Category Archives: Science

Viva la vulva: why we need to talk about women’s genitalia

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Ignorance about the basic biology of vulvas is still shockingly high – yet there are huge health benefits, physical and emotional, to be won with better understanding

If you have a vulva between your legs, could you identify the seven separate structures in a mirror? If your partner has a vulva, can you identify theirs?

For over half the population, the vulva is a significant part of their body; an exit and an entrance, a site of pleasure and, often, pain, that speaks to core human function and need. In 2021, it can feel as if we’re on the cliff-edge of emancipation from the history of oppression and ick surrounding female genitalia. The booming sex toy market, a growing awareness of hormonal cycles and the messy reality of periods, a sharper focus on female pleasure and evolving conversations about menopause all point to real progress. Yet there remains a well of misunderstanding in society about what’s down there (clitoris, labia majora, labia minora, urethral opening, vaginal opening, perineum and anus, by the way), with tangible consequences.

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Nasa’s Lucy rockets into the sky with diamonds to explore asteroids

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Spacecraft with name inspired by a skeleton and the Beatles, and with lab-grown gems, starts 12-year quest

A Nasa spacecraft named Lucy has rocketed into the sky with diamonds on a 12-year quest to explore eight asteroids.

Seven of the mysterious space rocks are among swarms of asteroids sharing Jupiter’s orbit, thought to be the pristine leftovers of planetary formation.

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Eco-friendly, lab-grown coffee is on the way, but it comes with a catch

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Beanless brews can cut deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions dramatically – but what will happen to workers in traditional coffee-growing regions?

Heiko Rischer isn’t quite sure how to describe the taste of lab-grown coffee. This summer he sampled one of the first batches in the world produced from cell cultures rather than coffee beans.

“To describe it is difficult but, for me, it was in between a coffee and a black tea,” said Rischer, head of plant biotechnology at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, which developed the coffee. “It depends really on the roasting grade, and this was a bit of a lighter roast, so it had a little bit more of a tea-like sensation.”

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Why Britons are tolerating sky-high Covid rates – and why this may not last

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Analysis: as Covid cases reach 40,000 a day, scientists think normalisation is partly to blame for the lack of public reaction

It is one of the conundrums of the current phase of the Covid pandemic: the UK has among the highest number of infections across the world and a death toll that continues to steadily climb, yet the national mood seems sanguine. So is this down to British stoicism, a Keep Calm and Carry on mentality?

Not according to experts. They talk of many factors being at play – and warn it may not last.

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Prince William criticises space race and tourism’s new frontier

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Duke of Cambridge says world’s greatest minds need to focus on trying to fix the Earth instead

The Duke of Cambridge has criticised the space race and space tourism, saying the world’s greatest minds need to focus on trying to fix the Earth instead.

Prince William’s comments, in an interview with Newscast on BBC Sounds, will be aired the day after William Shatner made history by becoming the oldest person in space.

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Covid booster shots important to stop infection, finds English study

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Study shows protection against Covid starts to wane several months after full vaccination

Scientists have urged eligible people to have Covid booster shots after a major survey in England found evidence of “breakthrough infections” more than three months after full vaccination.

Researchers at Imperial College London analysed more than 100,000 swabs from a random sample of the population and found that Covid infection rates were three to four times higher among unvaccinated people than those who had received two shots.

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‘Sophisticated’: ancient faeces shows humans enjoyed beer and blue cheese 2,700 years ago

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Austrian Alps salt miners had a ‘balanced diet’, with an analysis of bronze and iron age excrement finding the earliest evidence of cheese ripening in Europe

It’s no secret that beer and blue cheese go hand in hand – but a new study reveals how deep their roots run in Europe, where workers at a salt mine in Austria were gorging on both up to 2,700 years ago.

Scientists made the discovery by analysing samples of human excrement found at the heart of the Hallstatt mine in the Austrian Alps.

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President of Brazil says it ‘makes no sense’ for him to be vaccinated

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Jair Bolsonaro’s comments called ‘stupid and selfish’ in country where 600,000 people have died of Covid

More than 600,000 of his citizens have lost their lives to a Covid-19 outbreak he once pooh-poohed as a “little flu”, but Brazil’s science-denying president, Jair Bolsonaro, has announced he will decline to be vaccinated, saying “it makes no sense” for him to do so.

“With regard to the vaccine, I’ve decided not to have it any more,” the 66-year-old populist told a right-wing radio station on Tuesday. “I’ve been looking at new studies … Why would I get vaccinated?”. He said his antibody levels were already “sky high” because of a past infection. “It would be the same as betting 10 reais (£1.30) on the lottery to win two. It makes no sense.” Bolsonaro said he was not anti-vaccination, but did oppose what he called the vaccine-buying “frenzy”.

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What will happen after the sun dies? ‘Serendipitous’ discovery gives clues

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A distant gas giant found orbiting a white dwarf star suggests outer planets in our solar system might survive the sun’s demise


A Jupiter-sized planet has been found orbiting a white dwarf star in the Milky Way, providing clues as to what will happen in our solar system when the sun eventually dies.

An international team of astronomers observed the phenomenon, which forms when a star runs out of nuclear fuel to burn, and dies.

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Scientists abused and threatened for discussing Covid, global survey finds

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Poll of 321 scientists found 15% received death threats after speaking publicly on the pandemic

Scientists around the world have received threats of death and sexual assault after speaking to the media about Covid-19, a survey has revealed.

Of 321 scientists asked by Nature magazine, 15% said they had received death threats and 22% had been threatened with physical or sexual violence as a result of talking publicly about the pandemic.

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How my ivermectin research led to Twitter death threats | Dr Andrew Hill

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I was sent images of coffins and hanged Nazi war criminals after finding medical fraud in clinical trials

The story of online threats and abuse is very dark. In early 2021, my research team was analysing a new drug called ivermectin. In the first clinical trials, this drug seemed to prevent new infections and improve survival. When I first wrote about this, I started getting regular threats on Twitter, demanding that ivermectin should be approved worldwide and questioning the safety of vaccines.

In March 2021, I received my first vaccine dose and posted a photo on Twitter from the clinic. Within minutes I was receiving strange messages: “Why would you do that?”, “not safe”, “why not use ivermectin instead”, “you are paid by the Gates Foundation”. One person even sent a link to a suction device to remove the vaccine fluid from my arm. Any message I sent promoting the benefits of vaccines led to threats and abuse.

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Local Covid vaccines fill gap as UN Covax scheme misses target

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India, Egypt and Cuba among first states to develop and make their own vaccines as Covax falls behind

Developing countries are increasingly turning to homegrown Covid vaccinations as the UN-backed Covax programme falls behind.

While western countries roll out booster jabs to their own populations, Covax, which was set up by UN agencies, governments and donors to ensure fair access to Covid-19 vaccines for low- and middle-income countries, has said it will miss its target to distribute 2bn doses globally by the end of this year.

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William Shatner in tears after historic space flight: ‘I’m so filled with emotion’

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Star Trek actor, 90, says ‘I hope I never recover from this’ after becoming oldest human in space on Jeff Bezos rocket New Shepard

The Star Trek actor William Shatner declared himself “overwhelmed” at becoming the oldest human in space, at the age of 90, during a brief but successful second crewed flight on Wednesday of Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket ship from the west Texas desert.

The Canadian, who for four decades played Captain James Kirk, the fearless commander of the USS Enterprise, broke down in tears at the landing site as he described to the private space company’s founder, the Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos, the profundity of his almost 11-minute leap to the stars.

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Government must be transparent about science advice it receives

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Analysis: inquiry into UK’s response to Covid crisis shows Sage guidance should be put in public domain as soon as possible

The parliamentary inquiry into the UK’s response to the Covid crisis raises the serious issue of transparency around scientific advice – and why this remains crucial even as the country moves beyond an emergency situation.

The 151-page Coronavirus: lessons learned to date report, led by two former Conservative ministers, has made it clear that advice from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) should be rapidly placed in the public domain.

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New treatment destroys head and neck cancer tumours in trial

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Exclusive: combination of drugs causes tumours to vanish in some terminally ill patients, study finds

A new cancer treatment can wipe out tumours in terminally ill head and neck cancer patients, scientists have discovered.

In a landmark trial, a cocktail of immunotherapy medications harnessed patients’ immune systems to kill their own cancer cells and prompted “a positive trend in survival”, according to researchers at the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), London, and the Royal Marsden NHS foundation trust.

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French study of over 22m people finds vaccines cut severe Covid risk by 90%

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Largest study of its kind also finds vaccines appear to protect against worst effects of Delta variant

Vaccination reduces the risk of dying or being hospitalised with Covid-19 by 90%, a French study of 22.6 million people over the age of 50 has found.

The research published on Monday also found that vaccines appear to protect against the worst effects of the most prevalent virus strain, the Delta variant.

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Capsule of 1765 air reveals ancient histories hidden under Antarctic ice

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Polar Zero exhibition in Glasgow features sculpture encasing air extracted from start of Industrial Revolution

An ampoule of Antarctic air from the year 1765 forms the centrepiece of a new exhibition that reveals the hidden histories contained in polar ice to visitors attending the Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow.

The artist Wayne Binitie has spent the past five years undertaking an extraordinary collaboration with scientists of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), who drill, analyse and preserve cylinders of ice from deep in the ice sheet that record past climate change.

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Covid by numbers: 10 key lessons separating fact from fiction

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To make sense of coronavirus data, the Observer asked David Spiegelhalter and Anthony Masters of the Royal Statistical Society Covid taskforce to write a column. That column has now inspired a book. Here are some of its insights

Genomic sequencing has identified more than 1,000 different seeds of Sars-CoV-2 introduced in early 2020. Instead of one central outbreak, reverberating outwards like an explosion, we now know there were many erupting simultaneously across the country. There were far more imports of Sars-CoV-2 from France, Italy and Spain than from China – viruses can take indirect flights. The peak was early March, after the school half-term, but a popular holiday time for adults. At the Champions League football match at Anfield between Liverpool and Atlético Madrid on 10 March, 49,000 local supporters mixed with 3,000 fans of the opposing team, while schools in Madrid were shut and supporters could not attend matches. To add insult to injury, Liverpool lost 3–2, and 4–2 on aggregate.

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‘Waiting for a ghost’: the search for dark matter 1km under an Australian town

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To study the stuff of the universe, you have to block it out, and that is exactly what a bold project in regional Victoria is trying to do

Dark matter is flowing through you, right now.

This mysterious, invisible stuff makes up more than 80% of the universe, an elusive web of particles that pass freely through matter. To observe it, you have to get rid of all the interference.

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How biodiversity loss is jeopardising the drugs of the future

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From willow bark to mosquitoes, nature has been a source of vital medications for centuries. But species die-off caused by human activity is putting this at risk

What will biodiversity loss mean for drug discovery?
Traditionally used as a painkiller for headaches, snowdrops are now known to slow the onset of dementia. In the 1950s, a natural alkaloid called galantamine was extracted from the bulbs. Today, a synthesised version of this is used to treat Alzheimer’s disease and scientists are investigating further to see if snowdrops might also be effective in the treatment of HIV.

However, over-harvesting has resulted in many snowdrop species becoming threatened. The snowdrop isn’t alone – plants are an abundant source of potential new medicines, often providing us with chemical templates for the design of novel drugs. Yet scientists across the globe say unsustainable use of wild medicinal plants is contributing to biodiversity loss and could limit opportunities to source medicines from nature in the future.

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