Category Archives: Science

All South Koreans to become younger as traditional age system scrapped

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June will mark end of system that deemed newborns to be a year old, with a year added every 1 January

South Korea is to scrap its traditional method of counting ages and adopt the international standard – a change that that will knock one or two years off people’s ages on official documents but could take time to seep into daily life.

South Koreans are deemed to be a year old when they are born, and a year is added every 1 January. The unusual – and increasingly unpopular – custom means a baby born on New Year’s Eve becomes two years old as soon as the clock strikes midnight.

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Rising temperatures causing distress to foetuses, study reveals

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Climate crisis increases risks for subsistence farmers in Africa who usually work throughout pregnancy

Rising temperatures driven by climate breakdown are causing distress to the foetuses of pregnant farmers, who are among the worst affected by global heating.

A study revealed that the foetuses of women working in fields in the Gambia showed concerning rises in heart rates and reductions in the blood flow to the placenta as conditions became hotter. The women, who do much of the agricultural labour and work throughout pregnancy, told the scientists that temperatures had noticeably increased in the past decade.

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Health experts in conundrum over best way to avoid winter ‘tripledemic’

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RSV, Covid-19 and flu cases are exploding, but many health officials aren’t forcing masks or discouraging in-person gatherings

Dr Jason Newland, a pediatric infectious disease doctor at St Louis children’s hospital, is just waiting for his cold to start. “I can list off about 10 people right now that have had some sort of illness in the past five days,” Newland said.

That’s because the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza seasons started months earlier than usual, amid the continuing spread of Covid-19 and the common cold. The flu hospitalization rate is the highest it’s been in a decade, according to public health officials. Scientists have described the collision of viruses as a “tripledemic”.

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Queensland graziers unearth 100m-year-old plesiosaur remains likened to Rosetta Stone

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Amateur fossil hunters find skull connected to body of marine giant elasmosaur for the first time in Australia

A group of female graziers from outback Queensland who hunt fossils in their downtime have uncovered the remains of a 100m-year-old creature that palaeontologists are likening to the Rosetta Stone for its potential to unlock the discovery of several new species of prehistoric marine giant.

One of the “Rock Chicks” – as the amateur palaeontologists call themselves – uncovered the fossilised remains of the long-necked plesiosaur, known as an elasmosaur, while searching her western Queensland cattle station in August.

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Chinese students protest as university locks down over one Covid case

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Footage shows large protest at Nanjing Tech University, as rules persist despite steps to ease zero-Covid policy

Students at a university in eastern China have staged a protest against a Covid lockdown as many in the country remain under some form of restrictions despite government steps to ease its zero-Covid policy.

Videos posted on Twitter on Tuesday show large numbers of students protesting at Nanjing Tech University on Monday night, as they were placed under lockdown after one positive case was found. The Guardian phoned the university for confirmation but calls went unanswered. The posts had been geolocated by AFP and Reuters.

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China sends students home amid calls for crackdown on protests

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Authorities flood streets with police as top security body urges action against ‘hostile forces’

China has sent university students home and flooded streets with police in an attempt to disperse the most widespread anti-government protests in decades, as the country’s top security body called for a crackdown on “hostile forces”.

In an apparent effort to tackle anger at the zero-Covid policies that originally sparked the protests, authorities also announced plans to step up vaccination of older people.

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Plant-based diet can cut bowel cancer risk in men by 22%, says study

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Researchers find no such link for women, suggesting connection between diet and bowel cancer is clearer for men

Eating a plant-based diet rich in vegetables, whole grains, nuts and legumes can reduce the risk of bowel cancer in men by more than a fifth, according to research.

A large study that involved 79,952 US-based men found that those who ate the largest amounts of healthy plant-based foods had a 22% lower risk of bowel cancer compared with those who ate the least.

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Covid blood-thinner drug treatment dangerous and does not work – study

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UK government-backed Heal-Covid trial finds Apixaban can cause dangerous bleeding and does not improve prognosis

A blood-thinning drug given as a potential life-saver to many patients recovering from severe Covid does not work and can cause major bleeding, research shows.

The findings have led to calls for doctors to stop advising people to take Apixaban, because it does not stop them from dying or ending up back in hospital and also can have serious side-effects.

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‘The sheer scale is extraordinary’: meet the titanosaur that dwarfs Dippy the diplodocus

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One of the largest creatures to have walked the Earth is to become the Natural History Museum’s new star attraction

It will be one of the largest exhibits to grace a British museum. In spring, the Natural History Museum in London will display the skeleton of a titanosaur, a creature so vast it will have to be shoehorned into the 9-metre-high Waterhouse gallery.

One of the most massive creatures ever to have walked on Earth, Patagotitan mayorum was a 57-tonne behemoth that would have shaken the ground as it stomped over homelands which now form modern Patagonia. Its skeleton is 37 metres long, and 5 metres in height – significantly larger than the museum’s most famous dinosaur, Dippy the diplodocus, which used to loom over its main gallery.

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Christie’s cancels T rex skeleton auction after doubts raised

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Sale of 1,400kg skeleton withdrawn after New York Times reported claims of similarities to T rex sold in 2020

The British auction house Christie’s has been forced to call off the £20m auction of a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton just days before it was due to go under the hammer after a well-known paleontologist raised concerns that parts of it looked similar to another dinosaur.

Christie’s said on Monday that the 1,400kg (3,100lb) skeleton – nicknamed Shen – had been withdrawn from the auction in Hong Kong on 30 November, when it was set to be the star lot.

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Trevor McDougall wins $250,000 science prize for researching ‘thermal flywheel’ of climate system

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Oceanographer takes top honours in prime minister’s prizes for science after researching ocean’s role in regulating climate

When Trevor McDougall began studying the ocean in the 1970s he had no idea that his field would become a crucial part of climate science.

The University of New South Wales professor was on Monday awarded the top honour at the prime minister’s prizes for science for his contributions to the field of oceanography and research on the ocean’s role in regulating the climate.

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Astronauts to live and work on the moon by 2030, Nasa official says

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Head of Orion lunar programme says Artemis 1 mission is ‘first step to long-term deep-space exploration’

Astronauts are on course to be living and working on the moon before the end of the decade, according to a Nasa official.

Howard Hu, the head of the US agency’s Orion lunar spacecraft programme, said humans could be active on the moon for “durations” before 2030, with habitats to live in and rovers to support their work.

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UK vulnerable to major animal disease outbreaks, report finds

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Inadequate management and underinvestment in main Animal and Plant Health Agency facility has left country at risk, MPs warn

The UK’s main animal disease facility has been left to deteriorate to an “alarming extent” leaving the country vulnerable to major outbreaks on the scale of the devastating 2001 foot-and-mouth crisis, MPs have warned.

An inquiry by the Public Accounts Committee found that the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) in Weybridge was “continually vulnerable to a major breakdown” because the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs had “comprehensively failed” in its management of the site.

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Cool leaf! Study records chimp showing off object in human-like way

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Adult ape sharing information and just wanted mother to look at foliage with no motive otherwise, scientists say

Chimpanzees show each other objects just for the sake of it, researchers have found, revealing it isn’t only humans who like to draw attention to items that have captured their interest.

As anyone who has spent time with a child knows, even very young humans like to point out objects to others. However, it was previously thought this behaviour only occurs in our species.

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Fish fossils show first cooking may have been 600,000 years earlier than thought

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After examining carp remains, researchers claim people who lived 780,000 years ago liked their fish well done

Early human ancestors living 780,000 years ago liked their fish well done, Israeli researchers have revealed, in what they said was the earliest evidence of fire being used to cook.

Exactly when our ancestors started cooking has been a matter of controversy among archaeologists because it is difficult to prove that an ancient fireplace was used to prepare food, and not just for warmth.

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Australian mother jailed for baby deaths should finally be cleared, say scientists

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Inquiry will hear new evidence of fatal gene mutation that may be to blame

In 2003 Kathleen Folbigg was convicted of smothering and killing her four young children, Caleb, Patrick, Sarah and Laura. She was given a prison sentence of 40 years and dubbed Australia’s worst female serial killer.

Folbigg had to be kept in protective custody to prevent violence from other inmates but has steadfastly maintained her innocence, a claim that has slowly gathered support over the years. Scientists, including several Nobel prize winners, have since argued that a mutant gene was responsible for the children’s deaths.

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UK breakthrough on lung cancer helps target patients at risk of relapse

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Research programme buys doctors crucial time by spotting returning tumours before symptoms appear

Seven years ago, Kelly Harrop was working at a stables while also running regularly in half marathons and 10k races. Then she began to suffer digestive problems. Scans eventually revealed marks on her lungs. The subsequent diagnosis was direct. “I had lung cancer. It was a shock. I was fit, healthy and had never smoked,” she told the Observer.

Kelly had surgery to remove the tumour, followed by chemotherapy. But doctors knew there was a risk of the tumour reappearing, so they enrolled her in a new research programme, TRACERx. Funded by Cancer Research UK, the £14m project was set up 10 years ago to investigate how lung tumours arise and evolve. A total of 850 patients with early-stage lung cancer were studied and followed from diagnosis to treatment.

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‘It’s as if we found oil’: Tuscan town savours discovery of spa trove

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San Casciano dei Bagni’s fortunes expected to change after opulent Etruscan-Roman sanctuary found

Since she was a child, Martina Canuti has been venturing down the steep hill flanking the Tuscan town of San Casciano dei Bagni, known by residents as “the sacred mountain”, to take a dip in the two ancient hot springs famed for their therapeutic benefits.

Little did she know that just a few metres away lay a sanctuary built by the Etruscans in the second century BC, containing a trove of treasures that could now reverse the fortunes of this relatively isolated town of 1,400 inhabitants near Siena.

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Australia gives world-first approval for faecal transplants to restore gut health

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BiomeBank in Adelaide collects healthy genetic material from the microbiomes of donors to treat potentially deadly bacterial condition

Australia has given regulatory approval for faecal transplants, the first country in the world to do so.

For such a transplant, poo donors – who have to meet a list of conditions – provide healthy genetic material from their microbiomes. The microbes are collected and delivered into the gastrointestinal tract of an unhealthy person, where they have been shown to treat conditions such as the potentially deadly bacteria Clostridium difficile colitis (C diff).

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Octopuses throw objects at one another, researchers observe

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Scientists suggest octopuses propel material as part of den cleaning, but also in interactions and with purpose

They hunt alone, are prone to a scrap, and even cannibalise one another. And octopuses appear to have another antisocial arm to their behaviour: they hurl jet-propelled clouds of silt, algae and even shells.

Researchers studying Octopus tetricus, the common Sydney octopus, have filmed the cephalopods gathering debris in their front arms and web and jet-propelling it away from their body using water ejected from their siphon – the latter having been shifted between their rear arms for the purpose.

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