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40,083 articles from Guardian Unlimited Science

Screening plan to tackle male menopause

Doctors have drawn up plans to screen older men for the male menopause, amid concerns that as many as one in five of the over-65s may be affected.The existence of a male equivalent to the menopause is still controversial, but most experts agree some men experience a crash in testosterone that can leave them tired, depressed and lacking in libido.The so-called "andropause" has also been linked to...


WEDNESDAY 29. OCTOBER 2008


Schroedinger's cat is inordinately shy

I am deeply suspicious of attempts to justify particular religious or philosophical doctrines with scientific discoveries: for one thing, there are always counter-examples; more importantly, I think that when science serves a mythological function, it stops being science. None the less, I could not resist dropping into a talk on quantum physics and theology yesterday. I was gratified to rediscover...

Mathematician Du Sautoy takes Dawkins chair at Oxford

Stepping into the shoes of Richard Dawkins could be intimidating for some: not so for Marcus du Sautoy. Yesterday, the University of Oxford announced that the mathematician would take up its prestigious Simonyi professorship for the public understanding of science, the post vacated last month by the biologist Dawkins after more than a decade.Arguably the highest-profile academic post in the UK...

Animal rights activist is accused of Oxford University bombings

An animal rights "fanatic" was behind the planting of petrol bombs at Oxford University as part of a terrorist campaign to stop the building of a £20m research laboratory, a court heard yesterday.Using fuel and fuses made from sparklers, Mel Broughton worked with others to plant four devices in two separate attacks, a jury at Oxford crown court was told.The bomb attacks were claimed by the...


TUESDAY 28. OCTOBER 2008


Big decline in depth of Arctic winter sea ice

The thickness of sea ice in the Arctic dramatically declined last winter for the first time since records began in the early 1990s. The research by British scientists shows a significant loss in the thickness of the northern ice cap after the record loss of ice in the summer of 2007, although the weather was not abnormally warm.The findings, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters,...


MONDAY 27. OCTOBER 2008


Climate change making seas more salty, research finds

Global warming is making the sea more salty, according to new research that demonstrates the massive shifts in natural systems triggered by climate change. Experts at the UK Met Office and Reading University say warmer temperatures over the Atlantic Ocean have significantly increased evaporation and reduced rainfall across a giant stretch of water from Africa to the Carribean in recent years. The...