Health and science journalist Catherine Price investigates the science behind our relationships with our devices, and what we know about how to break the cycle. Prof Barbara Sahakian of Cambridge University explains why many of us are drawn to looking at bad news on our phones, and what it’s doing to usYou can support the Guardian at theguardian.com/fullstorysupportYou can subscribe for free to Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast Full Story on Apple Podcast, Spotify and Google podcasts Continue reading...

Long live the Tory Fringe! John Crace reviews last week’s conservative ‘comedy hour’ (1m22s); Johannes Radebe on how he fought the bullies - and became a Strictly superstar (9m22s); and Zoe Williams reveals how to spot a liar in ten easy steps (26m14s) Continue reading...

Frontline staff are having to make compromises to treat patients appropriately. It’s scandalous nothing is being doneMedicine shortages in the UK have been a regular feature on newspaper front pages in recent years. As a doctor on the frontline, I see how this instability in our medicine supply chain is playing out on the ground.I work in a large city hospital and am used to meeting disgruntled patients who have had to wait hours in clinic to receive treatment. But just imagine their concern when I have to explain to them that the medication we would usually treat them with is not available...

The answers to today’s puzzles – and some of your Scrabblegrams!Earlier today I introduced the Scrabblegram: a form of constrained writing in which you must use all 100 tiles in a Scrabble set, including the two blanks, and no other letters. Many of you sent me your Scrabblegrams, and I’ll print a few below.But first, the answers to today’s puzzle, which I think is possibly the greatest wordplay puzzle of all time. Written by David Cohen, both the question and the answer are Scrabblegrams. Continue reading...

Threat of outbreak from microbes trapped in permafrost for millennia raised by increased Siberian shipping activityHumanity is facing a bizarre new pandemic threat, scientists have warned. Ancient viruses frozen in the Arctic permafrost could one day be released by Earth’s warming climate and unleash a major disease outbreak, they say.Strains of these Methuselah microbes – or zombie viruses as they are also known – have already been isolated by researchers who have raised fears that a new global medical emergency could be triggered – not by an illness new to science but by a disease...

National Museums Scotland restores soldier’s brass guard, only the third of its kind known to existA spectacular brass guard that would have protected the sword arm of a high-ranking Roman soldier some 1,800 years ago has been reconstructed from more than 100 fragments found at Trimontium, the Roman fort complex in Scotland.The extraordinary jigsaw puzzle has been pieced together by National Museums Scotland (NMS) in Edinburgh, and the arm-guard will now be loaned to the British Museum’s forthcoming exhibition on life in the Roman army. Continue reading...

The space race of the 20th century put the first person on the moon. Now a new race to the lunar surface – with new global players – is just getting going. Robin McKie reportsRobin McKie is the science editor of the Observer. Over the last 42 years, he’s covered everything from advances in genetics and new discoveries in physics to the urgent scientific issues raised by the Covid pandemic. But one topic excites him more than any other: space – and, more specifically, the moon.He tells Michael Safi how the first crewed mission to the moon in 1969 captured the imagination of his...

If all goes to plan, Jaxa’s lander will make Japan the fifth country ever to land on the moonJapan is on final approach to become only the fifth country to land on the moon, in what would be a reversal of fortunes as it attempts to join a global space race centred on unravelling the mysteries of the lunar landscape.If all goes to plan, the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (Slim) will begin its descent to the rocky lunar surface at midnight on Friday (1500 GMT) before touching down about 20 minutes later, according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa). Continue reading...

Christopher Rufo, credited with helping oust school’s first Black president, touted critic associated with ‘scientific racists’A data scientist promoted by the rightwing activist Christopher Rufo, the Manhattan Institute thinktank, and other conservatives as an expert critic of the former Harvard president Claudine Gay has co-authored several papers in collaboration with a network of scholars who have been broadly criticized as eugenicists, or scientific racists.Rufo described Jonatan Pallesen as “a Danish data scientist who has raised new questions about Claudine Gay’s use – and...

The delay to Nasa’s 10-year lunar programme gives us time to beef up the treaties governing the exploitation of extraterrestrial resourcesIt has been a grim time for lunar exploration. Scientists and space engineers had earmarked 2024 as the year that humanity would begin its return to the moon in earnest. An ambitious programme – largely funded through Nasa’s $2.6bn commercial lunar payload services (CLPS) initiative – was drawn up. Its forerunner projects included the launch of the robot lander, Peregrine, last week – to be followed by a crewed mission, Artemis II, that would put...

New paper claims unless demand for resources is reduced, many other innovations are just a sticking plasterRecord heat, record emissions, record fossil fuel consumption. One month out from Cop28, the world is further than ever from reaching its collective climate goals. At the root of all these problems, according to recent research, is the human “behavioural crisis”, a term coined by an interdisciplinary team of scientists.“We’ve socially engineered ourselves the way we geoengineered the planet,” says Joseph Merz, lead author of a new paper which proposes that climate breakdown is a...

The spacecraft, a collaboration between Nasa and Astrobotic, is unlikely to reach the lunar surfaceThe Peregrine lunar lander is a robotic spacecraft designed by the US-based lunar logistics company, Astrobotic. Loaded onto a rocket, and blasted into space, it is designed to deliver payloads to the surface of the moon, or the moon’s orbit. Continue reading...

Pressure grows on artificial intelligence firms over the content used to train their productsBusiness live – latest updatesThe developer OpenAI has said it would be impossible to create tools like its groundbreaking chatbot ChatGPT without access to copyrighted material, as pressure grows on artificial intelligence firms over the content used to train their products.Chatbots such as ChatGPT and image generators like Stable Diffusion are “trained” on a vast trove of data taken from the internet, with much of it covered by copyright – a legal protection against someone’s work being used...

Of course there is a link between mind and body: mental health is inextricably linked with physical wellbeingYour article shows the way that depression will be treated worldwide in future (“A weight off our minds: how therapy got physical to beef up mental health”, News). Exercise as a treatment for depression has five massive advantages: it is free; it can be used in combination with other treatments; the benefits last; it confers other health benefits; and it empowers the individual to take positive action in fighting off depression.The underlying science has little to do with release of...

Before making another new year resolution it’s worth asking if change is what you needIt wasn’t until I’d finished reading a fourth article ranking “the best wellies for children” that it dawned on me that maybe I could be doing something better with this precious time on Earth. Many websites use a five-star rating to rank the boots, just as one might rate films or albums or restaurants. These ratings, though subjective and often fickle, take on a life and meaning of their own. A spiteful customer can sink a small business with one-star online reviews. I wouldn’t buy a three-star...

Despite a surplus of eggs at fertility clinics around the country, very few end up being donated to research or other prospective parentsThe vast majority of eggs frozen by prospective mothers go unused, causing headaches for IVF clinics and preventing potentially groundbreaking research.Scientists are decrying a wasted opportunity as thousands of frozen eggs sit unused in storage instead of being used in potentially valuable medical research. Continue reading...

Dozens of elections, Ukraine and Israel-Gaza, moon missions, the climate crisis and AI• Support independent Guardian journalism in 20242024 will be a landmark year: dozens of elections across the world, unresolved conflicts in Ukraine and Israel-Gaza to address, and further milestones expected in everything from global temperatures to space exploration and artificial intelligence.Here are some of the major events scheduled for the year. Continue reading...

The Marches, Shropshire: Gales like this have a violent beauty as they rip through trees, bending trunks and pulling at the rootsOn solstice eve, a gale came thrashing trees, strewing sticks. Around each tree in the park, particularly the limes and ash, was a leeward shadow of branches and twigs, mostly dead brash winnowed from the living boughs, cast down to rot into the earth.Before decaying and recycling nutrients back to the tree roots through fungi, the fallen sticks had a more esoteric presence. They fell individually but made patterns or shapes together – shapes like the Chinese...

In this special Age of Extinction mini-series from Science Weekly, which first aired in 2023, the Guardian’s biodiversity reporter, Phoebe Weston, explores the illegal killing of birds of prey on grouse moors, and asks why it is so difficult to solve these crimes. In the third and final episode, Phoebe finds out more about the pressures that drive people to commit raptor persecution, discovers how the police investigation into the case of Susie’s crushed chicks unfolded, and how Susie, the hen harrier, is doing now Continue reading...

Puzzles to mark the yearFor the first time in eight years of posting puzzles on alternate Mondays, today’s publication date coincides with Christmas Day. Festive greetings everyone!What numerical gifts has Santa brought this year? For North Americans, there’s a delightful date next week: New Year’s Eve is 123123. Continue reading...

Along with an estimated six million people around the world, Rudi Zygadlo lost his sense of smell after having had Covid. He presumed it would return. But three years later his food still tastes like cardboard. Can anything be done?To celebrate our anniversary, my partner and I dine in a trendy London restaurant in Hackney with a Michelin star – my first time in such a place. A crispy little bonbon is introduced to us simply as “Pine, kvass lees and vin brûlé.” I watch my partner light up, the flickering candle in her eyes, as the waiter sets the thing down. The impact of the aroma has...

Sniffing emotional tears from women can cut male aggression by more than 40% and cause changes in brainHuman tears carry a substance that dampens down aggression, according to researchers, who believe the drops may have evolved over time to protect wailing babies from harm.Sniffing emotional tears from women reduced male aggression by more than 40% in computerised tests, and prompted corresponding changes in the brain, though the scientists behind the study think all human tears would have a similar effect. Continue reading...

Veoza reduces the severity of this common menopausal symptom. But at £430 a month, only the wealthy will benefit just nowAfter decades of neglect, menopause and the impact it has on women’s life quality is becoming a major focus of pharmaceutical research. Hence the excitement this week about a new, potentially life-changing, drug.Part of this is the growing recognition of what a huge market it is: the NHS estimates that 13 million women are currently peri- or menopausal in the UK, which is roughly a third of the female population. The most common symptom is hot flushes, which, in addition...

Two dementia medicines set for approval in Britain are first to improve patients’ lives directly – but condition must be diagnosedPeople in Britain could benefit from a key medical breakthrough next year. They may be given access to the first drugs ever developed to slow the impact of Alzheimer’s disease.The first of these medicines – lecanemab – was recently approved in the US and Japan, where treatments using it have already been launched. A second drug, donanemab, is expected to follow soon, and next year it is anticipated that the UK medical authorities will consider both of them...

Who are the eight surviving members of humanity's greatest feat of exploration?