Tag • #science

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Can you solve it? Are you on board with these quirky chess puzzles?

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 25 May

Check it out

Today’s four puzzles are inspired by chess. (If you haven’t yet watched the recent documentaries on Judit Polgár and Hans Niemann , I recommend them.)

1. Oddities

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Lion’s aid: Blood ice lollies keep big cats cool at London zoo

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 24 May

Animals have tactics of their own to cope with the heat, but zoo animals also get a little help from their keepers

A hot bank holiday weekend might see humans flock to the beach, don summer hats and crack open a cold beer, but when it comes to keeping big cats cool, zoos turn to a rather different treat: blood lollies.

While experts note habitats within zoos are carefully tuned to their inhabitants’ needs, with areas of shade, water, sun and mud as appropriate, animals have tactics of their own to cope with the heat.

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China launches three-crew space flight as part of lunar ambitions

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 24 May

Mission will put first astronaut in orbit for a year, a key step in Beijing’s plan to put people on the moon by 2030

China has launched its Shenzhou-23 mission in which an astronaut will spend a full year in orbit for the first time, a crucial step in Beijing’s ambition to send humans to the moon by 2030.

The Long March 2-F rocket lifted off from the Jiuquan launch centre in north-western China on Sunday, carrying three astronauts to the Tiangong space station.

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‘Pompeii, but in the middle of a massive city’: the ice age fossil site hidden in Los Angeles

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 24 May

La Brea Tar Pits – the only urban, active ice age excavation site in world – gets a mammoth face lift for the first time in nearly 50 years

Los Angeles is known for famous museum such as the Getty and the Lacma, but perhaps fewer people are aware that – in the heart of the city – lies a museum that contains one of the world’s most remarkable fossil sites.

The La Brea Tar Pits and Museum is home to the remains of more than 2 million ice age flora and fauna, including mastodons and saber-toothed cats, that became trapped in oily pools that still bubble up today.

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The hill I will die on: If Hollywood blockbusters must dabble in science, can’t they get the small stuff right? | Helen Pilcher

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 24 May

Project Hail Mary, Jurassic Park: from dino-mosquitoes to a spaceship’s roar, pointless mistakes on the scientific details make me wince

On the advice of my teenage son, I recently went to the cinema to see Project Hail Mary . The film has science in it. I am a science writer and so he was convinced I would like it.

Imagine my surprise partway through, however, when I found myself seething so hard I thought I would combust. Ryland Grace – the main character and a molecular biologist who should have known better – had just put two plastic tubes into a centrifuge NEXT to each other!

Helen Pilcher is a science writer and author of Life Changing: How Humans are Altering Life on Earth and This Book May Cause Side Effects

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Pioneering study aims to find out how repeated blows to head in women’s rugby affects brain

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 24 May

Risk of CTE in men’s sports has been widely studied, but female brains are softer and more vulnerable

Cleo Pallister-Turley, a back for Cardiff university’s women’s rugby team, winces as she recalls two major concussions from playing rugby. “Girls ask me, ‘aren’t you worried about getting injured?’,” the biomedical sciences student said. “I enjoy the physicality and the intensity. For me, no other sports compare.”

Women’s rugby has enjoyed significant growth in recent years. Women now make up a quarter of players worldwide, according to World Rugby, and more than 400 clubs offer rugby to women and girls around the UK; in the 1990s, only a handful existed.

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Stephen Hawking’s father worried his son ‘does not study much’, diaries reveal

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 23 May

Exclusive: New biography uncovers Frank Hawking’s papers in which he lamented that his son had ‘little initiative’

In exploring the physics and geometry of the universe, Stephen Hawking became a world-renowned pioneer of black hole theory, writing the bestselling book A Brief History of Time, which has sold more than 13m copies, and inspiring people to “look up at the stars and not down at your feet”.

But, during Hawking’s student years and as he approached adulthood, his father was deeply concerned about how his son would turn out. Frank Hawking lamented that “he hangs round the house with little initiative and does not study much”, according to previously unknown diaries that he had written partly in code.

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SpaceX launches its biggest rocket yet in test flight from Texas

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 23 May

The launch is the 12th test flight of the mega-rocket that CEO Elon Musk is building to get people to Mars one day

SpaceX launched its biggest, most powerful Starship yet on a test flight Friday, an upgraded version that Nasa is counting on to land astronauts on the moon.

The redesigned mega-rocket made its debut two days after SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced he’s taking the company public. It blasted off from the southern tip of Texas, carrying 20 mock Starlink satellites for release halfway around the world.

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What is immunotherapy and how does it treat cancer and other conditions?

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 22 May

From infections and allergies to brain diseases and autoimmune disorders, a wave of trials offers hope

Clinical trials of immunotherapies have rocketed in the past decade as researchers have turned their understanding of the body’s defences into powerful new treatments. Leading the pack are cancer therapies, but researchers have other conditions in their sights, from infections and allergies to brain diseases and autoimmune disorders. Here, we explore how these therapies work.