the government has handed the NHS over to the market | Clive Peedell
Reassurances on clinicians and local people controlling how services are commissioned look likely to be overturnedThe NHS needs to be reformed to remain true to its founding principles; the question is how. International evidence suggests that increasing marketisation and privatisation of healthcare services leads to greater expenditure, greater variations in care, reduced access to services, and erosion of professional standards. On that basis, the reforms have been heading in the wrong direction for a long time, with all the major political parties supporting policies that increase the role of the private sector in the N...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - March 3, 2013 Category: Science Authors: Clive Peedell Tags: Comment The Guardian Society Politics Privatisation NHS Andrew Lansley Comment is free Source Type: news
Joe Farman obituary
Scientist whose discovery of the depletion of the ozone layer sparked global action to phase out dangerous chemicalsJoe Farman, who has died aged 82, was the leader of a small group of scientists who made one of the most important discoveries in recent history. In 1985, they published a landmark paper on the ozone layer, the protective skin that filters the sun's ultraviolet rays and without which the rays can cause cancers and eye damage. Their research showed that the ozone layer was being rapidly depleted over the Antarctic.Just two years later, world governments signed the Montreal protocol, a treaty phasing out the us...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - May 16, 2013 Category: Science Authors: Fiona Harvey Tags: Obituaries Ozone layer guardian.co.uk Physics Environment Science Source Type: news
Everest hosts breathtaking medical research | Greg Foot
The Xtreme Everest project is investigating why some people cope better with low oxygen conditions than othersIt is a disconcerting feeling, not being able to breathe. It wasn't as though I was running for a bus or anything like that either; I was simply walking to the lab – a gentle 50 or so metres up a very shallow incline. Yet, every few steps I found myself buckled into an almost vertical foetal position, trying to suck the cold, thin air deep into my lungs.It shouldn't have been a surprise. I was higher than I'd ever been in my life, bent double on a point that would soar over anywhere in Europe, even the ...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - May 29, 2013 Category: Science Authors: Greg Foot Tags: Blogposts Mountaineering World news Health guardian.co.uk Medical research Human biology Society Mount Everest Science Source Type: news
If only a Scotsman had boldly gone… | Kevin McKenna
The UK Space Conference opens in Glasgow this week – where better to hold it with all these UFOs around?Like many Scots, I am proud of my country's role in Earth's understanding of outer space. When it first dawned on me as a child that the most important member of Captain James T Kirk's Starship Enterprise was Scottish, I was bursting with pride. Neither do you get to have names such as Neil Armstrong or John Glenn unless there is a significant quotient of Scots blood in you. And when it was revealed many years later that Obi-Wan Kenobi too was Scottish, well… our place in cosmology was finally secured. There have eve...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - July 13, 2013 Category: Science Authors: Kevin McKenna Tags: Comment UFOs Star Trek UK news Scotland The Observer Space Comment is free Source Type: news
Why acupuncture is giving sceptics the needle
Acupuncture has been prescribed by half of Britain's doctors, but after 3,000 clinical trials its efficacy remains unproven. So is the NHS making a grave error in supporting this ancient treatment?• Are vitamin pills a sham? Q&A with Dr. Paul OffitYou can't get crystal healing on the NHS. The Department of Health doesn't fund faith healing. And most doctors believe magnets are best stuck on fridges, not patients. But ask for a treatment in which an expert examines your tongue, smells your skin and tries to unblock the flow of life force running through your body with needles and the NHS will be happy to oblige.The govern...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - July 26, 2013 Category: Science Authors: David Derbyshire Tags: Culture Health Science and scepticism Features NHS Alternative medicine The Observer Source Type: news
Scientists accuse ministers of putting UK seas and marine life in peril
Habitats where seahorses, crabs and dolphins thrive face destruction as plans for protection zones are watered downHundreds of species of fish and precious coastal habitats around Britain are in danger, scientists and conservationists have warned, because the government has not responded properly to plans for a network of marine conservation zones around the UK. This failure, they say, could blight our seas for decades.A government statement on the proposals is due in a few weeks' time, but signs are that it will be muted and inadequate and will fail to save marine habitats from further devastation."At a stroke the governm...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - August 3, 2013 Category: Science Authors: Robin McKie Tags: Marine life News Fishing Features Politics UK news The Observer Conservation Environment Science Wildlife Source Type: news
Australia faces increased risk of disease from climate change, reports find
A number of recent studies have shown a clear connection between a warming planet and increased health risksAustralia has been warned of the rising threat of dengue fever and heat stroke deaths in the wake of a study that found climate change is aiding the spread of infectious diseases around the world. The report, part-funded by the US National Science Foundation and published in Science, found that climate change is already abetting diseases in wildlife and agriculture, with humans at heightened risk from dengue fever, malaria and cholera. Wealthy countries will do much better at predicting and tackling new disease threa...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - August 2, 2013 Category: Science Authors: Oliver Milman Tags: theguardian.com News Climate change Environment Australia Source Type: news
Stem cells: what happened to the radical breakthroughs?
Much was promised in the late 1990s, but the challenge of advances such as growing whole human organs has been difficult to deliverIt's 1998 and science is taking big strides. The first cloned mammal, Dolly the Sheep, has just had her first lamb; the first robotically assisted heart surgery has been completed; Furbys have hit the shelves. In a bold announcement, biomedical engineer Professor Michael Sefton declared that within 10 years, scientists would have grown an entire heart, fit for transplant. "We're shooting big," he said. "Our vision is that we'll be able to pop out a damaged heart and replace it as easily as you ...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - August 10, 2013 Category: Science Authors: Simon Roach Tags: Biology Medical research Features Stem cells The Observer Science Source Type: news
