Notoriously reclusive Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong gives video interview to Certified Practicing Accountants of Australia

As the first person to walk on the moon, he is a man whose name will be remembered for generations to come. But one of the other well-known things about Neil Armstrong is that he hardly ever gives interviews.

It was therefore something of a coup for Alex Malley, chief executive of Certified Practicing Accountants of Australia, to secure almost an hour of Armstrong's time to discuss the astronaut's trip to the moon.

In the illuminating conversation posted online on the CPA Australia website, Armstrong revealed how he thought his mission, Apollo 11, only had a 50% chance of landing safely on the moon's surface and said it was "sad" that the current US government's ambitions for Nasa were so reduced compared with the achievements of the 1960s.

"Nasa has been one of the most successful public investments in motivating students to do well and achieve all they can achieve," said Armstrong. "It's sad that we are turning the programme in a direction where it will reduce the amount of motivation and stimulation it provides to young people."

As a child, Armstrong said he had "become fascinated with the world of flight, as an elementary school student, and determined that, somehow, I wanted to be involved in that."

He served as a fighter pilot in the Korean war and was working as a test pilot when President John F Kennedy issued his challenge to the country's scientists to land on the moon. "We choose to go the moon and these other things," said Kennedy to an audience at Rice University in 1962, "not because they are easy but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organise the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we're willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone and one we intend to win."

At the time, the US had only managed to send Alan Sheppard 100 miles above the surface of the Earth for 20 minutes. "Now the president was challenging us to go to the moon," said Armstrong. "The gap between a 20 minutes up and down flight and going to the moon was something almost beyond belief, technically."

Over the course of the following decade, each Apollo mission was used to test different parts of the propulsion, navigation and communication technology required on a journey to the moon.

"A month before the launch of Apollo 11, we decided we were confident enough we could try and attempt on a descent to the surface," said Armstrong. "I thought we had a 90% chance of getting back safely to Earth on that flight but only a 50-50 chance of making a landing on that first attempt. There are so many unknowns on that descent from lunar orbit down to the surface that had not been demonstrated yet by testing and there was a big chance that there was something in there we didn't understand properly and we had to abort and come back to Earth without landing."

When Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made their descent aboard the Eagle to the moon's surface, the on-board computer had intended to put them down on the side of a large crater with steep slopes littered with huge boulders. "Not a good place to land at all," said Armstrong. "I took it over manually and flew it like a helicopter out to the west direction, took it to a smoother area without so many rocks and found a level area and was able to get it down there before we ran out of fuel. There was something like 20 seconds of fuel left."

Once the astronauts had reached the surface and he had muttered his immortal line, "one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind", Armstrong said there was too much work to do to spend too long meditating or reflecting on where he was.

In the years since his legendary mission, Armstrong has watched Nasa's position and ambitions erode. "I'm substantially concerned about the policy directions of the space agency, which are directed by the administration," he said. "We have a situation in the states where the White House and the Congress are at odds over what the future direction should be and they're playing a game and Nasa is the shuttlecock they're hitting back and forth as both sides try to get Nasa on the proper path."

So how did Malley, who was clearly in awe of Armstrong during the interview, manage to land his exclusive? "I know something not a lot of people know about Neil Armstrong – his dad was an auditor," he said. "For people who are leaders or aspire to be leaders, listening to Neil Armstrong is far better than doing any educational MBA programme that exists in the world today."

Forest authority is confident its sparsely populated land will meet criteria laid down by International Dark Skies Association

Small, busy and overcrowded, England might seem the last place in the world to have room for one of the planet's largest inhabited areas of unspoiled, natural darkness when night falls.

But if plans by Kielder Forest and the adjacent Northumberland national park are realised, the country will be home to an official "dark sky preserve" equalled only by two lonely areas in Quebec and Texas.

Every outside light in 400 square miles of England's northernmost county is to be audited in preparation for the scheme, announced on Thursday by the two authorities. A public campaign will also be launched to win over local people to specially adjusted streetlamps and unobtrusive security lights.

The move follows the success of astronomical holidays at "star camps" in Kielder Forest, whose public observatory has attracted 30,000 visitors in four years. The area came top in a "dark skies" survey conducted by the Campaign to Protect Rural England in 2003, which condemned the spread of what it called "night blight" elsewhere in the country.

The forest authority is confident that its sparsely populated land will meet the criteria laid down by the International Dark-Sky Association (Ida) based in Tucson, Arizona, which has so far designated 12 reserves. The rolling, tree-covered hills surrounding the 27-mile shoreline of Kielder Water, England's biggest reservoir, have few homes beyond a cluster around the former shooting lodge of the Dukes of Northumberland.

The ambitious part of the new plan is to add the whole of Northumberland national park to the proposed reserve, more than doubling the size of the forest on its own. Although the park's boundaries were drawn, uniquely among UK national parks, to exclude all major communities, it is crossed by several roads including the A68 to Scotland, and a number of villages lie along its edges.

The director of the Kielder Water development trust, Elisabeth Rowark, said that the area was "magical by night", with the Milky Way stretching from horizon to horizon and distant galaxies visible without the help of telescopes or field glasses.

She said: "Dark sky status would allow us to protect, cherish and promote our natural nightscapes, but gaining public support is the key. It is crucial to understand that the idea does not mean turning lights off. Rather it is about working with local people and Northumberland county council to create better and less wasteful lighting and promote the night sky as an asset for the region."

The plan has won initial support from a number of local councils, including Byrness, whose chair, Joyce Taylor, said that local people would welcome less intrusive streetlamps. She said: "The fixtures we currently have are old and often spill light straight into peoples' bedrooms. Dark sky status will help us retain the rural and tranquil character of our community and keep us on the map for travellers for whom a starry night creates such vivid memories."

Anne Hutchinson, the chair of Wark parish council, said that her family elsewhere in the UK were staggered by the night sky when they came to visit. She said: "People don't want to see light pollution, whether it is from poor street lights or inappropriate external lights. It's not in keeping with the character of the area.

John Wilson, whose Whitelee Farm near the Scottish border at Carter Bar is one of the most isolated dwellings in the proposed reserve, has added star charts and binoculars to the equipment in his three holiday cottages.

Preparation for the launch has seen hundreds of light meter readings taken at night in the forest and park by Forestry Commission wildlife rangers, stargazers from Kielder Observatory and Newcastle astronomical societies, national park rangers and volunteers. The findings confirm that the darkness is Stygian enough to meet the standards of Idsa, provided regular monitoring and other measures are also agreed.

These include a light management plan and a comprehensive audit of the wattage and direction of existing lights, with measures to replace any with a pronounced upwards glare. The forest and national park have written individually to every resident, explaining the proposal and inviting comments and, ideally, participation.

Success will see Northumberland's "core area" join Big Bend national park in Texas and Mont Mégantic in Quebec at the top of the growing table of global dark sky reserves.

The UK's first dark sky park at Galloway forest in Scotland has been rated an economic success, with tourist business reporting increased trade as a direct result of the new status which was granted by the Idsa in 2009.

The project is on Facebook and Twitter.

A new generation of young women in Britain are being forced to re-fight the battle for abortion rights. Guest post by The Pod Delusion's Liz Lutgendorff

Last week I attended the Pro-Choice Parliamentary Meeting, organized by Abortion Rights, where those interested in preserving abortion access for women met to discuss the newest assault on it. I say 'newest' rather than 'new' because these attacks never really cease. Access to legal and safe abortion seems to be something that must be fought for by every generation.

It's disheartening to think that almost fifty years after the Abortion Act came into force, anti-choice groups are using arguments that haven't changed in over a century. "Do you know that your daughters, taught by the exciting school of the picture-screen, are half-convinced already that 'love' justifies anything?" said one Ursuline nun, "That a woman has the right to live her own life as she pleases?" That was said in 1918**, and similar complaints can be heard to this day.

So far there hasn't been a concerted effort to legislate against abortion providers in the UK; however, as many pro-choice speakers said in Parliament, there are other ways to put pressure on them. While I don't think we are in the same place as the United States, yet, information compiled by the Guttmacher Institute shows what aggressive anti-choice lobbying can achieve in a short space of time.

I'm kind of an accidental pro-choice activist. I've taken action because I believe equality and evidence are the most important things to consider when determining policies that will have enormous implications for the well-being of half the population. I don't even consider myself an activist, despite co-running 40 Days of Treats last year with Carmen D'Cruz. I consider myself an active citizen, defending rights that were hard won - and still denied to women in Northern Ireland.

Anti-choice activists in the UK have notoriously adopted American-style picketing of abortion providers in recent times, but they have also adopted a range of supposedly 'women-friendly' tactics. One example is Nadine Dorries's concept of 'improving choice' by opening counselling provision to 'independent' groups. While couched in positive language, in practice this means stripping services from BPAS, Marie Stopes, and other experienced providers; while opening the door to anti-choice religious groups. This may expose women to scare tactics including unnecessary ultrasounds - a useful tool for emotionally blackmailing women; or bogus scary statistics, like the false claim that an abortion has a 100% chance of causing breast cancer.

Other "think of the women!" myths abound. There is the decades-old appeal to mental trauma – not recognised by any professional body; the bogus claim that women 'don't know what they are getting into', that they don't understand what it means despite sex education and a little thing called 'the internet; or the myth that mothers can't possibly have an abortion after having a child (reality, at least in the US, disagrees).

There are legitimate issues surrounding abortion (such as gender selection), but people who believe that abortion can just 'end' are not being realistic: not unless contraception becomes 100% effective, and comprehensive evidence-based sex education comes with it. Abortion would continue even if it were outlawed – it would just mean more women dying from unsafe abortions, still one of the leading causes of maternal death in the world. A recent World Health Organization report showed that stronger abortion laws do not necessarily mean fewer terminations: in fact Western European nations with liberal abortion laws often have lower abortion rates than countries with much stricter regulation.

The best way to reduce abortion rates is by making good contraceptive advice and services available, yet the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) and other fundamentalist groups want less sex education, not more, and deny evidence that conflicts with their position: in response to the mass of evidence in the WHO report, SPUC merely stated that it wasn't true.

�

At the Pro-Choice Parliamentary Meeting, an anti-choice regular showed up. He appeared to be the same man who was getting in the faces of pro-choice supporters at the rally held against 40 Days for Life a few months ago. In Parliament he was given his five minutes to speak, encouraging us to have 'open minds' and engage in debate, having helpfully printed off a 30-page document outlining his position. For some flavour:

2.13: Life is a process, but how does that prevent its having a definite beginning? A cricket match is a process, and it also has a definite beginning.

Yes. The miracle of cricket. I mean conception. They are so similar, I easily mix them up.

5.1: The ovum and sperm are each a product of another's body; unlike the conceptus, neither is an independent entity. The fictitious organisation (or sect!?) that holds that 'every sperm is sacred' does not exist; until it is traced, that slogan is a straw man, an Aunt Sally.

Someone clearly missed out on some important and educational Monty Python viewing!

22.6: Knowledge of legal history can put abortion in perspective. If it has been legal for one single generation, it has been illegal for thousands of generations. How much of a blip, therefore, is the one single generation.

Actually, no. Abortion has been legal for centuries - the acts legislating against abortion only started appearing in the 19th century. It is the illegality that is the blip. The history of abortion and contraception (not to mention irreligion, which is my area of research), heavily revolve around class. Charges of obscenity for publication of birth control material usually were directed at information for the lower class. There were well-known abortifacients that were regularly and openly publicized in 19th century magazines. Aristotle's Politics allows abortion, the Bible only views potential children as property, and English common law allowed abortion before the 'quickening' (when you could feel the foetus move).

23:1 - Major polls clearly indicate that the majority, not the minority, believe that there should be greater restrictions on abortion. Recently: just over 80 percent in the UK.

Recent polls, say the opposite is true.

This rather unpleasant fellow argued with us at the end of the pro-choice meeting, but anything we tried to say was roundly shouted down with: "You don't have an answer then!" Which was true – we don't have an answer for the 'facts' that they will accept, when any intrusion of reality is not acceptable to them.

There are some things those of us who support choice can do. The first is to get active - when you see anti-choice groups like 40 Days for Life or Abort69 in your community, follow the example of the Bloomsbury Pro-Choice Alliance and be a supporting force to be seen and heard. This is going to be absolutely essential when the impacts of the Health and Social Care Act are fully implemented. Outsourcing of contraception services to the lowest bidder? I'm sure abstinence-only education doesn't cost much.

The anti-choice movement isn't growing - polls show that a steady 17% or so of people are opposed to abortion or want to restrict the time limits further. They do, however, get a lot of money from organisations in the US. We need to have a voice in response, reminding our politicians and our media that pro-choice is the majority opinion.

Join or donate to groups like Education for Choice and Abortion Rights, remembering that even though we might be happy with our access to abortion in London, Liverpool or Manchester, this may not apply to women in rural and remote areas of the UK. We need national pressure groups like Abortion Rights to ensure that everyone has access to safe abortion services, no matter where they live.

But it's not enough to defend what we have. It's time to be pro-active. There are certain things that need to change.

There was the recent unnecessary, sinister and intrusive mass inspection of abortion providers forced upon the Care Quality Commission by Andrew Lansley, at the cost of a million pounds. It raised the question: why do we still need two doctors to sign off on an abortion? What other procedures involve the consent of two doctors? At first a prop to pass the 1968 act, I think its time to legislate against that need.

Another suggestion is that early abortions should be able to be carried out in the comfortable surroundings of the home, rather than in a clinical setting. It is rather strange to think that women can give birth at home, but not have an abortion there. And why, in 2012, do women in Northern Ireland have to pay for abortion provision and travel to another city, another country, while women in other parts of the UK have full access?

One in three women will have an abortion in their reproductive life. How many women do you know? Imagine a loved one being put in the stressful situation of choosing whether or not to have an abortion. Now imagine how much more stressful that would be if she had to face protestors when seeking advice, risked being misled by anti-choice 'independent' counselling, or lived under the threat of her private medical details being revealed through hacking.

The culture of bullying and silence needs to change - it is only this way that the anti-choice movement will lose the influence it still clings to. When women don't feel shamed into silence for exercising control over their bodies, or guilt-tripped into believing their decision is a tragedy, then we might save future generations from fighting the same fight.

�

Liz Lutgendorff (@sillypunk) is a PhD student studying the history of the UK secular movement, and the Deputy Editor of the Pod Delusion podcast.

Some important pro-choice groups that you can support are: Abortion Support Network, Abortion Rights, Family Planning Association,
BPAS, Marie Stopes, Education for Choice and Antenatal Results and Choices.

** (An Ursuline Religious, "'Movies' and the Young," The Catholic Mind 18 (22 Apr. 1918): 197)

@mjrobbins

We applaud the National Autistic Society report, which echoes what so many families we work with tell us here at Autistica, the UK's largest autism research charity (Special needs kids deserve better than a rush to reform, 21 May). We know that early support can ameliorate the negative aspects of autism, dramatically improving quality of life and reducing distress for individuals and their families. But despite this, a third of families wait over three years for a diagnosis – missing out on vital support at the most crucial time. It is no wonder one in ten families have to resort to paying for a private diagnosis. It is clearly urgent that we both improve diagnostic methods and ensure that these are readily available to clinicians. Recently published research funded by Autistica found neurological signs of autism in infants as young as six months, helping us to understand the development of the condition. Further investment in research is clearly needed so that we can continue to explore earlier signs and the biological basis of autism with a view to providing effective treatments and interventions at a much earlier stage. Over 600,000 people in the UK deserve to have their condition understood. It is only with robust peer reviewed scientific research that we will be able to offer earlier diagnosis, effective support and proper understanding.
Christine Swabey
Chief executive, Autistica

This secretive little Peruvian mystery bird was only recently described

Inca wren, Pheugopedius eisenmanni (protonym, Thryothorus eisenmanni), Parker, TA & O'Neill, 1985, photographed on the north side of Abra Malaga, Cusco department, Peru (South America).

Image: Nick Athanas/Tropical Birding, 12 March 2012 (with permission, for GrrlScientist/Guardian use only) [velociraptorise].
Canon EOS 7D, 400 mm f/6.3 at 1/200 sec, iso800

Question: This secretive little Peruvian mystery bird was only recently described. Yet despite its air of mystery, it is known for a special talent. What talent is that? Can you identify this bird's taxonomic family and species?

Response: It seems like I've been favouring wrens lately, huh? It's easy to be fond of wrens because they are so interesting and personable, and because they are such gifted singers.

This is an adult Inca wren, Pheugopedius eisenmanni, a recently described species that is endemic to a small area of Peru. They are shy little birds that are found only in montane bamboo scrub and bamboo temperate forest in the immediate vicinity of the ruins of Machu Picchu, Peru.

Inca wrens were recently removed from Thryothorus into Pheugopedius, both of which are in the Troglodytidae family. They are some of the most accomplished singers in the bird world. Inca wrens live in small family groups of 2-6 birds and both males and females sing loudly in a highly coordinated vocal chorus to defend their territories. Each individual bird makes its own specific contribution to the overall song chorus. Other species within the genus also produce their own (different) song choruses to defend territories.

Currently, the Inca wren and its congeners are being recorded whilst they sing and these audio recordings are being analysed for comparative studies of the entire genus. Here's one of those mp3 recordings of an Inca wren chorus, recorded at Machu Picchu:

[recordist]

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You are invited to review all of the daily mystery birds by going to their dedicated graphic index page.

If you have bird images, video or audio files that you'd like to share with a large and (mostly) appreciative international audience here at the Guardian, feel free to contact me to learn more.

.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..

twitter: @GrrlScientist
facebook: grrlscientist
Pinterest: grrlscientist
email: grrlscientist@gmail.com

Elon Musk of SpaceX received a congratulatory call from Barack Obama after the Dragon's flawless launch on Wednesday

A private unmanned space ship has successfully completed a flypast of the International Space Station, in advance of a docking planned for Friday.

The SpaceX Dragon capsule performed a practice lap around the orbiting laboratory and checked out its communication and navigation systems.

Officials at the US space agency, Nasa, and the SpaceX company said the rendezvous went well, although test results still were being analyzed.

It is the first US craft to visit the space station since Nasa's shuttles retired last summer and the first private spacecraft to ever attempt a delivery. The Dragon is carrying 1,000 pounds (453 kilograms) of provisions.

The space station astronauts struggled with bad computer monitors and camera trouble as the Dragon zoomed toward them, but the problem did not hold up the operation.

The astronauts successfully turned on Dragon's strobe light by remote control, but could not see it because of the sun glare and distance. The Dragon finally popped into camera view about 10 minutes later, appearing as a bright speck of light against the blackness of space, near the Earth's blue horizon. The two solar wings were clearly visible as the Dragon drew closer.

"Can nicely see the vehicle," Dutch spaceman Andre Kuipers said.

On Friday, two of the space station's six astronauts, Kuipers and Donald Pettit, will use the space station's robot arm to grab the Dragon and attach it to the complex. The crew will have a week to unload the contents before releasing the spacecraft for re-entry. It is the only supply ship designed to return to Earth with experiments and equipment; the others burn up in the atmosphere.

SpaceX's objective is to help stockpile the space station, joining Russia, Europe and Japan in resupply duties. In three or four more years, however, the California-based company run by the billionaire who co-founded PayPal, Elon Musk, hopes to be launching station astronauts.

It is the cornerstone of President Barack Obama's strategy for Nasa: turning over orbital flights to private business so the space agency can concentrate on destinations farther afield, like asteroids and Mars.

Obama called Musk on Wednesday, a day after Dragon's flawless launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida. "The president just called to say congrats. Caller ID was blocked, so at first I thought it was a telemarketer," Musk said via Twitter early Thursday.

Musk monitored Thursday's operation from the SpaceX Mission Control in California.

The space station and Dragon will be visible from select locations on Earth in the pre-dawn hours Friday. Among the many US cities with viewing opportunities, if skies are clear, are New York, Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago and Jacksonville, Florida.

Italian doctors implant titanium pump weighing only 11 grams to keep infant alive until donor was found for transplant

Italian doctors have saved the life of a 16-month-old boy by implanting the world's smallest artificial heart to keep the infant alive until a donor was found for a transplant.

The doctors at Rome's Bambino Gesù hospital said the operation was carried out last month and made public this week. The baby, whose identity has not been disclosed, was kept alive for 13 days before the transplant and is now doing well.

The baby was suffering from dilated myocardiopathy, a heart muscle disease which normally causes stretched or enlarged fibres of the heart. The disease gradually makes the heart weaker, stopping its ability to pump blood effectively.

"This is a milestone," surgeon Antonio Amodeo told Reuters television, adding that while the device was now used as bridge leading to a transplant, in the future it could be permanent.

Before the implant, the child also had a serious infection around a mechanical pump that had been fitted earlier to support the function of his natural heart.

"From a surgical point of view, this was not really difficult. The only difficulty that we met is that the child was operated on several times before," he said.

The tiny titanium pump weighs only 11 grams and can handle a blood flow of 1.5 litres a minute. An artificial heart for adults weighs 900 grams.

Amodeo said the baby had become family and his team wanted to do everything to help him.

"The patient was in our intensive care unit since one month of age. So he was a mascot for us, he was one of us," the doctor said.

"Every day, every hour, for more than one year he was with us. So when we had a problem we couldn't do anything more than our best," he said.

Doctors said the device, invented by American doctor Robert Jarvik, had been previously tested only on animals.

The hospital needed special permission from Jarvik and the Italian health ministry before going ahead with the procedure.

Even though this Spanish mystery bird comes from a large family, few of its fellow family members reside in Europe

Mystery Bird photographed Ríospaso in the Principality of Asturias, Spain (Europe). [I will identify this bird in 49 or so hours]

Image: David �lvarez, 4 July 2007 (with permission, for GrrlScientist/Guardian use only) [velociraptorise].
Canon EOS 400D Digital, iso:200, 300 mm, f/11.0, 1/200 sec.

Question: Even though this Spanish mystery bird comes from a large family, few of its fellow family members reside in Europe. Why? Can you identify this mystery bird's taxonomic family and species?

The Game:

1. This is intended to be a learning experience where together we learn a few things about birds and about the process of identifying them (and maybe about ourselves, too).
2. Each mystery bird is usually accompanied by a question or two. These questions can be useful for identifying the pictured species, but may instead be used to illustrate an interesting aspect of avian biology, behaviour or evolution, or to generate conversation on other topics, such as conservation or ethics.
3. Thoughtful comments will add to everyone's enjoyment, and will keep the suspense going until the next teaser is published. Interesting snippets may add to the knowledge of all.
4. Each bird species will be demystified approximately 49 hours after publication.

The Rules:

1. Keep in mind that people live in zillions of different time zones, and some people are following on their smart phones. So let everyone play the game. Don't spoil it for everyone else by providing the bird's common or scientific names in the first 24 to 36 hours.
2. If you know the mystery bird's identity, answer the accompanying questions and provide subtle ID hints that may be helpful clues for less experienced players. Keep in mind that some hints, such as puns and anagrams, may read like "inside jokes" and thus, may discourage others from participating.
3. Describe the key field marks that distinguish this species from any similar ones.
4. Comments that spoil others' enjoyment may be deleted.

.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..

You are invited to review all of the daily mystery birds by going to their dedicated graphic index page.

If you have bird images, video or audio files that you'd like to share with a large and (mostly) appreciative international audience here at the Guardian, feel free to contact me to learn more.

.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..

twitter: @GrrlScientist
facebook: grrlscientist
Pinterest: grrlscientist
email: grrlscientist@gmail.com

SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule makes its first pass by the International Space Station, using GPS and data from the space station to manoeuvre to a point 1.6 miles away

The Porters are moving to Wales and satellite seems to be the only option for broadband. But how does it work, and how do they choose a supplier?

We have decided to leave the big city behind and move to a very remote location in Wales. After extensive research, it appears the only internet option is satellite broadband, but I am getting so confused by all the options such as renting the equipment, data allowances and different speeds etc. It would be greatly appreciated if you can explain the basics for us less technically minded folk. We currently use the internet to stay in contact with relatives, and a world without internet seems a dull one indeed!
Rob Porter

Satellites are used to broadcast radio and TV signals over a wide area. With UK services, this usually stretches from the bottom of Italy to the southern parts of Scandinavia, and as far west as Portugal. This is an efficient and cheap use of bandwidth. People who want to receive these broadcasts need a satellite dish to collect the signals, plus equipment to decode and display them – typically a TV set and a set-top box.

The same satellites also broadcast data to individual recipients. However, bandwidth is expensive and limited, so this is neither cheap nor efficient. It only makes sense because it can reach areas that are not served by landlines or even 3G mobile services. You can get satellite broadband almost anywhere, as long as you have a clear view to the south.

When I used Astra's satellite broadband service a decade or so ago, it was broadcast only: the back-channel for sending emails and requesting web pages was a dial-up modem connected to an ordinary phone line. Today's two-way satellite services use satmodems that can both send and receive data.

Also, today's satellite broadband services use variants of the DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting) technology developed for digital television. This is faster and can work with smaller dishes, typically 75cm rather than 1m to 2m across. Even so, speeds are much slower than you would get with ADSL2. Advertised download speeds range from 1Mbps to 10Mbps, with upload speeds of 128kbps to about 2Mbps.

The main drawbacks with satellite broadband are contention and latency. Contention comes from the fact that thousands of people may be trying to access the satellite "doorway" (perhaps a 4GB channel) at the same time. If there are more requests for data than the satellite can handle, some users have to wait. Against that, some services offer free data use during the night (after 11pm) when demand is low.

Latency comes from the fact that the signal has to travel about 36,000km up to the geostationary satellite, and 36,000km down to the ISP's server, so the round trip is 144,000km. This introduces the slight delay that is noticeable with satellite-connected phone calls. It makes satellite broadband unsuitable for fast-action games, but isn't a problem with most web pages. (Badly written web pages – ones that require dozens of server "hits" – can be a problem, but satellite service providers try to assemble whole pages before sending them.)

A third problem is that satellite connections can be affected by bad weather, though that shouldn't be much of a problem with modern equipment. Much the same technology is, after all, used for Sky television and Freesat.

To use satellite broadband, you will need a dish and a satmodem, but these can vary from service to service, so it's best to get the whole package from one supplier. You can either assemble and install the dish yourself, or have it done for you. I opted to have the whole thing installed and working. It's sufficiently complicated that I'd recommend this approach to anyone who doesn't know much about it. It's very easy to receive a satellite signal, but sending one requires a higher-quality dish and accurate alignment.

Making the purchase is also complicated. The best approach is to set up a spreadsheet of suppliers, check off the functions you need, and enter the prices.

The functions you should consider include upload and download speeds, the monthly data allowance, whether the service supports VoIP for making phone calls (possibly with a UK phone number), whether you get a British IP (internet protocol) address, and whether you can get any TV channels from the same dish. In my case, the IP address came from the Astra server in Luxembourg, so I wouldn't have had direct access to the BBCs iPlayer service, if it had existed at the time.

Check the limitations in the "fair use" policies and find out what happens if you go over your monthly data allowance, which might be anything from 2GB to 10GB per month. You may be able to buy top-ups for £15-£25 per gigabyte, or the service provider may allow you to keep using the service, but throttle the speed. You can usually start with a low-end package and upgrade it if you find you are using too much data.

Either way, bandwidth is expensive. Satellite connections are fine for daily email and web browsing, but a YouTube clip can easily consume 10MB to 50MB. Obviously, it would be foolish to use 2GB to download a single movie. Video chats and internet radio also consume a lot of bandwidth, and file-sharing is silly unless it's restricted to a free overnight service.

When it comes to pricing, you will need spreadsheet entries for the start-up costs – satellite dish, satmodem, installation, activation – and the running costs, ie the speed and bandwidth allowance per month. The startup costs can range from about £300 to more than £1,000, depending on the equipment. Some costs may be bundled into the monthly bills. This is much the same as getting a "free" £600 smartphone: you still pay £600 for it, but the cost is hidden in 24 monthly payments.

If you don't want to do the work, then BeyonDSL appears to be worth a go. Its ValuePlus services start at £14.99 per month for a 2GB allowance with a 2Mbps download speed, and go up to £49.99 per month for 12GB with download speeds of up to 10Mbps. Until 31 May, BeyonDSL is offering the hardware for £99.99 instead of £299.99, but that's for the DIY kit. A professional installation costs "from £89.99" and activation costs £50. Yes, it all adds up.

While you can use Skype and similar services with BeyonDSL, you can also get a dedicated VoIP service for an extra £6.99 per month. This sets up a separate channel so video chats do not come out of your monthly allowance.

The BeyonDSL website also has details of The Welsh Assembly Broadband Support Scheme. "Qualifying Welsh residents, businesses and 3rd sector organisations can apply for up to £1,000 for a satellite broadband installation from BeyonDSL," until the money runs out.

I haven't tried BeyonDSL, but the company is run by Mike Locke, whom I've known in a professional capacity for quite a long time. He worked for Amstrad in the 1990s before moving to Astra, where he supplied the satellite service I reviewed in the Guardian. He knows his stuff.

In any case, BeyonDSL's new "value" broadband service is actually based on the Astra2Connect service (aka SES Broadband) using the 28.2°E Astra 3 satellite. This means that if you want TV as well, you'll need a separate dish and a TV LNB for the 23.5°E Astra 2 satellite, or choose one of BeyonDSL's Broadband/TV packages. These cost from £24.99 to £69.99 per month.

Apogee Internet is an alternative provider of Astra2Connect services using the same satellites as BeyonDSL. Its Max Value home packages cost from £12.99 (2GB at 2Mbps) to £47.99 (10GB at 10Mbps) per month. Services that also include satellite TV cost from £17.99 to £65.99 per month.

A rival offering is the Tooway Direct service offered by Tariam Satellite Communications, which is a division of Satellite Solutions Worldwide Ltd. It sells home packages at prices from £24.99 to £99.99 per month. It also provides UK IP addresses. See the FAQ for more details.

Tooway costs more, but it's fast. It uses Eutelsat's new Ka-Sat (9° East) satellite, which is described as "the first High Throughput Satellite (HTS) in Europe." Business users can get download speeds of 40Mbps. (Ka-band satellites use a much higher frequency than Ku-band satellites and can carry much more data.)

Other companies also sell the Tooway service under their own brand names, if you don't want to go direct.

You may also find established satellite broadband services that use the Avanti Hylas-1 satellite at 33.5° West. Examples include Simply Balanced and Ethnet. You could include them in your spreadsheet, but they don't look particularly attractive compared to Astra2Connect and Tooway-based services.

One last point. When you move to Wales, ask around in the local post office, church, pub etc to find out if anyone already has satellite internet, what they think about it, and whether they would recommend a local installer. If you are lucky, that could be a simple way to solve the problem.

Single-seater aircraft with 207ft wingspan aims to reach Morocco via Madrid and is being seen as a trial for a round-the-world flight

An experimental solar-powered airplane took off from Switzerland on its first transcontinental flight on Thursday, aiming to reach North Africa next week.

Pilot Andre Borschberg will fly the jumbo jet-size Solar Impulse plane on its first leg to Madrid, Spain, by Friday. His colleague Bertrand Piccard will take the helm of the aircraft for the second stretch of its 1,554mile journey to the Moroccan capital Rabat.

Fog on the runaway at its home base in Payerne, Switzerland, delayed the take off by two hours, demonstrating how susceptible the prototype single-seater aircraft is to adverse weather.

"We can't fly into clouds because it was not designed for that," Borschberg said as he piloted the plane with its 63meter (207ft) wingspan towards the French city of Lyon at a cruising speed of just 43.5mph.

Before landing in Madrid in the early hours of Friday, Borschberg will face other challenges, including having to fly over the Pyrenees mountains that separate France and Spain. He has a parachute inside his tiny cabin that he hopes never to use.

Piccard – the son of an undersea explorer Jacques Piccard and grandson of balloonist Auguste Piccard – will have to cross the windy Straits of Gibraltar from Europe to Africa.

The team has been invited to Morocco by the country's King Mohammed VI to showcase the cutting edge of solar technology.

Morocco is about to start construction on a massive solar energy plant at Ouarzazate, part of a country-wide solar energy grid with a capacity of 2000MW by 2020.

The solar flight is described as a trial for a round-the-world flight with a new aircraft in 2014. That trip will include stops in the US, said Borschberg.

In 2010, the Swiss flew non-stop for 26-hour to demonstrate that the 12,000 solar cells attached to the aircraft can soak up enough sunlight to keep the plane airborne through the night. A year later, he took Solar Impulse on its first international flight to Belgium and France. The project began in 2003 and is estimated to cost about $100m (£67m) over 10 years.

Plant-monitoring app and hardware sensor aims to keep your foliage alive

Fourth up in our Apps Pitch series is Koubachi, one of the latest apps designed to work with a hardware accessory.

What does your app do?

Koubachi gives your plant a voice and yourself a green thumb! For every plant in our plant library, we have developed an individual care model that considers the species (a ficus has different needs than an orchid), the annual season and your location (climate zone).

You only need to calibrate your plant once and Koubachi will provide you with detailed care instructions in regards to when and how to care for your plant. Koubachi tells you when you need to water, fertilize or mist your beloved plants.

What platform(s) is it on, and what plans do you have for any others?

Koubachi is currently available as an iPhone app and as a web app (my.koubachi.com). A native Android version is currently in development and will be released in late summer. You can also use Koubachi in Facebook as a Facebook app. We started with iOS because it had a big momentum when we started with the app.

What's the business model and why did you choose it?

Great news - the app is actually free - and no ads or in-app purchases to bother users at the moment either. We are a startup active in the field of Internet of Things/Smart Objects and just launched the complementary Koubachi Wi-Fi Plant Sensor that seamlessly integrates into the system.

With the sensor, you will get even more precise care instructions and specific alerts measuring soil moisture, light intensity and temperature. Unfortunately, we can not give away the sensor for free - it retails for £99.

But don't get us wrong, you can still use the app without a sensor – but only with the sensor do you get real time information on the plant's vitality, the most precise water instructions, light and temperature alerts.

Why is the app innovative - what are the key features that you think set it apart and/or make best use of the platform?

Koubachi really makes plant care easy and fun. If you don't have green fingers, just rely on Koubachi for your plants and enjoy healthy and blossoming plants in no time.

The plant care models were developed and verified in cooperation with plant physiologists from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology - drawing on this model, our Plant Care Engine will calculate a care model tailored to your individual plant and tell you how and when to care for it.

At the moment, we have more than 400 plants in the library and we are upgrading it on a continuous basis – the goal being 800-1,000 plants by the end of the year.

We also put a lot of emphasis on a nice and clean user interface. Device-wise, we will further experiment with our ultra-low power Wi-Fi model (runs over 1 year with 2x AA batteries) and may think of a satellite version.

What's the competition like - what else is out there in this area?

There are very few plant care apps out there. However, most of them are based on a simple calendar and made in quite a technical way, which might work if you are already a garden aficionado. We want to give green fingers to everybody and make plant care a simpler, yet more powerful and a fun user experience.

What are your future plans?

We'd like to integrate a plant doctor into the app as well, so that we can also provide the users with alerts and information on possible diseases of your plant.

We also learnt that quite a few people don't know the name of the plant as they may have received it as a gift. So we work on building a easy and fun game into the app that provides you with the name of the plant, drawing on vast community knowledge.

Tell me about yourself and your company

We are a startup company based in Switzerland and the team consists of 10 dedicated people. Koubachi was founded during the dissertation project of the two founders. They furnished their office with a nice plant but did not have an idea how to take care of it or forgot to care for it.

As the founders were studying computer science, they thought there must be a better solution for this problem and voila: Koubachi was born.

Koubachi started out in 2009 and the app was then launched in Fall 2010. Our newest baby, the Koubachi Wi-Fi Plant Sensor was only born, i.e. launched recently.

An iPhone, ice bucket and an Observer columnist all featured in Campbell's first tweeted dream – what can it all mean?

In a world where psychoanalysis is largely out of favour, it's nice to hear that some people are still inclined to ascribe significance to dreams. Alastair Campbell has tweeted what he rather quaintly refers to as his "first iPhone dream".

My first iPhone dream. Was teaching Bill Keegan of Observer to use one and the keys all fell into an ice bucket as I touched them

— Alastair Campbell (@campbellclaret) May 23, 2012

I don't know how many iPhone dreams the average user can expect to have, but I'm glad he's over the initial hurdle.

As anyone who has ever attempted to jot down a dream knows, it can be extremely difficult to put your chimerical sleep ideas into words. What makes sense as a warpy dream image often evaporates the minute you try to shoehorn it into a readable sentence. To compress a dream into 140 characters is a cunning feat in itself. Campbell's description is admirably succinct: "My first iPhone dream. Was teaching Bill Keegan of Observer to use one and the keys all fell into an ice bucket as I touched them".

While I'd normally be reluctant to attempt to analyse the dream of someone I know little more about than, "likes the Labour party, writes, swears a lot", he did put it on Twitter so he may very well have expected people to say something back …

It's tempting to see this as a technologised version of the classic teeth-falling-out dream. The standard reading of the teeth dream would be that it's a metaphor for castration. (This, of course, is confusing because castration here is a metaphor in itself. It doesn't mean your nanny threatening to chop your bits off if you touch them; it may simply refer to a general sense that things don't quite hang together.) It wouldn't be at all strange for an iPhone user to conflate their phone with a body part. An iPhone is, after all, basically a prosthetic brain. When I left my iPhone in a hotel bed last summer I had to spend the rest of my holiday barred from access to both useful and useless facts (ferry times, names of Jefferson Starship songs) outraged by the limits of the pathetic piece of meat inside my skull.

In this dream, what's particular about the falling teeth/keys is that they tumble into an ice bucket, in the company of the Observer's senior economist. I wouldn't want to leap to any conclusions about the ice bucket beyond noting that it would generally be for white wine, while the Burnley fan's Twitter name is @campbellclaret, and that he famously doesn't drink. But it can't be an accident that the dream features an economist watching something falling apart. Like most of us, perhaps, Campbell's sleep may be less easy in the face of the fact that global finances are not exactly hanging together.

Whether you consider dreams to be random clusters of recently encountered ideas, deeply meaningful formulations concerning the interface between the external world and our unconscious, or even prophesies of things to come, let's hope Alastair Campbell's next iPhone dream is a little less chilling.

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Heartland president admits advertisment comparing believers in human-made climate change to psychopaths has taken a toll

The ultra-conservative Heartland Institute admitted it was in financial crisis on Wednesday, with the flight of corporate donors making it difficult to pay staff or cover the costs of its annual conference aimed at debunking climate science.

In a speech at the close of this year's climate conference, Heartland's president, Joseph Bast, acknowledged that a provocative ad campaign comparing believers in human-made climate change to psychopaths had exacted a heavy cost.

However, Bast also attributed Heartland's current problems to his weakness in financial management.

"These conferences are expensive, and I'm not a good fundraiser so as a result I don't raise enough money to cover them. We really scramble to make payroll as a result to cover these expenses," Bast said.

"If you can afford to make a contribution please do. If you know someone, if you've got a rich uncle or somebody in the family or somebody that you work with, please give them a call and ask them if they would consider making a tax-deductible contribution to the Heartland Institute."

The organisation has lost at least $825,000 in funds from corporate donors although Heartland also claims to have attracted 800 new small donors. Heartland also came in for bruising criticism from its own allies – a number of whom faulted Bast for failing to consult Heartland's colleagues or board members about the ads in advance.

Among ultra-conservative activists, the billboard controversy has shaken confidence in Heartland's ability to serve as the hub of the climate contrarian network. It has also raised doubts about Bast's leadership. Bast is listed on Heartland's website as its earliest employee. His wife is also employed at Heartland.

But Heartland was facing a cash crunch even before the Gleick expose.

Nine employees were due to be laid or take pay cuts in 2011, according to the budget documents obtained by Gleick.

This year's conference was a drastically shrunken version of earlier Heartland gatherings, which attracted up to 800 attendees and ran several concurrent sessions. Those events were also lucrative for Heartland, accounting for half of its non-fundraising events revenue, according to documents obtained through deception by the scientist Peter Gleick.

At this year's gathering in Chicago, fewer than 170 turned up for the gala opening banquet, and the conference only managed to eke out one session at a time, and brought in relatively few outside speakers.

And the only member of Congress to attend this year, conservative Republican Jim Sensenbrenner, used his speech to criticise Heartland for the billboard.

"We can continue to win these debates out of the strength of our arguments without recourse to unsavoury tactics that only serve to distract from our message," he said. "Let's not get off message."

Heartland initially had not even planned to hold a conference. But after the organisation was shaken last February by the internet sting exposing its donor list and fundraising strategy, Heartland changed its mind.

However, Bast said Heartland may stop putting on the conferences. "I hope to see you at a future conference, but at this point we have no plans to do another."

Health Protection Agency confirms potentially fatal disease in patient who was bitten by a dog in south Asia

A case of rabies has been confirmed in the UK, the Health Protection Agency (HPA) said on Wednesday. The potentially fatal disease was confirmed in a patient from London who was bitten by a dog in south Asia.

The patient, whose age and gender were not given, is receiving hospital treatment and all relevant contacts have been followed up, the HPA said.

Dr Brian McCloskey, director of the HPA for London, said: "It is important to stress that there is no risk to the general public as a result of this case or to patients and visitors at the hospital where the patient is receiving treatment.

"Despite there being tens of thousands of rabies cases each year worldwide, there have been no documented laboratory confirmed cases of human-to-human spread.

"Therefore the risk to other humans or animals from a patient with rabies is considered negligible.

"However, to take every possible precaution, family members and healthcare staff who had close contact with the patient since they became unwell – which is when they are infectious – have been assessed and offered vaccination if appropriate."

Rabies is usually transferred through saliva from the bite of an infected animal, with dogs being the most common transmitters to humans.

More than 55,000 people are estimated to die from rabies every year, with most cases occurring in developing countries, particularly south and south-east Asia.

Rabies has been eliminated from the animal population in the UK and human rabies is extremely rare here – the last time it was caught in the British isles was in 1902. Since then it has only been acquired abroad, mainly through dog bites, with 24 cases reported since 1946.

Professor David Brown, a rabies expert at the HPA, said only four cases of human rabies acquired from dogs have been identified since 2000, all occurring abroad.

He said: "Rabies is an acute viral infection, which is extremely rare in the United Kingdom.

"It is essential to get health advice if you are travelling to countries where rabies is common or if you know you will be working with animals.

"All travellers to a rabies-endemic country should avoid contact with cats, dogs and other animals wherever possible as you cannot be certain that there is no risk.

"Rabies vaccine is extremely effective at preventing rabies if you are bitten even when this is given some time after an exposure. If you do not seek medical treatment while abroad, you should still seek it when you come home."

Doctors dispute results but advise people not to take supplements unless required for medical condition

Calcium supplements can almost double the risk of a heart attack, according to new research, and should be "taken with caution" and only for medical reasons, such as to prevent bone thinning. The study contradicts the commonly held belief that consuming extra calcium can help prevent heart disease or a stroke.

The findings are based on a study of the calcium intake of 23,980 men and women in Heidelberg, Germany, who were aged 35-64 when they joined a local cohort of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study in 1994-98. Researchers checked participants' health for 11 years afterwards, during which time 354 of them had a heart attack and 260 a stroke and there were 267 associated deaths. They also tracked how much calcium they consumed from any source.

They found that people who used calcium supplements regularly were 86% more likely to suffer a heart attack than those who did not.

This constituted "a statistically significantly increased myocardial infarction [heart attack] risk in comparison with non-users of any supplements", say the four co-authors led by Professor Sabine Rohrmann, from Zurich University's institute of social and preventative medicine.

Those who obtained their calcium exclusively from supplements were 2.7 times more likely than non-users to experience a heart attack, they say in their research paper, published in the medical journal Heart.

"Increasing calcium intake from diet might not confer significant cardiovascular benefits, while calcium supplements, which might raise MI risk, should be taken with caution," they conclude.

In an editorial in the journal two professors from Auckland University warn that the safety of calcium supplements "is now coming under increasing scrutiny". Previous research has linked them to kidney stones and gut and abdominal symptoms, they say.

"Calcium supplements have been widely embraced by doctors and the public on the grounds that they are a natural and therefore safe way of preventing osteoporotic fractures. It is now becoming clear that taking this micronutrient in one or two daily [doses] is not natural, in that it does not reproduce the same metabolic effects as calcium in food," they say.

"We have good evidence that calcium is good for bones. Calcium is important for other organs, including the heart," said Dr Kevin Fox, the Royal College of Physicians' spokesman on cardiology, who added that the study's findings should be "treated cautiously".

But he added: "The message is that if you have a medical need to take calcium supplements to protect your bones, you should do so and there is good evidence to support this. If you have no medical need, then just stick to a healthy mixed diet and don't take unnecessary supplements."

Natasha Stewart, a senior cardiac nurse with the British Heart Foundation (BHF), said supplements did not necessarily lead to heart attacks.

"This research indicates that there may be an increased risk of having a heart attack for people who take calcium supplements. However, this does not mean that these supplements cause heart attacks," she said.

Further research was now needed "to determine whether potential risks of the supplements outweigh the benefits calcium can give sufferers of conditions such as osteoporosis. If you have been prescribed calcium supplements, you should still keep taking your medication, but speak to your doctor if you have any concerns", she said.

Dr Claire Bowring, of the National Osteoporosis Society, also urged cautious use of supplements. "This study further highlights the need for care when considering taking calcium supplements. If you get all of the calcium that you need from your diet then a supplement will not be necessary. Boosting calcium beyond recommended levels has no extra benefit for bones.

"Supplementation may be warranted if you are unable to get enough calcium in your diet, but it needs to be done with consideration", she said.

Anyone with a heart condition or who is at risk of a heart attack should talk to their doctor before deciding whether or not to use calcium supplements, she added.

I agree with Marina Hyde (Love London 2012, if only for the madness and the mirth, 19 May), but we don't need to wait until the opening of the Games to start laughing at ourselves. The farce that is the torch relay, with the worship of "The Flame" elevated to a new religion, the deity being adored at every stage from its arrival in the country on its own jet to the almost mass hysteria of the TV coverage of its journey around the country, could have been written by Sacha Baron Cohen or the Monty Python team. I particularly like the idea that there are actually several reserve flames in case the main one goes out. It would be hilarious were it not for the cost of the exercise to taxpayers.
Dr John Davies
Kirkby in Cleveland, North Yorkshire

• The container of the Olympic flame flown into the UK is actually a Davy lamp, invented by Sir Humphry Davy 200 years ago to prevent explosions in coalmines. Why was the use of this great British invention not more applauded?
Dr RG Richer
Bovey Tracey, Devon

A solitary Lady's Slipper, found in the Dales years after the species was declared extinct, has a growing family through propagation. Some of them are about to allow us a peep.

Orchids are notoriously the cause of passion and crime and their protection is among the closest in the plant world.

That hasn't always been successful, but it has worked with the wild Lady's Slipper orchid which was thought to have become extinct towards the end of the First World War.

As so often happens, given the relatively small number of people who knowledgeably look out for such things, it was then rediscovered - in 1930 at a site in the Dales which remains secret. Since then, careful propagation from this solitary parent has gradually increased the plant's UK population, with sites for new stock regularly and carefully chosen in the north of England.

One of them is Kilnsey Park in the brooding shadow of Kilnsey Crag, that famous rock feature of Wharfedale which made a fleeting appearance in this week's 56 Up on TV, because one of the children who have been followed by cameras for all these years, Nick Hitchon, grew up on a farm nearby. The park has seven other types of orchid among 150 different wildlflowers on its two hectare site.

All of them will be up for careful inspection at the first Wild About Orchids Festival which is being held at the park between between 4 and 10 June. Other attractions include the red squirrels which are part of a national breeding and reintroduction scheme and an orchid-themed (but not -consuming) high tea.

The Lady's Slipper, Cypripedium calceolus, has always been prized for its prettiness and curious shape and was sought after by collectors as early as the first decade of the 17th century. In Victorian times, farmers used to bring them from the Dales to Skipton and Settle markets to sell to curio hunters from Bradford and Leeds.

The original plant's site is protected by the Cypripedium Committee which oversees all matters related to the Lady's Slipper in conjunction with the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. Kilnsey Park was once part of the vast estates of Fountains abbey and later passed to Sir James Roberts, who revived Sir Titus Salt's vast alpaca mill at Saltaire in the early 20th century and gave the pleasant Roberts Park to the model industrial village - which is now a World Heritage Site.

Kilnsey's manager Jamie Roberts, the fourth generation of the family to live and work on the estate, is well-suited to orchid guardianship. His last job was director of the national trust on St Helena, where he helped to save the even rarer Bastard Gumwood tree from extinction. He says:

The Lady's Slipper is a particular passion and fascination of mine and has been since childhood. I remember vividly being taken to see the orchid when I was a young boy. I wasn't told where I was being taken only that it was a very special plant and that I couldn't tell anyone else about it. Even at a young age the flower struck me as being incredibly beautiful. I'm one of the lucky ones, because even today the site remains a secret to all but a handful of conservationists.

Schmidt warns about rise of censorship and government cybercrime in speech at London's Science Museum

Nations that carry out cybercrimes and wreak online havoc pose the greatest threat to the future of the internet, the chairman of Google has warned.

In a speech delivered at London's Science Museum on Wednesday, Eric Schmidt said the internet would be vulnerable for at least 10 years, and that every node of the public web needed upgrading to protect against crime. Fixing the problem was a "huge task" as the internet was built "without criminals in mind" he said.

"While threats come from individuals and even groups of people, the biggest problem will be activities stemming from nations that seek to do harm. It is very difficult to identify the source of cyber-criminality and stop it," he said.

The Google chairman raised a series of fears in a speech that announced a new initiative to send teachers into UK schools to teach computer science, and called for more people to enter science and engineering to drive industry.

Speaking at the museum, Schmidt said he worried about the permanence of information on the internet and its impact on individuals in future. "The fact that there is no delete button on the internet forces public policy choices we had never imagined," he said. "A false accusation in your youth used to fade away; now it can remain forever."

Schmidt also used his speech to warn about the rise in governments that censor online material, up from four a decade ago to at least 40 today. Through filtering, governments could build their own "Balkanised web", where people saw different information online depending on who and where they were, without anyone knowing what had been censored.

"Make no mistake, this is a fight for the future of the web, and there is no room for complacency," he said.

Last year in the annual MacTaggart lecture, Schmidt was highly critical of Britain's failure to teach computer programming in schools. Continuing the theme at the Science Museum, he blamed a lack of exposure to computer science in secondary schools, where only 4,000 students studied the subject in 2011, making up less than half a percent of that year's A-level results.

A January report from the Royal Society agreed there was a shortage of teachers equipped to teach the nuts and bolts of computer science, from computer architecture to the concept of an algorithm and writing software. Since then, the education secretary, Michael Gove, has scrapped the existing ICT curriculum, freeing schools to teach a broader mix of computer science and programming.

Schmidt conceded that "rebooting computer science education" would not be straightforward, and announced plans to fund a training scheme for teachers to help improve Britain's failing computer science education system.

Working with the charity Teach First, Schmidt said the first batch of 100 "first-rate" teachers would be trained this summer and have bursaries to buy teaching aids, such as cheap Raspberry Pi or Arduino computer starter kits. They will receive on-the-job mentoring and training for a further two years. The Google project aims to help around 20,000 pupils from the most disadvantaged communities.

A vocal champion of engineering, in his speech on Wednesday Schmidt also emphasised the need to dispel the "oily rag stereotype" view of engineers. Research by Intel in the US, he said, found that two thirds of teenagers never considered a career in engineering. But simply learning about their roles in making video games and social networking, and in high-profile incidents such as the rescue of the Chilean miners, made half reconsider.

"Put simply, technology breakthroughs can't happen without the scientists and engineers to make them. The challenge society faces is to equip enough people, with the right skills and mindset, and to get them to work on the most important problems.

"This is where education comes in. Great scientists are a rare breed, so the more who study science, the greater chance of finding those for whom it becomes a vocation. Although there are some signs of progress, so long as more kids aspire to win X Factor than win a Nobel Prize, there's room to improve," Schmidt said.

Last year, Google donated more than £1m to the Science Museum to fund a gallery on the history of communications, from telegraphs to tweets. Part of the money has funded an exhibition devoted to the life and legacy of Alan Turing, often described as the "father of the computer", which opens next month. Among the exhibits will be installations that anyone in the world can control over the internet, including one that allows people to make music through remote controlled robotic instruments.

This North American mystery bird has a distinctive behaviour that is thought to be associated with predators

Marsh wren, Cistothorus palustris (synonym, Telmatodytes palustris; protonym, Certhia palustris), Wilson, A., 1810, also known as the long-billed marsh wren, and more uncommonly as the eastern marsh wren and as the tule wren, photographed in Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge near Anahuac, Texas (North America).

Image: Joseph Kennedy, 10 May 2012 (with permission, for GrrlScientist/Guardian use only) [velociraptorise].
Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope with TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/640s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400

Question: This North American mystery bird has a distinctive behaviour that is thought to be associated with predators. What behaviour is that? Might this behaviour have any other functions? What might those be? Can you identify this bird's taxonomic family and species?

Response: This small bird is an adult marsh wren, Cistothorus palustris. This bird is placed into the Troglodytidae, or the family of true wrens, which are primarily a New World passerine family.

Marsh wrens are widely ranging birds that breed in marshy areas with tall vegetation, especially cattails. Some birds may be residents, but most migrate south to marshes or salt marshes in the southern United States and in Mexico. They are small, often secretive birds that remain hidden from view whilst they busily glean insects, spiders and snails from the stems of marsh vegetation. They sometimes also fly out from a perch to snatch a flying insect.

Marsh wrens are polygynous, and a male will mate with as many females as he can attract to his territory. Male marsh wrens construct between 14 and 22 "dummy nests" within their territory for prospective mates to choose from. Nests not used for breeding may be used for shelter throughout the year and may also serve to distract predators from finding the birds' real nest.

Here's a short video capturing a male building one of his many nests:

[video link]

Male marsh wrens, particularly those in western North America, are accomplished singers and have up to 200 songs they can sing. These birds are remarkable for being singing nearly continuously during the breeding season. I've even watched a few individuals singing whilst holding a wriggling spider in his bill!

Here's a video of a male singing some of his many buzzy songs:

[video link]

Adult males and females look alike. They have brown upperparts with a black-and-white striped patch on the back, a dark cap, a white supercilium over the eyes and a short, thin bill. They often hold their tail straight up, or over their back. The underparts are buffy and the throat and breast are white.

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You are invited to review all of the daily mystery birds by going to their dedicated graphic index page.

If you have bird images, video or audio files that you'd like to share with a large and (mostly) appreciative international audience here at the Guardian, feel free to contact me to learn more.

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Sea change and step-change are not the same thing

Last week Stephen Moss wrote in the Guardian about the Department of Transport's initiative to reduce the strain on London's transport network for the Olympics, Operation StepChange. It's a jolly pun, to be sure, but it's only going to add to the confusion in what is an already murky area.

In the past month, the Guardian has run stories featuring "step-changes" – real or desired – in attitudes to parenting, in aviation emission reductions, in investment in Tesco stores, in the way businesses engage with communities, in the fight against Somali pirates, in the way we give to charity, in thinking about renewable energy, in the way we save, in the operations of sectarian groups in Pakistan, and in aviation technology. Meanwhile, there were "sea changes" in European economic policy, commercial space flights, the fortunes of England's cricket team, the outlook of the people of Derry, the way we think about religion, global democracy, American opinions on same-sex marriage, attitudes to co-operatives of football fans, and Gunter Sachs's art-buying habits.

Should we be using these terms more carefully? Or are they, well, interchangeable?

Modern dictionaries define sea change variously as gradual change, magical change, and marked change. It's a Shakespearean coinage, from The Tempest:

Full fathom five thy father lies,

Of his bones are coral made,

Those are pearls that were his eyes,

Nothing of him that doth fade,

But doth suffer a sea-change,

into something rich and strange ...

There's no denying that a major transformation is taking place here – but it's also a slow one.

Step-change, in its metaphorical sense, seems to have been with us since the late 1990s. Again, the dictionaries are divided: some give "sudden change", some "significant change", others "noticeable improvement". But it's worth noting that the term came to us from physics, where it means "an abrupt change in a value", such as voltage (think of a square wave as opposed to a sine wave).

Anyone else see a useful distinction?

Good writing and editing should reflect current usage, not enforce it. But where current usage is muddled, it's worth advising caution. And on that note, two thoughts. Both sea change and step-change have acquired the musty tang of the buzzword; they're most often heard from the mouths of PR folk and politicians (Tony Blair is a particular fan of step-change).

And it's a sure sign that words are being overused when technically redundant intensifiers start being drafted in: "The script suffered considerable sea changes, particularly in structure" (Harold Pinter); "There would need to be a sudden step change in A-level take-up by boys and by poor students" (Higher Education Policy Institute); "a more radical step change in the way the public money is spent" (Scottish government website).

Might I humbly suggest, therefore, that from time to time we see changes that are wholesale, dramatic, comprehensive, sweeping, marked, momentous, profound, unprecedented, radical, large-scale, remarkable or complete? Or even some transformations, alterations, adjustments, evolutions, upheavals, shakeups, variations, overhauls, upgrades, reforms, renewals or quantum leaps?

You know, just for a change?

Andy Bodle blogs at www.womanology.co.uk

Twitter: @Cotquean

Sarcophagus containing bones of Roman woman and rodents that chewed her ankle go on show at Cambridge museum

The skeleton of a Roman woman and the bones of the mouse and shrew that gnawed her ankle in her coffin, inspiring one of Sylvia Plath's most haunting poems, have gone on display.

Plath saw the massive stone sarcophagus and its contents soon after it was excavated in the 1950s, when she was a student at Cambridge.

Staff at the university's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology mounted the rodent bones on a piece of card – also on display again – and showed them in the coffin alongside the remains of the middle-aged woman, which is grimacing as if in pain.

The viewing prompted Plath's 1957 poem All the Dead Dears, in which she describes "this antique museum-cased lady" and the "gimcrack" bones of the rodents "that battened for a day on her ankle-bone", and fears that the "barnacle dead", strangers or members of her family will drag her down and suck her life away. Six years later, the poet killed herself.

The sarcophagus, with its inner lead coffin, was one of a group of high-status burials discovered by chance by builders clearing land for a housing estate at Arbury, on the outskirts of Cambridge.

The curator, Mark Elliott, said: "People see the wealth of finds from Arbury, and the classical imagery and Latin inscriptions all over our buildings, and think – wow, Roman Cambridge must have been really something. But the truth is, the money was at places like Arbury, from anything we've found Roman Cambridge was a crossroads if that, a Little Chef halt on the main road to somewhere more important."

The sarcophagus was taken off display a generation ago due to overcrowding. Donations to the museum, founded in 1884, have poured in from academics and wealthy former students around the world, who have sent crates containing items such as a South Seas dragon with Chinese tea bowls for eyes; a group of freeze-dried 500-year-old potatoes from Peru; and a mysterious object believed to be a Viking ironing board.

Other unusual Roman finds include a pot considered so obscene by Victorian excavators that it was not listed among the discoveries from the site in Great Chesterford, Essex. The pot, believed to have been made near Peterborough, shows naked women driving a carriage pulled by four penises, with phalluses floating overhead.

Speculation that the item was a good luck symbol or fertility charm have been put forward, but the museum's director, Nick Thomas, is convinced the pot was created as a bawdy joke. "Other almost identical pots, but with conventional versions of the scene, are known. I think you'd have put the two side by side and people would have roared," he said.

Although twice as many objects are on display in the remodelled galleries, they represent less than 1% of the collection.

The museum's most precious new acquisition is a front door, the first in its 99-year history on the present site. The old entrance was a narrow, arched doorway in a turret in the corner of a courtyard. "The old entrance had its charm," Elliott admitted, "but we don't want to be Cambridge's best-kept secret anymore."

The Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge, free from Tuesday to Saturday from 25 May

In Great Britain, this mystery bird is beginning to eat a food that is new to the species

Mystery Bird photographed at Brereton Heath Local Nature Reserve, Cheshire, UK. [I will identify this bird in 49 or so hours]

Image: Roy Hill, 1 March 2012 (with permission, for GrrlScientist/Guardian use only) [velociraptorise].
Canon 5D mkII, Canon 500mm f/4L lens

Question: In Great Britain, this mystery bird is beginning to eat a food that is new to the species, and this is affecting one of its behaviours. What food is that? Which behaviour is being affected and how? Can you identify this bird's taxonomic family and species?

The Game:

1. This is intended to be a learning experience where together we learn a few things about birds and about the process of identifying them (and maybe about ourselves, too).
2. Each mystery bird is usually accompanied by a question or two. These questions can be useful for identifying the pictured species, but may instead be used to illustrate an interesting aspect of avian biology, behaviour or evolution, or to generate conversation on other topics, such as conservation or ethics.
3. Thoughtful comments will add to everyone's enjoyment, and will keep the suspense going until the next teaser is published. Interesting snippets may add to the knowledge of all.
4. Each bird species will be demystified approximately 49 hours after publication.

The Rules:

1. Keep in mind that people live in zillions of different time zones, and some people are following on their smart phones. So let everyone play the game. Don't spoil it for everyone else by providing the bird's common or scientific names in the first 24 to 36 hours.
2. If you know the mystery bird's identity, answer the accompanying questions and provide subtle ID hints that may be helpful clues for less experienced players. Keep in mind that some hints, such as puns and anagrams, may read like "inside jokes" and thus, may discourage others from participating.
3. Describe the key field marks that distinguish this species from any similar ones.
4. Comments that spoil others' enjoyment may be deleted.

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You are invited to review all of the daily mystery birds by going to their dedicated graphic index page.

If you have bird images, video or audio files that you'd like to share with a large and (mostly) appreciative international audience here at the Guardian, feel free to contact me to learn more.

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email: grrlscientist@gmail.com

Researchers push for end to publishers' default ban on computer scanning of tens of thousands of papers to find links between genes and diseases

Professor Peter Murray-Rust was looking for new ways to make better drugs. Dr Heather Piwowar wanted to track how scientific papers were cited and shared by researchers around the world. Dr Casey Bergman wanted to create a way for busy doctors and scientists to quickly navigate the latest research in genetics, to help them treat patients and further their research.

All of them needed access to tens of thousands of research papers at once, so they could use computers to look for unseen patterns and associations across the millions of words in the articles. This technique, called text mining, is a vital 21st-century research method. It uses powerful computers to find links between drugs and side effects, or genes and diseases, that are hidden within the vast scientific literature. These are discoveries that a person scouring through papers one by one may never notice.

It is a technique with big potential. A report published by McKinsey Global Institute last year said that "big data" technologies such as text and data mining had the potential to create €250bn (£200bn) of annual value to Europe's economy, if researchers were allowed to make full use of it.

Unfortunately, in most cases, text mining is forbidden. Bergman, Murray-Rust, Piwowar and countless other academics are prevented from using the most modern research techniques because the big publishing companies such as Macmillan, Wiley and Elsevier, which control the distribution of most of the world's academic literature, by default do not allow text mining of the content that sits behind their expensive paywalls.

Any such project requires special dispensation from – and time-consuming individual negotiations with – the scores of publishers that may be involved.

"That's the key fact which is halting progress in this field," said Robert Kiley, head of digital services at the Wellcome Trust. "For a lot of people, though there is promise there, the activation effort is just too great."

The restrictions placed by publishers on text mining has led campaigners to view the issue as another front in the battle to make fruits of publicly funded research work available through "open access", free at the point of use. That would allow researchers to mine the content freely without needing to request any extra permissions.

The scale of new information in modern science is staggering: more than 1.5m scholarly articles are published every year and the volume of data doubles every three years. No individual can keep up with such a volume, and scientists need computers to help them digest and make sense of the information.

Bergman, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Manchester, used text mining to create a tool to help scientists make sense of the ever-growing research literature on genetics. Though genetic sequences of living organisms are publicly available, discussions of what the sequences do and how they interact with each other sits within the text of scientific papers that are mostly behind paywalls.

Working with Max Haeussler, of the University of California, Santa Cruz, Bergman came up with Text2genome, which identifies strings of text in thousands of papers that look like the letters of a DNA sequence – a gene, say – and links together all papers that mention or discuss that sequence. Text2genome could allow a clinician or researcher who may not be an expert on a particular gene to access the relevant literature quickly and easily. Haeussler's attempts to scale up Text2genome, however, have hit a wall, and his blog is a litany of the problems in trying to gain permissions from the scores of publishers to download and add papers to the project. "If we don't have access to the papers to do this text mining, we can't make those connections," says Bergman.

Murray-Rust, a chemist at the University of Cambridge, has used text mining to look for ways to make chemical compounds, such as pharmaceuticals, more efficiently.

"If you have a compound you don't know how to make and it's similar to one you do know how to make, then the machine would be able to suggest a number of methods which would allow you to do it."

But, although his university subscribes to the journals he needs to do this work, he is forbidden from using the content in what he calls "a modern manner using machines".

A member of his research group accidentally tripped the alarms of a publisher's website when he downloaded several dozen papers at once from journals to which the university had already paid subscription fees. The publisher saw it as an attempt to illegally download content and immediately blocked access to its content for the entire university.

Asking for permission from publishers is an option, though time-consuming. The University of British Columbia (UBC) researcher, Heather Piwowar, was trying to map the ways scientists use and share papers.

She was eventually contacted by Alicia Wise, Elsevier's director of universal access, who convened a conference call with Piwowar, a UBC librarian and five Elsevier colleagues. That conversation led to permission for UBC researchers to text mine the Elsevier journals to which they already had access.

Piwowar said: "It takes a lot of time and a lot of energy and doesn't scale at all. To me it's a good result because now I have access to things I didn't have access to before and also it will also hopefully drive change by people saying, 'This is not an OK way to build on our scholarly literature.'"

Wise said that, in principle, her company was happy to enable text mining for its content. "We want to help researchers deepen their insight and understanding, we want to help them to advance science and healthcare and we want to be able to do that in ways that help realise the maximum benefit from the content we publish. Text mining is clearly a part of this landscape and it will continue to be and we're keen to support it."

The UK government supports open access to publicly funded research and the text mining that it would allow. In a report for the Intellectual Property Office last year on intellectual property and growth, Professor Ian Hargreaves proposed that researchers should be allowed to text mine articles to which they had already subscribed – a position supported by science funding organisations such as the Wellcome Trust.

"Imagine a world where you weren't allowed to use powerful computers to use weather patterns and astronomical data – it's just nonsensical," said Kiley. "Even in commerce, the reason Amazon knows what records I should buy or what books is because it knows what I've bought before, it knows what other people have bought similar to what I've bought and it can suggest things.

"To not be able to exploit that technology in healthcare and life sciences, that doesn't make much sense nowadays."

Warning for publishers

The brewing controversy between scientists and publishers over access to scientific information has also caught the attention of investors. In a briefing note on the publishing company Elsevier, Claudio Aspesi of Bernstein Research warned investors that publishers might be on the verge of falling out with scientists. "We continue to be baffled by Elsevier's perception that controlling everything (for example by severely restricting text and data mining applications) is essential to protect its economics," he wrote.

He said some of the commercial restrictions from publishers seemed not only to be restricting access to the scientific community, but also hindering the work of researchers. "Elsevier needs to take a much harder look at what it is doing to work well with the academic community at large, since it believes that its future lies in tapping the funding for science," he wrote.

Elsevier bosses have long told investors that the publisher's relationship with academics is excellent. But Aspesi doubted that things were so rosy. "If the academic community were to conclude that the commercial terms imposed by Elsevier are also hindering the progress of science or their ability to efficiently perform research, the risk of a further escalation in what is already an acrimonious debate would rise substantially," he wrote.

None of which would be beneficial for Elsevier's bottom line. "Adding confrontational relationships with the research community to the difficult ones it already has with academic librarians looks self-defeating," wrote Aspesi"Elsevier needs to rethink altogether how it thinks of researchers as customers, or it could end up, in a few years, facing the same hostility it encounters with much of the academic librarian community. Governments and other funding bodies may then look a lot less kindly on subscription publishers if they antagonise scientists as well." The note was written before Heather Piwowar's discussions with Elsevier had concluded but Aspesi said those results did not change his conclusions. "If anything I would say that ... my impression is that more issues were raised by the meeting with Elsevier rather than fewer," he said.

A Reed Elsevier spokesman pointed to reports from other analysts which, he claimed, demonstrated that Elsevier still had good relations with librarians. "We continue to look at ways in which we can benefit the research community, and our position to enable text mining is just one recent example," he said.

Fifty years ago, Bob Dylan wrote 'A hard rain's gonna fall'. Today Hard Rain speaks to us not of bombs but of other types of planetary death, says the Hard Rain Project, a not-for-profit company established to campaign for realistic solutions to global problems

Moog was used to having his name mispronounced. Which words do you find people consistently get wrong?

Robert Moog is celebrated on Google's homepage today with a playable version of one of his pioneering electronic synthesisers. It would have been the late founder of Moog Music's 78th birthday today, and he would tell anyone who asked that he pronounced his name not with a long "oo" sound, but to rhyme with "vogue".

Moog seemed to be quite tolerant of people mispronouncing his name, however. Tell us if you get rather more agitated when you hear other mispronunciations. Which names and other words do you wish people would stop getting wrong?

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Lily Asquith begins a guide to making music from particles

A couple of years ago I became involved in a grand plan to make sounds out of LHC data. We called this project LHCsound. Recently we have revisited the idea with the aim of listening to real data produced in the proton-proton collisions happening right now, and I found myself back in my favourite place - talking to (okay, emailing) musicians with ideas for making this happen.

It is my favourite place because the two-way conversations teach me to think differently about the numbers I look at every day on my laptop, and encourage me to to explain things without relying on jargon and terminology that only a tiny fraction of people have any hope of understanding. As much as I admire the people I work with, we all have in common that we chose to go into a fairly small and highly specialised area of "blue skies" research, and I have no doubt that communication with smart and creative people who made different choices can help us in our quest to find out how the physical world works. So I am writing a guide with the hope that posting parts of it here may generate criticism that will improve it.

I am currently working with one other physicist and three musicians, which is probably the optimal number at the moment. We begin with the numbers, an example of which is shown below:

A hypothetical snippet.

This example has numbers corresponding to a single (hypothetical) Higgs boson decay to a pair of Z bosons. Each row is a new "event", that is, each row gives us information about a single Higgs decay. The numbers in the red rectangle are measured by the detector and the others are calculated using relativistic kinematics. I give a short description of what each of the columns represents at the bottom of this post.

What do you do with these numbers? How do you turn them into sounds? The musicians I am working with now are using different methods, which all have in common that they "map" a number to some quality of sound. Every sound you hear can be described completely (and therefore reproduced exactly) by a set of parameters: volume, timbre, duration, pitch, direction. The way we choose to map the different numbers in this dorky printout I have kindly decided to inflict on you is arbitrary- we can choose any one of those columns to be volume and we can say that even numbers mean loud and odd numbers mean quiet, or we can say that prime numbers are the only ones we can hear, or whatever: arbitrary. But sonification doesn't just mean turning numbers into sound. We want to make a sound that has some information in it, and that is where my musical colleagues weave their magic. This is why I am making an effort to make the "information" digestible: what meaning is there in these numbers?

Relativistic kinematics. I just looked up relativistic in my Oxford English dictionary (which is 27 years old) and was a bit disappointed by the definition:

"Accurately described only by the theory of relativity".

Forget that for now; to me relativistic means moving very fast. The entry for kinematics gives us:

"The branch of mechanics concerned with the motion of objects without reference to the forces which cause the motion".

That's fine, but to me kinematics means energy, mass, momentum. We can't see the particles moving, they are too quick, but we can infer how fast they were going and in what direction by looking at the mess they leave in the detector.

We need to get a grip on relativistic kinematics, or "the properties of things that move very quickly" - here is an example:

When we accelerate protons with the LHC, we start off with them more-or-less at rest in a canister of Hydrogen gas. We separate the protons from the electrons (a Hydrogen atom is one electron and one proton, bound together), and there they are at rest. There is a wonderful video by Chris Mann showing exactly how this works. (I give the youTube link here to save you the special experience of navigating the webpages that we affectionately call the CERN Document Server.)

At this point, the equation we all know and love, E=mc², is valid. This means that the energy (E) and mass (m) of the proton are equivalent. We can drop the c² because it is a universal constant - it never changes. But E=m (dropping the c²) is not true for things that are not sitting still. Take light - the particle of light is a photon, which has no mass. So is the energy of a photon zero? Definitely not. Just feel the sun on your back, warming you. Photons have energy. The full story is not E=m, but E= γm. This thing γ we pronounce "gamma". This "full story" is always true, but for a particle that is not moving, γ is equal to 1, and in fact it is close to 1 at all times except when the particle is going almost as quickly as the speed of light- then it gets very, very big. (In fact telling you that E=γm is not particularly helpful in the case of the photon, which always has m=0 and γ=infinity... sorry.)

If any particle with a rest mass m that is not zero were to reach light speed, its relativistic mass, γm, would become infinite. This is not possible: the speed of light is a fundamental limit, a law, and only massless particles can reach light speed. At the LHC we accelerate protons to nearly the speed of light, so their relativistic mass is very large when we collide them together. That's why we can make interesting stuff in the collisions.

We can write down Einstein's equation E= γm in a slightly less compact but more practically helpful form: E²= m² + p². This looks different, but means exactly the same thing. The E and m mean the same as before, but now we have p: the momentum of the particle. Only moving particles have momentum, so if we ignore the p² bit on the grounds that is zero, we get back to the rest mass equation E=m. We favour the form E²= m² + p² over E=γm because we can directly measure both E and p with our detectors, and therefore work out m, the invariant mass, which is interesting because it is a unique fixed number for each different kind of particle, and it tells us many things about the particle.

The Higgs boson has a unique rest mass, which is what we want to measure, and energy and momentum. When the Higgs decays to a pair of Z bosons (why it decays is for next time) the energy (mass and momentum) is transferred to its daughters: the Z bosons. We take Einstein's equation for moving things: E²= m² + p², and turn it around: m²= E² - p². The rest mass of the Higgs boson (m) can be measured if we can find its energy and its momentum.

A Feynman diagram of a Higgs boson decaying to a real and virtual Z boson, where they in turn each decay to leptons with opposite charge.

What we actually measure in our detectors is the energy and momentum of the stable (non-decaying) particles that the Higgs produces. In this case (illustrated above) electrons and muons (leptons, labelled as "l+ and l-" in the picture). The leptons we measure are therefore the four grand-daughters of the Higgs boson. We add up the energy of leptons 1 and 2 (E1+E2) and their momenta (p1+p2), to get the energy and momentum of the first Z boson (EZ1 and pZ1). We do the same with two other leptons to get the other Z boson, and then we add up the energy of these two Z bosons EZ1 +EZ2 and their momenta pZ1+pZ2 to get the energy and momentum of the Higgs, which in turn gives us the mass of the Higgs boson using m²= E² - p². Voila.

Footnote: what the numbers in the table mean (I made up the numbers for this example)
H mass : Invariant mass of four leptons (ie the Higgs mass), given in units of MeV (Million electron volts)
MZ1, MZ2: The masses of the two Z bosons, given in units of MeV
pT1,2,3,4: The pT (transverse momentum) of the four leptons, given in units of MeV
dPhiZZ: the phi (azimuthal) angular separation between the two Z bosons
dEtaZZ: the eta (pseudo-rapidity) angular separation between the two Z bosons
type: the Zs can decay in several ways, but the decays considered in the "four lepton" analysis are:
(1) both Zs decay to a pair of electrons "2e2e" (actually one electron and one anti-electron, also called a positron)
(2) both Zs decay to a pair of muons "2mu2mu"(actually one muon and one anti-muon)
(3) The Z with highest pT goes to electrons and the other decays to muons "2e2mu"
(4) The Z with highest pT goes to muons and the other decays to electrons "2e2mu"

Just how small are atoms? And what's inside them?

Just how small are atoms? And what's inside them? The answers turn out to be astounding, even for those who think they know. This fast-paced video animation uses spectacular metaphors (imagine a blueberry the size of a football stadium!) to give a visceral sense of the building blocks that make our world.

[video link]

Hrm, grapefruits and blueberries ...Who thought that breakfast foods could make such tasty scientific props? On the other hand, if you are looking for another way to visualise the same information, this interactive graphic explores the same questions (and more!) that are the focus of this video, and better yet, it's just really fun to play with.

What did you think of this video? I have a mixed reaction. On one hand, it's cute and makes the idea of an atom more accessible than perhaps it might otherwise be, but now that the caffeine has kicked in, I have two nitpicks:

All hospitals recommended to publish their data on the use of antibiotic and anti-fungal medicines so as to cut unecessary use

Hospitals in England have been warned they must sharpen their training of ward staff on reducing pneumonia and lower respiratory tract infections in patients.

Less sedation, more physiotherapy, more careful use of antacids and appropriate mouth hygiene should be encouraged to minimise the risks of the infection in severely ill patients, including those intubated for fluids or air, says the government's Health Protection Agency. Many are in intensive care units.

The agency also recommend all hospitals should publish data on their use of antibiotic and antifungal medicines, an attempt to ensure that moves to cut their unnecessary use are not forgotten as the incidence of MRSA and C difficile infections tumble.

The prevalence of MRSA soared until recently because of the development of antibiotic resistance. Similar problems emerged with C difficile, which can also develop because antibiotics have destroyed too many 'good' bacteria. Antacids used to prevent or treat mouth ulcers can also have the same effect, meaning 'bad' bacteria are more likely to transfer from the gut , via the stomach, to the respiratory system.

Experts warn that it is important to target infections with the right antibiotics, rather than using so-called 'broad spectrum' drugs. Staff should remove catheters to drain or administer fluids as soon as possible since they too are liable to cause infections.

The key messages, which Department of Health policy advisers will now consider how to take further, emerge from a 2011 snapshot survey of infections linked to people's healthcare before and during hospital and covering almost 52,500 patients. Although direct comparisons cannot be made with previous surveys, such infections dropped from 8.2% in 2006 to 6.4%. More than one in five (22.8%) were respiratory, with urinary tract infections (17.1%) and on parts of the body where there has been surgery (15.7%) the next most prevalent.

Since the 2006 check, there has been an 18-fold reduction in MRSA bloodstream infections (1.3% to less than 0.1%) and a five-fold reduction in C difficile(2% to 0.4%).

Professor Anthony Kessel, director of public health strategy and medical director at the HPA, said: "There have been great results achieved in reducing the levels of MRSA and C difficile over the last five years in the NHS and these can be seen in the figures reported today. These have been accomplished through national policies and guidelines and changes to infection control. There are now new challenges to meet and I am sure that hospitals will be equally as vigilant in addressing these."

Scientists took skin tissue from men who had suffered a heart attack and transformed it into fresh heart cells