Urine and faeces creating nitrogen and phosphorus levels that would be illegal on farms, scientists calculate
Dog faeces and urine are being deposited in nature reserves in such quantities that it is likely to be damaging wildlife, according to a new study.
The analysis found that the resulting overfertilisation of the ground with nitrogen and phosphorus by footpaths could reach levels that would be illegal on farmland.
Continue reading...Climbing, I once thought, was a very manly activity. A pursuit for macho adventurers on a mission to conquer – conquer the mountain, conquer their fear, conquer themselves. That may be the story for some climbers, but as I found my way into this activity, I came to see that something quite different happens on the rock.
Like wild swimming, rock climbing immerses you within the landscape. On the rock, I am fully present. Eyes pay close attention, scanning the details of the rock, trying to read the passage up the cliff. Ears are alert, tuned in to the sounds of the stone, my partner and the environment. Hands roam across the surface, feeling for features while the whole body works to stay within balance, coordinating itself around the various forms of the cliff. Unlike walking, where I could happily trundle absent-mindedly through the landscape, in climbing, attentive observation is essential.
Continue reading...Research suggests playing imaginary games can aid development of social skills and empathy
Playing with dolls encourages children to talk more about others’ thoughts and emotions, a study has found.
The research suggests that playing imaginary games with dolls could help children develop social skills, theory of mind and empathy. The neuroscientist who led the work said that the educational value of playing with Lego and construction toys was widely accepted, but the benefits of playing with dolls sometimes appeared to have been overlooked.
Continue reading...Researchers and citizen scientists found the animal to be active in every state and territory, even in densely populated cities
Citizen scientists have helped researchers track Australia’s widespread but elusive echidna population – and their poo – to discover the spiny mammal is more the man about town than realised.
Never before considered an “urban” native like common ringtail possums or brush turkeys, their apparent prolificacy in metropolitan areas suggest echidnas should be taken into consideration when establishing biodiversity policies in cities, researchers say.
Continue reading...Nudged along by scientists and evolution, micro-organisms that digest plastics have the potential to create an efficient method of recycling
Beaches littered with plastic bottles and wrappers. Marine turtles, their stomachs filled with fragments of plastic. Plastic fishing nets dumped at sea where they can throttle unsuspecting animals. And far out in the Pacific Ocean, an expanse of water more than twice the size of France littered with plastic waste weighing at least 79,000 tonnes.
The plastic pollution problem is distressingly familiar, but many organisations are working to reduce it. Alongside familiar solutions such as recycling, a surprising ally has emerged: micro-organisms. A handful of microbes have evolved the ability to “eat” certain plastics, breaking them down into their component molecules. These tiny organisms could soon play a key role in reducing plastic waste and building a greener economy.
Continue reading...Being proved wrong lies at the heart of scientific progress. Here, experts reveal what they got wrong during the pandemic
Einstein once observed that “a scientist is a mimosa when he himself has made a mistake, and a roaring lion when he discovers a mistake of others”. Aside from the “he”, the statement accurately sums up the tone of some of the current scientific discourse on Covid-19.
Views on lockdowns, vaccinating children and mask mandates have become increasingly polarised, and social media is unforgiving towards those who voice a change of heart. Yet being proved wrong lies at the heart of scientific progress. In science, an unwillingness to revise your position is normally viewed as an intellectual weakness rather than a sign of moral strength. With this in mind, we asked leading scientists what they got wrong during the pandemic.
Continue reading...‘I just don’t think you wake up on Tuesday and it’s finished,’ says former Sage adviser Sir Jeremy Farrar
Tensions in societies around the world over the current Covid situation are going to be very difficult to handle, one of Britain’s most senior scientific figures has warned.
Sir Jeremy Farrar, the director of the Wellcome Trust, who stepped down as a government scientific adviser in November last year, warned the idea of simply “exiting” a pandemic is not realistic.
Continue reading...Few corals are safe from warming oceans, a new study warns, but studies are finding surprisingly hardy corals, natural sunscreens and how coral ‘IVF’ can regrow reefs
Extreme fatigue, brain fog, sleep disturbances, chest pain and skin rashes. These are just a few of the on-going symptoms of long Covid, a disorder that can persist for many months after an initial Covid infection. With such a vast range of symptoms, and health organisations stretched to capacity by the acute stage of the disease, long Covid has continued to remain something of a mystery.
But with numerous studies trying to understand what exactly people are suffering from, progress is being made. Ian Sample speaks to Prof Akiko Iwasaki about what we do and don’t know about long Covid, and how the vaccine could reveal clues about what’s behind the disorder
Archive: Channel 4 News, Sky News
Continue reading...Nasa confirmed the ISS will plunge into the Pacific ocean to join other decommissioned space stations, satellites and space debris
The International Space Station (ISS) will continue its operations until 2030 before heading for a watery grave at the most remote point in the Pacific, Nasa confirmed in a new transition plan this week.
More than 30 years after its 1998 launch, the ISS will be “de-orbited” in January 2031, according to the space agency’s budget estimates. Once out of orbit the space station will make a dramatic descent before splash landing in Point Nemo, which is about 2,700km from any land and has become known as the space cemetery, a final resting place for decommissioned space stations, old satellites, and other human space debris.
Continue reading...Cancer-killing cells still present 10 years on, with results suggesting therapy is a cure for certain blood cancers
Two of the first human patients to be treated with a revolutionary therapy that engineers immune cells to target specific types of cancer still possess cancer-killing cells a decade later with no sign of their illness returning.
The finding suggests CAR T-cell therapy constitutes a “cure” for certain blood cancers, although adapting it to treat solid tumours is proving more challenging.
Continue reading...Trial in which volunteers were given dose of virus is first to monitor people during entire course of infection
Exposure to a single nasal droplet is sufficient to become infected with Covid-19, according to a landmark trial in which healthy volunteers were intentionally given a dose of the virus.
The trial, the first to have monitored people during the entire course of infection, also found that people typically develop symptoms very quickly – on average, within two days of encountering the virus – and are most infectious five days into the infection.
Continue reading...Experts may be able to predict risk of developing ovarian, breast, womb and cervical cancers using cells from routine smear test
Scientists are developing a “revolutionary” test to predict a woman’s risk of four cancers using a single sample collected during cervical screening.
Using cervical cells from a routine smear test, experts may be able to spot ovarian and breast cancer or predict their likelihood of developing, according to two papers published in the journal Nature Communications. Further results are due on the ability of the WID-test – women’s cancer risk identification – to predict womb and cervical cancer, researchers said.
Continue reading...Minister says lower severity of Omicron variant ‘opens the window for us to look at it’
Downing Street appears likely to drop its policy of dismissing frontline NHS and care staff in England who refuse Covid vaccinations, a minister has strongly indicated, after nursing and care organisations called for this to happen.
A decision would be made “in the course of the next few days”, according to Simon Clarke, the chief secretary to the Treasury. He said the lower severity of the Omicron variant of Covid did “open a space” for the policy to be reversed.
Continue reading...When the pandemic hit, David Ngwerume began creating pieces to inspire and raise awareness. Now, one of his pieces will feature in the Beijing biennale
When the pandemic first hit the world, Zimbabwean stone sculptor David Ngwerume took his hammer and chisel and started work on the first of a collection of Covid-inspired pieces.
Almost two years and 14 sculptures later, one has made its way to China after being selected for the ninth Beijing International Art Biennale, an exhibition showcasing work from thousands of artists from more than 100 countries.
Continue reading...Russia confirms a record 121,228 new daily cases of the virus; NHS will offer vaccinations to vulnerable children between five and 11
Polling has begun in Portugal in a parliamentary election marred by fears of a low turnout due to record coronavirus infections, Reuters reports.
At the University of Lisbon, staff outnumbered mostly elderly voters, with signs on the walls asking people to wear a mask, observe social distancing and to use their own pen.
I have huge respect for rank-and-file police officers who put their lives on the line to keep us safe.
For them to do their job, the public have to have trust and confidence in them. But the way the Met has handled this, I think, is undermining that.
Continue reading...The cryptocurrency consumes more energy than Norway. As countries consider copying China’s ban, experts disagree on whether a greener version is possible
When bitcoin mining company Bit Digital started shipping its energy-intensive computers out of China in early 2021, eyebrows were raised. “A lot of people thought we were being overly paranoid,” says chief strategy officer Sam Tabar, who helped relocate all of the company’s machines to the US and Canada.
But the company’s paranoia paid off. China’s bitcoin mining ban last summer, driven partly by environmental concerns, sent the industry spinning into chaos. The announcement sparked a fire sale of the computers used to power bitcoin, with mining companies scrambling to ship more than 2m of the machines out of China. They arrived by the crateload in countries like the US, Russia and Kazakhstan.
Continue reading...Many sufferers have been left unable to eat due to long-term distortions to their senses
Four months after getting sick with Covid, Anne-Héloise Dautel couldn’t eat anything at all. “I just wanted to vomit, I was gagging at everything around me,” she said. “I couldn’t even stand my own smell. I was showering five times a day.” Coffee, toothpaste, shampoo and roast meat were the worst. By the time she went to hospital, she weighed just 46kg.
Severe weight loss and kidney failure are some of the impacts of smell and taste distortions which leave people unable to eat or drink things they loved, like coffee or bacon, because they smell like rotting flesh or sewage.
Continue reading...As a kid, Concetta Antico was always ‘a bit out of the box’, but it took decades for her to discover just how differently she was seeing the world
It would be easy to look at the vivid array of colour contained in the paintings of artist Concetta Antico and assume she is using artistic licence. The trunks of her eucalyptus trees are hued with violet and mauve; the yellow crest on her cockatoo has hints of green and blue; the hypercolour of a garden landscape looks almost psychedelic.
“It’s not just an affectation and it’s not artistic licence,” says Antico. “I’m actually painting exactly what I see. If it’s a pink flower and then all of a sudden you see a bit of lilac or blue, I actually saw that.”
Continue reading...My name is Camilla, so why, for the first 25 years of my life, did everyone call me Mandy? My Jamaican mother loathed the name Camilla. She said my Nigerian father chose the name, but she thought Camilla sounded too damn serious and upper-class. And she was right. Growing up in Luton in the 70s and 80s, there weren’t too many Camillas knocking about the council estates of Bedfordshire. My friends’ names were plain and simple. They were called Debbie, Tracey, Jean. They were easy on the ear. Or their names were culturally appropriate – Jyoti, Shabana, Patience. But Camilla? It might have been the name written on my birth certificate, but my mother had other ideas. She had a plan. And it was hatched in the months after my birth – a new name.
But there were caveats. Unlike Camilla, the new name had to be popular, jolly and understated, with preferably two syllables. So, she drew up a list of potentials: Donna, Paula, Charmaine, Joanne. Then bingo, she came up with the name: Mandy. Not Amanda, but Mandy. Plain. Simple. Easy on the ear, Mandy. Camilla wasn’t changed by deed poll, instead, my unofficial “new name” seeped into everyday life. Mandy seamlessly embedded itself on to the register at primary and secondary school, university and around the water cooler. The name Camilla became a relic of the past, a family joke, dragged out at Christmas like eggnog.
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