An abundant source of nuclear energy with no danger of meltdown, and a possible solution to the world's energy crisis

Professor Bob Cywinski is every inch the academic: a wavy-haired, bearded man with a voice like hot coffee poured on a Sunday morning. But he is also a man with a dream: to change the nuclear landscape of the UK.

Conventional nuclear power (fission) is controversial and carries inherent risks, but no other energy source has a chance of securing our energy needs for the future. Nuclear fusion – for many scientists the ultimate goal of energy production – is still a long way off.

Cywinski is part of a team of scientists who are working towards an entirely new type of nuclear reactor: one that could be operated safely and without generating long-lived radioactive waste. This new reactor could even consume the toxic waste generated by conventional nuclear reactors, removing it from the ecosphere.

It's called the Accelerator-Driven Subcritical Reactor (ADSR), or Energy Amplifier, and in a recent lecture hosted by the Leicester Literary and Philosophical Society, Cywinski outlined his vision of an ADSR-powered future.

The concept was first proposed in 1993 by Nobel prizewinning physicist Carlo Rubbia. The basic idea – and what distinguishes it from all other nuclear reactors – is the coupling of a particle accelerator, like the ones at Cern, with the reactor core.

That may sound bizarre upon first reading, but there's good science here.

Conventional reactors are fuelled by uranium – specifically, the uranium isotope U-235. That's a lively old isotope that likes to split: it is "fissile". When U-235 splits, it releases neutrons, and these go on to initiate an energy-generating nuclear chain reaction by splitting still more U-235 atoms.

But there are downsides to the use of uranium-235 as fuel: first, it produces plutonium as waste. Second, the uranium-235 fuel cycle is what engineers call "critical": once it gets going it's self-sustaining, so there is a risk – albeit a tiny risk – of loss of control.

In the ADSR proposed by Rubbia, we wouldn't use uranium-235 as nuclear fuel at all. Instead, we would shift two spaces to the left in the periodic table, to uranium's unsung cousin: thorium. Despite being named for the god of thunder, thorium sits quietly in the Earth as a safe, unreactive mineral – and it sits there in great abundance, especially in Welsh earth.

Unlike uranium-235, the thorium atom does not easily split, making it safe to store and handle. But we need a fissile atom to initiate the energy-generating nuclear reaction. Since thorium is not fissile, it must be converted to something that is.

That's where the particle accelerator comes in.

In an ADSR, the thorium-containing reactor core would be coupled to a particle accelerator. This would fire up a beam of protons before slamming them into a block of lead inside the reactor core. The bombardment induces the lead to release neutrons, in a process called spallation. Those neutrons are then smashed into the thorium atoms, turning them into atoms of uranium-233, which is fissile – and so the reaction begins.

It's still nuclear fission, but a crucial safety difference between a conventional nuclear reactor and an ADSR is that in the latter the reaction operates at subcritical levels: it is not self-sustaining. So in the event of a problem, all the operator has to do is switch off the proton beam. Almost immediately, the reaction will cease.

Furthermore, the small amount of toxic waste generated by the thorium/uranium-233 fuel cycle ceases to be radioactive after a few hundred years, rather than the thousands of years during which uranium waste remains toxic. Better yet, an ADSR could actually utilise, as fuel, the plutonium waste created by current reactors, eliminating toxic waste while generating further energy.

But surely that particle accelerator needs a lot of energy to operate? Yes, it does. However, you get far more power out at the other end. That's where the ADSR's unofficial name – Energy Amplifier – comes from. The Thorium Energy Amplifier Association, ThorEA, calculates that an ADSR would generate 600MW of electrical power – pretty much the same as a conventional power station.

Yes, the accelerator will require power input – around 20MW – but that power can be taken from the ADSR's own output, leaving an excess 580MW of electric power.

So what we have, in principle, is a reactor running off stable, abundant fuel, producing an excess of energy, with no danger of meltdown. If ADSRs are really this perfect, how come we don't already have one?

The problem is that, for the moment, our available options for the accelerator are limited. Commercial accelerators are pretty big, not to mention expensive to build and run. We can't have a Cern in every city. If we're going to have ADSRs as standard power stations, we have to get around this.

That's where Emma comes in. The Electron Model of Many Applications, Emma for short, is a new type of accelerator designed to be the perfect partner for an ADSR. A prototype Emma lives under the grounds of the Daresbury Laboratory in Cheshire. Emma's unique selling point is that she is a new hybrid of a cyclotron and a synchrotron, combining the advantages of both into a compact, economical form.

Last month, Nature Physics published the first results of Emma's operation, showing that she is indeed, despite her petite proportions, capable of stably accelerating electrons to the kind of velocities needed.

Emma is a proof-of-principle for the new hybrid. She accelerates electrons, not protons, so will never be connected to an energy amplifier. But what we learn from Emma will be used to construct proton versions in the near future.

Given sufficient investment, ADSRs could be operational in the UK by 2025. But do we really need them, given that conventional reactors, however unpopular, do still work? Yes, says Cywinski, because it's time to move on. As he puts it: "The Stone Age didn't end because we ran out of stone."

Corrinne Burns is a chemist and freelance science communicator. She blogs at sinelight io

• This article was amended on 9 February 2012 to give the correct spelling of Carlo Rubbia

A small study shows that direct electrical stimulation of the entorhinal cortex enhances performance on a spatial memory task

Direct electrical stimulation of a specific part of the brain can enhance spatial memory in conscious neurosurgical patients, according to a small new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The research suggests that an experimental technique called deep brain stimulation could help patients with memory impairments, such as those with Alzheimer's disease.

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a surgical technique involving the implantation of thin wire electrodes into the brain. In 2002, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the technique as a treatment for Parkinson's Disease, and more recently, a number of clinical trials have shown that it effectively alleviates symptoms of bipolar depression, too.

Nanthia Suthana of the Cognitive Neurophysiology Laboratory at the University of California, Los Angeles, and her colleagues performed the study in patients with drug-resistant epilepsy who were being evaluated prior to having the seizure-causing brain tissue surgically removed. During such evaluations, the patient remains conscious and can report back to the surgeons, who can therefore electrically stimulate the brain to identify and delimit the abnormal tissue, while also identifying nearby tissue that performs important functions and must be spared.

Seven such patients had the DBS electrodes implanted for between 7 and 10 days, in the hippocampus or the adjacent entorhinal cortex, which connects to the hippocampus via the perforant path, or both. These structures are located on the inner surface of the temporal lobe and are involved in spatial memory and navigation.

During these long pre-surgical evaluation periods, Suthana and her colleagues asked them to play a video game involving a spatial learning task in which they had to drive a taxi through a virtual environment, learn various landmarks within it, then find their way around it again afterwards to drop passengers off at one of six locations.

Each patient repeated this four times, navigating to all six locations in a random order each time. The electrodes were switched on at certain times while they navigated to specified locations, and this was done consistently during the first three trials. In this way, some of the patients received stimulation of the hippocampus or entorhinal cortex only while navigating to locations 1, 3 and 5, while others received it only while navigating to locations 2, 4 and 6. During the fourth trial, no stimulation was applied, and the researchers tested the patients' memory for all six locations by measuring the length of the path they took to get there.

DBS applied to the entorhinal cortex significantly enhanced the patients' spatial memories when compared to stimulation of the hippocampus or none at all. Six of them took shorter and faster paths to the locations they had learned during stimulation to the entorhinal cortex, recognizing the landmarks more readily, and even finding shortcuts, to navigate the required routes more quickly.

Since this effect occurs during the learning phase, it seems that electrical stimulation of the entorhinal region facilitates encoding of the spatial memories, and the researchers suggest that it does so by resetting low frequency theta oscillations, which optimizes memory formation by synchronizing electrical activity of the cells needed. But it's not clear if electrical stimulation would have the same effects on other types of memory.

Previous studies have shown that direct stimulation of the human hippocampus has detrimental effects on memory, but these new results identify the entorhinal cortex, and possibly the perforant path, as potential targets for memory enhancement. It was a small study so the findings should be interpreted with caution, but they could have clinical applications if confirmed.

The inner surface of the temporal lobe is the first part of the brain to degenerate in Alzheimer's disease, and this is accompanied by an inability to find one's way around, which is the first behavioural manifestation. The new study suggests that deep brain stimulation targeted to the entorhinal cortex or perforant path could ameliorate these memory deficits, but this, too, will need to be tested.

Reference: Suthana, N., et al. (2012). Memory Enhancement and Deep-Brain Stimulation of the Entorhinal Area. N. Engl. J. Med. 366: 502-10.

Documentary of an international collaborative conservation effort that relies on birds, scientists and farmers

Not long ago, I told you that bird-friendly California vineyards may have fewer insect pests, but what about relying on birds to control another common food crop pest; rodents? Food crops are plagued by rodent pests everywhere. But when faced with putting out poisons -- poisons that not only kill rodents but also harm human health and the land itself -- farmers are increasingly looking for other solutions to address these ubiquitous pests. One such solution is birds of prey.

Just one pair of adult barn owls, Tyto alba, will catch between 2,000 and 5,000 rodents each year. If barn owls live on farmland, their foraging activities may improve agricultural yield among certain crops by 24 percent. Hosting the nest of just one pair of these birds on farmland presents an "instant solution" to "the rodent problem" that does not involve any dangerous chemicals.

This is where birdwatcher, photographer and Israeli naval officer, Amir Ezer, comes in: perhaps ironically, he has been reusing ammunition cases to construct nest boxes for barn owls all over Israel. In an interesting video that I've embedded below, we learn that 1,640 of these nest boxes have been distributed to farmers throughout Israel, a number that was increased to 2,100 as of 2010, according to the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel.

"[From] the moment the barn owls nested there, the damage stopped", says biological pesticide project coordinator Shauli Aviel in the film.

"Today we have over 100,00 dunams [1000 m²] of agricultural land where pesticides haven't been used for 10 years", Mr Aviel states in the film.

But barn owls are nocturnal, leaving farmland open to attack by daytime pests, so a diurnal raptor was recruited to ensure 24-hour protection from rodents: the common kestrel, Falco tinnunculus. Once again, ammunition case-nestboxes were provided to these small raptors to encourage them to live on the farmland.

But the effort has not stopped there. This project has led to partnerships with farmers in the Palestinian Authority and in Jordan, too, although it took some work to get things started.

"The strange appearance of the barn owl didn't help its image within the Arab culture, so it was difficult to persuade Jordanian farmers that the barn owl is beneficial to agriculture", according to the film's narrator. But the coordinators succeeded, as the film documents.

It is hoped that encouraging birds of prey to hunt and raise their families on agricultural lands will improve farming practices in other countries, too.

"Then you will go to Syria, to Iran, to other countries we cannot go, and you will show them the system."

This international collaborative project is full of win for just so many reasons. As the film's narrator enthuses: "In the Middle East, the dove has been replaced by the barn owl and the kestrel as the ambassadors of peace."

Visit yuvaldax1's YouTube channel [video link].

This film won first prize in the expert and instructive films category at the Agrofilm Festival held in 2011 at Nitra, Slovakia.

This award-winning film was produced by Yuval Dax.

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The Royal Society is inviting youth groups to help select the winner of the 2012 Royal Society Young People's Book Prize

You may recall the video I recently shared with you about the Royal Society's 2011 Young People's Book Award. But maybe you are wondering how your child can help the Royal Aociety choose the 2012 winners of their award. Well, wonder no more because the Royal Society is asking for your help!

The Royal Society, the UK's national academy of science, is inviting after-school reading groups and science clubs, youth book clubs and other interested youth groups to help them select the winner of the 2012 Royal Society Young People's Book Prize. This prize celebrates the best books that communicate science to young people up to age 14. These books are either factual or fictional stories intended to make science exciting to kids. An adult judging panel is selecting the shortlist of six finalists from recently published books that communicate science to young people. After this shortlist has been chosen, groups of young people will be invited to discuss the books and collectively select the winner. Participation is open to any youth group that is able to read, discuss the shortlist and recommend their choice for who should win.

Selected youth groups will receive a complete set of the six shortlisted books to read and discuss before voting for their favourite book. Each group's votes will be sent to the Royal Society, who will tally them and announce the prize winner in late 2012. Seventy-five groups will be selected to receive a complete set of the shortlisted books for free; but if your group isn't selected to receive a set of books, you can still participate if you're able to buy the books yourself.

Applications must be received by Monday 30 April 2012. Learn more about the rules for participating in this prize. If you are a parent, teacher or other responsible adult, you can register your youth group to participate here. (Please note that participation is open to groups only and applications from individuals cannot be accepted.)

Previous prizewinners have included How the World Works by Christiane Dorion & Beverley Young (2011), Can you feel the force? by Richard Hammond (2007) and Horrible Science: Really Rotten Experiments by Nick Arnold and Tony de Saulles (2004). You can view the complete list of prize winners here. The Royal Society Young People's Book Prize did not take place in 2008 - 2010 due to funding issues but restarted in 2011 thanks to the generosity of an anonymous donor.

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Recent advances in neuroscience, such as memory manipulation, create compelling ethical dilemmas

This week it was reported that soldiers could potentially, in the near future, have their minds plugged directly into weapons systems, and have their learning boosted by neural stimulation. The Royal Society's Brain Waves project on new directions in neuroscience gives us much to reflect on and worry about. And it follows the news last week that scientists are developing a "mind-reading" technique to capture thoughts.

Research in all this is in its infancy but, though new understandings of how the brain works generate new treatments for disease and brain damage, they also expose us to many new dangers. The challenge is always to use judgment and, if necessary, force to maximise good and minimise evil. We should be clear, however, that there is no precautionary approach; therapy delayed is rescue denied. As in all other areas of human activity choice is not an option but a destiny. How should we choose?

The Royal Society report spoke of brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) to connect people's brains directly to machinery. These interfaces are already being used to control artificial limbs for amputees, but they would also be efficient in improving speed and accuracy in delivering weapons systems. Rod Flower, chair of the report's working group, rightly asks: "If you are controlling a drone and you shoot the wrong target or bomb a wedding party, who is responsible for that action? Is it you or the BMI?"

While this is a nice puzzle, the alternative without BMIs might be a greater likelihood that the wrong target will be chosen or hit. If we ban military BMIs, who is responsible for that?

The bigger question, though, is how to reduce the incidence of events where people suffer and others need to be called to account. Think of smart drugs that improve thought. Modafinil, a drug that keeps pilots alert, can indeed aid military pilots – but it also protects civilian passengers. The same drug also enhances other cognitive functioning, including exam performance.

We humans need to be smarter in order to combat a monstrous regiment of dangers that include climate change, meteorite strikes, diseases such as Aids and CJD, and an over-precautionary approach to innovation which may increase, rather than reduce, our vulnerability to these and other dangers. The dilemma is: whither caution? The ability to choose between caution and adventure assumes we can predict accurately – something we humans have been lamentably bad at.

In future, we're also likely to face an ethical dilemma over memory manipulation. This is now a distinct possibility because drugs are available that can wipe, or certainly dampen, our recollection of events. Why should we tamper with our access to history? Well one good reason is that memories can be traumatic. The victim of, for example a brutal rape, might well wish to wipe the memory. But what if so doing removes the capacity to identify the perpetrator, and leaves him free to ruin others' lives?

The neurotransmitter serotonin and the molecule oxytocin are hailed as agents which, by increasing reluctance to cause suffering on the one hand and trust on the other, can bring about an improvement in morals. Adjusting the levels of these chemicals in the body will effect changes which bypass decision-making and make certain behaviour, for all practical purposes, automatic. Why should we worry about bypassing morally defective decision making? One reason is it takes away our freedom.

Without the ability to reason about our decisions to act on the basis of judgment – rather than prompted by impulse or chemical, or biological, or technological stimulus – we not only lack liberty, the ability to choose. We lack the ability to choose wisely and well, to choose the best "all things considered".

If we can read minds we might be able to literally see what someone has done and whether they did it on purpose. This would make solving crimes in principle simple and reliable. The problem here will be whether the science will reliably distinguish thoughts that describe fantasies or imaginings rather than real dirty deeds done.

The idea that neuroscience might enable thoughts to be read and intentions revealed is perhaps the most threatening of all to civil liberties. If we know someone intends to commit a murder or a robbery, why not monitor their thoughts and act pre-emptively? Apart from the obvious difference in quality between a wish or intention and an actual attempt, the reason might be that most of us form intentions that we abandon and wishes we never fulfil.

The price of liberty may be eternal vigilance but we need science, not least because it is our most obvious source of the sort of innovation that saves lives and produces welfare. Our vigilance must be as much to ensure we don't stifle science as it is to be sure science remains our servant not our master.

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This dramatic little Central American mystery bird is notable because it has no sister species

Crimson-collared tanager, Ramphocelus sanguinolentus (synonyms, Phlogothraupis sanguinolenta and Tachyphonus sanguinolentus; protonym,Tanagra sanguinolentus), Lesson, 1831, photographed at the Arenal Volcano Observatory, Alajuela province, Costa Rica (Central America).

Image: Nick Athanas/Tropical Birding, 8 February 2010 (with permission) [velociraptorize].
Canon EOS 50D

Question: This dramatic little Central American mystery bird is notable because it has no sister species. Can you identify this bird's taxonomic family and species? Is this a male or female?

Response: This is an adult crimson-collared tanager, Ramphocelus sanguinolentus, a monomorphic species that is included in the tanager family, Thraupidae. Although this species' colouring and patterning closely resembles several other species in its genus, it is sometimes placed into a monotypic genus, Phlogothraupis, because it is less closely related to all its congeners than they are related to each other -- which is supported by DNA data [doi:10.1006/mpev.1996.0032]. Thus, this bird does not have a sister species.

Within its range, this species may be confused with the male crimson-collared grosbeak, Rhodothraupis celaeno, although the crimson-collared tanager can be distinguished by its overall brighter red colour and by its longer beak that is a pale blue colour, its red irides, red cap and black underparts, and by its lack of red wingbars. Juveniles are even more similar to the male crimson-collared grosbeak, except their bill shape is still distinctive and is pale in colour, not black.

This small passerine is found along the edges of humid evergreen forests and second growth, typically in the middle and upper levels. It ranges from southern coastal areas in Mexico along Central America's Atlantic slope to the highlands of western Panama.

This video, showing a brief glimpse of an individual crimson-collared tanager, was filmed at the Arenal Observatory Lodge in Costa Rica (uploaded 30 March 2010):

Visit VideoBirder's YouTube channel [video link].

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 mp3 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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This Malaysian mystery bird is peculiar for a number of interesting reasons

Mystery Bird photographed at the Kinabatangan River, Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. [I will identify this species for you in 48 hours]

Image: Alex Vargas, 15 November 2010 (with permission) [velociraptorize].
Nikon D5000, Nikkor 300mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR 1/2500s f/4.0 at 420.0mm iso400, with a Nikon 1.4X Teleconverter on.

Question: This Malaysian mystery bird is peculiar for a number of interesting reasons, one of which is due to an anatomical adaptation associated with nectarivory. Can you tell me more about that? What else is peculiar about this species? Can you identify this bird's taxonomic family and species?

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 identifying the bird 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 so others know that you know. Your hints may be helpful clues for less experienced players. Keep in mind that some hints 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.

The Game:

1. This is meant 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 may be intended 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 48 hours after publication.

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 mp3 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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My father, Arnold Sanderson, who has died aged 78, and my mother, Dorothy, were together for more than 61 years. They fell in love as teenagers when Mum had to attend the boys' grammar school at Bishop Auckland, County Durham, because she wanted to study science. Dad, then 17, was the school captain and two years older. He took it upon himself to look after her and they spent their teens collecting specimens and blowing things up – including the local slagheap, a blast that was rumoured to have been heard seven miles away.

Dad became an eminent immunologist, but he may be best remembered for rescuing Edward Jenner's house, the Chantry, near Berkeley, Gloucestershire, and founding the Edward Jenner Museum. Jenner, the pioneer who established vaccination against smallpox, used to vaccinate children in a small wooden shelter in the garden. The shelter, along with the house, has been preserved thanks to Dad's rescue campaign and a generous donation from the Japanese shipbuilder and philanthropist Ryoichi Sasakawa. Later Dad wrote a book for children called Smallpox Is Dead (1988), which described how the disease has been eradicated as the result of a major world programme.

From school, he won a Cambridge scholarship but turned the offer down because he wanted to be with Mum and go to Durham University with her. They married in 1957. Dad considered himself working class. His father ran the Co-op in Hunwick, County Durham, and he was always proud to tell us that his mother played the piano. But he considered Mum to be higher in the social scale – her parents had a car.

Dad's scientific career flourished. He worked for the Ministry of Defence in Salisbury, Wiltshire, and collaborated with American scientists, at Harvard University and Boston children's hospital, finally working at the Queen Victoria hospital, East Grinstead, West Sussex. He became chairman of the British Society for Immunology and edited the journal Transplantation. He also had a close interest in horse racing because "having a punt on the 2.30 at Lingfield was the only power the ordinary man had left".

He developed his own company, making commercial antibodies and biological reagents. He judged most things in life with the mantra that there is "no point fighting unwinnable battles", and so it was when his brain tumour was diagnosed in October 2011.

Dad is survived by Mum, me, my two sisters, Kate and Helen, and eight grandchildren, Matthew, Ellie, Georgia, Simon, Marcus, Sasha, Jeremy and Tessa.

A Nature study has shocked researchers by finding that the Himalayas have lost no ice over the past decade. Leo Hickman, with your help, investigates. Get in touch below the line, email your views to leo.hickman@guardian.co.uk or tweet @leohickman

10.27am: Researchers are said to be shocked by a new study published in Nature that has found the world's largest mountain chain, which stretches from the Himalayas to Tian Shan on the border of China and Kyrgyzstan, has lost no ice over the past decade.

Scientists had previously claimed that climate change is causing a net loss of ice and water from the glaciers and ice caps that straddle the Himalayas and other mountain ranges around the world. As Damian Carrington's report of the study says:

The study is the first to survey all the world's icecaps and glaciers and was made possible by the use of satellite data. Overall, the contribution of melting ice outside the two largest caps – Greenland and Antarctica – is much less then previously estimated, with the lack of ice loss in the Himalayas and the other high peaks of Asia responsible for most of the discrepancy.

So, does this place a large question mark over the common assertion that climate change is causing the world's glaciers to melt? Photographs showing how much glaciers have retreated over the past century or so have become a totemic symbol of climate change. Glaciers are often described as climate change's "canary in the mine".

But, as Carrington highlights, claims about Himalayan glaciers melting have proved controversial with the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change admitting in 2010 that it had mistakenly stated in one of its landmark reports that they would disappear by 2035, instead of 2350.

The Nature paper comes with some big caveats and disclaimers, though:

"Our results and those of everyone else show we are losing a huge amount of water into the oceans every year," said Prof John Wahr of the University of Colorado [who led the study]. "People should be just as worried about the melting of the world's ice as they were before."
His team's study concludes that between 443-629bn tonnes of meltwater overall are added to the world's oceans each year. This is raising sea level by about 1.5mm a year, the team reports, in addition to the 2mm a year caused by expansion of the warming ocean.
The scientists are careful to point out that lower-altitude glaciers in the Asian mountain ranges – sometimes dubbed the "third pole" – are definitely melting. Satellite images and reports confirm this. But over the study period from 2003-10 enough ice was added to the peaks to compensate...
Wahr warned that while crucial to a better understanding of ice melting, the eight years of data is a relatively short time period and that variable monsoons mean year-to-year changes in ice mass of hundreds of billions of tonnes. "It is awfully dangerous to take an eight-year record and predict even the next eight years, let alone the next century," he said.

But what are your own thoughts and conclusions about the impact of climate change on glaciers? Should we be concerned if glaciers are melting?

If quoting figures to support your points, please provide a link to the source. I am particularly seeking links to data and papers which show the wider, global picture regarding the impact of climate change on glaciers, and, crucially, the impact on humans and habitats if they do melt. I will also be inviting various interested parties to join the debate, too. And later on today, I will return with my own verdict.

11.36am: The Nature paper by Wahr, Jacob et al is accompanied by a "news and views" article written by Professor Jonathan Bamber, who is the director of the Bristol Glaciology Centre at the University of Bristol. It is entitled, "Climate change: Shrinking glaciers under scrutiny". Here's an extract:

There are more than 160,000 glaciers and ice caps worldwide. Fewer than 120 (0.075%) have had their mass balance (the sum of the annual mass gains and losses of the glacier or ice cap) directly measured, and for only 37 of these are there records extending beyond 30 years. Extrapolating this tiny sample of observations to all glaciers and ice caps is a challenging task that inevitably leads to large uncertainties.
[The new] study based on satellite data for Earth's changing gravity field tackles this problem. Their results have surprising implications for both the global contribution of glaciers to sea level and the changes occurring in the mountain regions of Asia...
First, the contribution of glaciers and ice caps (GICs) (excluding the Antarctica and Greenland peripheral GICs) to sea-level rise was less than half the value of the most recent, comprehensive estimate obtained from extrapolation of in situ measurements for 2001–05 (0.41 ± 0.08 compared with 1.1 mm yr−1). Second, losses for the High Mountain Asia region — comprising the Himalayas, Karakoram, Tianshan, Pamirs and Tibet — were insignificant. Here, the mass-loss rate was just 4 ± 20 gigatonnes per year (corresponding to 0.01 mm yr−1 of sea-level rise), compared with previous estimates that were well over ten times larger. By a careful analysis, the authors discounted a possible tectonic origin for the huge discrepancy, and it seems that this region is more stable than previously believed.
What is the significance of these results? Understanding, and closing, the sea-level budget (the relative contributions of mass and thermal expansion to ocean-volume change) is crucial for testing predictions of future sea-level rise. Estimates of the future response of GICs to climate change are, in
general, based on what we know about how they have responded in the past. A better estimate of past behaviour, such as that obtained by Jacob and colleagues, will therefore result in better estimates of future behaviour.
Discussion of the demise of the Himalayan glaciers has been mired in controversy, partly because of basic errors, but also because of the dearth of reliable data on past trends. Given their role as a water supply for so many people, this has been a cause for concern and an outstanding issue...
Jacob and colleagues have dramatically altered our understanding of recent global GIC volume changes and their contribution to sea-level rise. Now we need to work out what this means for estimating their future response.

12.11am: Just last month, the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development published three reports providing an "assessment to date on climate change, snow and glacier melt in Asia's mountainous Hindu Kush-Himalayan", which were championed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's chairman Dr Rajendra Pachauri:

These reports provide a new baseline and location-specific information for understanding climate change in one of the most vulnerable ecosytems in the world.

The first report focused on the stability of the region's glaciers:

The HKH region, home to 30 percent of the world's glaciers, has been called the "Third Pole." But there are scant data on these glaciers. One of the reports, The Status of Glaciers in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan Region—presenting findings of a three-year Sweden-funded research project led by ICIMOD—begins to fill in the important data gaps. Using remote sensing studies, the project was able to tally the number of glaciers in the region—more than 54,000—and measure the area covered, 60,000 km.
Of these 54,000 glaciers, however, only ten have been studied regularly to determine the net loss or gain of ice and snow (called the mass balance). That handful of studies shows a loss of mass balance, with the rate of loss roughly doubling between 1980 and 2000 and 1996 and 2005. In the Everest area, the data show a marked acceleration in the loss of glacial mass between 2002 and 2005. Glaciers appear to be shrinking in both the central and eastern Himalayas. Country-specific studies have found that depletion of glacial area over the past 30 years was 22 percent in Bhutan and 21 percent in Nepal. The clean glaciers of the Tibetan plateau are retreating at a faster rate than the glaciers of the rugged central Himalayas, which have higher debris cover; debris creates an insulating effect, slowing melting.

The third report dealt with likely impacts if the region's glaciers melt:

Increases in glacial melting are projected to limit the natural water storage provided by expanses of snow and ice and to heighten the risk of glacial lake outburst floods. Mass losses from glaciers and accelerating reductions in snow cover are expected to ultimately reduce water supplies and hydropower potential. Changes in the seasonality of flows in river basins supplied by melt water from snow and ice are also predicted. Droughts will likely affect greater areas, and with dry spells there will need to be greater reliance on irrigation, even as water sources become more restricted, according to the authors. The risk of flooding is also increasing with increased variability of climate.

This contrasts with an article published last October in Scientific American (as highlighted below the line, by @BBCBias) which suggested that some glaciers supply less drinking water than had been previously assumed:

A growing number of studies based on satellite data and stream chemistry analyses have found that far less surface water comes from glacier melt than previously assumed. In Peru's Rio Santa, which drains the Cordilleras Blanca mountain range, glacier contribution appears to be between 10 and 20 percent. In the eastern Himalayas, it is less than 5 percent...
The Himalayan glaciers feed into Asia's biggest rivers: the Indus, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and the Yellow and Yangtze rivers in China. Early studies pegged the amount of meltwater in these river basins as high as 60 or 70 percent. But reliable data on how much water the glaciers release or where that water goes have been difficult to develop. Satellite images can't provide such regular hydrometeorological observations, and expeditions take significant time, money and physical exertion.
New methods, though, are refining the ability to study this and other remote glacial mountain ranges. Increasingly, scientists are finding that the numbers vary depending on the river, and even in different parts of the same river.
"There has been a lot of misinformation and confusion about it," said Peter Gleick, co-director of the California-based Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security. "About 1.3 billion people live in the watersheds that get some glacier runoff, but not all of those people depend only on the water from those watersheds, and not all the water in those watersheds comes from glaciers. Most of it comes from rainwater," he said.

12.43pm: Here is the all-important table of data from the Nature paper. It is headed, "Inverted 2003-2010 mass balance rates", and shows the world's 20 largest GICs (glacier and ice cap regions) and by how many gigatonnes (Gt) each one has increased or decrease over that time period. Crucially, it also shows the margin of error. You will see that some regions record little change or near parity between these figures, most notably - hence the headline finding from the study - the regions of the Himalayas and its surrounds (numbered 8, 8a, 8b, 8c, and 8d).

But look, too, at the significant net loss of ice mass in regions such as Alaska, Greenland and Antarctica. The overall picture is that, yes, there are regional variabilities, uncertainties and stability, but that there was a net loss of ice mass globally - 536Gt (+/- 93Gt) - between 2003 and 2010.

13.02pm: Just to say that at 2.10pm, Prof Jonathan Bamber, the director of the Bristol Glaciology Centre, will be answering questions on this topic on the EnvironmentGuardian website. You can submit your questions in advance here.

2.07pm: I've just received this response from Dr Simon Cook, a lecturer at the Centre for Glaciology at Aberystwyth University:

The overall picture from this study is that, on the whole, the global volume of glacier ice is reducing, with important implications for sea level rise. Importantly, however, it also demonstrates the complexity of glacier response to what seems to be a progressively warming climate.
All too often in the past media reports have presented a "black and white" view of climate change and glacier response to climate change. This may appeal to some, depending on their respective agendas, but scientists have long recognised the complexity of the situation.
For example, the Arctic region is experiencing a much greater rate of warming than other areas of the Earth. This appears to correlate with the glacier losses (e.g. Ellesmere, Baffin Island, Greenland) presented by Jacob et al. Elsewhere, the picture is different. Perhaps one of the more intriguing findings of this study is that there is relatively little change in the high Asian mountains (e.g. Himalaya, Karakoram).
Some will remember from back in late 2009 the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests report by VK Raina suggested a similar finding. This prompted a follow-up article in Science by Pallava Bagla and an article, also in Science, by scientists Cogley et al (pdf) who traced the source of an important error that had been propagated in earlier literature that Himalayan glaciers were set to disappear by 2035 (it turns out this should have been 2350).
The reasons for this complex global picture are not clear: some places warm more than others, some places experience more precipitation and, hence, snowfall to maintain glaciers is in positive or neutral balance. What is clear is that more research is required to evaluate the response of glaciers to climate change.

2.15pm: And here's an assessment of the Nature paper by Dr Richard Hodgkins, senior lecturer in physical geography at Loughborough University:

(1) Mass-loss estimates from the Himalayan region have been revised downward on the basis of a refined technique, but mass is still being lost;
(2) This is a welcome contribution for a part of the world which is incredibly hard to monitor on the ground (hence the uncertainty of previous estimates), and even from space;
(3) They key human angle is what this means for the water yield from river basins to which Himalayan glaciers contribute: glacier stability or growth at the highest elevations may have little impact on water yields, whereas ongoing loss at lower elevations may be much more detrimental. This question is really hard to resolve, however;
(4) There's no room for complacency: even very small changes in water supplies have the potential to impact tens or hundreds of millions of people, given how populous Asia is downstream of the Himalayas (but if jeopardy is potentially reduced, hooray);
(5) The remainder of the Nature paper documents ongoing ice loss from all parts of the world, including Greenland and Antarctica.

2.29pm: Prof Jonathan Bamber, the director of the Bristol Glaciology Centre, is now answering questions live here. He's already posted responses to questions posed by @frustratedartist:

1) Is it reasonable to assume that the general tendency is that, globally, glaciers are retreating?

Yes. If you look at the larger glaciers systems (Alaska, Canadian Arctic, Patagonia, Antarctica, Greenland) they all show a significant -ve trend that is larger than the uncertainty. For the smaller systems, such as the Alps, where there is relatively good in-situ observations, these also show a -ve trend. The uncertainties in the GRACE estimates for these smaller systems are about the same size as the signal, which is why hard to use them to determine smaller loss terms.

2) For people studying climate change, what is the most meaningful timescale? Does it make most sense to look at changes (in whatever indicators are being measured) on a year-by-year basis, a decade by decade basis, a century by century basis- or some other timescale?

This all depends on the system you're interested in and what you want to know. For example, the deep, abyssal circulation in the ocean takes thousands of years, while mesoscale eddies at the surface come and go over a few weeks. Generally, 30 years is considered to be a reasonable period for looking at climatological means that are controlled be atmospheric processes. In other words, over this timescale, inter-annual variability is reduced so that trends should be visible. In my article, and in the authors paper, we acknowledge that 8 years is a short time period and it is important, therefore, not to over-interpret the results.

2.37pm: I have just received this response from Graham Cogley, professor of geography at Trent University in Ontario, Canada:

Here is what I wrote in a reply to ClimateWire on Tuesday:

"My general take is that Jacob et al. (of which I already have a copy) is a welcome look at global glacier mass balance from a fresh perspective. It is consistent with some other lines of evidence that suggest that the earlier estimates may have overestimated the rate of loss. On the other hand it still needs work; GRACE cannot really "see" a good many of the regions with lesser amounts of glacier ice (the ones where the rate is not significantly different from zero in their Table 1), so for example it would be nice to know whether those lesser regions would make much of a difference. (With rare exceptions it is not plausible that any of them are actually gaining mass in the form of glacier ice.)"

I should explain that GRACE cannot "see" smallish collections of glaciers, such as those in the European Alps, because it has low spatial resolution. But the traditional methods make it quite clear that, whenever they are measured, the smallish collections are indeed losing mass. They count for little in the big picture because they account for only a small proportion of the total extent of ice.
One of the most convincing things in the paper by Jacob and others is the demonstration that earlier estimates of rapid mass loss in the eastern Himalaya are implausible. Further west, in the Karakoram, the GRACE finding of stability or even mass gain is consistent with other lines of evidence, including some that are not yet in the peer-reviewed literature. (So the Karakoram is the main "rare exception" at the moment.
Two final points:
Technically, GRACE is potentially a great leap forward because it measures mass change *directly*. But it is going to fall out of the sky in the next couple of years, and the follow-on to GRACE will not fly until several years from now. So we will have to rely on the traditional methods for at least a while longer, and part of the technical challenge is to learn how to use what GRACE is telling us to improve how we make regional estimates from the traditional sparse, scattered measurements.
Second, one of the points made correctly by Jacob and others is that the traditional measurements show a slowdown in the rate of loss since about 2005. So far the reasons for this have not been investigated, and it is a very intriguing phenomenon - because the temperature records, for example, do not seem to show the same pattern of change. But to the extent that the glaciers had several "bad" years in the early 2000s, and published estimates based on the traditional measurements are still weighted more towards those years than the most recent years, the disagreement may not be as "dramatic" as some statements in the media might suggest. (We still can't explain the slowdown, though.)

2.43pm:

My verdict

The Nature study has inevitably attracted plenty of attention because it deals, in part, with the still-controversial subject of Himalayan glaciers. Climate sceptics were delighted in 2010 when the IPCC had to correct a silly mistake in one of its landmark reports in which it had used "grey literature" to mistakenly make the claim that the region's glaciers would melt by 2035, rather than 2350, if current warming trends continued.

The surprising finding, reported in this new study, that satellite evidence shows that there wasn't any loss in ice mass between 2003 and 2010 in the wider Himalayan region has, again, been welcomed with much delight by climate sceptics. However, the headline finding distracts somewhat from the rest of the data presented in the paper. It shows clear evidence that other regions, most notably Greenland and Antarctica, recorded a significant loss in ice mass over this same period. But, because this was largely expected, it didn't become the headline.

There's little comfort to be found, though, in the news that, in total, 536 gigatonnes (+/- 93Gt) of ice was "lost" globally between 2003 and 2010. What this study shows is that our understanding of how glaciers are affected by climate change can, as you would expect, be improved. For example, there are huge regional variations for reasons that scientists are still trying to fully understand. But to pin our hopes that climate change might be more benign than first feared on an unexpected finding in one region over a period of just eight years seems unwise when the wider global trend is clear, as the study clearly shows.

Asia's highest peaks have not lost ice over the past decade, according to new research. Glaciologist Prof Jonathan Bamber answers your questions

A new study published in Nature has found that the world's largest mountain chain, running from the Himalayas to Tian Shan on the border of Kyrgystan and China, has not experienced any net loss of ice over the past decade.

This came as a surprise to glaciologists who had thought that melting in the Himalayas and nearby peaks was making an appreciable contribution to sea level rise.

Why the reassessment? Here's how our story on the study puts it:

The reason for the radical reappraisal of ice melting in Asia is the different ways in which the current and previous studies were conducted. Until now, estimates of meltwater loss for all the world's 200,000 glaciers were based on extrapolations of data from a few hundred monitored on the ground. Those glaciers at lower altitudes are much easier for scientists to get to and so were more frequently included, but they were also more prone to melting.

Leo Hickman's Eco Audit column is asking what this reappraisal means for scientists' understanding of the effect of climate change on other glaciers around the world.

Also, between 2.10pm and 3pm, glaciologist was Prof Jonathan Bamber, the director of the Bristol Glaciology Centre, will be live on the site answering your questions about the implications of the study.

Post your questions in the comments below.

Photographs from the Guardian Eyewitness series

From the number of words for snow to the source of 'OK', popular etymology is crowded with myths

Kate Bush's latest album, Fifty Words for Snow, touches many popular nerves, but few so sensitive as our attachment to language myths.

The thing about language – English, or any other – is that, as native speakers, we are all expert, from birth. In one sense, we are all equally experienced in it. This gives us the right to hold forth.

Let us begin with the myth contained in Bush's album title The notion that the Inuit language has 50 words for snow, which has been kicking around for years, has latterly been labelled the Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax; in fact, as many commentators have pointed out, English, which is famously rich in synonyms, has just as many ways as Inuit to describe the white stuff.

Another vocabulary/language myth, which will prop up any bar you care to think of, is that Shakespeare had the biggest personal lexicon in English literature (estimates vary, but tend to range between 25,000 and 32,000 words). Not true. Milton, Bacon and Jonson exhibit a range of vocabulary every bit as innovative and voluminous as the Bard, whoever he might have been (Marlowe, Oxford, or even Bacon himself).

Either way, though, Shakespeare was certainly a coiner of "fire-new words" – and the origins and histories of words rarely fail to stir controversy. Almost everyone loves to debate the sources of language. At the end of last year, Mark Forsyth, author of the Inky Fool blog, had a Christmassy hardback hit with The Etymologicon. Having attributed this word to Milton, he proceeded to riff very entertainingly on the hidden connections of words (from brackets and codpieces, to cappuccinos and monkeys).

One of my favourite, and universal, English words, hoary with myth, is Okay. People have written whole books about this. In the saloon bar of language debate, you will confidently be told that – no question – "OK" has this, or that, transatlantic source.

Language myth tells us that it's from railroad freight agent Obadiah Kelly, or Indian chief Old Keokuk, who signed treaties OK, or an English farm word hoacky, meaning the last load of the harvest. Or … you name it, there's a theory.

The great linguistic scholar Allen Walker Read nailed OK down to the 1840 US presidential election when "OK" became the party slogan of "Old Kinderhook", Martin van Buren, who eventually lost to William Henry Harrison - but that's not conclusive, of course. I still hanker for an "OK" that's derived from the African word, wukay.

And if you think this is contentious, look up the origins of "marmalade". Even Kate Bush might hesitate before putting that into a song title.

US helicopter Prince Harry will fly isn't the fastest, takes 16 months of training to master, but is the attack aircraft of choice

The army regards the Apache helicopter as the attack aircraft of choice in Afghanistan. It is not the fastest helicopter, but those who have flown it say it has plenty of power and is very robust.

It also has an array of hi-tech systems: weapons, sights, sensors, radar and communications – a lot of the information from which appears in the right eye of the helmet display unit (HDU) worn by pilots and the symbols stay in their field of vision whichever way they turn.

The pilots sit one behind the other. You can fly the aircraft from both seats, but on operations in Afghanistan, the mission commander tends to sit in the front seat to operate the sights, sensors and weapon systems, with the second pilot flying from the back seat, which has slightly better visibility. There are about 150 switches to control the rotor blades and some of the weapons and sights.

Some of them won't be used during routine flights in the UK, but during combat operations the army believes it is essential to make pilots "seat specific" otherwise they get information overload.

The Apache training takes 16 months, split between two eight-month courses.

The focus of the first, the conversion to type (CTT), is learning how to fly the aircraft. The focus of the second eight months, insiders say, is "learning how to fight it".

The first course covers ground school, simulator training, and day and night flying. The simulator is used to "load up" the crew with more and more demanding situations. The trainees are assessed all the time and weeded out if they are not up to the mark.

Pilots say night flying is one of the most challenging skills on the Apache. Unlike most military aircraft where pilots fly on NVG (which amplifies ambient light) the Apache flies on a FLIR (forward looking infra red) which works on temperature difference.

So along with all the other symbols in the right eye, pilots will have this FLIR image beamed in as well.

Pilots say this is the most difficult challenge of the first eight months. Once they have mastered it, the NVG image is then overlaid on top of the FLIR image.

During the second eight months, the pilots train in pairs, and are sent on an eight week exercise in the US, called Crimson Eagle. It includes a live firing phase where trainees use "all of the aircraft weapons systems within realistic tactical scenarios in an environment that is similar to Afghanistan".

The Apache has three main weapons systems: a 30m cannon; rockets; and Hellfire laser-guided missiles, which are known to be extremely accurate.

The army has 67 Apaches, and 55 crews of two pilots. Even experienced pilots can struggle to learn to fly the Apache because there are so many systems – weapons and otherwise – to master.

Those who qualify have come to appreciate the sophistication of its "redundancy", or backup, systems.

It has two of everything – hydraulics, flying controls, generators, engines etc.

If something gets knocked out, there is a backup in place. One army source said: "It is designed to perform its mission and get you back home."

Mid-February is the moment when these polite little plants carpet damp woodland and roadside banks

Galanthus, the milk flower, is at its discreet peak. Mid-February is the moment when these polite little plants carpet damp woodland and roadside banks, so decorous compared with rowdy daffodils and narcissuses, coming shortly, or the gaudy bluebells that will show in another couple of months. They are also, for all their modesty, becoming big business – even a subject of theft. Identifying new cultivars of snowdrop takes an expert eye. It is a question of a little more green here, a slightly sharper indent there, a hint of variegation on a leaf or pedicel. Close students of how markets work will not be surprised to learn that such expertise, coupled with the notorious difficulties of persuading snowdrops to establish and naturalise, mean each tiny bulb can sell for £25 or even £30. Not quite tulip mania, but if you fancy creating your own drift of snowdrops, it will take deep pockets. Or the gardener's virtue: patience.

If you think Tillman the skateboarding bulldog is clever, take a look at this lot

Ah yes, Tillman the skateboarding bulldog from Venice Beach, Los Angeles. I think I may know Tillman from YouTube. He scoots along, left legs on the board, right legs kicking the ground, gaining momentum, then on he hops and he's off, leaning into corners, tongue hanging out, clearly loving it. A bit too clearly, perhaps – you may want to work on your indifference, Tillman, your skater cool. Otherwise, good job.

This is not a trick he's been taught; he's not getting any treats for doing it. Tillman skateboards because he loves skateboarding. He's here, on Super Smart Animals (BBC1), to demonstrate not just his prowess but also that animals are capable of learning simply through having the enthusiasm to try things out. I wish I'd known this when I was a teenager. Yeah, Mum, but going skateboarding is the same as doing my French homework – better, in fact, because I'm not just learning because you're telling me to, I'm learning because I want to learn, and by doing so I'm demonstrating that I'm an intelligent human being, bye [slams door, goes skateboarding with mates].

Animals are more intelligent than we've previously given them credit for. That they use tools we've known about for ages – sticks to winkle grubs out of holes, rocks to break shells etc. In Leipzig zoo an orangutan gets peanuts out of narrow tubes by filling the tube with water, so the peanut floats up to where he can reach it. This, too, is something he's never been taught or had to do before; it doesn't come through thousands of years of evolution, it's a flash of inspiration, an epiphany, a Eureka moment. Amazingly, human visitors to the same zoo are unable to figure it out. Dur, stupid humans.

A Hawaiian heron called Hank demonstrates he can plan ahead; British homing pigeons show they can remember; Honduran dolphins display creativity; Californian sealions can be taught the difference between numbers and letters. And still on education, and still in California (it's where all the brainiest animals come from), a parrot called Alex knows numbers and letters, can identify objects and materials, and can understand concepts like same and different. Well, knew, could, and understood, actually, because at the height of his powers, aged 25, Alex the parrot sadly died (someone should do a sketch about it). But he did change the way the world thinks about animals and learning. And that's a piece of luck, because I'm not sure Alex's protege, another African Grey called Griffin, is going to do much to further Alex's work. He just seems a bit, well, thick.

At times Super Smart Animals does feel a bit like a trawl around YouTube (they forgot the surfing sheep!); that or a children's science programme – it's presented by Bang Goes the Theory's Liz Bonnin, who's very bouncy and very bubbly. She could have done more to show off her (genuine) science credentials as well as her lovely smile; but then it is a nice change to have a science programme that isn't some Scottish bloke banging on about rocks. And come on, it's animals doing amazing (and amusing things); you can't go wrong with that.

Best of all is Ayuma the chimpanzee in Tokyo who easily outperforms Liz in committing numbers to memory, then recalling them in the right order after they're been covered up. Amazing! I'm thinking if he can do that with numbers, surely he could do it with cards too. You could take him to Vegas, clean up. Rain Animal.

Roger & Val Have Just Got In (BBC2) is back for another series. I'm surprised, I have to say. I simply don't get it, though I know it has its admirers. It's a beautifully observed portrait of everyday life and a relationship, they say, poignant and touching. I could switch off the telly and look in the living room mirror for that, I say; I want a bit more from a drama; it's boring. It's well acted by Dawn French and Alfred Molina, they say. OK, they can have that. It's Mike Leigh, they say. It's not, it's Mike Leigh-Lite, Mike Leigh Zero. This has neither the grit nor the humour of Mike Leigh.

Perhaps I'm being old-fashioned, but the dearth of jokes is a slight problem for me – if this is a comedy, as I'm led to believe. It's a sitcom, without the com. It's a sit. Or a sit-through, because rarely has half an hour felt so long.