Taking time out is crucial. Don’t fill up your whole day and you can kickstart a new sense of rhythmMachines work well at a constant speed – and the faster the better. They are designed and built for it. Whether they are spinning cotton or crunching numbers, regular, repetitive actions are what they excel at. Increasingly, our world is designed by machines, for machines. Digital technology...

Asteroids and space debris could wreak untold devastation on the planetNext year, Nasa will launch what all involved hope will be the most impactful space mission to date. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (Dart) is designed to smash headlong into its target. It’s an attempt to deflect an asteroid as a test of what to do if we spot a similar space rock on a collision course with our...

Joan’s Hole, Stourport-on-Severn, Worcestershire: An extended campfire yarn unfurls around some unusual-looking fungi Fruit has just started falling in the damson orchard. We can’t help squashing those that lie on the narrow paths to the rusting shepherd’s hut that’s home for a few days. There’s no phone signal, no wifi, and we’ve eschewed the camp stove in favour of the outdoor...

New space command reveals fears over vulnerability of superpowers’ satellitesDonald Trump’s declaration that space represents “the next warfighting domain” comes at a time when nervous superpowers are taking an idea that once belonged to the realms of fiction increasingly seriously.US military briefings leading to Trump’s formal announcement of a new, separate space command argued that...

Experts produce clusters of enamel-like calcium phosphate to crack age-old problemScientists say they have finally cracked the problem of repairing tooth enamel.Though enamel is the hardest tissue in the body, it cannot self-repair. Now scientists have discovered a method by which its complex structure can be reproduced and the enamel essentially “grown” back. Continue...

Same sex attraction isn’t genetic. It’s humanThe argument that some behaviour is “in our genes” is distrusted by the left. Too often it is used to whitewash terrible injustices. Yet it cannot be entirely dismissed. Certain patterns of behaviour and thought, such as the faculty of language acquisition, are very clearly a part of our genetic inheritance as a species. The instinct for justice...

Below-inflation pay rises have left staff with 13% real-terms wage cut since 2010, says unionStaff at Science Museum sites across England have begun a 24-hour strike in protest over low pay.The action comes after the group’s directors refused to increase a below inflation 1.5% pay rise offered to more than 75% of staff this year. Continue...

Gender norms imprison us all, dictating our behaviour for fear of abuse – and that extends to who we sleep or fall in love withIt turns out that genetics is almost as complicated as love and sex. New research has shown that the long fabled “gay gene” does not exist; that a variety of different genes contribute to same-sex attraction, and that several other factors are in the mix too.For many...

Do you know what noise a hungry sea anemone makes? Soundscape ecologist Bernie Krause does. Armed with over 5,000 hours of recordings, he takes Ian Sample on a journey through the natural world and demonstrates why sound is a powerful tool for conservationFirst broadcast on 15 June 2018Do you know what noise a hungry sea anemone makes? This is one of the 15,000 species that the soundscape...

Over the past few hundred years in the UK all compass needles have pointed west of true northAt some point over the next two weeks, compasses at Greenwich will point true north for the first time in about 360 years.And for some parts of the UK, this may not happen for another 20 years. Either way, it is a once-in-a-lifetime event. Continue...

Donald Trump has said the newly formed US Space Command will 'defend America's vital interests in space, the next war-fighting domain'. Speaking at a ceremony in Washington, Trump said Space Command would protect US satellites orbiting the planet and detect missile launches abroad, and would be followed by the establishment of the Space Force, 'the sixth branch of the United States armed...

Individual action can’t fight climate crisis. These Americans know we need a collective responseLast fall, as I landed in New Orleans, a seed of existential anxiety lodged itself deep in my gut. It was my fifth flight in just over a week. I was in the middle of a tour to promote a book on how coastal communities around the US were already responding to the climate crisis in surprising, often...

Shutting parliament is the latest wheeze from the trigger-happy Vote Leavers in power. Don’t buy into their politics of divisionWhat did you feel? Maybe it was anger, fury, fear. Perhaps it was excitement, hope, a certain thrill. It is unlikely that you experienced the announcement of parliament’s prorogation in purely cerebral, intellectual terms: it is hard to remain numb in the face of such...

President detailed operations in ceremony, including defending against Chinese and Russian anti-satellite weapons, and promised space force will soon followIt was one small step for man, one giant leap for Trumpkind.Donald Trump made the short journey on Thursday from the Oval Office to the White House Rose Garden, then promised to unleash an army of space warriors to infinity and beyond. Continue...

Study prompts medicines regulator to advise all women using HRT to remain vigilantThe risk of breast cancer from using hormone replacement therapy is double what was previously thought, according to a major piece of research, which confirms that HRT is a direct cause of the cancer.The findings of the definitive study will cause concern among the 1 million women in the UK and millions more around...

Many genetic variants each play role in homosexual behaviour, study findsA vast new study has quashed the idea that a single “gay gene” exists, scientists say, instead finding homosexual behaviour is influenced by a multitude of genetic variants which each have a tiny effect.The researchers compare the situation to factors determining a person’s height, in which multiple genetic and...

Astronauts will no longer be able to urinate on bus that picks them up for launchRussia has unveiled a new space suit but the design may have to be changed to continue a decades-old tradition – making a stop to pee on the way to the launch.The Sokol-M prototype suit was designed as a replacement for suits worn during launches to the International Space Station (ISS) on Soyuz spacecraft. Continue...

Experts believe the children were sacrificed by the Chimú culture to appease the El Niño phenomenonArchaeologists excavating what is thought to be the world’s largest child sacrifice site have unearthed the skeletons of 227 young victims in the coastal desert of northern Peru.Teams have been digging since last year at the sacrificial site in Huanchaco, a beachside tourist town close to...

‘Iconic’ finding of 3.8m-year-old fossil in Ethiopia casts doubt on previous evolutionary theoryThe face of the oldest species that unambiguously sits on the human evolutionary tree has been revealed for the first time by the discovery of a 3.8 million-year-old skull in Ethiopia.The fossil belongs to an ancient hominin, Australopithecus anamensis, believed to be the direct ancestor of the...

This documentary on the pleasurable highs and puritanical prejudices around cannabis use was lively and educational – even when its presenter got the munchiesIt is the best and the worst time to have a documentary that requires you to balance two contradictory thoughts in your head; we are out of practice. We are a bit too mono, in everything, these days. But the latest instalment of the...

Climate activist, 16, receives cheers as she steps off boatThunberg says: ‘Let’s not wait any longer. Let’s do it now’Greta Thunberg arrived in New York on Wednesday, stepping on to dry land after crossing the Atlantic in a zero-carbon yacht with a passionate message to tackle global heating.Crowds had gathered to welcome her for hours before hand, ready to welcome Thunberg’s arrival on...

Average consumption down nearly a quarter since 2011, researchers findNearly 1.5bn fewer cigarettes have been smoked each year in England since 2011, research has found.A study, funded by Cancer Research UK and published in the journal Jama Network Open, found average cigarette consumption fell by nearly a quarter between 2011 and 2018, with approximately 118m fewer cigarettes smoked each month....

As the Indian government loosens its prescription opioid laws after decades of lobbying, the cash-fed healthcare system is ripe for misuseIn the crowded waiting room of Dr Sunil Sagar’s clinic, in the working-class neighborhood of Bhagwanpur Khera, a toddler breathes from a nebulizer. The patients sit, motionless, but there is somehow tremendous noise. The clinic is a squat cement building...

In a system stacked against women, we must direct our harshest judgment at people and institutions who remain silentMany of us are reeling from the recent news that MIT’s Media Lab, where I work as a researcher, took funding from Jeffrey Epstein, the late financier who faced federal sex-trafficking charges. For me, the Epstein connections don’t stop there: Epstein had close ties to John...