Scientists think we need to pay attention to a measure of heat and humidity – and it’s edging closer to the limits of human survivabilityIn March, April and May this year, India and its neighbours endured repeated heatwaves that exposed more than a billion people to dangerously hot conditions. India broke several temperature records. The warmest March in more than a century was recorded across...

Screening programme will detect people with the deadly infection, which is often symptomless in early stagesThe NHS is to use artificial intelligence to detect, screen and treat people at risk of hepatitis C under plans to eradicate the disease by 2030.Hepatitis C often does not have any noticeable symptoms until the liver has been severely damaged, which means thousands of people are living with...

A California-based organisation wants to harness the power of machine learning to decode communication across the entire animal kingdom. But the project has its doubtersA dolphin handler makes the signal for “together” with her hands, followed by “create”. The two trained dolphins disappear underwater, exchange sounds and then emerge, flip on to their backs and lift their tails. They have...

We both loved music growing up but when he sent me his demo CD I was afraid he would be mocked. Now Interpol is my favourite band – and we’re the best of friendsThis story ends at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 2018. I’m standing alongside the rest of the sold-out arena, punching the dry ice, roaring along to Lights during Interpol’s sold-out show, as my youngest brother, Daniel,...

Marine archaeologists stunned by priceless cache long hidden beneath the Bahamas’ shark-infested watersIt was a Spanish galleon laden with treasures so sumptuous that its sinking in the Bahamas in 1656 sparked repeated salvage attempts over the next 350 years. So when another expedition was launched recently, few thought that there could be anything left – but exquisite, jewel-encrusted...

Beijing accused of being irresponsible after it failed to share data on where Long March 5B booster weighing more than 20 tonnes would landA Chinese booster rocket made an uncontrolled return to Earth on Saturday, US defense department officials said, as they chided Beijing for not sharing information on the potentially hazardous object’s descent.US Space Command confirmed the Long March 5B...

Embarrassingly, the culture secretary thinks the Midlands need sport in order to make a markI always loved those children’s books that offered a map that folded out of the cover. The Lord of the Rings set the standard, allowing you to trace Frodo’s travels through Middle-earth to the far-off lands of Mordor. It was only as an adult that I discovered that those fantasy worlds had been very much...

New moon will provide ideal viewing conditions for the Piscis Austrinids, Southern Delta Aquariids and Alpha Capricornids meteor showers this July weekend as cosmic debris from comets enters Earth’s atmosphere, before the Perseid meteor shower peaks in AugustHow and where to photograph the meteor showers in Australian skyGet our free news app, morning email briefing or daily news podcastThe...

A good debate isn’t about one person declaring victory, it’s about both people making a discovery, says psychologist Adam Grant• What happened when we paired up celebrities across the political spectrum?A few years ago, I had an argument with a close friend who had decided not to give his children any vaccinations. To preserve our relationship, I vowed never to talk about vaccines with him...

Getting a good shot is tricky so here are some tips to capture a picture of the Piscis Austrinids, Southern Delta Aquariids and Alpha Capricornids meteor showers tonight and over the weekendMeteor showers to dazzle Australia – how to see and best time to viewGet our free news app; get our morning email briefingThree meteor showers will light up the sky across eastern Australia this weekend,...

Detectorists uncover 12th century horse harness pendant with England’s heraldic emblemFootball may or may not be coming home to England in Sunday’s Euros 22 final at Wembley, but a new archaeological discovery illustrates quite how long the Three Lions have been cherished in the team’s home country.A tiny medieval pendant, made from copper alloy and featuring the famous heraldic emblem, has...

It’s not that Britons are becoming less intelligent, it’s that the quiz canon has expanded, say top quizzersAs if everything wasn’t bad enough, now we’re all getting stupider. That, at least, was one interpretation of an interview earlier this week with the presenter of Radio 4’s long-running quiz Brain of Britain, in which he said today’s contestants were struggling more than before...

Consider why your brother taking it easy for a change bothers you. Be curious and don’t expect him to be more motivatedMy brother and I have a very close relationship and were fortunate to have a very happy childhood.He is the baby of the family and graduated last year. Since then he hasn’t done much at all. Not getting the result he hoped for in his degree, he said he wanted to take a bit of...

My father, Donald Singer, who has died aged 67 of a cardiac arrest, was a clinical academic who worked at St George’s Hospital Medical School in London for much of his career before moving to the University of Warwick as its founding professor of clinical pharmacology and therapeutics. Donald was born in Forres, north-east of Inverness, to Isabel (nee Brown), a maths teacher, and her husband,...

Parts of a 23-tonne piece of rocket will come crashing down – somewhere – in the next few daysIn the next few days, a 23-tonne piece of rocket will plummet to Earth at about 15,000 miles an hour. Much of it may burn up on re-entry, but a significant amount will not.It could land as one piece but more probably as many, scattered over an area up to several hundred miles across. Scientists have...

Getting a good shot is tricky so here are some tips to capture a picture of the Piscis Austrinids, Southern Delta Aquariids and Alpha Capricornids meteor showers tonight and over the weekendMeteor showers to dazzle Australia – how to see and best time to viewGet our free news app; get our morning email briefingThree meteor showers will light up the sky across eastern Australia this weekend,...

Team of experts from UK, US and Singapore to design jab to save thousands of lives by rewriting DNAScientists are to develop the world’s first cure for genetic heart conditions by rewriting DNA in a move hailed as a “defining moment” for cardiovascular medicine.A global team of experts from the UK, US and Singapore are joining forces to design a jab in the arm for patients to save thousands...

Wearable technology can scan a person’s insides for up to 48 hours as they go about their daily lifeA stick-on patch that can take an ultrasound scan of a person’s insides as they go about their daily life has been hailed as a revolution in medical imaging.The wearable patch, which is the size of a postage stamp, can image blood vessels, the digestive system and internal organs for up to 48...

Rebecca May and Jen Fritz on the menstrual problems that they and their friends have had after having coronavirus jabsI feel that some complexity has been lost in the studies that Viki Male cites in her article about vaccinations affecting menstruation (Does the Covid vaccine really affect your period? Here’s what our study found, 27 July). I had two AstraZeneca vaccine doses, in March and...

History tells us the end of a deadly outbreak isn’t just about medical data – it’s about political and social changes tooMore than two years after the World Health Organization declared the Covid-19 outbreak a pandemic and more than 18 months after Covid-19 vaccinations were first widely administered, it can still seem there is little consensus on what stage of the epidemic we are now at. Is...

Success of AlphaFold program could have huge impact on important global issues such as famine and diseaseArtificial intelligence has deciphered the structure of virtually every protein known to science, paving the way for the development of new medicines or technologies to tackle global challenges such as famine or pollution.Proteins are the building blocks of life. Formed of chains of amino...

Monitoring sewage thought to be a quicker, more cost-effective way to understand the spread of the virusResearchers in Thailand are examining wastewater for signs of monkeypox, as part of surveillance efforts to detect the spread of the virus.Academics from Naresuan University, in Phitsanulok province, northern Thailand, began testing sewage at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport in May, adopting a...

Getting a good shot is tricky so here are some tips to capture Piscis Austrinids, Southern Delta Aquariids and Alpha CapricornidsMeteor showers to dazzle Australia – how to see and best time to viewGet our free news app; get our morning email briefingThree meteor showers will light up the sky across eastern Australia this weekend, giving stargazers an opportunity to photograph the fireballs as...

Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak have clashed on a number of issues as they battle to become the next prime minister. However, as heated debates hit our television screens, the climate emergency has been alarmingly absent from discussions.Ian Sample chats to Guardian environment correspondent Fiona Harvey about which candidate is ‘least bad’ when it comes to green policies, and why one of the...