By Clare Wilson Gwyneth Paltrow is the owner of alternative health company GoopAdam Rose/Netflix Psychic readings, energy healing and vampire facials are just a few of the adventures had by actor and alternative health guru Gwyneth Paltrow and her team in her forthcoming Netflix series The Goop Lab. Goop, Paltrow’s natural health company, has already…
By Jessica Hamzelou Benzodiazepine drugs tend to be prescribed for anxietySasimoto/iStockphoto/Getty Images Benzodiazepine drugs are prescribed at about 66 million doctor appointments a year in the US, according to a report by the US National Center for Health Statistics. This means that for every 100 adults that visit an office-based doctor over the course of…
Technology 16 January 2020 By David Hambling Andy Dean Photography/Alamy Stock Photo Mysterious drone swarms have been seen flying in Colorado, Nebraska and Wyoming at night since December, sometimes over locations believed to house nuclear missile silos. A federal task force has been formed to investigate the drones’ origin and purpose. The Phillips County Sheriff’s…
Environment 16 January 2020 By Leah Crane Microsoft aims to remove more carbon from the environment than it emits by 2030Robert Evans/Alamy Stock Photo Microsoft has big climate ambitions. On 16 January, the company announced an initiative to remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than it and its suppliers emit annually by 2030. Company…
Technology 16 January 2020 By Jason Arunn Murugesu Flying highLentink Lab/Stanford University A robot that resembles a pigeon and can make tight turns like real birds may point to the future of aerospace engineering – a continuously morphing wing. Understanding exactly how birds fly has always been tricky, because individual wings are made up of…
By Michael Le Page Fossils of trilobites, one of the species diminished but not lost during the Devonian periodKevin Schafer/Alamy Stock Photo The best record yet of how biodiversity changed in the distant past has been created with the help of machine learning and a supercomputer. Among other things, it confirms that one of the…
By Jessica Hamzelou martin-dm/Getty One in six women who experience an early miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy have symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder nine months later. As people can experience the symptoms of PTSD for months, it is important that women are able to access psychological support should they need it, say the researchers behind the work. It…
Environment 15 January 2020 By Adam Vaughan The bushfire smoke has spread around the globeNASA Thunderstorms generated by the Australian bushfires are very likely to have pumped as much smoke into the stratosphere as a volcanic eruption. Blazes across the country in the past few weeks have been so intense they have generated their own…
By Donna Lu It’s alive!College of Engineering and Applied Science at Colorado University Boulder A type of living concrete made from bacteria could one day help to reduce the environmental impact of the construction industry. Wil Srubar at the University of Colorado Boulder and his colleagues have used a type of bacteria, Synechococcus, to create…
By Donna Lu Ooh, a rewardTetra Images/Getty Images Developments in artificial intelligence often draw inspiration from how humans think, but now AI has turned the tables to teach us about how brains learn. Will Dabney at tech firm DeepMind in London and his colleagues have found that a recent development in machine learning called distributional…
By Leah Crane The black hole at the heart of our galaxy has some strange neighboursScience History Images / Alamy At the centre of our galaxy, less than 0.2 light years from Sagittarius A*, the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, six strange objects are defying gravity. They look like clouds of gas and dust, but…
Environment 14 January 2020 By Donna Lu Smoke billows from wildfires on Australia’s Kangaroo Island Climate change has already increased the risk of wildfire globally, according to a new review of research that suggests the weather conditions that led to the Australian wildfires will become more common in future. In light of the ongoing wildfire…
Environment 13 January 2020 By Adam Vaughan Accidental deaths in the US from drowning and car crashes may rise as the climate warmsSeastock/iStockphoto/Getty Images The US is likely to see more than 2000 extra deaths a year from car accidents, suicide, drowning and other fatal injuries because of climate change, even if the world manages…
By Leah Crane The Milky Way collided with another galaxy billions of years agoNASA/JPL-Caltech We now know when our galaxy had its last meal. The Milky Way devoured another galaxy, called Gaia-Enceladus, in what may have been the biggest galactic merger in its history, and now astronomers have used a single star to get a…
Technology 13 January 2020 By Michael Marshall Recycling old batteries could be an environmental boostBEHROUZ MEHRI/Getty Captured carbon dioxide could be used to extract useful metals from recycled technology such as smartphone batteries rather than just being buried underground. The technique could help make it more economical to capture the greenhouse gas before it enters…
By Jessica Hamzelou A surgeon connects a liver to the machineUSZ Donated human livers can be kept alive for seven days in a new machine. The device also appears to improve the quality of the livers, say the researchers behind the work. They hope their device will allow more people to get transplants. Human livers…