My colleague, mentor and friend Heidy Mader, who has died aged 61 of cancer, was an outstanding experimental scientist. She applied lessons learned in developing the Wispa chocolate bar as a research physicist at Cadbury to lead a revolution in understanding the flow of lava and magma as a professor at Bristol University.Heidy was born in Cosford, Shropshire, to Renate (nee Pitz) and Eric Mader....

Guy Standing on the questions that remain with regard to the historic deal to protect international waters The ocean treaty is good news (High seas treaty: historic deal to protect international waters finally reached at UN, 5 March), promising to protect biodiversity in the high seas. It is a rare case of multilateralism in this century. But euphoria should be tempered by the realisation that...

It is thought the Roman emperor Claudius could have inspired work found in the temple of DenderaArchaeologists have unearthed a sphinx-like statue and the remains of a shrine in an ancient temple in southern Egypt.The artefacts were found in the temple of Dendera, in Qena province, 280 miles (450km) south of Cairo, Egypt’s antiquities ministry said. Continue...

The solution to today’s ‘counting without counting’ puzzleEarlier today I set the following puzzle, repeated here with its solution.The inspiration for the problem is one of the earliest, and most important streaming algorithms, the predecessor of the tech used by streaming services such as Netflix and Spotify. Continue...

Emissions from food system alone will drive the world past target, unless high-methane foods are tackledEmissions from the food system alone will drive the world past 1.5C of global heating, unless high-methane foods are tackled.Climate-heating emissions from food production, dominated by meat, dairy and rice, will by themselves break the key international target of 1.5C if left unchecked, a...

Downing Street says it wants to ‘obviously’ stop the boats quickly and says it can bring in legislation within the European convention on human rightsQ: What do you think of Boris Johnson nominating his father for a knighthood in his resignation honours?Starmer replies:The idea that Boris Johnson is nominating his dad for a knighthood – you only need to say it to realise just how ridiculous...

The country is on track for a record $90bn agricultural production year but forecasts indicate drier times aheadSign up for the Rural Network email newsletterJoin the Rural Network group on Facebook to be part of the communityIt is a truth universally acknowledged that we rarely talk about drought when we are not in drought. You could loosely call it the “hydro-illogical cycle”.For a dry...

It may be just a game but some players have gone on to careers in physics, engineering and aeronautics. Now the team behind Kerbal Space Program 2 is working with the European Space Agency to make it even more realisticWhen Dr Uri Shumlack was contacted by a video game developer who wanted to discuss his work on interstellar propulsion, for a game about spaceflight, he was wary. A professor of...

Intervention is ‘yet another sticking plaster’ says Royal Society president, as EU funding programmes highlightedScientists have welcomed the launch of a 10-point government plan designed to help cement the UK’s place as a global science and technology superpower, but said more funding would be needed to achieve this goal – including securing full association with EU programmes.The science...

Three years into the pandemic, unanswered questions about the condition limit physicians’ ability to treat patientsMore than three years into the Covid pandemic, there are a host of important unanswered questions about long Covid, which significantly limit healthcare providers’ ability to treat patients with the condition, according to US physicians and scientists.That vacuum of information...

How to count without countingToday’s puzzle is tricky! I mean trickle-y. It is all about streams.The source of the puzzle is a ‘streaming algorithm’, which is a type of procedure in computer science that analyses data as it arrives in a stream, rather than waiting for the data to be stored in a memory. Continue...