Category Archives: Science

Russia tests nuclear-capable missile in warning to enemies

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Putin boasts new intercontinental ballistic weapon will provide rivals with ‘food for thought’

Russia has said it had test-launched its Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile, a new addition to its nuclear arsenal, which Vladimir Putin said would give Moscow’s enemies something to think about.

The Russian president was shown on television being told by the military that the missile had been launched from Plesetsk in the north-west and hit targets in the Kamchatka peninsula in the far east.

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Discovery of bacteria linked to prostate cancer hailed as potential breakthrough

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Scientists don’t yet know if the microbes are causative, but if proven it could save thousands of lives

Scientists have discovered bacteria linked to aggressive prostate cancer in work hailed as a potential revolution for the prevention and treatment of the most deadly form of the disease.

Researchers led by the University of East Anglia performed sophisticated genetic analyses on the urine and prostate tissue of more than 600 men with and without prostate cancer and found five species of bacteria linked to rapid progression of the disease.

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Lifelong excess weight can nearly double risk of womb cancer – study

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Bristol study finds that for every five extra BMI units a woman’s risk of endometrial cancer increases by 88%

Lifelong excess weight may almost double a woman’s risk of developing womb cancer, research suggests.

Scientists and doctors have known for some time that being overweight or obese increases the risk of the disease. About one in three cases in the UK (34%) are linked to excess weight.

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Covid-19: India accused of trying to delay WHO revision of death toll

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According to WHO analysis, figure for country is more than 4 million and not official tally of 520,000

India has been accused of attempting to delay an effort by the World Health Organization to revise the global death toll from Covid-19 after its calculations suggested that the country had undercounted its dead by an estimated 3.5 million.

India’s official number of deaths from Covid is 520,000. But according to in-depth analysis and investigations into the data by WHO, the total is more than 4 million, which would be by far the highest country death toll in the world.

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Lessons from Covid can start a health revolution, says lab chief

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Director of network that processed millions of tests says smart diagnostics could tackle other major diseases

Two years of mass Covid testing have paved the way for a revolution in how we diagnose other diseases, the founding director of the Lighthouse labs network has said.

In his first interview since the pandemic began, Prof Chris Molloy said that people’s familiarity with using swabs for Covid tests meant that they could also discover and monitor their risk of other conditions, such as diabetes and heart disease.

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Australia on alert after new Omicron XE Covid variant found in NSW

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The combination of BA.2 and BA.1 is thought to be highly contagious and comes as mandatory negative Covid tests for travellers to Australia is scrapped

Health authorities are urging caution after the emergence of a hybrid Omicron variant of Covid-19 in Australia.

The recombinant variant, known as XE, is a combination of BA.2 – “stealth Omicron” – and BA.1 – the original and highly transmissible Omicron variant of the virus.

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‘Extraordinary’: ancient tombs and statues unearthed beneath Notre Dame Cathedral

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Archaeological dig also finds body-shaped lead sarcophagus buried at the heart of the fire-ravaged monument

An archaeological dig under Notre Dame Cathedral has uncovered an extraordinary treasure of statues, sculptures, tombs and pieces of an original rood screen dating back to the 13th century.

The find included several ancient tombs from the middle ages and a body-shaped lead sarcophagus buried at the heart of the fire-ravaged monument under the floor of the transept crossing.

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Valneva approved to be UK’s sixth Covid vaccine

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Medicines regulator says it is first in world to approve Valneva product

A Covid-19 vaccine developed by the French pharmaceutical company Valneva has been given regulatory approval by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, bringing the total number of jabs approved for use in the UK to six.

As the Covid pandemic swept the world, scientists began developing vaccines against it, with the Pfizer/BioNTech jab being the first in the UK to be authorised for emergency use by the MHRA in 2020. Since then the MHRA has approved the Moderna, Oxford/AstraZeneca, Janssen and Novavax vaccines, although, according to NHS England, Janssen and Novavax are not currently available.

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iPhone maker Pegatron halts Shanghai production due to Covid lockdown

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Operations stopped in Chinese cities of Shanghai and Kunshan as global supply chains feel pinch of Beijing's zero-Covid measures

Key iPhone maker Pegatron has halted operations at two subsidiaries in the Chinese cities of Shanghai and Kunshan, as global supply chains feel the pinch of Beijing’s strict zero-Covid measures.

The business hub of Shanghai has become the heart of China’s biggest Covid-19 outbreak since the virus surfaced more than two years ago.

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Thousands of ventilators pulled as electrical faults put UK patients’ lives at risk

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Electrical problem triggers global safety alert on 2,000 Philips machines

Two thousand ventilators being used in UK hospitals are at risk of suddenly shutting down due to electrical faults that have led to a global safety alert.

Hospitals have been ordered to source replacement ventilators after Philips Respironics said its breathing support devices could suddenly stop working, in some cases without activating a warning alarm.

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Scientists make further inroads into reversing ageing process of cells

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UK research could lead to development of techniques that will stave off diseases of old age

People could eventually be able to turn the clock back on the cell-ageing process by 30 years, according to researchers who have developed a technique for reprogramming skin cells to behave as if they are much younger.

Research from the Babraham Institute, which is affiliated to the University of Cambridge, could lead to the development of techniques that will stave off the diseases of old age by restoring the function of older cells and reducing their biological age.

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Omicron variant does cause different symptoms from Delta, study finds

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Data from UK’s Zoe Covid study confirms reports Omicron patients recover more quickly and are less likely to lose sense of smell or taste

People who have the Omicron Covid variant tend to have symptoms for a shorter period, a lower risk of being admitted to hospital and a different set of symptoms from those who have Delta, research has suggested.

As the highly transmissible Omicron variant shot to dominance towards the end of last year, it emerged that, while it is better at dodging the body’s immune responses than Delta, it also produces less severe disease.

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Ancient cemetery of flying reptiles unearthed in Chile’s Atacama desert

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Scientists say remains belong to pterosaurs, who lived alongside dinosaurs more than 100m years ago

Scientists in Chile have unearthed a rare cemetery with well-preserved bones of ancient flying reptiles that roamed the Atacama desert more than 100m years ago.

The remains belong to pterosaurs, scientists determined, flying creatures that lived alongside dinosaurs and had a long wingspan and fed by filtering water through long, thin teeth, similar to flamingos.

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Dr Ashley Bloomfield, who led New Zealand’s pandemic response, resigns

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Softly-spoken public servant who became a household name says the role had been challenging and complex

The understated doctor who became an unexpected star of New Zealand’s pandemic has resigned after two years leading the country’s Covid response.

Dr Ashley Bloomfield, New Zealand’s director-general of health announced his resignation on Wednesday, and said that it had been “a huge privilege”.

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Hundreds of thousands of fish dead after NSW floods

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Scientists find fish that could normally tolerate low oxygen levels among those killed in Richmond river

Hundreds of thousands of fish have died after recent flooding in northern New South Wales caused “severe deoxygenation” of rivers, with researchers alarmed at discovering carcasses of species that traditionally tolerate lower oxygen levels.

Scientists are still researching the full of extent of the destruction to marine life along the Richmond river, where multiple fish kill events occurred following flooding in late February and early March. The flooding led to a total lack of oxygen in a 60km stretch of the waterway, between Coraki and Ballina on the northern NSW coast.

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112m-year-old dinosaur tracks damaged in Utah by construction machinery

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Damage evaluated as minor, but fractures to the rims of several prints cannot be repaired at the Mill Canyon track site

They survived intact for 112m years through scorching summer heat and freezing winters at Utah’s Mill Canyon. But several of the world’s most important and historic dinosaur footprints were damaged beyond repair earlier this year when a construction crew arrived to build a new boardwalk for tourists.

The extent of the harm to the footprints – and those of an ancient crocodile crossing in the canyon near Moab – was detailed in a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) report into the January incident published last week.

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Covid cases rise in Shanghai as millions remain in lockdown

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Daily case numbers are some of the largest seen in China since the virus was first detected in Wuhan

Covid-19 cases in China’s largest city of Shanghai have risen again as millions remain isolated at home under a sweeping lockdown.

Health officials on Sunday reported 438 confirmed cases detected over the previous 24 hours, along with 7,788 asymptomatic cases. Both figures were up slightly from the day before.

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Covid lockdown dreams reflected our claustrophobia and lack of control

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From the scary to the truly weird, our nights were full of apt visions in the early days of the pandemic, a study at University College London found

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Trapped inside a house, stuck inside a vehicle that wouldn’t move, unable to complete seemingly simple tasks: this was the stuff that dreams were made on during lockdown, according to new research from University College London.

Analysis of more than 850 dreams and nightmares submitted online to the Lockdown Dreams Project between March 2020 and March 2021 shows people often dreamed about having frustrating and restrictive experiences in mundane, everyday settings, like the home, at the height of the pandemic.

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Russia to halt cooperation over International Space Station

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Director of space agency Roscosmos says partnership will be restored only when ‘illegal sanctions’ are removed

Russia says it will end cooperation with western countries over the International Space Station until sanctions are lifted.

Russia’s space director said on Saturday that the restoration of normal ties between partners at the ISS and other joint space projects would be possible only once western sanctions against Moscow were lifted.

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