Category Archives: Science

UK Covid live: tier 3 rules extended across southern England as secondary schools face staggered January return

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Latest updates: ‘vast majority’ of areas currently in tier 3 will remain there; secondary school pupils’ return to class in England will be staggered

The Department of Health has released a written ministerial statement giving the reasons for the decisions taken today about why areas in England are staying in, or moving from, particular tiers. It’s here - although the version up at the moment only covers the north-west, the north-east and London.

The government is to provide interim cover for EU holiday healthcare costs for people who require routine hospital treatment such as dialysis and chemotherapy in the event there is no Brexit deal to replace the current European Health Care Insurance Scheme (EHIC).

In a written ministerial statement Edward Argar, a health minister, said:

This government will introduce the scheme with the intention that it is used by individuals who are certain to require treatment while abroad, such as regular dialysis, oxygen therapy or certain types of chemotherapy. The government recognises that these ongoing, routine treatment costs can be expensive, and makes travelling abroad extremely challenging for many people.

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US FDA declares genetically modified pork ‘safe to eat’

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Developer says it plans to focus on using pig organs for human transplant rather than selling for meat

Genetically modified (GM) pigs have been approved for food and medical use in the US, drawing mixed reactions. The pigs are only the second GM animal to be approved for food after GM salmon in 2015.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this week approved the GM pigs, which have been engineered to eliminate alpha-gal, a sugar found in pigs that can cause allergic reactions.

The FDA said it was the first time it had approved a GM animal for human food and medical use.

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British American Tobacco wins approval to test Covid vaccine on humans

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Treatment grown on tobacco plants gets US backing for clinical study

British American Tobacco has moved a step closer to producing a vaccine for coronavirus using tobacco plants, as it won approval in the US to begin testing on humans.

The company behind cigarette brands including Lucky Strike, Rothmans and Benson & Hedges said the US Food & Drug Administration had given it clearance to begin a clinical study with adult volunteers.

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‘What’s that Skip?’ Researchers say kangaroos can communicate with people

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Study shows animals with no long history of domestication show patterns of interaction with humans similar to that of dogs or horses

The classic TV show Skippy, about a child speaking with a highly intelligent kangaroo, might not be as fictional as we once thought, according to Australian and UK researchers.

A study from the University of Sydney and the University of Roehampton in London suggests that kangaroos are capable of intentionally communicating with humans, suggesting a higher level of cognitive function than previously thought.

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‘Like nothing seen in nature before’: strange dinosaur has scientists enthralled

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The highly unusual Ubirajara jubatus boasted a mane of ‘hair-like structions’ and two ‘ribbon-like features’, researchers say

About 110 million years ago along the shores of an ancient lagoon in what is now north-eastern Brazil, a two-legged, chicken-sized Cretaceous period dinosaur made a living hunting insects and perhaps small vertebrates like frogs and lizards.

On the inside, it was ordinary, with a skeleton similar to many small dinosaurs from the preceding Jurassic Period, scientists said on Tuesday. On the outside, it was anything but.

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Greenwich backs down over plans to close schools in face of legal action

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Move signals government’s determination to keep schools open in run-up to Christmas and beyond

The London borough of Greenwich has reluctantly backed down over plans to close schools and switch to online learning to slow the spread of coronavirus, after the government launched legal action ordering schools to remain fully open until the end of term.

In a letter to parents, the leader of Greenwich council, Danny Thorpe, said he could not agree this was the best choice for schools in the borough, but neither could he justify using public funds to fight a court battle with the government.

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UK medical journals call for Christmas Covid rules to be reversed

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Move increases pressure on ministers to rethink plans to allow households to mix over festive period

Plans to relax Covid restrictions at Christmas must be reversed or many lives risk being lost, according to a rare joint editorial from two of the UK’s most eminent medical journals.

The government can no longer claim to be protecting the NHS if it goes ahead with “rash” plans to allow households to mix indoors over Christmas, the British Medical Journal and Health Service Journal have said.

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The great project: how Covid changed science for ever

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The emergence of a novel coronavirus prompted a wave of global collaboration that has led to vaccines, treatments and the promise of new discoveries

For scientists, 5 January was a turning point in the fight against the coronavirus. That day, a team led by Prof Yong-Zhen Zhang at Fudan University in Shanghai sequenced the genetic code of the virus behind Wuhan’s month-long pneumonia outbreak. The process took about 40 hours. Having analysed the code, Zhang reported back to the Ministry of Health. The pathogen was a novel coronavirus similar to Sars, the deadly virus that sparked an epidemic in 2003. People should take precautions, he warned.

The Chinese government had imposed an embargo on information about the outbreak and Zhang and his co-workers were under pressure not to publish the code. The blackout couldn’t hold. On 8 January, news broke about the nature of the pathogen and was confirmed a day later by Chinese authorities. To sit on the code now seemed ridiculous.

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‘It made Boris seem like a normal person’: how did Johnson’s Covid change him?

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The prime minister’s spell in intensive care underscored the severity of the pandemic. Did it also make him reassess his life?

It was an unexpected twist in what already felt like an excessively dramatic disaster movie. On 6 April, the British prime minister was admitted to the intensive care ward at St Thomas’ hospital in London, after contracting a new and potentially deadly virus. Donald Trump said he was “praying for his good friend”; the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said all his wishes were with the prime minister, his family and the British people in “this difficult time”. The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, described it as “terribly sad news”.

Boris Johnson pulled through, of course, surviving to witness the birth of his son, Wilfred – given the middle name Nicholas, after the doctors, Dr Nick Price and Dr Nick Hart, who saved Johnson’s life. But more than eight months later, could the country still be feeling the impact of this dramatic turn of events?

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Scientists plan mission to biggest iceberg as it drifts towards island

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Team will study effects on environment of A-68A, which is heading for South Georgia

Scientists are preparing for an urgent mission to the world’s biggest iceberg, which is on a collision course with the island of South Georgia in the southern Atlantic Ocean.

The A-68A iceberg, which is larger than Luxembourg, broke off from the Larsen C ice shelf in Antarctica in 2017 and has been drifting towards the island ever since.

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How to watch the Jupiter and Saturn ‘great conjunction’ on winter solstice

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On 21 December 2020, the planets will align, appearing closer than they have since the middle ages, in what is being called a ‘Christmas kiss’

This year, stargazers will have the chance to see a Christmas “kiss” beneath interplanetary mistletoe when Jupiter and Saturn will appear closer to one another and brighter than they have in 800 years in an event known as a “great conjunction”.

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Coronavirus: key moments – timeline

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From December 2019, when an unknown virus was found in China, to the release of vaccines for Covid-19 – here are the points where momentum shifted

From December 2019, when an unknown virus was found in China, to the release of vaccines for Covid-19, it has been an extraordinary year. Here’s how the momentum shifted

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Coronavirus live news: Netherlands heading for month-long lockdown; Poland facing ‘third wave’ of Covid

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Dutch PM to speak to the nation tonight; ministers to recommend restrictions are extended in Poland

The US has reported 16,113,148 cases of new coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic, with 1,476,230 cases reported in the last seven days.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Monday that 17,184 people had died from Covid-19 in the previous week, taking the total US death toll so far to 298,266.

Turkish president has said Turkey will impose a five-day full lockdown beginning on 31 December, as official data showed new daily coronavirus deaths hit a record 229.

Recep Tayip Erdoğan, speaking after a cabinet meeting, said the stay-home order would begin at 9pm on New Year’s Eve and run to 4 January.

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China’s Sinopharm vaccine: how effective is it and where will it be rolled out?

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Trials have claimed 86% efficacy, but Peru has suspended tests because of ‘an adverse event’ and there is concern about lack of transparency

Read all our coronavirus coverage here

Trials in the United Arab Emirates have shown that China’s Sinopharm vaccine has 86% efficacy. So what is the Chinese treatment, where is it being trialled and will it challenge the vaccines being developed in western countries?

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‘Autoantibodies’ may be driving severe Covid cases, study shows

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Scientists find aberrant immune system in patients with virus could also be cause of ‘long Covid’

Dramatic levels of “friendly fire” from the immune system may drive severe Covid-19 disease and leave patients with “long Covid” – when medical problems persist for a significant time after the virus has been beaten – scientists have said.

Researchers at Yale University found that Covid-19 patients had large numbers of misguided antibodies in their blood that targeted the organs, tissues and the immune system itself, rather than fighting off the invading virus.

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Coronavirus live news: Germany to close schools and all non-essential shops; Turkey adds 800,000 cases

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Germany introduces new restrictions to combat spread of virus; Turkey changes counting method, almost doubling cases

Here are some striking images of Dr. Luigi Cavanna visiting his patients in their homes in small towns and rural areas in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy.

He checks his patients’ oxygen levels, uses ultrasound to scan their lungs and tests them and their relatives for coronavirus.

Residents in Jersey care homes are receiving Covid vaccinations a day earlier than expected, the island’s government has announced.

Officials said the government made the call to start on Sunday rather than Monday “in view of the positive Covid cases in care homes”, which have seen a recent 400% surge, from four on Thursday to 19 by Saturday.

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Covid vaccines roll out of Pfizer plant in US but Trump says he is not taking it yet

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President says he is not scheduled to take vaccine as the most complex distribution project ever in the US gets underway

Trucks hauling trailers loaded with suitcase–sized containers of Covid-19 vaccine rolled out of Pfizer’s manufacturing facility in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on Sunday – launching the largest and most complex vaccine distribution project in the US.

However, public confidence in the vaccine risked being eroded after President Donald Trump – who has had Covid – said he was “not scheduled to take the vaccine” but would do so “at the appropriate time”.

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Has a year of living with Covid-19 rewired our brains?

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The pandemic is expected to precipitate a mental health crisis, but perhaps also a chance to approach life with new clarity

When the bubonic plague spread through England in the 17th century, Sir Isaac Newton fled Cambridge where he was studying for the safety of his family home in Lincolnshire. The Newtons did not live in a cramped apartment; they enjoyed a large garden with many fruit trees. In these uncertain times, out of step with ordinary life, his mind roamed free of routines and social distractions. And it was in this context that a single apple falling from a tree struck him as more intriguing than any of the apples he had previously seen fall. Gravity was a gift of the plague. So, how is this pandemic going for you?

In different ways, this is likely a question we are all asking ourselves. Whether you have experienced illness, relocated, lost a loved one or a job, got a kitten or got divorced, eaten more or exercised more, spent longer showering each morning or reached every day for the same clothes, it is an inescapable truth that the pandemic alters us all. But how? And when will we have answers to these questions – because surely there will be a time when we can scan our personal balance sheets and see in the credit column something more than grey hairs, a thicker waist and a kitten? (Actually, the kitten is pretty rewarding.) What might be the psychological impact of living through a pandemic? Will it change us for ever?

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Mathematician explains cracking California Zodiac Killer cipher – video

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The Australian mathematician Samuel Blake describes how he and and two other cryptologists finally solved an encrypted message written by the unnamed serial killer 51 years ago.

The FBI confirmed the code, cracked with help from a supercomputer called Spartan, is accurate, but they said it did not help with identification

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Origin story: what do we know now about where coronavirus came from?

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When Chinese scientists alerted colleagues to a new virus last December, suspicion fell on a Wuhan market. What have health officials learned since then?

Maria van Kerkhove was staying with her sister in the US for the Christmas holidays, but checking her emails. As always. Every day there are signals of potential trouble, said the World Health Organization virologist who was to become a household name and face within weeks.

“There’s always something that happens at Christmas time. There’s always some alert, or a signal of a suspected case. The last several years it’s been Mers [Middle East respiratory syndrome] – a suspect case travelling to Malaysia or Indonesia or Korea or somewhere in Asia from the Middle East. So there’s always some kind of signal. There’s always something that happens,” she said.

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