16 articles from SATURDAY 14.5.2022

Disease-resistant pigs and oily plants – why UK scientists seek to alter food genes

Experts welcome planned laws on the use of genetic technology, but say growing global crises demand urgent actionOn 24 July 2019, Boris Johnson stood outside 10 Downing Street and delivered his first speech as prime minister. Among the many pledges he made was a promise that he was going “to liberate the UK’s extraordinary bioscience sector from anti-genetic modification rules”. Such a move...

Meet the former Nazi rocket scientist who all too accurately saw the future | John Naughton

As well as serving in the SS and a second act as a Nasa engineer, Wernher von Braun wrote a Martian sci-fi novel with a prescient twist…I recently read (and greatly enjoyed) V2, Robert Harris’s absorbing second world war thriller about British attempts to locate and destroy the base in the Netherlands from which Hitler’s “Retaliation Weapon 2” – those devastating rocket-powered bombs...

Menaced by flames, nuclear lab peers into future of wildfire

Public schools were closed and evacuation bags packed this week as a stubborn wildfire crept within a few miles of the city of Los Alamos and its companion U.S. national security lab—where assessing apocalyptic threats is a specialty and wildland fire is a beguiling equation.

Two people diagnosed with monkeypox in London, health officials say

One person in infectious disease unit and the other is isolating, as UKHSA says no link to earlier confirmed caseTwo people have been diagnosed with monkeypox in London, health officials said.The pair live in the same household and are not linked to the previous confirmed case in England that was announced on 7 May, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said. Continue...

It will soon be easy for self-driving cars to hide in plain sight. We shouldn’t let them.

Last month, a video went viral that showed a San Francisco police officer, at night, stopping a car that didn’t have its headlights on. Except that this was no ordinary car. As the cop approaches the vehicle, someone off-camera shouts, “Ain’t nobody in it!” The car, operated by Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors, is completely empty. Just as the cop turns back to his colleague, the...

The secret to saving your relationship: eight lessons from a couples therapist

Over three decades, Susanna Abse has worked with every kind of couple. She shares what she’s learned on how to stay the distance – and why fighting is goodSusanna Abse is the marriage counsellor’s marriage counsellor – 30 years in practice giving her peerless insights into the challenges couples face without making any dent in her curiosity and originality. This serene, witty 65-year-old...