Leo Wilson

Israelis and Palestinians by Jonathan Glover review – the psychology of conflict | Politics books

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Jonathan Glover’s new book, on the seemingly intractable nature of the Israel-Palestine conflict, quotes George Orwell on the Spanish civil war: “Everybody believes in the atrocities of the enemy and disbelieves in those of his own side without ever examining the evidence.” This could have been written today, amid bipolar thinking and pressure to take … Read more

The reaction mechanism for catalytic ammonia production experimentally determined

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Researchers at Stockholm University have for the first time been able to study the surface of iron and ruthenium catalysts when ammonia is formed from nitrogen and hydrogen; the results are published in the scientific journal Nature. A better knowledge of the catalytic process and the possibility of finding even more efficient materials opens the … Read more

First prehistoric person with Turner syndrome identified from ancient DNA

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Working picture of the excavation of a skeleton on the Lincoln Eastern Bypass site (Network Archaeology). Credit: Network Archaeology Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute, working with University of Oxford, University of York and Oxford Archaeology, have developed a new technique to measure the number of chromosomes in ancient genomes more precisely, using it to … Read more

Giganto, largest ever primate, died out due to diet change, say scientists | Extinct wildlife

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It was the largest primate ever to have roamed the Earth, but just why – and when – our distant cousin “giganto” ended up extinct has been something of a mystery. Now researchers say the enormous ape was victim of an unfortunate choice of food when its preferred snacks became scarce. Gigantopithecus blacki roamed mainland … Read more

Barcelona warn LGBTQ+ fans they could face ‘severe penalties’ in Saudi Arabia

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Sign up to Miguel Delaney’s Reading the Game newsletter sent straight to your inbox for free Sign up to Miguel’s Delaney’s free weekly newsletter Barcelona have warned their LGBTQ+ fans they could face “severe punishment” in Saudi Arabia should they engage in any acts of a sexual nature in the Gulf country this week. Barcelona … Read more

The extinction of the giant ape: Long-standing mystery solved

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Giants once roamed the karst plains of southern China, three-metre tall apes weighing in at 250 kilograms. These very distant human ancestors – Gigantopithcus blacki – went extinct before humans arrived in the region, with few clues to why, and so far leaving around 2000 fossilised teeth and four jawbones as the only signs of … Read more

Ocean temperatures helped make 2023 the hottest year ever recorded

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A small fishing vessel navigates turbulent waves in Sri Lanka. Ocean warming intensifies weather patterns. Credit: Jiang Zhu A multi-national team of scientists (China, U.S., New Zealand, Italy, and France) analyzes the temperature of the Earth annually. These scientists have found a fever that increases every year: For the past decade, each year has been … Read more

Iron influences plant immunity and may promote resiliency against climate change

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Plants and animals alike rely on iron for growth and regulation of microbiomes — collections of bacteria, fungi, and more that co-exist in places like the human gut or the soil around a plant’s roots. Plants face a special challenge when acquiring iron, since the strategies plants use to increase iron availability alter the root … Read more