"Coffee drinkers reap health benefits-but only if they do it in the morning."

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Russ Roberts (https://hawaiisciencejournal.blogspot.com).

Science | The Guardian

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Coffee drinkers reap health boost – but only if they do it in the morning

Morning coffee lowers heart disease risk

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200+by Ian Sample Science editor / 2d

Pre-lunch brewers enjoy lower risk of death, analysis finds, but benefit vanishes among all-day drinkers People who get their coffee hit in the morning reap benefits that are not seen in those who have shots later in the day, according to the first major study into the health benefits of the drink at different times. Analysis of the coffee consumption of more than 40,000 adults found that morning

AI-generated ‘slop’ is slowly killing the internet, so why is nobody trying to stop it? | Arwa Mahdawi

200+by Arwa Mahdawi / 1d

Low-quality ‘slop’ generated by AI is crowding out genuine humans across the internet, but instead of regulating it, platforms such as Facebook are positively encouraging it. Where does this end? How do you do, fellow humans? My name is Arwa and I am a genuine member of the species homo sapiens . We’re talking a 100% flesh-and-blood person operating in meatspace over here; I am absolutely not an

From oatzempic to mouth taping: does science back up TikTok health tips?

by Ian Sample Science editor / 1h

Here are some of the more curious health hacks circulating on the social media platform – and what the evidence says The deluge of improbable health hacks on TikTok can only mean it’s the start of a new year. Here we look at some of the more curious tips and the evidence, where there is any, behind them. Continue reading...

Yesterday

Collaborative research on AI safety is vital | Letters

by Guardian Staff / 5h

If we are to take seriously the risk facing humanity, regulators need the power to ‘recall’ deployed models, as well as assess leading, not lagging, indicators of risk, writes Prof John McDermid Re Geoffrey Hinton’s concerns about the perils of artificial intelligence ( ‘Godfather of AI’ shortens odds of the technology wiping out humanity over next 30 years, 27 December ), I believe these concern

The ‘mad egghead’ who built a mouse utopia – podcast

by Written by Lee Alan Dugatkin and read by Robert G Slade. Produced by Nicola Alexandrou. The executive producer was Ellie Bury / 9h

John Calhoun designed an apartment complex for mice to examine the effects of overcrowding. It was hailed as a groundbreaking study of social breakdown, but is largely forgotten. So what happened? By Lee Alan Dugatkin Continue reading...

Bezos’s Blue Origin schedules, then delays first orbital launch

Blue Origin's New Glenn orbital launch

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by Guardian staff and agencies / 20h

New Glenn launch is delayed until at least 12 January due to conditions in the Atlantic, where booster is slated to land Jeff Bezos ’s Blue Origin announced it would launch its first orbital rocket “no earlier than Friday”, a pivotal moment in the commercial space race currently dominated by Elon Musk ’s SpaceX . Then the Amazon founder’s rocket company delayed the launch until at least Sunday 12

Jan 8, 2025

Are you falling for wellness misinformation online? Here’s how to tell

100+by Adrienne Matei / 1d

Social media is rife with alarming advice and warnings – experts share red flags to avoid Wellness advice abounds on social media: warnings about “toxic foods”, assertions that parasites are driving your sugar cravings, or claims about solving the “root cause” of bodily complaints with unproven remedies. “Wellness woo” appears in many domains, like nutrition, dermatology, parenting and psychology

The Bright Side by Sumit Paul-Choudhury review – keep the glass half full

by Huw Green / 1d

A powerfully inspiring study of optimism that avoids farcical good cheer Humans are unrealistically optimistic about the world and the future; we systematically under­estimate our chances of experiencing unpleasant diseases, going through a divorce, or losing a loved one. About the only people who don’t see the world through the lens of this “optimism bias” are the clinically depressed. Depressiv

Where did our attention spans go, and can we get them back? – podcast

by Presented by Madeleine Finlay, produced by Joshan Chana, sound design by Tony Onuchukwu, the executive producer is Ellie Bury / 1d

The Oxford English Dictionary announced its word of the year at the end of 2024: brain rot. The term relates to the supposedly negative effects of consuming social media content, but it struck a chord more widely with many of us who feel we just don’t have the mental capacity we once did. Gloria Mark, a professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, has been studying our waning

Bizarre Australian mole even more unusual than first thought, new research reveals

Marsupial mole's DNA secrets revealed

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by Petra Stock / 1d

Experts say marsupial mole DNA shows they are closely linked to bandicoots and bilbies and their ancestors probably evolved in rainforests Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast New research into one of Australia’s most specialised and bizarre animals has revealed the marsupial mole’s biology is as unusual as its appeara

My 90,000 shots of the sun: Andrew McCarthy’s best photograph

by Interview by Rich Pelley / 1d

‘I took all the images with a precisely tuned telescope then joined them up. Use the wrong type of telescope and you’ll blind yourself and burn your house down’ I bought a telescope on a whim in 2017, thinking back fondly to when my dad used to show me Jupiter and Saturn through his. I thought: “Why not revisit some of those memories, now that I can afford to spend a few hundred bucks on essentia

Outdated guidelines mean doctors failing to spot heart condition in women

by Andrew Gregory Health editor / 1d

Research finds hypertrophic cardiomyopathy testing that overlooks sex differences and body size is inadequate Doctors are failing to diagnose women with a potentially deadly heart condition because tests rely on outdated studies from the 1970s and do not account for natural differences in sex and body size. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a genetic condition where the muscular wall of the he

Sweat-wicking and radiative cooling: can new fabrics make living through extreme heat more bearable?

by Donna Lu Science writer / 2d

How a team of researchers is reducing skin temperature under clothes and energy bills with some forward fashion thinking Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email This year is on track to be the hottest in recorded history. With rising temperatures and more intense and frequent heatwaves , keeping cool in summer will get harder. Air conditioning can only go so far , especially when extreme heat

Look at the underside of a log, and you’ll find my new obsession: the beautiful, bonkers world of slime moulds | Lucy Jones

by Lucy Jones / 2d

These tiny organisms matter. They have been used to map dark matter and improve transport networks, and they’re living all around us A few years ago, I started looking at the underside of logs and it changed my life. I found a secret carnival of the most bodacious and interesting organisms I had ever seen. Bubbles of candy-pink gloss on stilts ( Comatricha nigra ), bunches of rainbow iridescence

Daily glass of milk may cut bowel cancer risk by fifth, research finds

by Ian Sample Science editor / 2d

Largest study into diet and disease suggests extra 300mg of calcium a day is associated with a 17% lower risk Having a large glass of milk every day may cut the risk of bowel cancer by nearly a fifth, according to the largest study conducted into diet and the disease. Each daily 300mg of calcium, about the amount found in half a pint of milk, was associated with a 17% lower risk of bowel cancer,

Jan 7, 2025

Breakthrough drugs herald ‘new era’ in battle against dementia, experts predict

by Kat Lay Global health correspondent / 2d

Medical advances make pills to treat Alzheimer’s disease viable, though challenges remain in sharing gains globally Pills that prevent Alzheimer’s disease or blunt its effects are on the horizon, as the fight against dementia enters a “new era”, experts have said. Scientific advances were on the cusp of producing medicines that could be used even in the most remote and under-resourced parts of th

No telescope needed: how to navigate the Australian night sky in summer | Virginia Kilborn

26by Virginia Kilborn / 2d

Spot planets, galaxies and constellations in the Australian night sky – and look out for more auroras in 2025 as the sun reaches solar maximum It’s summer in Australia and that means many of us head out of the city and off to a remote camping site, where the night sky shines bright with stars. Australian First Nations astronomers have built knowledge around the stars for about 65,000 years. But w

Male mosquitoes to be genetically engineered to poison females with semen in Australian research

Genetically engineered mosquitoes combat diseases

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72by Petra Stock / 2d

Approach could be used to limit outbreaks of mosquito-borne diseases, such as dengue fever, which results in 390m cases annually worldwide Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Toxic male mosquitoes will poison females with their semen in a new population control method developed by Australian researchers. The method involves genetically engineering males to produce spider

Cockney influences found in Scotland, Australia and New Zealand, says expert

by Caroline Davies / 2d

Linguistics professor says London dialect is most likely to be spoken in Essex, but aspects have traversed the globe The cockney dialect, as associated with the late EastEnders icon Dame Barbara Windsor, may not be as prevalent in today’s London, but it remains possibly the most influential English dialect across the world, according to academic research. No longer the preserve of those born with

The anxiety secret: how the world’s leading life coach stopped living in fear

Martha Beck explores creativity to combat anxiety

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by Emine Saner / 3d

Famous for her work with Oprah Winfrey, Martha Beck is a bestselling author and self-help superstar. But for 60 years she was anxious and terrified - until she found a simple, uplifting answer All her life, Martha Beck had been anxious, but a few years ago she began to get really curious about anxiety. And curiosity, she wants us all to know, may just be the path out of paralysing, life-spoiling

Jan 6, 2025

From Igbo to Angika: how to save the world’s 3,000 endangered languages

by Kaamil Ahmed / 3d

With half of all languages predicted to die out in decades, activists are turning to online tools to preserve them Every year, the world loses some of its 7,000 languages. Parents stop speaking them to their children, words are forgotten and communities lose the ability to read their own scripts. The rate of loss is quickening, from one every three months a decade ago to one every 40 days in 2019

Are we hardwired to commit ‘deadly sins’? – podcast

by Presented by Ian Sample; produced by Madeleine Finlay; sound design by Joel Cox; executive producer Ellie Bury / 3d

Scientists are increasingly finding that behaviours once seen as depraved often have a direct physical cause. To find out more, Ian Sample hears from Guy Leschziner, a consultant neurologist and sleep physician at Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospital in London. His new book, Seven Deadly Sins: The Biology of Being Human, looks at the neurological basis of behaviours often dismissed as evidence of bad ch

Roman Empire’s use of lead lowered IQ levels across Europe, study finds

Lead pollution lowered Roman IQ

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by Ian Sample / 3d

Widespread use of metal caused estimated 2- to 3-point drop in IQ for nearly 180 years of Pax Romana Apart from sanitation, medicines, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what did the Romans ever do for us? asks an exasperated Reg in Monty Python’s Life of Brian. One answer, according to a new study, is widespread cognitive decline across Eu

Louisiana reports first human death in US from bird flu

Bird flu outbreak threatens dairy farms

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by Marina Dunbar and agency / 3d

Patient was over age 65 and reported to have underlying medical conditions, state health department says A patient in Louisiana has become the first human in the US to die of bird flu . The Louisiana department of health reported on Monday afternoon that a patient who had been hospitalized in the state with the first human case of avian influenza has now died. Continue reading...

Did you solve it? Interview questions for aspiring billionaires

by Alex Bellos / 3d

The solutions to today’s puzzles Earlier today I set you three puzzles that were interview questions at Paypal, the online payments company ran by a group of billionaire tech bros – Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and David Sacks – now better known for their right wing politics. Here they are again with solutions. 1. Divide and conquer Continue reading...

‘Kiss and capture’: scientists offer new theory on how Pluto got its largest moon

82by Nicola Davis Science correspondent / 3d

Findings suggest Charon collided with dwarf planet and then pair briefly rotated together before separating It sounds like one of Kipling’s Just So Stories but it is rooted in science: experts say they have a new theory for how Pluto got its largest moon. Pluto – once considered the ninth planet of our solar system, but now classified as a “dwarf planet” – has five known moons, of which Charon is

‘Virtual employees’ could join workforce as soon as this year, OpenAI boss says

OpenAI plans AI workforce by 2025

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29by Dan Milmo Global technology editor / 4d

Sam Altman says tools that carry out jobs autonomously, known as AI agents, could transform business output Virtual employees could join workforces this year and transform how companies work, according to the chief executive of OpenAI. The first artificial intelligence agents may start working for organisations this year, wrote Sam Altman, as AI firms push for uses that generate returns on substa

Charles Duhigg on how to become a supercommunicator - podcast

by Presented by Reged Ahmad with Charles Duhigg. Series producer Karishma Luthria. Sound design and mix by Camilla Hannan. Executive producer Hannah Parkes. / 4d

Do you find yourself replaying an important conversation in your head and thinking - ‘why did I say that?’ Journalist and Pulitzer prize-winning author Charles Duhigg found himself at a similar impasse when he had to manage a project and struggled to connect with members of his team. So he learned everything he could about communication. Duhigg tells Reged Ahmad about the simple things anyone can

Games to look forward to in 2025: Directive 8020

by Tom Regan / 4d

The Earth is dying and the only hope is a distant planet in a game that is a playable blend of Alien and The Thing Supermassive’s games have always been cinematic, from the persuasive performances of slasher-horror Until