Britain’s only desalination plant remains idle during drought
Water flow in the river Thames has dropped low enough to warrant the use of England’s only large-scale desalination plant, but it hasn’t been switched on at all this year
New Scientist
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Why women with ADHD feel overwhelmingly ‘controlled’ by their hormones
People with ADHD are unusually sensitive to hormone shifts. Psychiatrists have started to pay attention, creating strategies to address the intense emotions and cognitive challenges caused by these changes
Our blood’s body clock may be causing anaemia cases to be missed
Blood tests may give different results depending on when in the day, or the year, they are taken, which could result in people missing out on an anaemia diagnosis
Weightlifting makes older women leaner, stronger and more mobile
Lifting at least 50 kilograms twice a week improved older women's muscle mass, mobility and balance
Quantum computing may be facing a replication crisis
A review of thousands of scientific papers about quantum computers finds that most don’t provide code that can be tested on independent devices or that the code doesn’t work
Rogue hacking AIs have changed the cybersecurity landscape
Attackers with no technical skills can now use AI models to find and exploit loopholes quickly and they can deploy them on a massive scale, raising fears that organisations without large budgets for cyber defence will be much more vulnerable
Test moderators use AI-generated writing to judge literacy standards
To cut the cost of key stage 2 assessments, a UK government project proposes to use scripts generated by ChatGPT instead of real children's writing as examples supplied to moderators who check that grades are awarded fairly
THC in cannabis may reduce nightmares in people with PTSD
A drug made up of THC, the main psychoactive component of cannabis, reduced the severity and incidence of nightmares in people with PTSD
Fishers detonate a bomb every hour on one Indonesian coral reef
The use of explosives to kill fish is widespread across the tropics, and acoustic monitoring in an Indonesian archipelago detected more than 3500 explosions in 483 days
How bad is the UK drought and how long will it continue?
Almost three-quarters of England is now in drought conditions, resulting in restrictions on water use in many areas and severe wildfires – here's how it's affecting farming, wildlife and trees