Science

The borderless, unifying sense of our world as a single global community that entranced us after Apollo, and might have marshalled us all to act together for a greater environmental good, could have been amplified by social media. Instead, these platforms’ profit-driven, algorithmically tuned echo chambers have driven many of us in the opposite direction. Instead of fighting for the habitability of our home, we are fighting each other; our minds occupied by divisive, polarising politics and broken international relations.

Peky little bastards, aren’t we?

Now four of us have ventured far away from our divided planet again. This international crew of calm, curious, kind, thoughtful people represents the best of us. They symbolise something important. They will ride a spaceship built by communities from 11 nations who have harnessed their inherent diversity of thought and their broader problem-solving abilities to accomplish a new moonshot. Instead of individual nations racing there, the Artemis missions represent a group of united nations going to the moon together, first to fly around the moon this week with Artemis II, then to land there in 2028. Sixty-one countries have signed the Artemis accords, a set of global agreements committing to working peacefully together in space and on the moon.

Like fuck. The Kumbayah this will last 90 seconds then it’s back to normality again. Fractious little beasts that we are.

Four-year-old children were the most harmed by Covid lockdowns, new research has found.

Kids at about the age of socialisation damaged by non-socialisation.

More news as we get it…..

Between beavers and meerkats — how humans score on monogamy rating
People rank near the top of a new multi-species fidelity league table. We aren’t as faithful as some mammals, but we are far less promiscuous than chimps

So, why?

Why would our species rank so high? We cannot know for sure, but Dyble points to the effort required to raise a human infant. Our children are demanding creatures, born helpless, slow to mature and equipped with energy-hungry brains that take years to develop to a point where they can fend for themselves. Pair-bonding encourages paternal investment, helping to meet these demands.
Overall, the data may help correct both romantic idealism and cynical tropes about “natural” infidelity. Humans are not perfectly faithful, nor are they wired for sexual anarchy. By mammalian standards, we are remarkably monogamous — most of the time.

The conventional explanation uses this to describe tits, concealed ovulation, the female orgasm and why mothers in law always insist the baby looks just like the putative father and much else. Even, why the human economic unit is the household, not the individual.

We can even extend this to a description of why the shagadelic communes tend not to work out…..

Fun stuff, conventional wisdom, right?

A 3.3-magnitude earthquake shook homes in north-west England late on Wednesday, the British Geological Survey (BGS) reported.

The quake struck shortly after 11.23pm and was felt across Lancashire and the southern Lake District, including the towns of Kendal and Ulverston, within 12 miles of the epicentre.

Data suggests the quake occurred just off the coast of Silverdale, Lancashire at a depth of 1.86 miles.

Residents told the BGS it “felt like an underground explosion” and was “so powerful it shook the whole house”.

Shook the whole house? Pah!

As I’ve been known to point out we had a 4.4 in Albufeira once. Made the beer in the glass I had in hand quite choppy it did. 4.4 is more than 10x 3.3 BTW. And back when we lived near Naples, in Arco Felice, 3.3 would have been the sort that doesn’t even wake one from slumbers so common were they.

The reason they’re making much of this is that of course Lancashire is where people were going to go fracking. So, any news of an earthquake there can be gussied up into that danger that we should not allow. That’s my insistence and I’m sticking to it.

One of the central ideas in the field of evolutionary psychology is that of “evolutionary mismatch”. Put simply, we evolved in a very different environment from the one in which we now find ourselves. As a result, our brains, bodies and instincts are poorly matched to their surroundings.

Once they start thinking about evolutionary psychology at The Guardian then they’re lost. Birds not wanting careers, gender pay gaps, men never doing the washing up. They’re all just there, the explanations. But they contradict so much with the base Guardian thought pattern…..

Researchers honoured on the night discovered that alcohol, in small doses at least, boosted people’s foreign language skills;

Reduces inhibitions and so people are willing to make fools of themselves by trying….

Food featured heavily in the 2025 awards. An exploration into the impact of diet on breast milk flavour won the paediatric prize for showing that babies suckled for longer after their mothers ate garlic.

African nations are calling for the world map to be redrawn to show the “greatness of the continent”.

The African Union has said most maps skew the size of land masses, making Africa seem much smaller compared with other countries and continents.

The 55-nation bloc has thrown its weight behind campaigners who argue that the distortion leads to a downplaying of the scale and importance of the continent, as well as making America and Europe look larger than they are.

The Mercator projection, which has been in use since the 16th century and is one of the world’s most common maps, makes Africa look comparatively small as it inflates land masses further from the equator.

Mercator allows you to navigate etc etc. But this is all big on those moderns of appearances matter, right, not realities.

Might backfire tho’. If we’re all reminded how big it is then maybe we’ll start wondering why fuck all worthwhile ever happens there?

At worst, science will play its part in accelerating us toward a tech-obsessed end-times-fascist future. At best, science will broaden its power as a positive force, serving the wellbeing of humans and nature alike. Imagining this latter vision in exquisite detail is essential, and we argue here that to first envision and then work towards the best version of science, we need to reckon honestly with science’s past and present.

Most crucially, we need to confront the commonplace claim that science is – or ought to be – objective and apolitical, uninfluenced by human culture, norms, or values. The current moment has rudely awakened many scientists to the fact that research is indeed political, and further makes clear that scientists’ attempts to distance themselves from politics will backfire.

So the way to stop that awful future where science is politically dominated is to have more politics in science.

Rightie Ho.

Hundreds of skulls are neatly and closely placed, cheekbone to cheekbone, in tall, mahogany-framed glass cabinets. Most carry faded, peeling labels, some bear painted catalogue numbers; one has gold teeth; and the occasional one still carries its skin tissue. This is the University of Edinburgh’s “skull room”.

Many were voluntarily donated to the university; others came from executed Scottish murderers; some Indigenous people’s skulls were brought to Scotland by military officers on expeditions or conquest missions. Several hundred were collected by supporters of the racist science of phrenology – the discredited belief that skull shape denoted intelligence and character.

For the way to test a theory is by, well, testing it. So, if we measure lots of skulls and then compare that to known things like IQ and character then we prove – or disprove – phrenology. Given that the idea is discredited then we can thank the room full of skulls for providing the evidence base.

Right?

Standing more than three metres (10ft) high, the giant moa is the tallest bird known to have walked on Earth. For thousands of years, the wingless herbivore patrolled New Zealand, feasting on trees and shrubs, until the arrival of humans. Today, records of the enormous animal survive only in Māori oral histories, as well as thousands of discoveries of bone, mummified flesh and the odd feather.

But this week, the US start-up Colossal Biosciences has announced that the giant moa has joined the woolly mammoth, dodo and thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, on its list of animals that it is trying to bring back from the dead. The announcement has provoked public excitement – and deep scepticism from many experts about whether it is possible to resurrect the bird, which disappeared a century after the arrival of early Polynesian settlers in New Zealand about 600 years ago.

Note they’re carefully not saying the Maori eated them – possibly mistaking them for Moriori.

But OK, why not? Would be fun. But if we do bring them back then we should also bring back Haast’s eagle. Which died out when there were no more moas for it to predate upon. 40lb of hunting bird on the wing……worth having back, no?

Telomeres are structures found within chromosomes that play an important role in cellular ageing and DNA integrity, and their degradation is linked to ageing. Telomeres become shorter as humans age.

Previous studies have suggested a link between telomere length and chronic diseases, and that acute and chronic stress can reduce telomere length.

The study found that children from the high affluence group had telomeres 5% longer on average compared with children from a low affluence group. Girls were found to have longer telomeres than boys, by an average of 5.6%, while children with a greater body mass index (BMI) had shorter telomeres by 0.18% for each percentage increase in fat mass.

Children from the medium and high affluence groups had cortisol levels between 15.2% and 22.8% lower than children from the low affluence group.

How did you test that it is not genes first? That the poor have worse?

Perfectly willing to accept the result that it isn’t. But how did you show it?

If true, of course:

An ocean world teeming with alien life may exist 124 light years away from Earth, a study by Cambridge University has hinted.

The exoplanet K2-18b, which exists in the constellation Leo, appears to have an atmosphere containing huge quantities of dimethyl sulfide, a chemical only produced by living organisms such as marine phytoplankton.

Quantities of the chemical are so great that it represents 20 times the biological activity of Earth. The molecule vanishes fairly quickly, suggesting something is continuing to produce it.

Well:

Prof Nikku Madhusudhan, from Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy, said: “There is no mechanism that can explain what we are seeing without life.

An awful lot of people are going to have a go…..

Scandium-doped TiO₂ boosts photocatalytic water splitting efficiency

OK.

The novel material demonstrated an apparent quantum yield (AQY) of 30.3%, which measures the percentage of photons that lead to useful water splitting, and a solar-to-hydrogen (STH) efficiency of 0.34%, which indicates the percent of solar energy converted into hydrogen energy. Both values set new benchmarks for TiO2-based photocatalytic overall water splitting under ambient (non-pressurized, non-heated) conditions.

Super. But is that a lot? Obvs, relatively it’s a lot. But is that anywhere close to anything anyone would want to use? Eg, does it approach, or beat, the performance of light/’leccie/electrolysis?

Also, for anyone who actually does science, if this works then try an Sc/Li doped TiO2. And also play with Li/Sc/Zr doping. Not for any particular reason other than that when alloying metals that’s what we do because of the way the atoms nicely fit together. So, why not?

Men with better sperm live longer

The things science is able to tell us, eh?

Scientists at Flinders University in Australia reviewed 38 studies and found that people who use health and fitness apps regularly were more likely to have problematic habits related to food and exercise.

“We found that young adults who use diet and fitness apps have greater disordered eating symptoms, such as harmful or restrictive diets, and have negative thoughts about body image when compared to those that don’t use them,” said study lead author Isabella Anderberg, a PhD student at Flinders.

“The focus on dietary restriction and weight-loss in these apps may feed into restrictive or excessive behaviours raising concerns for those people who have pre-existing concerns about their weight or body image.

Or, of course, people who are a bit nutty about body shape etc now have a tool to aid them in being a bit nutty…..

Tourists and locals have been forced to flee the Greek holiday island of Santorini after it was hit by “intense” tremors for a fourth day in a row.

Quakes, some with a magnitude of over four, shook the popular destination’s narrow streets and white-washed villas every few minutes on Monday as people were told to avoid crammed indoor spaces.

Yes, that’s the volcano having a burp or two at the least.

The next stage is a stink of sulphur, then if something like a large pimple starts growing feets per hour it’s time to run.

The area outside Naples – Pozzuoli, Arco Felice – where we used to live got near all the way, sans only the pimple and the boom.

Newly discovered ‘Christmas asteroid’ could collide with Earth
Rock wider than football pitch could have devastating impact if it hits our planet – which, according to Nasa scientists, is possible

Right, and…..

A space rock between 40 and 100 metres wide was spotted on Christmas Day by a telescope in Chile, in South America, which specialises in identifying objects in space that could collide with our planet.

Analysis of the rock and its flight revealed it is moving away from Earth at around 38,000mph but its orbit will bring it into close proximity around Christmas 2032.

Official estimates state there is around a 1.2 per cent chance of the asteroid, codenamed 2024 YR4, hitting Earth at 5.25am on Wednesday, Dec 22 2032.

But where is it, where is it….

An asteroid of this size collides with Earth every few thousand years and would be of sufficient size and speed to cause loss of life and severe damage to property.

Ahhh, that’s the thing to be looking for. Not a happy time, to be sure, but not an extinction level event.

Still, look on the bright side. Elon’s just got the cost into orbit down so far that Bruce could be sent up to deal with it.

While Cape Cod, Massachusetts, is known as a popular vacation destination in the north-east US, it has built a reputation for an entirely different reason this year: animal strandings.

Dolphins, whales, sea lions and turtles are turning up in large numbers on the beaches of the famous peninsula in a phenomenon that has experts scrambling to execute more rescue operations than ever before. The cause? Changing tides.

Of course, it couldn’t just be that there are more such animals in the ocean now, could it?

Taxi and ambulance drivers less likely to die from Alzheimer’s
Using your brain, and not a GPS, to navigate the world may ward off dementia — although sitting in a car all day probably isn’t great for physical health

The answer they don’t come up with is that drivers crash and kill themselves, thereby not living long enough to get Alz?

In 1950 there were 97 Japanese centenarians. At the end of September last year there were 92,000, 81,600 of them women. Last year 47,000 Japanese received a congratulatory letter from the prime minister (the Japanese equivalent of a telegram from the King). In 2009, when the number surpassed 40,000, the government had to reduce the size of the silver sake cup given to people who turned 100 — the cost was becoming prohibitive.

Well, sorta and not so much. An article about those Japanese centenarians really should include those recent investgations that a considerable number are unreported corpses but the kiddies are still collecting the pension.

And yes, this is important. Because folk go around saying that eating cold rise is what makes you live long, but if they’re not living long then….