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July 2021 saw temperatures in the western US and Canada smash previous records by 5 degrees. And that\\u2019s what we should expect, according to a study prepared much earlier but published, coincidentally, just a few days later. A hallmark of rapid climate change, says author Erich Fischer of ETH Zurich, will be an accelerating number of record-shattering, and socially disruptive, events.

A large new study on communications and hierarchy across a large range of our ape and monkey relatives has just been published. Lead author Katie Slocombe of the University of York explains the findings: like us, the primates live socially in groups, and there are leaders, but the more tolerant ones are also the more communicative ones. In species with \\u2018despotic\\u2019 leaders, order seems to be maintained with more menacing silence.

The double helix of all DNA on earth twists in one direction. But researchers at Tsinghua University in China have made some important steps towards making mirror life, in which the DNA twists in the opposite direction. Chemistry journalist Mark Peplow discusses the significance of this discovery with Roland Pease.

One of the benefits of science\\u2019s ability to read normal DNA has been to compare human genomes from across the globe \\u2013 for example in the Human Genome Diversity Project \\u2013for what they reveal about both our health \\u2013 and our past. But sequences from the Middle East have been sadly lacking. The Sanger Institute\\u2019s Mohamed Almarri and colleagues have just rectified that, saying that the Middle East played such a key role in the human story.

Today, up to 3 billion people around the world play video games, from candy-based mobile puzzles to virtual battlegrounds filled with weapons. Many people have turned to gaming during the pandemic as a way of staying connected \\u2013 but what does science really say about the impact of gaming?

Does playing violent video games lead to violence in the real world? Do brain training apps really work? How much gaming is too much \\u2013 can video games really be addictive? And how can video games help us to explore difficult issues like death, grief and loss?

Alex Lathbridge and Anand Jagatia look at the evidence and play some games along the way, speaking to psychologists, doctors and game designers about the power of video games to change us - for better or worse.\\n

(Photo By Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)