Category Archives: Science

Nasa to slam spacecraft into asteroid in mission to avoid future Armaggedon

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Test drive of planetary defence system aims to provide data on how to deflect asteroids away from Earth

That’s one large rock, one momentous shift in our relationship with space. On Wednesday, Nasa will launch a mission to deliberately slam a spacecraft into an asteroid to try to alter its orbit – the first time humanity has tried to interfere in the gravitational dance of the solar system. The aim is to test drive a planetary defence system that could prevent us from going the same way as the dinosaurs, providing the first real data about what it would take to deflect an Armageddon-inducing asteroid away from Earth.

Our planet is constantly being bombarded with small pieces of debris, but these are usually burned or broken up long before they hit the ground. Once in a while, however, something large enough to do significant damage hits the ground. About 66m years ago, one such collision is thought to have ended the reign of the dinosaurs, ejecting vast amounts of dust and debris into the upper atmosphere, which obscured the sun and caused food chains to collapse. Someday, something similar could call time on humanity’s reign – unless we can find a way to deflect it.

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How a dream coach helped Benedict Cumberbatch and Jane Campion put the unconscious on screen

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Kim Gillingham explains how her work on The Power of the Dog enabled the ‘lioness of an artist’ and her ‘translucent’ star to access their inmost drives

To access his dreams the surrealist artist Salvador Dalí napped while sitting on a chair, holding keys over an upturned metal plate. After he lost consciousness, the keys dropped onto the plate, jangling him awake so he could paint fresh from his unconscious. Kim Gillingham tells this story to connect her practice to the history of artistic endeavour. She is a Jungian dream coach, based in LA, who combines ideas from psychoanalysis and the method acting of the Actors Studio to, in her words: “access the incredible resource of the unconscious through dreams and through work with the body and to use that material to bring authenticity, truth and aliveness up through whatever discipline the artist is working in”.

Jane Campion sought Gillingham’s services to help conjure the forces at play in her first film in 12 years, The Power of the Dog. It’s a western adapted from Thomas Savage’s 1967 novel that riffs on themes of masculinity and stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Phil Burbank, a toxic alpha cowboy whose personality is designed to hide a secret that would have made him vulnerable in the story’s setting of 1920s Montana.

The Power of the Dog is streaming now on Netflix.

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Glennon Doyle: ‘So many women feel caged by gender, sexuality, religion’

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Glennon Doyle’s memoir inspired Adele – but do we all need to be ‘untamed’?

The marriage wasn’t unbearable, but it didn’t feel right any more. The lightbulb moment came when she realised she needed to think about what she truly wanted, rather than about what society had trained her to think she wanted. Also, she became aware that remaining in an unhappy marriage meant she wasn’t being the parent she wanted to be: following her heart would cause heartbreak to her family now, but it had a noble purpose. Today, her ex lives within walking distance and they share parenting. She got out, and she wants to tell the world how it’s changed her life.

Who is this woman? Well, it could be Adele, whose new album reveals why she decided to leave her husband Simon Konecki, and what it means for their son Angelo, nine. “It just wasn’t right for me any more… I didn’t want to end up like a lot of other people I knew. I wasn’t miserable-miserable, but I would have been miserable had I not put myself first,” she said in a recent interview.

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Hong Kong authorises Sinovac Covid vaccine for children aged 3 to 17

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Benefits of approving age extension outweigh the risks, says secretary for food and health

Hong Kong has approved lowering the age limit for the Covid-19 vaccine from China’s Sinovac Biotech to three, down from 18 years of age.

Hong Kong’s secretary for food and health, Sophia Chan, said in a statement published on Saturday: “Adolescents aged 12 to 17 will be accorded priority to receive the CoronaVac vaccine, with a view to extending to children of a younger age group at a later stage.”.

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UK ministers were unprepared for impact of Covid, says watchdog

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Report says detailed plans on shielding, job support schemes and school disruption were lacking

Ministers were not “fully prepared” for the “wide-ranging impacts” that Covid-19 had on society, the economy and essential public services in the UK, and lacked detailed plans on shielding, job support schemes and school disruption, a report has found.

Some lessons from “previous simulation exercises” that would have helped with Covid-19 preparations were “not fully implemented”, according to the National Audit Office (NAO).

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First known Covid case was Wuhan market vendor, says scientist

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Claim will reignite debate about origins of pandemic, a continuing source of tension between US and China

The first known Covid-19 case was a vendor at the live-animal market in Wuhan, according to a scientist who has scrutinised public accounts of the earliest cases in China.

The chronology is at odds with a timeline laid out in an influential World Health Organization (WHO) report, which suggested an accountant with no apparent link to the Hunan market was the first known case.

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Man’s severe migraines ‘completely eliminated’ on plant-based diet

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Migraines disappeared after man started diet that included lots of dark-green leafy vegetables, study shows

Health experts are calling for more research into diet and migraines after doctors revealed a patient who had suffered severe and debilitating headaches for more than a decade completely eliminated them after adopting a plant-based diet.

He had tried prescribed medication, yoga and meditation, and cut out potential trigger foods in an effort to reduce the severity and frequency of his severe headaches – but nothing worked. The migraines made it almost impossible to perform his job, he said.

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Can I give you a call bark? DogPhone lets pets ring their owners

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When dog moves ball containing device it sends a signal to a laptop and launches a video call

Whether it is a silent stare or simply a rousing bark, dogs have found myriad ways to communicate with humans. Now researchers have created a hi-tech option for canines left home alone: a ball that allows them to call their owners on the old dog and bone.

The device – nicknamed the DogPhone – is a soft ball that, when moved, sends a signal to a laptop that launches a video call, and the sound of a ringing telephone.

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Why does Covid-19 make things smell disgusting? – podcast

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Growing numbers of people catching coronavirus are experiencing an unpleasant distortion of smells. Scientists are still unsure what causes this often distressing condition, known as parosmia, where previously enjoyable aromas trigger feelings of disgust. Madeleine Finlay talks to science correspondent Linda Geddes about her own parosmia, and chemist Dr Jane Parker discusses research into why the smell of coffee seems to be a trigger for so many people

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US accuses Russia of ‘dangerous’ behavior after anti-satellite weapons test

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Russia fired missile at its own satellite, generating debris that US says ‘threatens interests of all nations’

The US has accused Russia of “dangerous and irresponsible behavior” after it conducted an anti-satellite weapons test that forced astronauts on the International Space Station to prepare for evacuation.

Russia fired a missile at one of its own satellites over the weekend, generating more than 1,500 pieces of trackable orbital debris and hundreds of pieces of smaller debris, which the US said “now threaten the interests of all nations”.

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Covid booster jabs extended to people aged 40 to 49, says JCVI

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Extension approved by government’s vaccine watchdog as well as second doses for 16- and 17-year-olds

Covid booster vaccines can be extended to those aged between 40 and 49 in the UK after being approved by the government’s vaccines watchdog, which also gave approval for teenagers aged 16 and 17 to receive second jabs.

While such decisions are devolved, all devolved nations tend to accept JCVI guidance. Ministers in England, Scotland and Wales have already said they would extend boosters.

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UK firm to trial T-cell Covid vaccine that could give longer immunity

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Exclusive: Oxfordshire-based Emergex gets go-ahead for trials in Switzerland for skin patch vaccine

An Oxfordshire-based company will soon start clinical trials of a second-generation vaccine against Covid-19, an easy-to-administer skin patch that uses T-cells to kill infected cells and could offer longer-lasting immunity than current vaccines.

Emergex was set up in Abingdon in 2016 to develop T-cell vaccines, the brainchild of Prof Thomas Rademacher, the firm’s chief executive and professor emeritus of molecular medicine at the University College London medical school.

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I used to hate exercise, but with support from my parents, I’m now jumping for joy

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I was turning 40 and very unfit. Now my super-healthy parents, both in their 70s, have inspired me to exercise and I love it

It’s Saturday morning and I’m standing in the middle of Osterley Park, west London, between my mum and dad, getting ready for the weekly parkrun. My dad is jogging on the spot, my mum is doing the same. I am thinking how do I get out of this? Both of them are full of energy, encouraging me to get warmed up. All I want is a chocolate and nice masala chai – my favourite spicy tea. I hear the countdown, getting nervous now, and off we go. My dad has sped ahead and with his hand he signals to me to keep up. Behind me is my mum. I can’t go anywhere, they are both watching me and I will have to finish this run stuck between them. Finally, we get to the finishing line and I’m shattered. My dad can do a 5km in 33 minutes. I can barely do it in 45. My mum and I walk and run together.

Later on my dad will encourage me to do some skipping, and Mum will get me hula-hooping. This, along with their nutritional advice, has been my daily routine for the past six months. Who needs expensive personal trainers when I can turn to Mum and Dad?

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Science YouTuber Philipp Dettmer: ‘Getting cancer was super-interesting’

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The online star with 15 million subscribers on demystifying everything from black holes to the immune system, the trouble with anti-vaxxers, and what his cancer taught him

Skim Philipp Dettmer’s CV and you’d have to say he was an improbable candidate to become one of the world’s foremost science communicators. The 35-year-old from Munich dropped out of high school in Germany aged 15. He eventually did a history degree, and only became involved in science through his interest in infographics. This led, in 2013, to him creating Kurzgesagt (AKA “In a nutshell”), one of the most popular science channels on YouTube. The platform’s irreverent, kaleidoscopic videos – stripped-back guides to everything from black holes to Covid – have more than 15 million subscribers and have clocked up almost 1.5bn views.

Dettmer has now written a book about the human immune system, which has intrigued him for more than a decade. Everyone has an opinion on theirs – whether it’s good or not up to much; how best to “boost” it – but it can be a struggle to understand how it works. In Immune: A Journey into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive, Dettmer uses eye-catching graphics and simple language to untangle the strange, compelling, sometimes grisly methods our bodies use to defend us from disease.

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Transform approach to Amazon or it will not survive, warns major report

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Panel of 200 scientists tells Cop26 Indigenous people, business, governments and scientists must collaborate

The world’s approach to the Amazon rainforest must be transformed to avoid an irreversible, catastrophic tipping point, according to the most comprehensive study of the region ever carried out.

More than 200 scientists collaborated on the new report, which finds that more than a third of the world’s biggest tropical forest is degraded or deforested, rainfall is declining and dry seasons are growing longer.

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Blood pressure drugs could prevent type 2 diabetes, study finds

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Lowering high blood pressure may slash the risk of the disease in millions of people in future

Blood pressure drugs could prevent millions of people worldwide from developing type 2 diabetes, a large study suggests.

Lowering high blood pressure is an effective way to slash the risk of the disease in the future, according to the research published in the Lancet.

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As Covid recedes in US a new worry emerges: wildlife passing on the virus

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New study shows that deer can catch the virus from people and give it to other deer in overwhelming numbers

As America’s pandemic – for now – seems to be moving into a new phase with national rates in decline from the September peak and vaccines rolling out to children, a new worry has appeared on the horizon: wildlife passing on the virus.

A new study shows that deer can catch the coronavirus from people and give it to other deer in overwhelming numbers, the first evidence of animals transmitting the virus in the wild. Similar spillover and transmission could be occurring in certain animal populations around the world, with troubling implications for eradicating the virus and potentially even for the emergence of new variants.

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Chakras, crystals and conspiracy theories: how the wellness industry turned its back on Covid science

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Its gurus increasingly promote vaccine scepticism, conspiracy theories and the myth that ill people have themselves to blame. How did self-care turn so nasty?

Ozlem Demirboga Carr is not really into all that woo‑woo stuff. “I’m definitely a full-science kind of person,” says the 41-year-old telecoms worker from Reading. She doesn’t believe in crystals, affirmations or salt lamps. But she did find herself unusually anxious during the UK’s Covid lockdown in March 2020 and, like many people, decided to practise yoga as a way to de-stress.

“I tried to be open-minded and I was open to advice on trying to improve my wellbeing and mental health,” she says. So she followed a range of social media accounts, including the “somatic therapist and biz coach” Phoebe Greenacre, known for her yoga videos, and the “women’s empowerment and spiritual mentor” Kelly Vittengl. The Instagram algorithm did its work. “I suddenly found myself following so many wellness accounts,” she says.

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Joy, toys and bumper cars as Manila’s children reclaim the city

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Malls, restaurants and arcades in the Philippines capital are packed with children as Covid curbs ease

Ten-year-old Gabriel Estrella beams as he talks about T-shirts he bought on his first day out at a shopping mall after nearly two years of staying away due to coronavirus restrictions in the Philippines.

“Before the pandemic, buying T-shirts used to be boring,” he said, sweaty after playing with his eight-year-old sister. “Now, it’s exciting! I bought four shirts. They’re anime shirts.

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