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9 articles from Guardian Unlimited Science

How raising a glass can make you an ass | Brief letters

Sea eagles in England | Loneliness and churches | Circumcision and Shakespeare | English usage | Sperm donationsSo a sea eagle has chosen to live in Oxfordshire (Report, 18 January). It is not the first time. Archaeologists digging near Oxford have discovered sea eagle bones on bronze age and Anglo-Saxon sites. And the name of the village Earley, on the Thames near Reading, means “eagle wood”...

Hannah Steinberg obituary

Pioneer of psychopharmacology who was one of the first researchers to test systematically how psychoactive drugs affect the mindThe development of drugs to treat mental afflictions was historically a hit-and-miss affair, without much understanding of their actions on brain pathways, and even less of their wider psychological impact. Hannah Steinberg, who has died aged 95, was one of the first...

Scientist Alan Turing's degree, medal and memorabilia recovered in Colorado

Computer pioneer’s things taken from British school in 1984Items seized after woman offered them for loan to universityThe British scientist Alan Turing’s Princeton doctoral degree, OBE medal and other items of memorabilia have been recovered in Colorado, 35 years after they were taken from Sherborne School in Dorset. Related: Alan Turing on the £50 note is a triumph for British science –...

Lack of antibiotics in low income countries 'worsening superbugs threat'

Only three new treatments available in 10 or more poorer countries, report findsMany antibiotics are unavailable in poorer countries despite higher infection rates, exacerbating the threat of drug-resistant superbugs, according to a report to be presented to world leaders and the bosses of top pharmaceutical companies in Davos.The report, released by the Access to Medicine Foundation, an...

New EU science chief warns of drop-off in UK research funding

Mauro Ferrari joins organisation at a tricky time and says his focus is on identifying ‘breakthrough people’At the age of 43, Mauro Ferrari astonished his peers by giving up his career as a highly regarded professor of engineering at the University of California in Berkeley to enrol at medical school.He had been driven to find a cure for the cancer that had killed his wife at the age of 32,...

Study finds shock rise in levels of potent greenhouse gas

Scientists had expected fall in levels of HFC-23 after India and China said they had halted emissionsEfforts to reduce levels of one potent greenhouse gas appear to be failing, according to a study.Scientists had expected to find a dramatic reduction in levels of the hydrofluorocarbon HFC-23 in the atmosphere after India and China, two of the main sources, reported in 2017 that they had almost...

Let men in Britain donate sperm after death, say ethicists

Shortage of UK sperm donors means posthumous contributions could help infertile couples Men in Britain should be able to donate their sperm after death, according to ethicists who argue that posthumous contributions would help infertile couples and relieve the pressure on living donors.The shortage of sperm donors in the UK has led to at least 7,000 samples being imported each year, primarily from...

Poorest adults in worse health now than older generation – study

Research shows widening health gap between higher and lower socioeconomic statusThe poorest third of the UK’s older working-age adults today have worse health than people born a century ago had at the same age, according to research that also shows the health gap between rich and poor is growing.The study is the latest to show widening health inequalities. A report compiled by the Centre for...