Category Archives: Science

New Covid variants ‘will set us back a year’, experts warn UK government

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Vaccine-beating variant is ‘realistic possibility’, say scientists, amid calls for contingency plans to be revealed

Ministers are being pressed to reveal what contingency plans are in place to deal with a future Covid variant that evades current vaccines, amid warnings from scientific advisers that such an outcome could set the battle against the pandemic back a year or more.

Recent papers produced by the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) have suggested that the arrival of a variant that evades vaccines is a “realistic possibility”. Sage backed continued work on new vaccines that reduce infection and transmission more than current jabs, the creation of more vaccine-production facilities in the UK and lab-based studies to predict evolution of variants.

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Australia Covid live news update: NSW put in statewide lockdown as AMA says health system ‘can no longer manage’

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NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian announces 466 cases, four deaths and 5km limit for greater Sydney

That’s where I’ll leave you for tonight. It’s been a big day. Let’s recap what we learned.

No public holidays for Parkes...

While the new PHO isn’t available, interesting to note that the Govt took no time at all to cancel the public holidays impacted by the lockdown… ‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/5uEtFIpKiE

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NSW Covid update: entire state in lockdown as premier warns ‘this is literally a war’

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Australian Medical Association says NSW health system ‘can no longer manage’ after record Delta case numbers

New South Wales has been forced into a snap statewide lockdown after enduring its worst day of the Covid-19 pandemic so far, with 466 new cases and four deaths.

Australia’s most populous state has tightened restrictions and imposed new $5,000 fines for lockdown breaches, ahead of an expected worsening of numbers in coming days.

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Booster jabs for rich countries will cause more deaths worldwide, say experts

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Oxford Vaccine Group and Gavi say western leaders must not ‘reject their responsibility to the rest of humanity’

Many more people around the world will die of Covid if western political leaders “reject their responsibility to the rest of humanity” by prioritising booster shots for their own populations instead of sharing doses, the head of the Oxford vaccine group has warned.

Writing for the Guardian, Prof Sir Andrew Pollard, and Seth Berkley, the chief executive of Gavi, the vaccine alliance, say that the scientific and public health case for large-scale boosting has not been made and could have far-reaching consequences in other countries.

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Common myths about Covid – debunked

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Read on for the facts about Sars-CoV-2, backed up by science

Wrong. People who never get symptoms from Covid are less infectious than people who get symptoms, but they can still have high viral loads and can pass on the virus. And the peak infectiousness in those who do develop symptoms is actually the day or two before they start feeling ill.

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Woolly mammoth walked far enough to circle Earth twice, study finds

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Research into life of Kik adds weight to theory that climate change could have contributed to species’ demise

He was huge, hairy and boasted two enormous tusks: researchers say they have discovered a woolly mammoth called Kik who traipsed almost far enough in his life to circle the Earth twice.

Experts say the work not only sheds light on the movements of the giant proboscideans, but adds weight to ideas that climate change or human activity may have contributed to the demise of most of the creatures about 12,000 years ago.

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Pores for thought: how sweat reveals our every secret, from what we’ve eaten to whether we’re on drugs

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Just one drop of perspiration might soon be enough to identify a criminal or diagnose a cancer. But this fast-moving science could also pose a serious threat to civil liberties


When I deposited my index fingerprint on a laboratory slide so that Simona Francese could analyse it, I felt as if I was giving her the password to my body’s secrets. Most forensic scientists examine a fingerprint’s pattern but Francese, a forensic scientist from Sheffield Hallam University, analyses the chemicals left behind in those whirls and swirls. Her aim is to develop techniques that will allow her to extract identifying information about people at a crime scene from the sweaty residues they leave behind.

Fingerprints are inked with sweat, a body fluid that holds revealing information about our health and our vices. Our sweat glands source perspiration from the watery parts of blood, and any chemicals flowing around your circulatory system can, in principle, leak out of your sweat pores.

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Lesotho’s PM isolating with Covid as cases ‘go unrecorded’

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Medics fear government is failing to gather data as ‘social media conspiracies’ slow vaccination take-up

Lesotho’s prime minister, Moeketsi Majoro, has said he is isolating after testing positive for Covid-19, as doctors warned that the true tally of cases in the country was going unrecorded.

Majoro tweeted that he had taken a travel-related test that came back positive.

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CDC urges pregnant women to get Covid vaccine, finding no increased risk of miscarriage

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Updated guidance comes after a CDC analysis of new safety data, as vaccination rates remain low among pregnant women in the US

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention urged all pregnant women Wednesday to get the Covid-19 vaccine as hospitals in hot spots around the US see disturbing numbers of unvaccinated mothers-to-be seriously ill with the virus.

Expectant women run a higher higher risk of severe illness and pregnancy complications from the coronavirus, including perhaps miscarriages and stillbirths. But their vaccination rates are low, with only about 23% having received at least one dose, according to CDC data.

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UK orders extra Covid vaccines for autumn 2022 booster campaign

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Pfizer reportedly asked to supply 35m more doses, with final go-ahead for this year’s programme still awaited

Ministers have started ordering vaccines for a booster campaign in autumn 2022, with Pfizer reportedly being asked to supply the UK with a further 35m doses.

The government has still not give the final go-ahead for the vaccine booster programme expected this autumn, but it is understood to have placed the order with Pfizer despite the company raising its prices.

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‘Our morgues are full’: Zimbabwe struggles with surge in Covid burials

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Pressure on undertakers leads to widespread delays after record number of coronavirus infections and deaths last month

A group of women sing hymns at the cemetery in Harare as undertakers, dressed in Covid-19 protective gear, gently lower a white casket into the grave.

“This world is not our home,” they sing, as relatives, standing a few metres away, mourn their loss.

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1,000-year-old remains in Finland may be non-binary iron age leader

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DNA suggests body buried in feminine attire with swords had Klinefelter syndrome, researchers say

Modern analysis of a 1,000-year-old grave in Finland challenges long-held beliefs about gender roles in ancient societies, and may suggest non-binary people were not only accepted but respected members of their communities, researchers have said.

According to a peer-reviewed study in the European Journal of Archaeology, DNA analysis of remains in a late iron age grave at Suontaka Vesitorninmäki in Hattula, southern Finland, may have belonged to a high-status non-binary person.

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Fears as more children falling ill in latest US Covid surge and school approaches

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  • National Institutes of Health director says 1,450 kids in hospital
  • Teachers union shifts, calls for vaccine mandates for teachers

Amid increased fears that children are now both victims and vectors of the latest Covid-19 variant surge, National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins signaled on Sunday that increasing numbers of children are falling ill in the US.

His comments also came as one of America’s largest teachers unions appeared to shift its position on mandatory vaccinations for teachers.

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Britain’s Covid experts Neil Ferguson Sage are under attack, but they are just doing their jobs

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Those who attack Neil Ferguson and Sage’s pandemic predictions only expose their ignorance about science

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It feels like open season on Professor Neil Ferguson right now. Sections of the media and several columnists delight in castigating the epidemiologist, or “Professor Lockdown”, for being “doomster in chief”, constantly predicting catastrophe and then back-pedalling when the worst numbers don’t materialise.

Opponents of Covid restrictions blame Ferguson and his team at Imperial College London for persuading Boris Johnson to shake off his libertarian instincts and take us into lockdown. One presenter on new channel GB News described Ferguson as a “numpty” on air, and the very mention of his name attracts groans in some circles.

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Dark matter: one last push to crack the biggest secret in the universe

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Scientists are pinning hopes on elaborate detectors to track the elusive material that holds galaxies together

Deep underground, scientists are closing in on one of the most elusive targets of modern science: dark matter. In subterranean laboratories in the US and Italy, they have set up huge vats of liquid xenon and lined them with highly sensitive detectors in the hope of spotting subatomic collisions that will reveal the presence of this elusive material.

However, researchers acknowledge that the current generation of detectors are reaching the limit of their effectiveness and warn that if they fail to detect dark matter with these types of machines, they could be forced to completely reappraise their understanding of the cosmos.

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We’re on the brink of catastrophe, warns Tory climate chief

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Cop26 meeting is last chance, says Alok Sharma as he backs UK’s plan for new oil and gas fields

The world will soon face “catastrophe” from climate breakdown if urgent action is not taken, the British president of vital UN climate talks has warned.

Alok Sharma, the UK minister in charge of the Cop26 talks to be held in Glasgow this November, told the Observer that the consequences of failure would be “catastrophic”: “I don’t think there’s any other word for it. You’re seeing on a daily basis what is happening across the world. Last year was the hottest on record, the last decade the hottest decade on record.”

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Prof Francois Balloux: ‘The pandemic has created a market for gloom and doom’

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The UCL scientist and ‘militant corona centrist’ on the risk of new variants, psychosomatic long Covid and when he expects the crisis to end

Prof Francois Balloux is director of the University College London Genetics Institute. His work focuses on the reconstruction of disease outbreaks and epidemics. With his colleague Dr Lucy van Dorp, he led the first large-scale sequencing project of the Sars-CoV2 genome. During the pandemic, he has become a prominent scientist on Twitter, where he describes himself as a “militant corona centrist”.

Would you say a new variant of concern is still the major threat to our way out of this pandemic?
We haven’t had one in a while. The four variants of concern all emerged in the second half of 2020, and it’s important to keep in mind that viruses evolve all the time at a fairly regular pace.

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