This week’s biggest stories
A new exhibition in Glasgow has a bone to pick with two women who died more than 1,000 years and miles apart. Their skeletons are included in the Our Buried Bones display at Hunterian museum and art gallery to reveal how, despite being from different backgrounds, they both evidently endured severe pain due to poor diets. Meanwhile, at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern), a seemingly disturbing ritual caught on camera raised a few eyebrows. But as Elton John once almost said: it’s no human sacrifice. Rather, it was a fake scene suspected to have been filmed by pranking scientists. A spokesman for the organisation, however, said that the culprits had taken their humour too far. Finally, the style secrets of Ötzi the Iceman, a naturally mummified corpse found trapped in the ice of the Italian Alps, have been revealed. New research shows that the iceman was potentially a versatile tailor, using animal skins and hides to make his surprisingly sophisticated clothing. Statement furs really are a thing of the past, it seems.
More news from Guardian Science | Sign up to Lab notes
Straight from the lab - top picks from our experts on the blog network
How to think about the risks of mobile phones and Wi-Fi | Political science
Expert groups are often relied upon by politicians to tidy up the facts on contentious issues. It rarely works. People don’t like being patronised with easy answers where there are none to find. With mobile phones, a group of experts took a different approach. They instead admitted that there are uncertainties and trusted in citizens’ ability to navigate them.
What causes travel sickness? A glitch in the brain | Brain flapping
One theory is that it’s due to a weird glitch that means your brain gets confused and thinks it’s being poisoned. This may seem surprising; not even the shoddiest low-budget airline would get away with pumping toxins into the passengers (airline food doesn’t count, and that joke is out of date). So where does the brain get this idea that it’s being poisoned?
Wellcome’s work doesn’t exist in a vacuum - so we’ve brought science to the Fringe | Notes & Theories
Wellcome aims to spend up to £5bn over the next five years, with a significant proportion of that going to artistic projects that both entertain and inspire emotional, intellectual and critical engagement with science, creating opportunities for a wider range of people to reflect on the research that affects their lives.
Visit the science blog network
_____
Alex Bellos’s Monday puzzle
If no puzzle is too tough or too demanding for you, then you may just be a puzzle Olympian. Put your brain power to the test here.
Did you solve it? Is it time to climb aboard the podium and claim your gold medal in puzzle solving?
_____
Eye on science - this week’s top pictures
Do not adjust your computer screens – you really are seeing a curiously proportioned, futuristic airship float eerily across the sky. And no, it’s not a Flight of the Navigator remake. It’s the Airlander 10, the world’s largest aircraft, which took flight this week and successfully completed its maiden voyage. The airship, which has attracted interest from the military, is the size of a football pitch and can stay airborne for weeks at a time.
