Category Archives: Science

Thousands at risk of heart attacks due to Covid disruption, experts warn

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Patients in England, Scotland and Wales missed out on starting blood pressure-lowering drugs, British Heart Foundation says

Thousands of people are at risk of avoidable heart attacks and strokes, experts have warned, after nearly 500,000 people in England, Scotland and Wales missed out on starting blood pressure-lowering drugs during the pandemic.

Researchers said that thousands of people could suffer a preventable cardiovascular event because they did not start taking vital medications known to stave off deadly heart and circulatory diseases amid the Covid related disruption to healthcare.

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England’s PCR Covid testing network drops one of three labs as demand falls

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Rosalind Franklin laboratory in Leamington Spa no longer to be part of laboratory network processing Covid tests

England’s PCR testing network for Covid is to be scaled back due to a fall in demand, public health officials have said.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said that the Rosalind Franklin laboratory in Leamington Spa – which at its peak was processing about 75,000 Covid PCR tests a day – will cease to operate as part of the processing network.

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US government logs more than 500 UFO reports with hundreds unexplained

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Although many are attributed to drones or balloons, others point to the spying capabilities of rival nations

The US government is examining 510 UFO reports, more than triple the number in its 2021 file. While many were caused by drones or balloons, hundreds remain unexplained, according to a report released on Thursday.

The 2022 report (pdf) by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) said that 247 “unidentified anomalous phenomena” or UAP reports have been filed with it since June 2021, when it revealed that it had records of 144 sightings of suspicious aerial objects under examination.

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Researchers warn of potentially fatal condition for open-water swimmers

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Swimming-induced pulmonary oedema involves the accumulation of fluid in the lungs of swimmers without it having been inhaled

A potentially life-threatening condition that can affect fit and healthy open-water swimmers causing them to “drown from the inside” may involve a buildup of fluid in the heart muscle, researchers have suggested.

Swimming-induced pulmonary oedema – SIPE – is a form of immersion pulmonary oedema and involves the accumulation of fluid in the lungs of swimmers without it having been inhaled. The condition is thought to be a result of increased pressure on the body’s blood vessels as a result of exertion, immersion and cold.

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UK’s first orbital rocket mission takes off from Cornwall

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Virgin Orbit’s Start Me Up mission heralded as start of new space era as Boeing 747 to deliver rocket carrying satellites into orbit

A historic rocket mission has set off from Cornwall as a specially converted Boeing 747 heads out over the Atlantic carrying a payload of nine satellites that it will propel into orbit.

Virgin Orbit’s Start Me Up mission is the first launch of satellites from European soil and is being heralded as the start of a new space era for the UK.

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Thousands expected in Cornwall for Europe’s first satellite launch

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Start Me Up mission will send nine civil and defence satellites into orbit from Newquay spaceport on Monday

Thousands of people are expected to descend on Cornwall to witness the first orbital rocket launch from UK soil in what is being heralded as the start of a “new era” for the British space industry.

As long as there are no last-minute technical hitches – and the Cornish weather does not spoil the party – the historic Start Me Up mission will take off on Monday night from Spaceport Cornwall, blasting nine satellites into orbit.

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Half of glaciers will be gone by 2100 even under Paris 1.5C accord, study finds

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If global heating continues at current rate of 2.7C, losses will be greater with 68% of glaciers disappearing

Half the planet’s glaciers will have melted by 2100 even if humanity sticks to goals set out in the Paris climate agreement, according to research that finds the scale and impacts of glacial loss are greater than previously thought. At least half of that loss will happen in the next 30 years.

Researchers found 49% of glaciers would disappear under the most optimistic scenario of 1.5C of warming. However, if global heating continued under the current scenario of 2.7C of warming, losses would be more significant, with 68% of glaciers disappearing, according to the paper, published in Science. There would be almost no glaciers left in central Europe, western Canada and the US by the end of the next century if this happened.

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WHO urges Covid data ‘transparency’ as China prepares to open borders

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Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says WHO officials stressed to Beijing the importance of sharing data ahead of easing of travel restrictions on 8 January

The World Health Organisation again urged China’s health officials to regularly share specific, real-time information on the country’s Covid surge, as the UK joined other countries in bringing in travel restrictions, citing a lack of data as the reason.

WHO Covid experts met Chinese officials on Friday and “again stressed the importance of transparency and regular sharing of data to formulate accurate risk assessments and to inform effective response”, said the WHO chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

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Why did China relax its Covid policy – and should we be worried?

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After long pursuing a strict zero-Covid regime, restrictions have been lifted in China as new variants emerge

After long pursing a zero-Covid policy, China has relaxed many restrictions including quarantine rules for travellers. But some experts have raised concerns the U-turn may cause problems. We take a look at why.

What has happened in China?

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Young Sudanese archaeologists dig up history as ‘west knows best’ era ends

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On a continent that has long attracted western expeditions, a wave of young people are now exploring sites

A late morning in Khartoum. Inside a low, dusty building in the centre of the Sudanese capital, there are crates of artefacts, a 7ft replica of a 2,000-year-old stone statue of a Nubian god, and students rushing through the corridors. Outside is noisy traffic, blinding sunlight and both branches of the Nile.

Heading down one staircase are Sabrine Jamal, Nadia Musa, Athar Bela and Sabrine al-Sadiq, all studying archaeology at Khartoum University. Not one of them is older than 24 and they see themselves as pioneers, breaking new ground on a continent that has long attracted western expeditions, specialists and adventurers but whose own archaeologists have received less attention overseas.

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Svalbard reindeer thrive as they shift diet towards ‘popsicle-like’ grasses

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Increased plant growth due to warmer climate appears to be prompting change in eating habits

As the Arctic warms, concern for the plight of Santa’s favourite sleigh pullers is mounting. But in one small corner of the far flung north – Svalbard – Rudolph and his friends are thriving.

Warmer temperatures are boosting plant growth and giving Svalbard reindeer more time to build up fat reserves; they also appear to be shifting their diets towards “popsicle-like” grasses that poke up through the ice and snow, data suggests.

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‘A second front’: fight to save 1,000-year-old caves from developers in Ukraine

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Archaeologists say cave complex must be preserved for ‘indisputable and cultural value’

Dmytro Perov was at his day job, analysing planning applications for Kyiv city council, when he saw a familiar address – the derelict house in central Kyiv built by his family in the late 1800s that was confiscated by the Bolsheviks. The owners of the site now wanted to build on it and had made the unlikely claim that their office was based at the house, which Perov knew had no roof and collapsed walls.

When he was a child, his grandmother said somewhere on the land around the former family home were rumoured to be ancient caves. He described it as a “small family legend”. Ukraine is home to a few cave complexes, most of which were built by monks, the most famous being Kyiv’s Pecherska Lavra – or Cave Monastery in English.

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US public not warned that monkeys imported from Cambodia carried deadly pathogens

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Documents reveal that pathogenic agents, zoonotic bacteria and viruses, including one deemed bioterrorism risk, entered US but ‘no indication CDC has been transparent’

Animal activists are calling for the US government to stop the importation of non-human primates for laboratory use after documents from the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reveal that deadly pathogenic agents, zoonotic bacteria and viruses – including one deemed to be a bioterrorism risk – entered the country with monkeys imported from Asia between 2018 and 2021.

Documents obtained by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) and seen exclusively by the Guardian, along with a case report by the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science, reveal that there have been six cases of Burkholderia pseudomallei identified in primates imported from Cambodia to the US.

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China’s return to wildlife farming ‘a risk to global health and biodiversity’

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Post-pandemic relaxation of restrictions could weaken animal protection and pose a hazard to public health, say experts

China appears to be weakening its post-Covid restrictions on the farming of wildlife such as porcupines, civets and bamboo rats, which raises a new risk to public health and biodiversity, warn NGOs and experts.

Before the pandemic, wildlife farming was promoted by government agencies as an easy way for rural Chinese people to get rich. But China issued an outright ban on hunting, trading and transporting wildlife, as well as the consumption as food, after public health experts suggested the virus could have originated from the supply chain.

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Bipedalism in humans may have come from foraging in treetops, research suggests

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Walking on two legs may not have been linked to environmental shifts, as previously thought

The ancestors of humans may have begun moving on two legs to forage for food among the treetops in open habitat, researchers have suggested, contradicting the idea that the behaviour arose as an adaptation to spending more time on the ground.

The origins of bipedalism in hominins around 7m years ago has long been thought to be linked to a shift in environment, when dense forests began to give way to more open woodland and grassland habitats. In such conditions, it has been argued, our ancestors would have spent more time on the ground than in the trees, and been able to move more efficiently on two legs.

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All South Koreans to become younger as traditional age system scrapped

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June will mark end of system that deemed newborns to be a year old, with a year added every 1 January

South Korea is to scrap its traditional method of counting ages and adopt the international standard – a change that that will knock one or two years off people’s ages on official documents but could take time to seep into daily life.

South Koreans are deemed to be a year old when they are born, and a year is added every 1 January. The unusual – and increasingly unpopular – custom means a baby born on New Year’s Eve becomes two years old as soon as the clock strikes midnight.

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Rising temperatures causing distress to foetuses, study reveals

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Climate crisis increases risks for subsistence farmers in Africa who usually work throughout pregnancy

Rising temperatures driven by climate breakdown are causing distress to the foetuses of pregnant farmers, who are among the worst affected by global heating.

A study revealed that the foetuses of women working in fields in the Gambia showed concerning rises in heart rates and reductions in the blood flow to the placenta as conditions became hotter. The women, who do much of the agricultural labour and work throughout pregnancy, told the scientists that temperatures had noticeably increased in the past decade.

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Health experts in conundrum over best way to avoid winter ‘tripledemic’

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RSV, Covid-19 and flu cases are exploding, but many health officials aren’t forcing masks or discouraging in-person gatherings

Dr Jason Newland, a pediatric infectious disease doctor at St Louis children’s hospital, is just waiting for his cold to start. “I can list off about 10 people right now that have had some sort of illness in the past five days,” Newland said.

That’s because the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza seasons started months earlier than usual, amid the continuing spread of Covid-19 and the common cold. The flu hospitalization rate is the highest it’s been in a decade, according to public health officials. Scientists have described the collision of viruses as a “tripledemic”.

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Queensland graziers unearth 100m-year-old plesiosaur remains likened to Rosetta Stone

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Amateur fossil hunters find skull connected to body of marine giant elasmosaur for the first time in Australia

A group of female graziers from outback Queensland who hunt fossils in their downtime have uncovered the remains of a 100m-year-old creature that palaeontologists are likening to the Rosetta Stone for its potential to unlock the discovery of several new species of prehistoric marine giant.

One of the “Rock Chicks” – as the amateur palaeontologists call themselves – uncovered the fossilised remains of the long-necked plesiosaur, known as an elasmosaur, while searching her western Queensland cattle station in August.

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Chinese students protest as university locks down over one Covid case

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Footage shows large protest at Nanjing Tech University, as rules persist despite steps to ease zero-Covid policy

Students at a university in eastern China have staged a protest against a Covid lockdown as many in the country remain under some form of restrictions despite government steps to ease its zero-Covid policy.

Videos posted on Twitter on Tuesday show large numbers of students protesting at Nanjing Tech University on Monday night, as they were placed under lockdown after one positive case was found. The Guardian phoned the university for confirmation but calls went unanswered. The posts had been geolocated by AFP and Reuters.

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