Category Archives: Science

Coronavirus live news: Auckland back in lockdown; Paris marathon cancelled as cases rise

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France cancels marathon as cases pick up; WHO warns displacement of people in Beirut risks accelerating spread; four new cases in Auckland

Jordan will close its only land trade border crossing with Syria for a week after a spike in Covid-19 cases coming from its northern neighbour, officials said.

They said the interior minister’s decision to close the main Jaber border crossing would come into effect on Thursday morning.

Britain’s NatWest is cutting at least 500 jobs across its retail business and closing one of its remaining offices in London as banks press on with cost-cutting in the face of a wave of expected loan losses due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The state-backed bank is finalising a voluntary redundancy round targeting cutting 550 full-time equivalent roles across its branches and ‘premier banking’ premium service, union Unite told Reuters.

Tens of thousands of people working for banks have risen to the challenge that the pandemic created. The banks’ response should not be a repeat of the austerity measures that we saw after the financial crisis.

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‘They’ve jumped the gun’: scientists worry about Russia’s Covid-19 vaccine

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Rising chorus of concern over Sputnik V vaccine stems from opaque development and lack of mass-testing

In 1977 Scott Halstead, a virologist at the University of Hawaii, was studying dengue fever when he noticed a now well-known but then unexpected feature of the disease.

Animals that had already been exposed to one of the four closely-related viruses that cause dengue and produced antibodies to it, far from being protected against other versions became sicker when infected a second time, and it was the antibodies already produced by the first infection that were responsible, allowing the second infection to hitchhike into the body.

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Covid live news: Lebanon hits record daily cases after blast; Russian vaccine must follow safety procedure, says WHO

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Coronavirus updates: New Zealand records first new local cases in 102 days; global deaths likely to pass 750,000 this week, says WHO

As we reported earlier, the Dutch health minister said he plans to introduce mandatory home quarantine for people identified by local authorities as having been in close contact with somebody infected with coronavirus, and for travellers returning from high-risk countries.

Health minister Hugo de Jonge said in a letter to lawmakers that mandatory quarantine could be imposed if people refuse to isolate voluntarily.

Germany has extended a partial travel warning for Spain to the capital of Madrid and the Basque region due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

The foreign ministry said it was warning against any unnecessary tourist trips to both regions because of a rising number of new infections and local restrictions put in place to contain the spread of coronavirus.

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Powerhouses: nanotechnology turns bricks into batteries

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Research could pave way for cheap supercapacitor storage of renewable energy

The humble house brick has been turned into a battery that can store electricity, raising the possibility that buildings could one day become literal powerhouses.

The new technology exploits the porous nature of fired red bricks by filling the pores with tiny nanofibres of a conducting plastic that can store charge. The first bricks store enough electricity to power small lights. But if their capacity can be increased, they may become a low-cost alternative to the lithium-ion batteries currently used.

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Russia’s coronavirus vaccine: will it work, and is it safe?

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Sputnik V’s development has been marked by worrying opacity and ethical issues

The race to find a vaccine against Covid-19 has not always been particularly edifying, driven at times by so-called “vaccine nationalism”, much cautioned against by the World Health Organization, which has itself been accused of being invested as much in self-interest and prestige as global public health.

Russia’s announcement that it has registered its Sputnik V vaccine as safe and effective for mass production and inoculation even before so-called phase 3 large-scale safety trials, which usually take months, fits the pattern.

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Planet Ceres is an ‘ocean world’ with sea water beneath surface, mission finds

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Dwarf planet, believed to be a barren space rock, has an ‘extensive reservoir’ of brine beneath its surface, images show

The dwarf planet Ceres – long believed to be a barren space rock – is an ocean world with reservoirs of sea water beneath its surface, the results of a major exploration mission showed on Monday.

Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and has its own gravity, enabling the Nasa Dawn spacecraft to capture high-resolution images of its surface.

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Gene manipulation using algae could grow more crops with less water

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Enhanced photosynthesis holds promise of higher yields in a drought-afflicted future

Tobacco plants have been modified with a protein found in algae to improve their photosynthesis and increase growth, while using less water, in a new advance that could point the way to higher-yielding crops in a drought-afflicted future.

The technique focuses on photosynthesis, the complex process by which plants are able to use sunlight and carbon dioxide to produce nutrients that fuel their growth. Enhancing photosynthesis would produce huge benefits to agricultural productivity, but the complexities of the process have stymied many past attempts to harness it.

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Study links cannabis use during pregnancy to autism risk

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Research suggests 50% greater risk for children whose mothers report using cannabis

Children born to mothers who report using cannabis during pregnancy have about a 50% greater risk of developing autism, research suggests.

While the team behind the work said more research was needed to unpick whether cannabis itself was behind the link, they said the results were concerning.

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Global report: Covid cases worldwide near 20 million as Australia suffers deadliest day

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Cases in Britain rise over 1,000 a day for first time since June; one in every 65 Americans has tested positive; US health secretary praises Taiwan

Five months since the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus crisis a global pandemic, the number of Covid cases globally is nearing 20m, with almost 730,000 known deaths.

The current number of confirmed infections stands at 19,792,519, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, with total new cases daily averaging more than 250,000.

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Coronavirus live news: Greece ‘formally’ in second wave, says expert, as WHO warns Europe to react fast

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World Health Organization says it has received just 10% of funds it needs for Covid fight

India has registered a record 1,007 fatalities in the past 24 hours as new coronavirus infections surged by 62,064 cases, the Associated Press reports.

The health ministry said the total fatalities reached 44,386 on Monday. The number of confirmed cases reported so far are 2,215,074. At least 634,935 patients were still undergoing treatment.

Concern is growing that a resurgence of coronavirus in Europe will lead to a “second wave” of uncoordinated border restrictions that will undermine the open borders on which the European Union is founded.

In a letter to national governments, seen by the Associated Press, the European commission warns that “while we must ensure that the EU is ready for possible resurgences of Covid-19 cases ... we should at the same time avoid a second wave of uncoordinated actions at the internal borders of the EU.”

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What we are learning about Covid-19 and kids

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As schools around the world prepare to reopen, new scientific evidence about children and coronavirus is coming to light

Back in April, the French epidemiologist Arnaud Fontanet found himself leading an investigation in the town of Crépy-en-Valois, a small community of 15,000 inhabitants just to the north-east of Paris. In February, the town’s middle and high schools had become the centre of a new outbreak of Covid-19.

Fontanet and colleagues from the Pasteur Institute in Paris were tasked with conducting antibody testing across Crépy-en-Valois to understand the extent to which the virus had been circulating. As they surveyed the town, they noted an interesting pattern. While the virus had spread rampantly through the high school, with 38% of students being infected, along with 43% of teachers and 59% of non-teaching staff, the same was not true for the town’s six primary schools. While three primary-age pupils had caught Covid-19 in early February, none of these infections had led to a secondary case. Overall, just 9% of primary age pupils, 7% of teachers and 4% of non-teaching staff had been infected with the virus.

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Nasa to change ‘harmful’ and insensitive’ planet and galaxy nicknames

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Space agency says ‘certain cosmic nicknames are insensitive’ and vows to drop any reference to them

Nasa has signaled it is joining the social justice movement by changing unofficial and potentially contentious names used by the scientific community for distant cosmic objects and systems such as planets, galaxies and nebulae.

In a statement last week, the space agency said that as the “community works to identify and address systemic discrimination and inequality in all aspects of the field, it has become clear that certain cosmic nicknames are not only insensitive, but can be actively harmful”.

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Listen to your migraine to help you feel better – and to learn about yourself

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Headaches are telling you something about how your brain works with your body, influencing your behaviour and feelings

We need pain. It seems contradictory to say it, particularly now that we have so many ways of dealing with it and switching it off. Pain not only tells us something is wrong, it also protects us. If you slam the car door on your hand, it’s going to hurt. You will have damaged the soft tissue; all the muscles and ligaments that help you move your fingers. It will no doubt swell up to twice its size. This inflammation is part of the healing process. Your hand feels hot and looks red because of all the extra blood flow. All these inflammatory agents that are acting to heal you are stimulating the pain receptors in your hand, the ones in your skin and your muscles. Your head is not so different except, crucially, the underlying cause can be much more subtle and varied.

As a neuroscientist who writes about headaches, it is somewhat ironic to admit that I suffer from them still. Two recent headaches stand out. The first happened when I couldn’t find my glasses. I’m astigmatic so I see the world on a bit of a slant because my left eyeball is shaped like a rugby ball instead of a football. Just looking around can be effortful. Plus, the search made me late for everything that day which was unpleasant. By the time I got home, my head felt like it was in the grip of giant hands and they had begun to squeeze hard. All I wanted for dinner was a paracetamol sandwich.

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Coronavirus Australia: Victoria reports 466 new cases and 12 deaths, including second man in his 30s

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Victorian premier Daniel Andrews says number of mystery Covid-19 cases has risen by 130 as nine new infections announced in NSW

A man in his 30s and six aged care residents are among 12 new Victorian Covid-19 deaths that have taken Australia’s coronavirus death toll to 278.

On Saturday, the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, announced a further 466 cases of coronavirus in the state. Andrews said the number of cases attributed to no known source had risen by 130 to 2,584.

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‘The virus piggybacked on racism’: why did Covid-19 hit BAME families so hard?

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Ida lost two brothers in 10 days, and Ken’s teenage sweetheart died at 44. Now, they’re looking for answers

Sir Oyaseh Ivowi sits in front of a poster of two of his three boys. Olume, the older brother, hovers over Isi; both wear traditional Nigerian dress. Underneath are the words: “Gone too soon, but not forgotten. Olume Godfrey Ivowi, 7 November 1973 to 10 April 2020. Isi Benjamin Emitsemu Ivowi, 17 November 1985 to 19 April 2020.”

Olume, 46, and Isi, 34, died in Luton and Milton Keynes respectively. Their passing made headlines because it was so shocking: two brothers killed by Covid-19 in such a short space of time. A third brother, Osi, also caught the virus, but has recovered.

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Coronavirus live news: UK recalls home tests over safety concerns as Indian health workers strike

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Ten of thousands demand better pay and protection as cases rise in the Philippines, Greece and Italy

Hi, it’s Aaron Walawalkar here in London, picking up the blog from my colleague Damien Gayle.

Please get in touch with any suggestions for coverage, or comments by DM on Twitter @AaronWala or by email at aaron.walawalkar@theguardian.com.

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‘Wishful thinking’: the dangers of UK hype during Covid-19

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From the UK government over-promising on testing to scientific spin on a vaccine, realism is in short supply

They were billed by the UK health secretary, Matt Hancock, as “lifesaving” and “hugely beneficial”: two new coronavirus tests that claim to deliver results within 90 minutes, promoted enthusiastically to the public with the help of front pages in the Times, the i and the Daily Mail, which declared they would “transform the war on corona”.

The suppliers are little known, evaluation data is not yet available, and it is unclear how effective the tests are outside hospital settings, not least because taking blood or swabs is difficult for non-medics.

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Revealed: UK’s rapid Covid test not yet approved by regulators

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Exclusive: no data on accuracy of this and other test bought by government has been published

One of two 90-minute rapid coronavirus tests bought by the UK government and announced on Monday has yet to be approved by regulators, while no data on the accuracy of either has been published, the Guardian has learned.

The test, from Oxford Nanopore, a young biotech company spun off from Oxford University, has not yet gained a CE mark. Before Covid-19, Oxford Nanopore had been involved only in research, not tests for patients.

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UK coronavirus live: Boris Johnson insists test-and-trace system is ‘world beating’ despite fall in contacts reached

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Latest figures show just 72% of close contacts reached; PM defends scheme; UK reports 950 new cases; Aberdeen outbreak cases increase by 25

Nine Conservative MPs in Greater Manchester have written a letter to the health secretary demanding “a more sophisticated approach” to local lockdowns, criticising the government’s “crude and ineffective strategy”.

The whole region of 2.8 million people was put back into partial lockdown last Thursday after infections started to rise. The decision prompted unhappiness in some areas of Greater Manchester where rates remained low, for example in Wigan and Bury.

The mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has rejected the idea of releasing some of the 10 boroughs before others. But the Tory MPs reject this “one size fits all” approach, which they say “risks spreading resources too thinly across the whole conurbation, including in areas with few or no cases”.

They say Burnham fails to understand local infection patterns in seeking to “impose a crude and ineffective strategy across the whole area”.

They say:

Measures must be taken on a borough by borough basis and on a town by town basis in boroughs where there are only one or two coronavirus ‘hotspots’, but the rates in other parts of the borough are low ...

Failing to properly target resources, meaning inadequate measures in some places where the problems are greatest, and wasting resources where none are currently needed risks a wider outbreak across Greater Manchester, will only lead to more stringent ‘full lockdown’ measures being imposed as in Leicester. We must strive to avoid this at all costs.

Five clusters have been identified in Northern Ireland over the past seven days with 35 associated cases and 239 close contacts, according to the Public Health Agency (PHA).

Dr Gerry Waldron, head of health protection at the PHA, said:

This should act as a timely reminder that we must not become complacent - coronavirus remains in circulation and we have seen an increase in cases in recent weeks. It is therefore essential that we remember the key advice to help keep ourselves and those around us safe.

Maintain social distancing, wash your hands regularly, and get tested if you display any symptoms of coronavirus.

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Scientists follow the nose to solve mystery of long-necked reptile

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Scans suggest Tanystropheus, which lived 242m years ago, had nostrils on top of its snout

The mystery of an ancient reptile with a tremendously long neck has been solved, according to researchers who say the creature lived in the water.

Fossils of the creature, known as Tanystropheus, were first unearthed in Germany around 150 years ago and further specimens have turned up over the decades, largely at Monte San Giorgio on the Swiss-Italian border.

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