Emily Smith

David Calvert/Bloomberg via GettyBy Ruby Prosser Scully Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface company Neuralink has finally broken its silence. Since the company was formed in 2016, it has kept its plans secret, but in a presentation on Tuesday night it showed off its vision and explained what the firm has done so far. What is Neuralink…

Perceiving oneself as being overweight may be linked to depressionGetty/Halfdark By Chelsea WhyteThe stigma around being overweight or obese may contribute to the link between weight and depression, and this extends even to people who have a healthy weight but perceive themselves as being overweight. “This fear of social devaluation resulting from perceiving oneself as…

UK health secretary Matt Hancock has championed genetic testingSteve Back/Shutterstock By Adam VaughanThe National Health Service (NHS) in England is set to offer genetic testing to help determine people’s risk of developing common diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s. However, some influential groups have warned that the move could have negative effects, including causing anxiety when…

Anxiety can disrupt your attentionGetty/Chad Springer By Chelsea WhyteHigh levels of anxiety can strain a person’s ability to control their attention, and this effect has been shown to increase with age, according to an analysis of dozens of studies. Ran Shi, then at the University of Sydney in Australia, and her colleagues combined the results of…

The paper suggests natural solar cycles account for some global warmingASIF HASSAN/AFP/Getty By Adam VaughanA high profile scientific journal is investigating how it came to publish a study suggesting that global warming is down to natural solar cycles. The paper was criticised by scientists for containing “very basic errors” about how Earth moves around the…

Ancient dino nesting siteKohei Tanaka By Michael Le PageAn 80-million-year-old nesting site found in the Gobi desert in Mongolia confirms that some dinosaurs nested in colonies like birds. It consists of at least 15 clutches of eggs laid during the same season and buried by a flood. Several other dinosaur nesting sites with multiple clutches…

Something doesn’t add upESA/Hubble & NASA By Leah CraneThe question of how fast the universe is expanding just keeps getting more confusing. Our two main methods of measuring the acceleration of the universe’s expansion disagree by nine per cent. Astronomers have now come up with another independent method that should have helped us decide which…

Immunotherapies can seek and destroy cancer cellsEYE OF SCIENCE / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY By Chelsea WhyteCancer treatment is becoming more precise through personalised therapies. A survey of more than 1000 people with cancer found that over a third had received genetically targeted drug treatments or immunotherapy. “Going back 20 years, the vast majority of cancer…

When it comes to viewing pornography, male and female brains respond in the same wayHinterhaus Productions/Getty By Clare WilsonWomen’s brains react to pornography just as much as men’s, challenging the widespread belief that men get more turned on by visual stimuli. The finding comes from a review of 61 brain scanning studies that showed men…

Technology 15 July 2019 Mega wind farms could be built in the North SeaPaul D Hunter photography/Alamy By Adam VaughanRadical plans for artificial islands connecting a series of mega windfarms in the North Sea have inched closer to reality after an initial assessment concluded the idea is technically feasible. The scheme’s backers say the bold…