Hi John, We can’t rely on geoengineering to save the poles from climate change, researchers warn in today’s top story. Plus: can a strange new treatment finally relieve chronic sinus infections? |
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Hi John, We can’t rely on geoengineering to save the poles from climate change, researchers warn in today’s top story. Plus: can a strange new treatment finally relieve chronic sinus infections? |
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Ice rescue plans ‘unfeasible’ |
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Ulrik Pedersen/NurPhoto/Shutterstock |
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With carbon dioxide emissions still increasing, can geoengineering halt the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps and prevent massive sea level rises? No, according to a review of the main ideas for polar geoengineering proposed so far. Martin Siegert at the University of Exeter in the UK and his colleagues assessed five proposals, including “curtains” to protect ice sheets from warm currents and covering Arctic Ocean ice with glass beads to reflect sunlight. Promoting geoengineering ideas that cannot work distracts attention from the key issue, says Siegert. “It becomes something that is working against what we need to do, which is to decarbonise.” Read more
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More than a dozen mammal species shimmer and glint purple and green, like precious opals. Their fur is iridescent, meaning its colour appears to change depending on the animal’s orientation relative to the viewer. It’s long been claimed that only one mammal – the golden mole – has this trait, but a new study has identified an additional 14, including 10 rodents and the giant otter shrew, a semiaquatic predator that is neither otter nor shrew. Read more
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The world's greatest festival of ideas and discoveries
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18-19 October, Excel London and online access |
Everything you love about science, technology and the wonders of our universe. Book now |
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People who made the greatest gains in muscle power over eight weeks of resistance training also improved the balance of bacteria in their gut. Read more |
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Michael Marshall ponders whether an asteroid impact, a supernova or a disruption to Earth’s magnetic field could have had an impact on hominin evolution. Read more |
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Shutterstock/Tisha Razumovsky |
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“It has a huge, huge impact on almost every facet of life,” says Duncan Boak. “Not being able to breathe properly. Blowing your nose constantly, snot running out of your nose constantly, not being able to sleep, facial pain.” Boak, who is the chief executive of UK-based charity SmellTaste, is talking about a little-known but common and deeply unpleasant condition called chronic rhinosinusitis. Many people with CRS grapple with their symptoms in silence, dismissed by doctors, unaware that they aren’t alone or even that the condition exists. Those who do get proper treatment seldom shake the disease completely, and some don’t respond at all. But that bleak prospect might be about to change. A new hypothesis about the cause of the condition is offering up a radical new treatment: the snot transplant. Read more
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“If you stack the decks by assuming that AI leads to infinite badness, pretty much anything is justified in avoiding it.” |
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Neanderthals, human origins and cave art, France |
20 September 2025, 9 days |
Embark on a captivating journey through time as you explore the key Neanderthal and Upper Palaeolithic sites of southern France. Find out more |
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