Category Archives: Biology

Medical research stalled as NHS focuses on small number of trials, experts say

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Report outlines ‘research waste’ that occurred during the pandemic, with weakly designed trials exposing millions to unproven treatments

Government efforts to focus NHS resources on a smaller number of well-designed clinical trials could inadvertently be contributing to a backlog of stalled medical research, and result in some important trials being scrapped, researchers say.

Their warning comes as a report outlines the scale of “research waste” that has occurred during the pandemic, with rampant duplication of scientific efforts and weakly designed clinical trials exposing millions of patients to unproven treatments, with little scientific benefit.

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Child’s 130,000-year-old tooth could offer clues to extinct human relative

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Researchers believe the discovery in a Laos cave proves that Denisovans lived in the warm tropics of southeast Asia

A child’s tooth at least 130,000 years old found in a Laos cave could help scientists uncover more information about an early human cousin, according to a new study.

Researchers believe the discovery proves that Denisovans – a now-extinct branch of humanity – lived in the warm tropics of southeast Asia.

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Migrating turtles don’t really know where they’re going, study shows

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Hawksbill turtles often travel circuitous routes for short distances – one swam 1,306km to reach an island just 176km away

How migrating animals like sea turtles navigate hundreds to thousands of kilometres across the open ocean has intrigued biologists since Charles Darwin. But some sea turtles might not really know where they’re going, new research suggests.

Analysis by an international team of scientists has mapped the movements of hawksbill turtles as they swam from their nesting grounds in the Chagos Archipelago to foraging sites also in the Indian Ocean.

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At least one child has died from mystery strain of severe hepatitis, WHO confirms

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Strain reported in 12 countries causing at least 169 cases in young children, most of them in the UK

At least one child has died from a mystery strain of severe hepatitis which has now been reported in 12 countries, the World Health Organization has confirmed.

The UN body said on Saturday that it is aware of 169 rare cases of acute hepatitis, an inflammation of the liver, in young children. Of these, 17 became so sick they needed liver transplants.

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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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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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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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Wolverine fish and blind eel among 212 new freshwater species

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Report from Shoal on 2021’s newly described species shows ‘there are still hundreds and hundreds more freshwater fish scientists don’t know about yet’


Scientists are celebrating 212 “new” freshwater fish species, including a blind eel found in the grounds of a school for blind children and a fish named Wolverine that is armed with a hidden weapons system.

The New Species 2021 report, released by the conservation organisation Shoal, shows just how diverse and remarkable the world’s often undervalued freshwater species are, and suggests there is plenty more life still to be discovered in the world’s lakes, rivers and wetlands.

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Ageing reversal: scientists rejuvenate tissues in middle-aged mice

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Prospect of medical therapies that rewind clock for humans edges a little closer

The prospect of medical therapies that rewind the clock on the ageing process has edged a little closer after scientists safely rejuvenated tissues in middle-aged mice.

Researchers in the US treated healthy animals with a form of gene therapy that refreshed older cells, making the animals more youthful according to biological markers that are used to measure the effects of ageing.

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The magic of mushrooms: how they connect the plant world

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After years in the wilderness, fungi are finally getting the attention they deserve from gardeners, scientists, designers and doctors

Joe Perkins, like most gardeners, has typically been more animated by what’s going on above the ground than below it. The quality of the soil was important, no question, but what was really going on down there felt mysterious and impenetrable. As for fungi, it usually meant one thing in a garden, and that wasn’t good news.

“On a domestic level, our relationship and understanding of fungi in the past has very much been that it’s something about decay, it’s about disease, and it’s something that we don’t particularly want in our gardens,” says Perkins, a 45-year-old landscape architect based in Sussex, who won three awards at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2019. “It’s fair to say that, as gardeners, we’ve not always fully understood – and I still don’t – the importance of these systems.”

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Tyrannosaurus rex may have been three species, scientists say

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Experts say there is enough variation in samples to argue there was also a Tyrannosaurus imperator and a regina

With its immense size, dagger-like teeth and sharp claws, Tyrannosaurus rex was a fearsome predator that once terrorised North America. Now researchers studying its fossils have suggested the beast may not have been the only tyrannosaurus species.

Experts studying remains thought to belong to T rex have suggested their variation shows evidence of not one species but three.

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Will we get a single, variant-proof vaccine for Covid?

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The goal of a universal vaccine would have seemed a fantasy only a few years ago. But not now…

This week the government announced additional vaccine booster jabs for the over-75s and suggested a further shot is likely to be needed in the autumn. But imagine if the next Covid vaccine jab you have were the last you would ever need. That’s a dream being actively pursued now by researchers, who feel it could be possible to make a “universal” vaccine against the Sars-CoV-2 virus that would work well not only against all existing variants but any that the virus could plausibly mutate into in the future.

Some are thinking even bigger. In January, Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, and two other experts called for more research into “universal coronavirus vaccines” that would work not only against Sars-CoV-2 but against the many other coronaviruses in animal populations that have the potential to spill over into humans and cause future pandemics. “We need a research approach that can characterise the global ‘coronaviral universe’ in multiple species,” Fauci and colleagues wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine, “and apply this information in developing broadly protective ‘universal’ vaccines against all [coronaviruses].”

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Springtime asteroid hit ramped up extinction rates, say scientists

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Animals in northern hemisphere would have been more vulnerable to intense heat just after winter

Having an asteroid slam into Earth was catastrophic for the dinosaurs, but the season of the strike may have substantially ramped up extinction rates for others species, research suggests.

Scientists have found evidence that the devastating impact 66m years ago, which wiped out three-quarters of Earth’s species and created the Chicxulub crater in modern-day Mexico, happened in the spring in the northern hemisphere.

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If they could turn back time: how tech billionaires are trying to reverse the ageing process

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Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel are pouring huge sums into startups aiming to keep us all young – or even cheat death. And the science isn’t as far-fetched as you might think

In the summer of 2019, months before the word “coronavirus” entered the daily discourse, Diljeet Gill was double-checking data from his latest experiment. He was investigating what happens when old human skin cells are “reprogrammed” – a process used in labs around the world to turn adult cells (heart, brain, muscle and the like) – into stem cells, the body’s equivalent of a blank slate.

Gill, a PhD student at the Babraham Institute near Cambridge, had stopped the reprogramming process midway to see how the cells responded. Sure of his findings, he took them to his supervisor, Wolf Reik, a leading authority in epigenetics. What Gill’s work showed was remarkable: the aged skin had become more youthful – and by no small margin. Tests found that the cells behaved as if they were 25 years younger. “That was the real wow moment for me,” says Reik. “I fell off my chair three times.”

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The ugly truth: beauty’s not just skin deep – gorgeous people may be healthier too

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Good-looking people may be better at fighting infections, a study finds, so don’t feel shallow when you swipe right

Name: Gorgeous people.

Age: Considerable. Certainly of greater longevity than poor saps like you who’ve been battered by the ugly stick and, let’s face it, will probably die sooner than hotties like me.

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Signs of premature ageing found in monkeys after hurricane

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Rhesus macaques in Puerto Rico appear to have aged by about two years more than expected

Monkeys that survived a devastating hurricane in Puerto Rico were prematurely aged by the experience, a study has found.

Scientists say the findings suggest that an increase in extreme weather around the world may have negative biological consequences for the humans and animals affected.

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How ‘super-enzymes’ that eat plastics could curb our waste problem

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Nudged along by scientists and evolution, micro-organisms that digest plastics have the potential to create an efficient method of recycling

Beaches littered with plastic bottles and wrappers. Marine turtles, their stomachs filled with fragments of plastic. Plastic fishing nets dumped at sea where they can throttle unsuspecting animals. And far out in the Pacific Ocean, an expanse of water more than twice the size of France littered with plastic waste weighing at least 79,000 tonnes.

The plastic pollution problem is distressingly familiar, but many organisations are working to reduce it. Alongside familiar solutions such as recycling, a surprising ally has emerged: micro-organisms. A handful of microbes have evolved the ability to “eat” certain plastics, breaking them down into their component molecules. These tiny organisms could soon play a key role in reducing plastic waste and building a greener economy.

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Super corals: the race to save the world’s reefs from the climate crisis – in pictures

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Few corals are safe from warming oceans, a new study warns, but studies are finding surprisingly hardy corals, natural sunscreens and how coral ‘IVF’ can regrow reefs

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First patients of pioneering CAR T-cell therapy ‘cured of cancer’

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Cancer-killing cells still present 10 years on, with results suggesting therapy is a cure for certain blood cancers

Two of the first human patients to be treated with a revolutionary therapy that engineers immune cells to target specific types of cancer still possess cancer-killing cells a decade later with no sign of their illness returning.

The finding suggests CAR T-cell therapy constitutes a “cure” for certain blood cancers, although adapting it to treat solid tumours is proving more challenging.

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Huge icefish colony of 60m nests found on Antarctic seabed – video

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Researchers exploring Antarctica’s seabed have discovered a thriving, unprecedented colony of icefish 'about a third of the size of London'. 'We expected to see the normal Antarctic seafloor … [but] during the first four hours of our dive, we saw nothing but fish nests,' said Autun Purser, of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany, and lead author of the study published in Current Biology.

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