t’s getting to the point where buying a plastic bottle of still water marks you out as some kind of environmental vandal. But sparkling water? Somehow that’s different. That says you have good taste and care about “clean” drinking. Sparkling water in a can? You’re obviously health-conscious, fashionable and...
Graphic health warnings like those on cigarette packets, showing rows of rotten teeth on cans of cola and other sugary drinks, could deter some young adults from buying them, a study has shown. Sugary drinks are blamed for fuelling the obesity epidemic, but in spite of the large quantities of...
Leprosy may have originated in Europe rather than Asia, according to the largest study to date on ancestral strains of the disease. The study has revealed that more leprosy strains than expected were present in medieval Europe, prompting scientists to reconsider the origins and age of the devastating disease. “For centuries...
My cancer, an aggressive tumour on the salivary glands, was diagnosed in early 2015. I’d first noticed the lump the previous summer, but tests proved inconclusive. It took a deep-tissue biopsy in January to confirm that it was cancerous. Because of where it was – and because it had...
Ihad the whole of Palestine to myself that day. It was only a short swim from Lebanon but, as I waded ashore out of the shallow, soupy water, it became clear that I was the only visitor the island had seen for some time. Clambering to the top of...
The Guardian’s science correspondent Hannah Devlin has scooped a coveted prize in the Association of British Science Writers awards for her investigation into the vaginal mesh scandal. Her report exposing NHS data on how thousands of women have undergone surgery to have vaginal mesh implants removed won in the category of best...
There is a stampede to get into The House That Jack Built and then, not long after, there is a stampede to get out. At the morning screening of the new Lars von Trier film at Cannes, I try to keep tabs on the number of mass walkouts. The first...
Diamonds found in a meteorite that exploded over the Nubian desert in Sudan a decade ago were formed deep inside a “lost planet” that once circled the sun in the early solar system, scientists say. Microscopic analyses of the meteorite’s tiny diamonds revealed they contain compounds that are produced under...
Yingluck fled abroad last month fearing that the military government, set up after a coup in 2014, would seek a harsh sentence. For more than a decade Thai politics have been dominated by a power struggle between Thailand’s traditional elite, including the army and affluent Bangkok-based upper classes, and the Shinawatra family, which...
“I have never seen so many brains out of their heads before!” declares Dr Michael Hfuhruhurr, the world-renowned neurosurgeon played by Steve Martin who has a love affair with a brain in a jar in the 1983 movie, The Man with Two Brains. Thirty five years on, the prospect of...