Toby Green and Thomas Fazi take issue with a critique of their book on the pandemicWe’re grateful that you have brought attention to our book The Covid Consensus through Richard Seymour’s critical commentary (Three years on, there is a new generation of lockdown sceptics – and they’re rewriting history, 23 March), following Larry Elliott’s supportive one last month (The price Britain paid for lockdown was colossal. Was there an alternative?, 12 March). Most readers won’t be shocked that historians do write revisionist histories, or that narratives are more complex than the ones initially cohered around by political elites. When has “history” ever been different?Seymour claims that capitalism was suspended for a while during the Covid response – which would be news to the world’s billionaires, whose wealth increased by over $4tn in 2020 alone. His critique takes no account of our book’s structural critique of neoliberal capitalism. Meanwhile, his claim that we “minimise” Covid ignores our criticism of treatments of the disease – and our concern that, by crowding people together, lockdown policies made the pandemic impacts far worse for poorer people around the world. Continue reading...

Researchers believe egg was used by likes of Botticelli and Da Vinci for fine-tuning of oil paint propertiesIt pays to go to work on an egg when painting with oils, researchers have found, as the addition of yolk can prevent wrinkling, yellowing and problems with humidity.The use of egg as a binding medium for pigments, a form of paint known as egg tempera, has a long history, turning up in works including the mural paintings of the Palace of Nestor in Pylos, dating to 1200BC. Continue reading...

Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Uranus will be in alignment near the moon and visible using binoculars from Tuesday evening

Nasa grants last-minute reprieve to invaluable climate and biodiversity scanner on International Space Station, due to be incinerated in Earth’s atmosphereNasa has extended the life of a key climate and biodiversity sensor for scanning the world’s forests which was set to be destroyed in Earth’s atmosphere.The Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (Gedi) mission – pronounced like Jedi in Star Wars – was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to the International Space Station (ISS) in December 2018, and has provided the first 3D map of the world’s forests. Continue reading...

Recent auroras have been so intense they have been visible as far north as AucklandThe lure of unusually vibrant views of the southern lights in New Zealand has prompted aurora-hunters to drive for hours through the night to capture the “elusive” sight on camera, with social media groups devoted to swapping tips growing in size.The aurora australis is always more visible in New Zealand and Australian skies during autumn and winter – beginning in March in the southern hemisphere – but this month, the southern lights have been more visible than usual, analysts say. Auroras – beautiful light shows in the night sky – are seen when sunspots erupt, causing solar storms which send material from the sun towards Earth. Continue reading...

Dr Peter Attia is an expert on longevity and preventative medicine. He explains how sleep, weight training and other incremental changes can make us much more resilientTwenty years ago, Peter Attia was working as a trainee surgeon at Johns Hopkins hospital in Baltimore, where he saved countless people facing what he calls “fast death”. “I trained in a very, very violent city,” he tells me. “We were probably averaging 15 or 16 people a day getting shot or stabbed. And, you know, that’s when surgeons can save your life. We’re really good at that.”What got to him, he says, were the people he treated who were in the midst of dying much more slowly. “All the people with cardiovascular disease, all the people with cancer: we were far less effective at saving those people. We could delay death a little bit, but we weren’t bending the arc of their lives.” Continue reading...

Madeleine Finlay hears from science correspondent Linda Geddes about her experience becoming a faecal transplant donor, how getting a dose of someone else’s gut bacteria could treat illnesses like arthritis, diabetes and cancer, and asks whether a pill made from poo is an idea we are ready to swallow Continue reading...

Three years after much of the world was forced into Covid lockdowns, the precise origins of the virus are still hazy, and the hunt is bringing scientists into confrontation with political forces that many are not prepared for

Florence Débarre’s discovery of genetic data online showed for first time that animals susceptible to coronavirus were present at market

Finding from lunar soil samples is important breakthrough for hopes of building bases on the moonTiny glass beads strewn across the moon’s surface contain potentially billions of tonnes of water that could be extracted and used by astronauts on future lunar missions, researchers say.The discovery is thought to be one of the most important breakthroughs yet for space agencies that have set their sights on building bases on the moon, as it means there could be a highly accessible source of not only water but also hydrogen and oxygen. Continue reading...

In the northern hemisphere, our natural satellite and the red planet will be high in the sky and unmistakableAfter the moon’s appearance with Jupiter and Venus last week, it is the turn of Mars to receive a visit from our nearest celestial neighbour. It is a week since new moon and Earth’s natural satellite will be 47%-illuminated on 28 March, and 2.3 degrees – or roughly five lunar diameters – away from the red planet, as seen in the skies from Earth.The chart shows the view looking southwest from London at 8pm BST on 28 March. Both the moon and Mars will be high in the sky, and unmistakable. If you saw the conjunction a few weeks ago between the moon and Antares, remember how that star shines with a ruby-red appearance, and contrast it with the baleful glow of Mars. Somehow, the planet feels altogether more forbidding. Continue reading...

Sarah Barley-McMullen says she felt unable to stay in her post as a senior academic as her employers were unwilling to accommodate her needs

The row over whether the pandemic started with a lab leak is growing. But the most important question is what we do nowWe may never know for certain how a disease that brought the world to a standstill and has killed almost 7 million people emerged. While many experts believe that Covid-19 arose through human contact with infected animals, most likely via a wet market in Wuhan, China, a significant number believe it probably escaped from the city’s Institute of Virology. Others retain an open mind. But politics has turbocharged a scientific question. Donald Trump hyped the lab leak theory without evidence; yet some scientists fear that, in the haste to challenge xenophobic buck-passing that was fuelling anti-Asian hate crime, others may have been too quick to dismiss entirely a genuine possibility.The simmering, rancorous debate began heating up again late last month when it emerged that the US Department of Energy had concluded, though with “low confidence”, that a lab escape was probably to blame. The FBI agrees, while four other US agencies blame natural spillover and two – including the CIA – remain undecided. Then, a new analysis of gene sequences taken from swabs from the market showed that some Covid-positive samples were rich in DNA from raccoon dogs, bolstering the case that it began through infected animals sold at the site. As the row gathers pace, Joe Biden has ordered the release of intelligence on the pandemic’s origins.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Earth’s gravity makes it harder to cultivate the proteins needed to study diseases and pathogens. And although the cost of space travel is high, private enterprise is stepping inIn a small lab, squeezed into the corner of a skyscraper in downtown Tel Aviv, Israeli entrepreneur Yossi Yamin is proudly holding what he calls “a little James Bond-style suitcase factory, powered by the sun”.As with many of 007’s finest contraptions, initial impressions are inauspicious. But in the past four years, these little metal boxes, coated in solar panels, have repeatedly blasted into orbit on the back of a SpaceX rocket, bringing groundbreaking new insights back to Earth for things ranging from the behaviour of leukaemia cells to the best ways of generating lab-grown steak. Continue reading...

Two married therapists reveal 10 ways to improve the many highs and lows of your love lifeWhen couples get together, there is often the unspoken expectation that you will remain the same as you were on those first dates. An assumption that your level of curiosity, generosity, adaptability and interest will endure, or even increase, throughout your relationship. Even though we all know fairytales are dangerous, there’s a pervading myth that we can find our “one” or “soul mate” and have a problem-free happy-ever-after. This belief can create an underlying disappointment where expectations are unmet. In reality, relationships are intrinsically challenging.We have been together for 25 years and the ups and downs of our journey have taught us not only that these low points are typical, but that the repair process can build trust and deepen intimacy. Through the difficulties we faced, we sought help in therapy, and now we both work as relationship therapists. Here is some of the tried and tested advice we use, as a couple and in our work, to get through hard times. Continue reading...

Expert urges greater monitoring of side-effect of drug used to treat depression, psychosis and schizophreniaPatients who are prescribed a common antipsychotic used to treat depression, bipolar disorder, psychosis and schizophrenia need to be told there is a risk they could develop a gambling addiction, an expert has warned.The National Problem Gambling Clinic has observed growing numbers of patients who have developed a gambling addiction after starting to take aripiprazole. Some patients have lost huge sums of money as a result and seen their relationships fall apart. Continue reading...

Prof Nita Farahany argues in her new book, The Battle for Your Brain, that intrusions into the mind are so close that lawmakers should enact protectionsPrivate thoughts may not be private for much longer, heralding a nightmarish world where political views, thoughts, stray obsessions and feelings could be interrogated and punished all thanks to advances in neurotechnology.Or at least that is what one of the world’s leading legal ethicists of neuroscience believes. Continue reading...

Businesses want to trawl for nickel, manganese and cobalt to build electric cars and windfarmsAn investigation by conservationists has found evidence that deep-seabed mining of rare minerals could cause “extensive and irreversible” damage to the planet.The report, to be published on Monday by the international wildlife charity Fauna & Flora, adds to the growing controversy that surrounds proposals to sweep the ocean floor of rare minerals that include cobalt, manganese and nickel. Mining companies want to exploit these deposits – which are crucial to the alternative energy sector – because land supplies are running low, they say. Continue reading...

Researchers identify ‘microbe signature’ found to be in infants who went on to develop disease in childhood or adolescenceBacteria in the gut of one-year-old infants could be used to predict their chances of developing type 1 diabetes in later life, scientists have announced. The disease most often occurs in children and adolescents and is triggered by the body’s immune system when it attacks and destroys insulin-making cells in the pancreas.“Our findings indicate that the gut of infants who go on to develop type 1 diabetes is notably different from healthy babies, and that several microbial biomarkers associated with future disease may be present as early as one year,” said the co-lead author of the study, Dr Malin Bélteky of the Crown Princess Victoria’s Children’s Hospital, Linköping, Sweden. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Surgeons raise concerns that people using jabs are unaware of risks of redundant skinFrom unbearable side-effects to cravings curbed: readers on weight-loss jabsA surge in the number of people using slimming jabs to lose weight could lead to a rise in patients travelling abroad for tummy tucks or other surgery to remove excess skin, surgeons have said.Drugs such as liraglutide and semaglutide, which could help people reduce their weight by more than 10%, have been approved for use on the NHS for certain groups of people with obesity, although supplies of the latter under the brand name Wegovy have yet to arrive in the UK. Continue reading...

Chief scientist told former incumbent Sir David King the similarity would lead to mixed messagingThe government’s chief scientist warned a former incumbent not to confuse the public during the Covid pandemic by naming an independent expert panel after the group convened to advise ministers on the crisis.Sir Patrick Vallance revealed the clash in an interview at the Institute for Government on Friday, where he also said he would have told the former prime minister Boris Johnson that the Covid rules were meant to be followed by all. Continue reading...

Act opens door to technology being used to create cats and dogs with extreme features, says charityPets could be subjected to gene editing under a new government act, the RSPCA has warned.The animal charity has said that the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act applies to all vertebrate animals, not only farmed animals, and that it could lead to cats and dogs being gene-edited to include extreme features. Continue reading...

Scientists test device that can monitor and stimulate burns, diabetic ulcers and non-healing surgical woundsA smart bandage that can monitor chronic wounds and help them to heal has been developed by scientists who say the device could aid people with diabetic ulcers, burns and non-healing surgical wounds.According to figures from 2018, there are 2.2 million people in the UK with chronic wounds, costing the NHS £5.3bn a year. Continue reading...

Travel, meditation, training and exposure to culture have a greater effect on artistic outputFrom Hunter S Thompson’s infamous daily pre-writing routine of cocaine, Chivas Regal and acid to Vincent Van Gogh’s love for absinthe and Andy Warhol’s prescription drugs habit, the idea that drugs and alcohol produce great art is deeply culturally ingrained.Yet researchers have found this is likely to be myth – many drugs, including alcohol, amphetamines and psilocybin (magic mushrooms), do not inspire creativity. Instead, they say travel, exposure to culture, meditation and training programmes are more effective. Continue reading...

Plus, a fresh perspective on the origin of time, Lord Pannick cracks, and happiness is a life lived in FinlandJon Snow must have exceptional reserves of stamina. In an interview with Saga, the 75-year-old news presenter has been talking about becoming a father again two years ago. He feels completely at ease with a toddler around the house, he says. Almost as if the whole experience is stress free and there has been no discernible disruption to his routine. Continue reading...

Innovation in agricultural sector is needed if cities are to solve air pollution problems, say scientistsA study reveals that farming is responsible for more than a quarter of the particle pollution in UK cities.UK agriculture created 38% of the particle pollution in Leicester, 32% in Birmingham and 25% in London in 2019, according to the study. In each case the contribution from rural agriculture was greater than all of the sources within the cities themselves. Continue reading...

Langstone, Hampshire: The pond is almost devoid of life, apart from several of these greenish-grey segmented worms burrowed into the silt at the bottomMy wildlife pond has been leaking and, after several unsuccessful attempts at patching it up, the race was on to replace the liner before the smooth newts return to breed. Twenty-five years ago, I planted a single yellow flag iris (Iris pseudacorus) in the shallows. While it is a British native, it’s an invasive species and has taken over my modest two-metre-diameter pond, sprawling out of its planting basket, self-seeding into the silt. The thick mat of fleshy rhizomes – some as thick as my wrist – has smothered the more delicate plants such as miniature bulrushes, water mint and water forget-me-not, and displaced much of the water, leaving the pond almost devoid of life.After hacking through the irises and baling out the water, I hadn’t found a single dragonfly or damselfly larvae, pond snail or water beetle. The only remaining residents were horse leeches (Haemopis sanguisuga), and plenty of them. Several of these greenish-grey segmented worms had burrowed into the silt at the bottom, while others were hidden in the folds of the liner. While the majority of leeches inhabit fresh water, horse leeches are only semi-aquatic, and more were lurking beneath the pebbles on the pondside beach. Continue reading...

An enormous coronal hole opening on the sun, sending charged particles to Earth, will potentially cause auroras – and a range of technical issues

Avi Loeb organizing $1.5m search to Papua New Guinea to look for interstellar object that crashed into ocean in 2014A prominent Harvard physicist is planning a Pacific expedition to find what he thinks might be an alien artefact that smashed into the ocean.Avi Loeb announced that he is organizing a $1.5m ocean expedition to Papua New Guinea to look for fragments of an object that crashed off the coast of its Manus Island in 2014. Continue reading...

Rare close encounter will occur this weekend, when the space rock will be visible through binoculars and small telescopesAn asteroid big enough to wipe out a city will pass harmlessly between Earth and the moon’s orbit this weekend, missing both, while providing scientists a chance to study the object close up.Asteroid flybys are common but Nasa said it was rare for one so big to come so close and that events like this occurred only about once a decade. Scientists estimate its size to be somewhere between 40 and 90 metres in diameter. Continue reading...

A tense, state-of-the-nation drama set in Covid-era India successfully exposes how the caste system underpins much of the country’s division and strife‘No one ever plans for the poor,” says a young police officer in this tense, painful pandemic drama from India. Shot in black and white, it’s set at the start of the government-imposed lockdown in May 2020 that led to the exodus of 10 million migrant workers from India’s cities. The police officer has been put in charge of a rural roadblock to stop poor workers returning to their families and villages – preventing the spread of the virus. But realising that no help is arriving, the crowd, feeling hungry and abandoned, get angry. The results are explosive, exposing the fault lines of caste prejudice and class conflict.The officer Surya (Rajkummar Rao), is himself from a lower-caste family, but he’s climbing the ladder; he is a competent, decent cop who refuses kickbacks or bribes (just what a modern police force needs). Still, his boss never lets him forget his place, and we see how Surya has internalised prejudice too. All of society turns up at his checkpoint. A rich upper-caste woman (Dia Mirza) waltzes over accompanied by her driver, fully expecting to sail through. A young woman who worked as a maid in the city risks her life to get her alcoholic father home to their village. There’s an elderly security guard travelling on a bus; then a film crew arrives from a TV news channel. Continue reading...

Now academics on the left have joined the anti-lockdown chorus. Yet their Covid theories rely on a travesty of the factsWas the pain worth it? Between March 2020 and March 2021, the UK had three national lockdowns. The goal was to control the spread of Covid-19. Essential businesses were closed, as were schools and universities, and “stay at home” orders meant families and friends were often kept apart. At the time, the government was unenthusiastic about lockdown and many Tories opposed it. Lord Sumption, for example, insisted that if it weren’t for lockdown, people could have “a perfectly normal life.”Now a new chorus of lockdown sceptics includes people who position themselves on the left, such as the historian Toby Green and his colleague Thomas Fazi. They have joined the ranks of the Tory right in saying that the public, which strongly supported lockdown and even wanted to go further and faster than the government did, were misled by an apocalyptic campaign by medical professionals overstating the benefits and understating the costs of lockdown.Richard Seymour is a political activist and author; his latest book is The Twittering Machine Continue reading...

Fatal bloodstream illnesses driven by urinary tract infections could rise, warn scientists as research shows link to food-borne bacteria

Ian Sample hears from Scotland’s Astronomer Royal Catherine Heymans about her experience of long Covid and how it has impacted her life. He also speaks to Professor Danny Altmann, an immunologist at Imperial College London, about the current scientific understanding of the condition, and whether we’re any closer to a treatment. Continue reading...

Nowhere to hide for former PM as he was finally cross-examined on lockdown gatherings in No 10

Disorder involves strong negative reaction to sounds such as chewing or snoringIf the sound of someone chewing gum or slurping their tea gets on your nerves, you are not alone. Researchers say almost one in five people in the UK has strong negative reactions to such noises.Misophonia is a disorder in which people feel strong emotional responses to certain sounds, feeling angry, distressed or even unable to function in social or work settings as a result. But just how common the condition is has been a matter of debate. Continue reading...

Cambridge study reveals the great composer experienced a hepatitis B infection and was at high risk for liver diseaseWhen an autopsy was carried out after Ludwig van Beethoven’s death in 1827, his liver was found to be “beset with nodules the size of a bean”. Now researchers say the cause may not have been alcohol consumption alone, with a genetic analysis revealing the great composer experienced a hepatitis B infection and was at high risk for liver disease – the condition generally thought to have killed him.Tristan Begg, first author of the research from the University of Cambridge, said Beethoven had been extremely sensitive in his lifetime about suggestions he was a drunkard. Continue reading...

Defence department puts out call for satellites that can talk to each other and to the ground, are ‘scalable, rapidly deployable and reconstitutable’

Swiss firm’s withdrawal from Leqvio trial with NHS dents government plans to attract post-Brexit research and investmentThe Swiss pharmaceutical firm Novartis has ditched plans for a large clinical trial in the UK, in a further blow to the government’s efforts to make Britain an attractive place for research and investment after Brexit.The company decided to scrap the Orion-17 trial of its cholesterol-lowering drug Leqvio, involving 40,000 patients in partnership with NHS England. Continue reading...

Caffarelli, 74, takes top trophy for work on partial differential equations, the first winner from South AmericaFirst football, and now maths. Three months after Lionel Messi triumphed at the World Cup, an Argentinian has won the top international trophy in mathematics.Luis Caffarelli, 74, has received the Abel prize, an award presented by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, for his work on partial differential equations, which are a type of equation involving continuous change that are used by scientists to model the natural world. Continue reading...

Study finds males, who can command a harem of up to 100 females, driven to gain weight as quickly as possible by foraging in areas full of predatorsExtreme polygamy may be driving male southern elephant seals to early deaths, new research suggests.A study of 14,000 southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) at Macquarie Island in the south-western Pacific, has found that while survival rates for males and females are roughly comparable for juveniles, male survival rapidly decreased after eight years of age, dropping to around a 50% survival rate, while female survival remained constant at 80%. Continue reading...

Research finds use of progestogen is associated with a 20-30% higher risk but this falls after no longer taking itAll types of hormonal contraceptives carry a small increased risk of breast cancer, according to research establishing a link with progestogen pills for the first time.The use of progestogen is associated with a 20-30% higher risk of breast cancer, data analysis by University of Oxford researchers has established. This builds on previous work showing that use of the combined contraceptive pill, which contains oestrogen and progestogen, is associated with a small increase in the risk of developing breast cancer that declines after stopping taking it. Continue reading...

Between 2020 and 2021 cases of Candida auris doubled, with symptoms including antibiotic-resistant high fever with chillsPotentially deadly fungal infections with Candida auris are spreading rapidly in US healthcare facilities, with cases nearly doubling between 2020 and 2021, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Monday.The number of cases rose by 44% to 476 in 2019, up from 330 in 2018, and subsequently by 59% to 756 in 2020 and by an additional 95% to 1,471 in 2021, the agency’s researchers reported on Monday in Annals of Internal Medicine. Continue reading...

Engineers show 3D printing’s potential by turning cartridges of paste and powder into cheesecakeIt was perhaps no surprise, when researchers set out to push the boundaries of 3D printing, that their attempts to rattle out cheesecakes were not immediately successful.The first trial started well enough, but as the printer gradually built up the dessert, squirting one layer and then the next, the creation began to slump before quietly collapsing into a gloopy heap. Continue reading...

Scientists know our gut influences our brain. So psychobiotic drugs that shift the composition of microbes in the gut may be able to help treat disorders such as anxiety and depressionIn a classic comic strip, most recently gracing the Beano, tiny characters called “numskulls” live in the head of a chap called Edd, controlling what he gets up to – often with hilarious results. It has run for decades, presumably because the idea that there could be critters within us capable of exerting a profound mental and physical influence seems pretty absurd.But it appears science is having the last laugh: in recent years the idea has spawned myriad research papers – except that instead of minuscule people at work inside one’s head, it is microbes in the gut that appear to be pulling the strings. Continue reading...

Previously unseen genomic samples suggest animals at Huanan market were potential sourceNewly released data from early in the Covid-19 pandemic has offered a crucial insight into the outbreak’s origins, suggesting that Covid-infected animals were present at a market in Wuhan and could have been a “potential source of human infections”.A pre-print report on Monday by a team of international researchers fleshed out analysis of previously unseen genomic samples collected by Chinese scientists at the Huanan market in Wuhan in the early days of the pandemic. Continue reading...

Madeleine Finlay speaks to Guardian West Coast reporter Maanvi Singh about the Biden administration’s approval of a controversial new oil drilling project on Alaska’s North Slope. She also hears from Kristen Monsell, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, which is part of a coalition that’s filing a lawsuit to challenge the decision.Clips: BBC, CBS, Rosemary Ahtuangaruak Continue reading...

Study gives most advanced picture yet of DMT compound’s effect on advanced functions such as imaginationThe brew is so potent that practitioners report not only powerful hallucinations, but near-death experiences, contact with higher-dimensional beings, and life-transforming voyages through alternative realities. Often before throwing up, or having trouble at the other end.Now, scientists have gleaned deep insights of their own by monitoring the brain on DMT, or dimethyltryptamine, the psychedelic compound found in Psychotria viridis, the flowering shrub that is mashed up and boiled in the Amazonian drink, ayahuasca. Continue reading...

Astronomer says unusual sighting 99.9% certain to be due to burning space debris from International Space StationWeeks after a balloon, an “octagonal structure” and other flying objects put Americans on edge, the US is dealing with another mysterious phenomenon in the sky.On Friday night in Sacramento, St Patrick’s Day partiers spotted streaks of light blazing a path through the California night. A video posted to Instagram showed what looked like small fireworks or flying superheroes chasing each other along a trail. Continue reading...

The answer to today’s typing teaserEarlier today I set you the following puzzle, based on the idea that a monkey sat at a typewriter bashing random keys will eventually type out the complete works of Shakespeare. Here it is again with the solution.The magic word Continue reading...