Vetenskapsnyheter

<p>The first person has been treated with a highly anticipated new gene therapy that aims to turn back the clock on ageing cells. The trial is aimed at retinal cells, with the hope that encouraging them to behave as if they were young again could improve sight in the affected patients. If it proves to be safe, it could open the door to a whole raft of therapies based on the emerging field of cellular rejuvenation. To understand more about this cutting edge research, Madeleine Finlay hears from science editor Ian Sample and from John Knoepfler, professor of cell biology and human anatomy at the university of California, Davis.</p><p><a href="https://theguardian.com/sciencepod">Support the Guardian</a></p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/audio/2026/jul/16/can-a-world-first-gene-therapy-reverse-ageing-podcast">Continue reading...</a>

<p>There is no majority support for use of gene editing on non-life-threatening conditions, writes <strong>Tom Lichy</strong> of the British Deaf Association</p><p>Your editorial (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/05/the-guardian-view-on-gene-edited-humans-darker-uses-must-be-acknowledged-alongside-medical-ones">The Guardian view on gene-edited humans: darker uses must be acknowledged alongside medical ones, 5 July</a>) offers welcome support to those expressing concern about the lack of public dialogue on gene-edited humans. These concerns are exacerbated when some scientists&nbsp;view the use of germline editing to eradicate hereditary conditions as inevitable.</p><p>The new polling for the Progress Educational Trust reported in your editorial indicates that the UK public agrees with the use of gene editing to correct life‑threatening genetic conditions. No such majority supports use for conditions such as deafness which are not remotely life-threatening.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jul/15/deaf-people-excluded-from-gene-editing-debate">Continue reading...</a>

<p>Pioneering American aviator who was the oldest woman to fly into space aged 82 in 2021</p><p>As an aviator, Wally Funk, who has died aged 87, was a trailblazing pioneer for women, breaking barriers for eight decades of a remarkable career. “Aviation has been my whole life; I eat and breathe it,” she said in her 2020 memoir, Higher, Faster, Longer (written with Loretta Hall).</p><p>She earned her pilot’s licence as a teenager, at 20 was the US military’s first female flight instructor, in 1971 became the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) first female flight inspector, and three years later was the first woman instructor for the National Transport Safety Board (NTSB). But hanging over these accomplishments was her unfulfilled dream of becoming an astronaut.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jul/15/wally-funk-obituary">Continue reading...</a>

<p>Sotheby’s expects second man on moon’s marker, crucial to Apollo 11 return, to reach astronomical sum</p><p>The felt-tip pen Buzz Aldrin used to fix a broken circuit breaker and escape from the moon in 1969 is up for auction in New York on Wednesday.</p><p>The dented silver plastic Duro Rocket pen – used by the second man on the moon to save Neil Armstrong and himself from being “stuck on the moon for ever” – has a sale price estimated <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2026/space-exploration-2/apollo-11-16">by Sotheby’s</a> at between $800,000 and $1.2m. The lucky bidder will get the broken piece of circuit breaker, too. Both come from Aldrin’s personal collection.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jul/15/buzz-aldrin-apollo-astronaut-mission-felt-tip-pen-auction">Continue reading...</a>

<p>Canadian scientists visit remains of polar exploration vessels in ‘golden era for shipwreck investigating’</p><p>Moments after devouring the final glimmers of light, the seafloor offered nothing but darkness and silt. Then the bow appeared.</p><p>More than 1,000ft (305 metres) below the surface of the Labrador Sea, off the coast of Canada, the skeleton of the final ship used by the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/feb/06/how-ernest-shackletons-icy-adventure-was-frozen-in-time-antarctica">famed polar explorer Ernest Shackleton</a> appeared in its silty grave.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jul/15/deep-sea-expedition-builds-digital-twins-shipwrecks-scott-shackleton">Continue reading...</a>

<p>Despite Anthropic’s claims, Claude is no more likely to achieve sentience than a simulation of a weather system is likely to generate a real hurricane</p><p>For centuries, humans have been fascinated by the prospect of creating artificial beings in our own image. Of developing synthetic minds and artificial bodies that not only think but also feel, and are both intelligent and conscious. For the vast majority of this time, this prospect seemed very distant; a topic for science fiction and philosophy, not for the here and now. But over the past few years, the rapid rise of AI – and especially of language models – has changed everything.</p><p>Last week, the frontier AI firm Anthropic <a href="https://transformer-circuits.pub/2026/workspace/index.html">published new research on its language model</a>, Claude, in which the researchers claimed to find signs of consciousness emerging within its inner workings. They didn’t claim that Claude is actually conscious in the same way that humans are, but the findings certainly upped the ante on the possibility of consciousness arising in AI.</p><p>Anil Seth is professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience at the University of Sussex, and co-director of the Sussex centre for consciousness science. He is the author of <a href="https://guardianbookshop.com/being-you-9780571337729/">Being You</a></p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/15/ai-consciousness-anthropic-claude-dawkins">Continue reading...</a>

<p>Anyone eating <em>Lanmaoa asiatica </em>could have visions for days of tiny people running and jumping around</p><p><em>Lanmaoa asiatica</em> is a bolete mushroom, prized for its delicious taste and hugely popular in Yunnan province, China, where it is found growing in a symbiotic relationship with pine trees. But anyone eating the mushroom needs to be careful because it also gives hallucinations of lots of tiny people about 2cm tall wearing brightly coloured clothes, all jumping, running, climbing and being generally playful, but in a normal, real-world setting.</p><p>The hallucinations are reminiscent of the small people in the hit BBC series <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/feb/09/small-prophets-review-mackenzie-crooks-magical-new-comedy-is-pure-pure-pleasure">Small Prophets</a>, although without their psychic powers. Despite the powerful visions it brings, <em>Lanmaoa</em> is completely unrelated to Psilocybes, or “magic mushrooms”, which give wide-ranging hallucinations for a few hours triggered by the chemical psilocybin.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jul/15/plantwatch-mushroom-hallucinogen-lanmaoa-asiatica">Continue reading...</a>

<p>Exclusive: Analysis offers ‘smoking gun evidence’ that overturns previous assumption that bronze age individual was male</p><p>The Upton Lovell Shaman, a bronze age individual who has been depicted in museum exhibits as a bearded spiritual leader and metalworker, was female, an ancient DNA analysis has revealed.</p><p>The 4,000-year-old skeleton, along with the extensive collection of stone axes, metalworking tools and the remains of an elaborate ceremonial cloak found in the grave, is viewed as among the most significant bronze age burials in Britain.</p><p><em><a href="https://tracking.vuelio.co.uk/tracking/click?d=SncqCPNIGrj16EQ8jbYrOjuFkKgFXIxGqeeihoH0M7Ou7tE4xqrGRf5VHLwGSyEhTO30wfUYWtVPxbrnIgRBaYfMbJO_gbPo8bPkueVKGk46RlyjFVO_CnURRWeKk8kU3Kqx48C9IP6ZZsPvRFAs3AD-alBexn1kwPbMWG9Z020NphhpaIH6ubrcegnj2thlNQ2">We Go Way Back</a> opens at the Francis Crick Institute on 16 July</em></p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jul/14/ancient-dna-analysis-reveals-upton-lovell-shaman-was-woman-wiltshire">Continue reading...</a>

<p>Scientists are trying to recreate the biology that lets animals survive months without food or water, in hopes of making deep-space travel possible</p><p>Long-term space travel is bad for your health. Very bad. Being in space exposes humans to dangerously high levels of radiation; extended exposure to microgravity can damage a range of organ systems, including muscles, bones and eyes. Living for months or years in tight quarters can have severe psychological effects.</p><p>The key to solving these problems could be a 250m-year-old physiological strategy that allows mammals, birds, fish and other animals to survive extreme scarcity by essentially going offline: hibernation. When they hibernate, animals almost completely switch off their bodily functions; they don’t eat, drink or move, and just as importantly, aren’t hungry, or thirsty and don’t seem to suffer from the cold. This remarkable ability could prove crucial in helping humans get to Mars and beyond – and could also help save lives on Earth.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/ng-interactive/2026/jul/14/human-hibernation-space-mars">Continue reading...</a>

<p>Extreme exposure<strong> </strong>should be avoided, but we’ve gone too far the other way – enjoyed safely, the sun can have enormous health benefits</p><p>High summer <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/summer">has returned to the UK</a>, and with it, the usual warnings about the dangers of sunlight and reminders to seek shade and cover up. After years of such advice, most members of the public naturally assume that the science connecting sun exposure to poor health is well established, so people are often shocked to learn that the opposite is true: those who spend more time in the sun tend to be healthier. A <em>lot</em> healthier.</p><p>I know because I began researching the subject nine years ago after stumbling upon some studies – and I’ve stayed on the case ever since, now summarising everything we know in my new book, <a href="https://guardianbookshop.com/in-defense-of-sunlight-9781668092163?utm_source=editoriallink&amp;utm_medium=merch&amp;utm_campaign=article">In Defense of Sunlight</a>. It contains good news for many people: we don’t have to fear the sun nearly as much as we thought. In fact, most of us could benefit from a bit more exposure.</p><p>Rowan Jacobsen is a former Knight Science Journalism Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a media fellow at the Nova Institute for Health in Baltimore. His book In Defense of Sunlight: The Surprising Science of Sun Exposure is published this month</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/14/sun-health-outdoors-heatwave-daylight-science">Continue reading...</a>

<p>As the rights of nature are increasingly being recognised, the Scottish Association for Marine Science is the latest organisation to make the ocean a trustee</p><p>In a boardroom in an office building in Oban, a picturesque town on the west coast of Scotland, trustees attending meetings have long been able to see the breaking waves of the Atlantic through the windows. But since last month, the ocean has also been present in the room, with an unusual new initiative ensuring that it now has a say on decisions shaping the future of the 140-year-old Scottish Association for Marine Science (Sams).</p><p>Sams was set up during the Scottish Enlightenment, a time of growing interest in oceanography when nature was seen as something to be dominated and exploited.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/jul/14/scottish-marine-scientists-ocean-board-trustees">Continue reading...</a>

<p>Palaeontologists warn before auction at Sotheby’s in New York that super-rich collectors are harming research</p><p>With its dagger-like teeth, bone-crushing bite and behemothic size, the fearsome Tyrannosaurus rex ruled western North America during the late Cretaceous period. Now its fossilised remains are about to dominate the auction house, with a price tag to terrify punters.</p><p>On Tuesday, one of the largest and most complete T rex skeletons discovered to date is to be auctioned by Sotheby’s in New York with an estimated sale price of $20m-$30m (£15m-£22.4m).</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jul/14/t-rex-skeleton-sothebys-auction-new-york-scientists">Continue reading...</a>

<p>Scientists often talk about the importance of flora and fauna to the health of our planet, but Dr Toby Kiers, an evolutionary biologist and founder of the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks, wants us to consider another force: fungi. Her work charting the planet’s vital underground systems has earned her numerous awards, including a MacArthur fellowship and a Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement (sometimes called the ‘green’ Nobel). She tells Ian Sample about her work mapping fungal networks on the remote Palmyra Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, and what the research reveals about fungi’s often invisible role</p><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jun/11/arbuscular-mycorrhizal-fungi-plant-life-climate-global-mapping-study">Subterranean fungi networks more than 100 quadrillion km in length, study finds</a></p><p>Support the Guardian: <a href="http://theguardian.com/sciencepod">theguardian.com/sciencepod</a></p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/audio/2026/jul/14/fungi-the-invisible-force-protecting-our-planet-podcast">Continue reading...</a>

<p>Detection of erythrulose, also found in raspberries, shows that compounds key to life can form in interstellar space</p><p>A natural sugar found in raspberries and used in fake tan lotions has been detected in an enormous cloud of dust and gas that lurks near the heart of the Milky Way.</p><p>The discovery does not suggest that the galaxy revolves around a distant civilisation of pale, safety-conscious frugivores, but shows that compounds important for life can form in the frigid expanse between the stars.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jul/13/natural-sugar-cloud-dust-gas-milky-way-erythrulose">Continue reading...</a>

<p>The psychotherapist Amy Morin says uttering a ‘short, positive sentence’ can offer the cognitive reset we need. The idea makes me cringe – but then I can barely cope with returning defective trousers</p><p>Are you dreading a high-stakes meeting, a challenging professional task or an awkward conversation? I’m not, because I’m a craven coward who has dodged that kind of unpleasantness for years. If only I had a “power phrase” to activate, maybe things would have been different.</p><p>That is the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amy-morin-mental-strength-two-minute-reset-power-phrase-2026-7">psychotherapist Amy Morin’s advice</a> for dealing with sticky situations. The author of The Mental Strength Playbook, Morin explained in Business Insider that a “short, positive sentence you say to yourself in the moment” is an effective two-minute cognitive reset. She used hers, she says, while answering challenging questions to land her book deal: “I activated my power phrase and told myself, <em>I’m a strong, straightforward communicator.</em>”</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/13/can-a-power-phrase-turn-a-spineless-worm-like-me-into-a-go-getter-i-doubt-it-but-its-worth-a-shot">Continue reading...</a>

<p>Alignment will be one of the prettiest naked-eye sights of the month, if the sky is clear</p><p>Two celestial beauties line up on Friday when the young crescent moon meets brilliant Venus in the evening twilight. It will be one of the prettiest naked-eye sights of the month, so long, of course, as the clouds behave.</p><p>The chart shows the view looking west from London at 10pm BST. By that time the sun will have set but the sky will still be bright with summer twilight.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jul/13/young-crescent-moon-to-meet-venus-in-evening-twilight">Continue reading...</a>

<p>On a three-day fungi workshop in Australia’s largest cool temperate rainforest, <strong>Alexis Buxton-Collins</strong> unearths an unexpected appreciation for the third kingdom of life</p><p>Revered as one of Australia’s last true wilderness areas, Takayna/Tarkine is a place of legends. Freshwater crayfish that can reach almost a metre in length lurk in the shade of 2,000-year-old Huon pines, and every few years a rumour emerges that thylacines still prowl the dense Gondwanan rainforest of north-west Tasmania.</p><p>For 65m years, this landscape has sheltered all manner of astonishing creatures. But some of the most fascinating life forms found here are even older. Before animals walked the Earth or trees began converting carbon dioxide into oxygen, fungi helped to create the conditions necessary for complex life on our planet. “People often say that fungi grow in the forest,” Dr Alison Pouliot, a mycologist, tells me as we inhale cool air perfumed with the gentle spice of sassafras. “But there wouldn’t be a forest without fungi. Fungi are the ecosystem engineers that created the foundation for the forest.”</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/ng-interactive/2026/jul/13/mushroom-trip-a-mycologists-tour-of-the-tarkine">Continue reading...</a>

<p>Two drugs are being trialled in the Ituri region in a programme set up just six weeks after the outbreak was declared, with hopes it will reduce mortality rates</p><p>There is no approved drug to help the medical teams scrabbling to save lives in the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo – but there are hopes that could change within months as the first patients are enrolled in a treatment trial.</p><p>It is a record pace to set up and start this kind of research, scientists said, with patients enrolled just six weeks after the <a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/17-05-2026-epidemic-of-ebola-disease-in-the-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-and-uganda-determined-a-public-health-emergency-of-international-concern">outbreak being declared a public health emergency</a> of international concern by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 17 May.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/jul/12/record-breaking-ebola-treatment-trial-drc">Continue reading...</a>

<p>I love busting out a French subjunctive in pursuit of better restaurant service, so it’s a joy to discover there’s a neuroscientific upside to being multilingual</p><p>It’s hard to pick a favourite PG Wodehouse line, but the one I’m perhaps most fond of <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/332816-into-the-face-of-the-young-man-who-sat-on">is this</a>: “Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to speak French.”</p><p>It’s funny, but it also succinctly captures something that I have long felt about language acquisition, which is that in order to truly embrace learning another tongue, you have to be prepared to look foolish and vulnerable. (Why that can be so difficult for the English – a monoglot minority on a largely bilingual planet – is another article entirely.) More people will perhaps be prepared to endure that humbling process now, as new research has found that learning another language can <a href="https://www.fens.org/news-activities/news/speaking-another-language-could-slow-ageing-in-the-brain">slow ageing in the brain by up to 13 years</a>. Multilingualism, it is thought, promotes brain connectivity and slows its decline with age.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/12/learn-another-language-french-restaurant-service-multilingual">Continue reading...</a>

<p>A brown huntsman<em> </em>is the quickest of more than 250 species analysed by scientists in the UK and Germany</p><p>If arachnophobes were not frightened enough by the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/oct/24/australia-giant-spider-mouse-carry-horrifying-impressive">horrific ability of Australia’s huntsman spiders to drag dead mice up the sides of fridges</a>, they now have another reason.</p><p>They might be the fastest spiders on the planet.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jul/09/fastest-spider-on-the-planet-brown-huntsman">Continue reading...</a>

<p>New Trump administration rules would undermine longstanding research practices. It’s death by a thousand cuts</p><p>A politician who aims to gradually privatize and ultimately destroy an institution funded by tax dollars – say, a public school system or public transportation network – may choose to do so by strategically disinvesting resources from that institution until it becomes barely functional, leading users to look elsewhere to meet their needs. Eventually, the user-base of the public system gets so low or frustrated that it seems reasonable to scrap the thing entirely, or re-direct public funds to private companies as contractors to provide the needed “service”. We’ve seen this strategy play out many times in states and city councils across America.</p><p>It appears that the endgame of the Trump administration’s attacks on science and the research funding ecosystem is similar: grant freezes and administrative disarray at federal funding agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), new layers of project review by political appointees hunting for forbidden keywords such as “disparity” and “marginalized”, and proposed new restrictions to make international collaboration difficult or impossible all point towards a world where it’s just too onerous to do federally-funded scientific research. Is the goal to make scientists simply give up on the endeavor?</p><p>Daniel Malinsky is an assistant professor of biostatistics in the Mailman School of Public <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/health">Health</a> at Columbia University</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/11/trump-administration-scientists-rules">Continue reading...</a>

<p>Reports of falling sperm counts and testosterone levels have fuelled fears over chemicals, pollution and modern lifestyles. But how much do scientists agree on what is affecting male fertility?</p><p>The world is unwittingly walking into a male reproductive crisis, scientists warned this week as they presented data that revealed an apparent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/jul/07/mens-average-testosterone-levels-have-halved-in-last-50-years-say-scientists">halving of average male testosterone levels</a> over the past 50 years.</p><p>“It<em> </em>is mind-blowing that testosterone has declined by 50%,” Prof Hagai Levine, who led the work, told the Guardian. “This is a lot. Wake up people. Wake up.”</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/ng-interactive/2026/jul/11/spermageddon-world-facing-male-reproductive-crisis">Continue reading...</a>

<p>Shop owner Lisa Scobie says Forrest Beach is usually a place where ‘kids go fishing before school’. Then six mysterious objects washed up</p><ul><li><p>Get our <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/email-newsletters?CMP=cvau_sfl">breaking news email</a>, <a href="https://app.adjust.com/w4u7jx3">free app</a> or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/series/full-story?CMP=cvau_sfl">daily news podcast</a></p></li></ul><p>When pieces of mysterious space debris washed up on the beach at her sleepy coastal community in north Queensland, Lisa Scobie’s first thoughts were about making sure everyone was safe.</p><p>But days later the local takeaway shop owner had settled on another reaction to what had become international news.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jul/11/how-space-balls-launched-a-sleepy-queensland-beach-town-into-the-global-spotlight-at-warp-speed">Continue reading...</a>

<p>Are the disappearances or deaths of 11 US scientists really linked in a nefarious plot? Or just a conspiracy theory with roots in a bizarre broadcast that rocked Britain in the 1970s?</p><p>In the last few years, 11 people allegedly tied to top secret US research have died or mysteriously disappeared, sparking a conspiracy that a clandestine operation is silencing those who know too much.</p><p>As <strong>Phil Tinline </strong>explains to <strong>Nosheen Iqbal</strong>, what began as a series of unrelated tragedies has morphed into a mainstream obsession and even triggered a federal investigation.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2026/jul/10/the-missing-scientists-at-the-centre-of-a-ufo-conspiracy">Continue reading...</a>

<p>Trailblazing pilot was denied opportunity to become Nasa astronaut but made history on Blue Origin flight in 2021</p><p>Wally Funk, a trailblazing aviation pioneer who was denied the opportunity to become a Nasa astronaut and half a century later became the oldest woman to travel into space, has died aged 87.</p><p>Funk died peacefully on Wednesday evening at her apartment in an assisted living facility in Grapevine, Texas, city councilwoman and close friend Duff O’Dell said on Thursday. O’Dell, who described herself as Funk’s caregiver, said she was by Funk’s side. Funk had fallen a couple of times recently and had an infection in her leg. “It took its toll,” O’Dell told the Associated Press.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/09/wally-funk-astronaut-dies">Continue reading...</a>