Welcome to Britain's biggest building site. There's a ‘fish disco'
This machine — once disparaged by the former environment secretary Michael Gove as a 'fish disco' — is being tested to see if it can scare off the salmon, herring, shad, eel and sea trout that in six years' time will start being sucked in their millions into massive water inlets that have been built near by.
Hinkley Point C nuclear power station is late and over budget. This is the biggest building site in Britain, possibly
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The Guardian
4 hours ago
- The Guardian
Aether review – dazzling lecture about a medium, a magician and a mathematician
There are known knowns, there are known unknowns and there is Emma Howlett's play, a smart feminist take on the mysteries of the physical universe and the eternal limits of science. If that sounds too weighty a theme for a night out at the fringe, well, Howlett, who also directs, has planned ahead and built a fluid, ever-shifting production that spins her ideas with a dazzling lightness of touch. This is pure ensemble theatre: you cannot put a match between Sophie Kean, Abby McCann, Anna Marks Pryce and Gemma Barnett as they weave five historical stories as a tight unit, breathing as one. Supported by a residency by the Hugo Burge Foundation and written with Summerhall's Anatomy lecture theatre in mind, Howlett's production for TheatreGoose exploits the academic setting by turning the audience into students (pens and whiteboards in hand) and the actors into public speakers, using an overhead projector to put them in the spotlight (neat lighting design by Ed Saunders). Two of the stories are unexpected; not the one about Hypatia, the ancient Egyptian mathematician and astronomer who was murdered by angry Christians; nor the one about Vera Rubin finding evidence of dark matter in the 20th century; and not the modern-day tale about Sophie, a PhD student drawing on data from Cern in the hope of breaking new ground, while her obsessiveness drives her girlfriend away. More surprising are those of Adelaide Herrmann, famed for performing the bullet-catch magic trick in her vaudeville show; and of Florence Cook, a 15-year-old medium, hoodwinking a credulous scientific establishment with her messages from beyond. Howlett is intrigued by fiction as well as fact. Juxtaposed and intercutting, these stories form a collage of truth and illusion, one that embraces the existential fear of always having more to learn about an evasive universe. As concerns go, it is on the esoteric side, but Aether is never less than accomplished. At Summerhall, Edinburgh, until 25 August All our Edinburgh festival reviews
Telegraph
6 hours ago
- Telegraph
The woman who says you can spot a psychopath at three years old
There is little Prof Viding, 50, hasn't seen in the 25 years she has been researching psychopathy and young people's mental health, and she spent two years conducting studies on inmates at Wormwood Scrubs prison and Broadmoor high-security psychiatric hospital. 'It struck me that when you read prisoners' case histories, there were warning signs that had been there long before they committed their crimes,' she recalls. Ted Bundy, the notorious American serial killer, was a prime example of this: as a child he liked to dig holes in the ground, laced with spikes, for passers-by to fall in and hurt themselves. He also used to buy mice at the pet shop and pull them apart. Over the years, there have been even more alarming reports: babies who repeatedly bite their mother's breasts; toddlers who pretend to hug their parents and headbutt them instead. One of Prof Viding's studies looked at the genetic predisposition to psychopathy in seven-year-old twins, finding that CU traits have a 'strong genetic influence'. In other words, some children are born more likely to develop personality features that could be red flags. 'No one is born a psychopath' 'You see families where there are concentrations of these traits,' Prof Viding explains. 'No one is born a psychopath and the genes are not a blueprint, but there are people whose genetic makeup means that they are at higher risk than others.' Our genes and our early social environment shape how the brain processes emotional and social information – and the brains of children at risk of developing psychopathy are different from those of other children, showing little response to emotional stimuli that would normally induce fear. They also tend to have a low resting heart rate, typically associated with stress resilience. Researchers at the University of Cambridge in 2021 found that children whose hearts beat faster at the age of eight were at lower risk of developing adult psychopathy, despite having adverse childhood experiences. 'Children with conduct problems and CU traits, and adults with psychopathy, are poor at feeling what others are feeling, known as emotional empathy,' Prof Viding adds. 'On a conceptual level, they understand it, but that is not the same as feeling it. 'They are better at cognitive empathy, so they can work out what makes someone tick, but they don't care if they make others distressed. This combination makes for a powerful tool for manipulation.' The latter will chime with most parents – my three-year-old certainly has me wrapped around his little finger – but, if anything, my kids feel too many big emotions, not too few. 'Interventions can work' It's not all bad news, however, even if a child displays these traits from a young age. Several studies around adoption show that children at risk of developing worrying behaviours because of their biological family history, if they go on to be adopted by warm, loving parents, are less likely to see those behaviours worsen as they get older. Treatment, Prof Viding says, is effective, such as adapting parenting styles, learning how to help a child regulate their differing reactions, and seeking ongoing professional help in which a therapist works with both child and parents. 'With any behaviour, the more rooted it gets, the more difficult it becomes to intervene. But we know that interventions in adolescents and adults can also work, so the message should not be that if you don't get there in the first five years, it's useless.' Unfortunately, she adds, getting help to the children who need it is easier said than done, as those who exhibit these tendencies often come from families where their parents have complex issues of their own (such as addiction, mental-health difficulties or problems with the law). 'It is harder to elicit sympathy for children who don't play by the rules and behave in ways that can be unpleasant or downright dangerous,' she says. 'It is an uphill battle to get funding to help these children, even though it would be in society's interest.' A mother herself, to two teenagers aged 15 and 17, Prof Viding understands only too well the parenting rollercoaster – and how difficult dealing with an unruly child, let alone one showing worryingly abnormal personality traits, can be. 'I get emails on a weekly basis from parents who are concerned and don't know where to turn,' she admits. 'It's heartbreaking. 'At the moment in the UK, the health service is incredibly reluctant to diagnose conduct disorder, so the parents often have to wait until things are so bad they can no longer cope or their child is in trouble with the law.' But, she insists, no child is beyond reprieve – nor is anyone's little darling 'destined' to become a psychopath. Cue a collective parental sigh of relief.
The Sun
7 hours ago
- The Sun
Nasa's futuristic observatory could finally find ALIENS as it hunts for hidden habitable worlds, say experts
NASA is plotting a new mission that could be the one to finally uncover alien life in the universe. Or, it may uncover a darker fact: that we humans are completely alone, on the unique oasis we call Earth. 6 The ambitious project, slated to arrive sometime in the 2040s, will require technologies that are yet to be developed and demonstrated. Fortunately, plans for those technologies are underway as part of an international effort. The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) will be tasked with scouting out some of the nearly 6,000 exoplanets that have been discovered since the early 1990s. 'If we're going to find evidence of alien life beyond our solar system in our lifetime, the Habitable Worlds Observatory represents our best opportunity," Dr Caroline Harper, head of space science at the UK Space Agency, told The Sun. "This groundbreaking mission could finally answer one of humanity's most profound questions: are we alone in the universe?" Dr Shyam Balaji, a theoretical physicist at King's College London, said that finding a planet with a stable atmosphere and potential signs of life would be "a turning point". "It would reshape how we see our place in the cosmos, and even short of detecting life," he said. "Simply confirming that other habitable worlds exist would profoundly change our understanding of the universe and of our own planet's uniqueness." The HWO will look for chemical patterns - what scientists call biosignatures - around Earth-sized planets that lie within the habitable zones of nearby stars. Scientists will be looking for signs of oxygen, ozone and methane in a planet's atmosphere, as these are the chemicals that suggest there might be alien life on the surface. The relative abundance of these three molecules in Earth's atmosphere, for example, cannot be explained by any non-biological processes. Best-ever sign of ALIEN life found on distant planet as scientists '99.7% sure of astounding biological activity signal' "With the Habitable Worlds Observatory, we'll be able to examine their atmospheres directly, looking for chemical patterns like oxygen and methane coexisting that are difficult to explain without biology," Dr Balaji explained. "That wouldn't be absolute proof of life, but it would be the strongest evidence we've had yet." The HWO will not only try to find signs of life on distant worlds, but it will even take photos of them. It should be able to beam back pictures of planets human astronauts could only dream of laying their eyes on. While thousands of exoplanets have been detected, only a handful have been directly photographed. Instead, we often rely on painted impressions of distant worlds - where artists are guided by scientists as to what the data says a planet might look like. 6 Current plans indicate that HWO - a large spacecraft similar to Hubble or Webb space telescopes - should be able to image a planet that is 10billion times fainter than its host star. Scientists also believe that HWO will also be able to detect Earth-like moons of giant extrasolar planets, and spot eclipses of giant planets and their lunar satellites. The idea for HWO was first pitched some 15 years ago, and has since snowballed into becoming "the first specifically engineered to identify habitable, Earth-like planets… and examine them for evidence of life," according to Nasa. By the time project jumps from paper into real-life, tangible tech, the HWO - or the core parts of the idea, at least - will be roughly 50 years old. That's if the mission survives President Donald Trump 's proposed cuts to Nasa, in which the US space agency is forecast to lose nearly 20 per cent of its workforce. But experts are cautiously hopeful that HWO will make it off the ground. "Funding pressures are real," said Dr Balaji. "And such ambitious missions are always vulnerable to delays." "But the scientific case is compelling and public interest is high," he added. "So I think it has a good chance of moving forward even if the schedule slips." Deputy executive director of the Royal Astronomical Society, Dr Robert Massey, said: "I think the value of it is so big, that it's just a really exciting mission. "I don't want to sit there and say this should be funded over something else, because that's the thing we have to avoid doing. But if it goes ahead, it will be an incredibly exciting project." 6 While Earth is the only planet known to host life, scientists estimate there could be hundreds of millions of potentially habitable worlds in our galaxy, the Milky Way. These worlds are very far away from Earth - with the closest potentially habitable world, Proxima Centauri b, located 4.2 light-years away. To spot these planets, even through the glare of their nearest star, HWO will need some next-generation instruments on board. Of the many instruments that HWO will have installed, it will need a tool to block out scattered light. "If you put your thumb up in front of the sun, you can sort of look around it. The problem you have is that we've got an atmosphere so all the sunlight scatters," Dr Massey explained. "But if you do that in space, block out the light of the star, there's no atmosphere. "If you get the size of that right, then you could see planets in orbit around that star - and actually study them and look for the chemistry of their atmosphere." 6 Like Hubble and Webb, HWO will have a large mirror to help with detecting and imaging distant worlds. The primary mirror will be at least six metres in diameter, so it needs to be segmented one way or another. No decisions have yet been made on the detailed design of either mirror, telescope or spacecraft. Whether we find life or not, the implications will be transformational - not just for space science, but for our understanding of humanity's place in the universe. Dr Caroline Harper, head of space science at the UK Space Agency Though HWO is expected to be pretty large - and will require a powerful rocket like Nasa's Space Launch System, SpaceX's Starship or Blue Origin's New Glenn to launch it into space. The European Space Agency (ESA) and UK Space Agency (UKSA) are interested in becoming partners in the project, just like they are on the Webb telescope. Speaking at Nasa's Habitable Worlds Observatory conference in Washington, DC, earlier this week, Dr Harper promoted the UK's ambition to lead an instrument on the mission. "The UK has developed exceptional expertise in exoplanet science and cutting-edge instrumentation," she said. "We now have the chance to build on these strengths and take part in what could be the most significant scientific discovery in human history. "Whether we find life or not, the implications will be transformational - not just for space science, but for our understanding of humanity's place in the universe.'
