Puzzles Can you solve it? The Zorro puzzleThe Guardian - Alex BellosToday you’re going to get the chance to prove a theorem no one has ever proved before. First, the basic puzzle: What is the least number of straight lines you need to draw across a 3x3 square grid (illustrated
Science Did you solve it? The Zorro puzzleThe Guardian - Alex BellosIn my puzzle column earlier today I set you these problems about slicing through a square grid: 1) What is the least number of straight lines you need to draw across a 3x3 square grid so that every cell
Science Pushy bonobo mothers help sons find sexual partners, scientists findThe Guardian - Ian Sample Science editorTheir mothers are so keen for them to father children that they usher them in front of promising partners, shield them from violent competitors and dash the chances of other males by charging them while
Jupiter Starwatch: a meeting between the moon and JupiterThe Guardian - Stuart ClarkWhereas our first lunar conjunction of the month (with Mars two weeks ago) took place when the moon was very young, this pairing with Jupiter takes place when the moon is just past full. Our natural satellite
Opinion (UK) Purges and poisons of the Elizabethan eraThe Guardian - LettersWhen Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby, potential successor to the throne and probable employer of William Shakespeare, became suddenly ill in April 1594 with symptoms including copious and corrosive
Science University backtracks on disputed Voynich manuscript theoryThe Guardian - Esther AddleyA university that breathlessly declared one of its academics had cracked the code of the celebrated Voynich manuscript has been forced into an embarrassing climbdown after medieval experts poured scorn
Play buttonScience World’s first living organism with fully redesigned DNA createdThe Guardian - Ian Sample Science editorScientists have created the world’s first living organism that has a fully synthetic and radically altered DNA code. The lab-made microbe, a strain of bacteria that is normally found in soil and the human
NASA Spacewatch: Nasa wants $1.6bn next year to get astronauts to moon by 2024The Guardian - Stuart ClarkNasa needs an additional $1.6bn next year if they are to stand any chance of getting humans to the moon again by 2024, as the US president, Donald Trump, has requested. The money would be on top of the
Opinion (UK) The Proustian draw of sexy hawthornThe Guardian - LettersIt is surprising that your stimulating and relevant supplement (Age of rage: the ultimate guide to anger, 11 May) appears to overlook a major effect of anger: scapegoating, ie the displacement of anger
Play buttonScience Electric 'flying taxi' prototype unveiled by German start-upThe Guardian - Gwyn TophamA new “flying taxi” has been unveiled by German start-up Lilium, which claims the vertical take-off craft could be the basis for an on-demand air service within six years. The electric jet-powered five-seater
Science New war on cancer aims at longterm survival, not cureThe Guardian - Sarah Boseley Health editorLeading scientists are embarking on a new war against cancer, aimed not necessarily at curing it but at turning it into a condition that people can live with. The world-renowned Institute of Cancer Research
Wellcome Trust Wellcome Trust investing £80m in snakebite treatmentThe Guardian - Sarah Boseley Health editorNew drugs for snakebite are desperately needed, say scientists, to replace the current 100-year-old treatment made by injecting snake’s venom into a horse and harvesting antibodies – which is very expensive,
Offbeat News Latin, Hebrew … proto-Romance? New theory on Voynich manuscriptThe Guardian - Esther AddleySome say it is a medieval medical manual written in abbreviated Latin and aimed at well-to-do women. Not true, say others: it was written in Hebrew by an Italian physician and clearly shows Jewish women
Science Plantwatch: the environmental reasons to save our at-risk parksThe Guardian - Paul SimonsParks are being hit by cutbacks in local authority spending and the National Lottery’s “Parks for People” funding scheme is winding down. This matters because our parks are more than recreation areas,
Science 100 years on: the pictures that changed our view of the universeThe Guardian - Robin McKieEddington worked feverishly and managed to make 16 plates. Later he found that only two of them contained enough stars All 19 images they had taken with their main telescope were out of focus A hundred
Moon Starwatch: time to take a good look at the lunar mariaThe Guardian - Stuart ClarkThe full moon on Saturday gives an opportunity (weather permitting) to study the “seas” that form the dark markings on the moon’s surface The moon will reach full on 18 May. This is a good opportunity
Science Protect solar system from mining 'gold rush', say scientistsThe Guardian - Ian Sample Science editorGreat swathes of the solar system should be preserved as official “space wilderness” to protect planets, moons and other heavenly bodies from rampant mining and other forms of industrial exploitation,
Measles Scientology ship remains under measles quarantine in Caribbean scareThe Guardian - Associated PressAuthorities in the Caribbean island of Curacao have announced that 17 crew members and 11 passengers must stay on board a ship owned by the Church of Scientology that is under quarantine following a confirmed
Women's News Neuroscientist Dr Hannah Critchlow: ‘Changing the way that you think is cognitively costly’The Guardian - Ian TuckerIf you ask long-term couples to think about their partner, their brain will react in the same way as a drug addict’s Dr Hannah Critchlow is a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge. Her debut book,
Science One-off injection may drastically reduce heart attack riskThe Guardian - Ian Sample Science editorDoctors in the US have announced plans for a radical gene therapy that aims to drastically reduce the risk of heart attack, the world’s leading cause of death, with a one-off injection. The researchers
North Sea 'Reconstruction' begins of stone age lands lost to North SeaThe Guardian - Nazia Parveen North of England correspodentLost at the bottom of the North Sea almost eight millennia ago, a vast land area between England and southern Scandinavia which was home to thousands of stone age settlers is about to be rediscovered.
Gene Therapy Why researchers are turning to gene therapy to treat heart failureThe Guardian - Ian Sample Science editorThe rise in life expectancy in Britain from 2001 to 2016 was largely driven by better medical care of heart attack patients. People are now more likely to survive heart attacks and live instead with heart
Opinion (UK) Cold war politics hampered life-saving phage therapy researchThe Guardian - LettersPhage therapy (Girl is first patient saved by GM virus treatment, 9 May) has a long history, predating antibiotics, but has been largely confined to the (former) USSR since the 30s. As early as 1896, bacteriologist
SpaceX International Space Station hit by major power shortageThe Guardian - Associated PressThe International Space Station has been hit by a major power shortage that has forced a delivery from SpaceX to be delayed. SpaceX was supposed to launch a shipment on Wednesday. But an old power-switching
Technology Teenager recovers from near death in world-first GM virus treatmentThe Guardian - Hannah Devlin Science correspondentA British teenager has made a remarkable recovery after being the first patient in the world to be given a genetically engineered virus to treat a drug-resistant infection. Isabelle Holdaway, 17, nearly
Play buttonSudoku Can you solve it? Sandwich sudoku - a new puzzle goes viralThe Guardian - Alex BellosA new type of Sudoku is whetting the appetites of puzzle fans. Sandwich sudoku follows the same rules of sudoku but includes extra clues outside the grid like this: The clues on the outside of the grid
Play buttonViral Did you solve it? Sandwich sudoku - a new puzzle goes viralThe Guardian - Alex BellosEarlier today I set you three sandwich sudoku puzzles. It’s a new variant of Sudoku that is getting lots of attention. To get a printable page of the problems click this link. If you got stuck with the
Science Starwatch: crescent moon points the way to Mars and the heavenly twinsThe Guardian - Stuart ClarkSky watchers have a pretty view to look forward to this week on Wednesday evening. A thin waxing crescent moon will appear close to Mars. The moon will be just 16% illuminated, making it appear as a sliver
Science Black hole may have swallowed neutron star, say astronomersThe Guardian - Hannah Devlin Science correspondentAstronomers may have spotted a neutron star being swallowed by a black hole for the first time, marked by a belch of gravitational waves rippling across the cosmos. If confirmed, the detection by the Ligo
