Новости за 17.03.2017

Leukaemia: information may be the best cure. Shutterstock

Healthy cell function relies on well orchestrated gene activity. Via a fantastically complex network of interactions, around 30,000 genes cooperate to maintain this delicate balance in each of the 37.2 trillion cells in the human body.

Who ended the week with the upper hand in the constitutional battle between the UK and Scottish governments? It started with Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister, wrong footing London with her plan for a second independence referendum in either late 2018 or early 2019. As a result, Theresa May appeared to delay triggering the Brexit clause, Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, until the end of March.

The appointment of George Osborne, a Conservative MP and former chancellor of the exchequer, as editor of the Evening Standard was, to put it mildly, a surprise to many. But the move only makes more explicit the newspaper’s close ties to the Conservative Party

In announcing the former chancellor, George Osborne, as its new editor, the London Evening Standard continues a strong tradition of political elites having easy access to employment within the media elite. They sometimes nab these jobs after their political careers have ended and, sometimes, they just do them on the side.

We don't know what the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way will look like. Ute Kraus/wikipedia, CC BY-SA

Ever since first mentioned by Jon Michell in a letter to the Royal Society in 1783, black holes have captured the imagination of scientists, writers, filmmakers and other artists. Perhaps part of the allure is that these enigmatic objects have never actually been “seen”. But this could now be about to change as an international team of astronomers is connecting a number of telescopes... Читать дальше...

UKIP seems to have lurched from crisis to crisis since achieving its founding ambition – to take the UK out of the European Union. However, UKIP still has noteworthy support. It might be down, but it certainly isn’t out.

Sergey Shubin/Shutterstock.com

Imagine a world where you could take just a single pill for the treatment or prevention of several age-related diseases. Although still in the realms of science fiction, accumulating scientific data now suggests that despite their biological differences a variety of these diseases share a common cause: senescent cells. This has led scientists to find drugs that can destroy these cells.

Former benefits recipient Lorraine Worrall now runs a market stall. Channel 5

The lack of a real economic recovery and austerity since the 2008 financial crisis continues to make life difficult for ordinary people. It’s part of the reason that public attitudes toward benefit recipients is increasingly intolerant. And this hardening of the public mood is, in turn, spurred on by an increasingly hysterical, benefits-bashing and divisive tabloid press.

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Seventy-five years ago, the celebrated science fiction writer Isaac Asimov published a short story called Runaround. Set on Mercury, it features a sophisticated robot nicknamed Speedy that has been ordered to gather some of the chemical selenium for two human space adventurers.

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When science fiction author Isaac Asimov devised his Three Laws of Robotics he was thinking about androids. He envisioned a world where these human-like robots would act like servants and would need a set of programming rules to prevent them from causing harm. But in the 75 years since the publication of the first story to feature his ethical guidelines, there have been significant technological advancements. We now have a very different conception of what robots can look like and how we will interact with them. Читать дальше...

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If the rising sense of alienation from the political process is to be reversed in the long term, it will require more than a quick dose of populist rhetoric or tinkering with the way politics is organised.

The Last Kingdom. BBC/Carnival/Des Wille

The Last Kingdom – BBC’s historical drama set in the time of Alfred the Great’s war with the Vikings – has returned to our screens for a second series. While most attention will continue to focus on the fictional hero Uhtred, his story is played out against a political background where the main protagonist is the brooding and bookish mastermind Alfred the Great, vividly portrayed in the series by David Dawson.

Chaoyue Pan/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

As the conflict in Syria enters its seventh year, the toll it has taken on my home town of Homs continues to grow. Much of the city’s built environment has been damaged or destroyed: as of 2014, 50% of Homs’s neighbourhoods had been heavily damaged, and 22% had been partially damaged. This has affected every aspect of daily life for the Homsians who remain.

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If you don’t identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, asexual, pansexual, queer or questioning, the chances are you almost certainly know someone who does – it might be a friend, a cousin, a niece, an uncle or a colleague. And you might even consider yourself an “ally” to the LGBTQ community – someone who speaks out if they witness discrimination or derogatory remarks.

Diane de Joannis de Châteaublanc, Madame de Ganges, the original Beauty. Wikimedia

Though it is more commonly known these days for its part in the Disney Princess franchise, Beauty and the Beast is an enduring tale which has sparked film adaptations and novelisations across centuries. Though originally published in 1740 by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, the most famous version of the tale, La Belle et la Bête, was produced by French writer Jeanne-Marie le Prince de Beaumont in the 1750s.

JD Hancock, CC BY

Have you been reading or snoozing? These 10 teasers will test your knowledge from a week of Conversation content.