Lab notes: the dinosaur with the waggly tail

Sticky resin branch meets waggly dino tail ... 99 million years later we have amber with some fascinating evolutionary evidence in it. Photograph: Chung-tat Cheung

This week’s biggest stories

How much is that amber in the window? The one with the waggly dinosaur tail? That’s how I imagine the conversation went at the Chinese market where a piece of amber containing a section of feathery dinosaur tail was found. The fragment has given researchers some fascinating insights into the evolution of feathers. Not a bad day’s shopping. So take your time on your next trip to a market in case of treasure - after all, given that astronomers have found that Earth’s day lengthens by two milliseconds a century, you’ve got more time to play with. You could probably have a quick coffee too, or nip into the Science Museum to check out their new Zaha Hadid-designed maths gallery. Something that might also give a bit of extra leisure time to (and make life considerably more pleasant for) millions of diabetics worldwide is a new cell-based treatment that could end the need for insulin injections. Let’s all celebrate by going to see some charming, flickering seasonal lights. With any luck there will be a strobe effect, which a new study has indicated stimulates the brain’s immune cells to clean up toxic proteins seen in Alzheimer’s disease.

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Straight from the lab – top picks from our experts on the blog network

Are you ready to eat a dinosaur this Christmas? This family wouldn’t consider anything else. Photograph: Alamy

Turkey: your delicious Christmas dinner dinosaur | Lost Worlds Revisited

The fact that birds are the direct descendants of dinosaurs is now and overwhelmingly supported theory in palaeontology, though most will not know much beyond the recent plethora of discoveries of feathered dinosaurs. While these are obviously a wonderful example, the ancestry of birds is more than skin (or feather) deep and since mostly palaeontologists work from bones it may not be a surprise to learn that you can see plenty of dinosaurian traits in your Christmas dinner.

Over 200 years of deadly London air: smogs, fogs, and pea soupers | The H word

There was a genuine fear that over-regulation might lead to job losses. Worse, the Victorians were also concerned that reforming domestic fireplaces would actually make people sicker, rather than healthier. Although open fire places were serious sources of coal smoke pollution, they had one advantage over more efficient systems: they created draughts. Through most of the nineteenth century medical professionals thought that disease was spread by ‘miasmas’, clouds of harmful matter.

Heads in the Cloud: Are Westworld’s robots poorly designed? | Raising HAL

HBO’s new Westworld series has spawned countless gigabytes of online discussion and speculation as its intricate plot has unfolded. The design of the robots, and of the intelligence that guides them, has attracted less comment. That’s a shame; when you dive into the construction of the park there are some very odd choices that are worth pulling apart.

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Alex Bellos’s Monday puzzle

My maths teacher was lovely (thanks for everything Mrs Emanuel!) but this still gives me the fear. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

The OECD’s Pisa rankings fro reading, maths and science came out this Tuesday, and, Singapore topped the table. Alex Bellos had a shrewd idea that this might be the case, so this week, he has challenged you with ten questions from this year’s International Singapore Maths Competition, aimed at primary years 5 and 6 (so kids aged 10-11 and 11-12). Did you solve them?

Visit Alex Bellos’s Adventures in Numberland blog for more marvellous maths

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Science Weekly podcast

What first attracted one of the world’s foremost astrophysicists to the night sky? Are we alone in the universe? And how can scientific thinking benefit us all? Photograph: Supplied

This week’s podcast is part of the Cross Section series of in-depth interviews from the Science Weekly team, and it’s an exciting one. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson discusses his scientific journey, the importance of his role models, and the benefits of sceptical thought, both in science and further afield. We also get a sneak peek (squeak?) at his new book Welcome to the Universe, including his thoughts on why Pluto is not a planet, and whether intelligent civilisations might exist elsewhere.

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Eye on science – this week’s top pictures

Coconut crabs have the largest pinching force of any crustacean. Yeah, you know it - because you’ve read this month’s Zoology news. Photograph: Shin-ichoro Oka/PA

That’s rights, it’s that time again: zoologist Henry Nicholls has rounded up the best of November’s zoology research and brought it to you with lovely pictures. We’ve got mobbing hyenas, speeding bats and crab power - but my favourite is the narwhal. Spiky AND clicky, as it turns out.