Dr Peter Hotez says Joe Biden was wrong to say pandemic is over and warns US risks another deadly coronavirus wave soonJoe Biden was wrong to declare the coronavirus pandemic over in the US, one of the country’s leading experts on the virus has told the Guardian.Dr Peter Hotez, co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s hospital and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, said that the US president’s statement in September, that “the pandemic is over”, was mistaken and a poor message to send to the American public. Continue reading...
Cause of puncture remains unclear as officials say damage continues to be assessedRussia is considering a “rescue” plan to send an empty spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) to bring home three stranded crew members after their Soyuz crew capsule sprang a leak while docked to the orbiting outpost.Roscosmos and Nasa officials said at a news conference on Thursday they were continuing to investigate how the coolant line of the capsule’s external radiator sustained a tiny puncture last week, just as two cosmonauts were preparing for a routine spacewalk. Continue reading...
Oxford University’s Panoramic trial suggests molnupiravir can speed up recovery in vaccinated but vulnerable patientsAn oral antiviral pill for Covid speeds up recovery among vaccinated yet vulnerable patients, but does not reduce their likelihood of needing hospital care or dying, research has suggested.The UK became the first country in the world in November 2021 to approve molnupiravir for Covid, with the pill – which can be taken twice a day at home – given to patients through the Panoramic (Platform Adaptive trial of NOvel antiviRals for eArly treatMent of Covid-19 In the Community) trial. Continue reading...
by Presented by Ian Sample, produced by Madeleine Fin on (#673CX)
As Christmas approaches, many of us will have spent the last few weeks trying to pick out the perfect presents for friends, family and colleagues. For both giver and receiver, exchanging gifts can be filled with delight – or dread, as a smile slowly fades into a look of feigned enthusiasm. But what does science say about how to avoid unwanted gifts and unpleasant surprises?Ian Sample speaks to Julian Givi about his research unwrapping what we all actually want under the tree, and hears his top tips for choosing a winning present every time Continue reading...
Approval of growth hormone somatrogon fast-tracked by medicines watchdog, replacing need for daily jabsThousands of children who fail to grow normally because of a hormone deficiency have been given access to a weekly injection for the condition after new guidance from the medicines watchdog.Children with the disorder, known as growth disturbance, have previously required daily injections of the growth hormone somatropin to ensure their healthy development. But a fast-track assessment by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) means patients can now use a more convenient weekly injection called somatrogon. Continue reading...
Research into immune response sheds light on question of whether virus damages nose or brainMillions of people who lost their sense of smell after contracting Covid may have an ongoing, abnormal immune response that destroys cells in the nose, researchers say.Doctors analysed nasal tissue from Covid patients and found that those with long-term problems with their sense of smell had inflammation-driving immune cells inside the delicate nasal lining, which were potentially wiping out vital sensory nerve cells. Continue reading...
Coverage of climate crisis solutions is slim in textbooks, with many references moving to the back pagesUS college-level biology textbooks miss the mark on offering solutions to the climate crisis, according to a new analysis of books over the last 50 years.Fewer than three pages in a typical 1,000-page biology textbook from recent decades address climate change, according to the new study, despite experts warning it is humankind’s biggest problem. Continue reading...
With relatively low vaccination rates and a lack of reliable data, 60% of the population may soon be infectedThe Chinese government has changed its approach from “zero Covid” to “living with Covid”. This is largely because the virus has become too transmissible to contain: new variants have emerged that cause one person to infect an estimated 16 others. As part of this shift towards “living with Covid”, entire cities are no longer in lockdown, restrictions have been lifted on domestic travel and people who test positive can now isolate at home instead of at government facilities. Testing has become voluntary, and asymptomatic cases of Covid-19 are no longer being counted. Meanwhile, the government is urging vaccine uptake among elderly people and vulnerable groups.What is baffling global health experts is why China took so long to vaccinate these groups, and why the government didn’t accept western vaccines such as the mRNA vaccines, which proved to be the most effective at preventing severe illness. The US director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, said Xi Jinping seemed “unwilling to take a better vaccine from the west, and is instead relying on a vaccine in China that’s just not nearly as effective against Omicron”. China’s government insisted on trying to develop its own vaccine, which caused a costly and deadly time delay. While many other nations vaccinated their populations in 2021 and boosted in 2022, rates of vaccination in China are comparatively low: only about 50% of the population have received three shots.Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh Continue reading...
Go-ahead brings prospect of ‘historic’ space flight from UK a step closerThe prospect of a “historic” space flight taking off from Cornwall early in the new year has taken a major step forward after the UK Civil Aviation Authority issued a launch licence for the project.Virgin Orbit will begin final preparations for the first launch of satellites from UK soil, though no final date for lift-off has been set. Continue reading...
Scientists at Royal Botanic Gardens say naming new species is part of global effort to protect Earth’s biodiversityThe world’s largest giant waterlily from the wetlands of Bolivia, a spiny fungus named after the Queen and a herb threatened with extinction by pigeon droppings are among more than 100 plants and fungi recorded as being new to science in 2022 by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.Many of the discoveries, including a tall tree from Brazil’s Atlantic forest and a busy lizzie from Cameroon, are extremely rare, and one is already considered globally extinct. Two in five plants globally are estimated to be at the risk of extinction. Continue reading...
Paleontologists say they have identified foot of mouse-sized mammal in fossilised rib cage of predatory microraptorIt may have been a pressing fear for the fictional characters in the 1993 film Jurassic Park, but scientists believe they have uncovered the first known incident of a mammal being eaten by a dinosaur.However, the fossils from 120m years ago are not of a human ancestor, but instead the foot of an animal inside the ribcage of a small feathered dinosaur, known as a microraptor. Continue reading...
State media reports on increased efforts to boost health infrastructure, staffing and suppliesChinese authorities are rushing to boost the number of intensive care beds and health workers and increase medication supplies as Covid-19 surges through the country.Since the abrupt dismantling of the stringent zero-Covid regime, cases have skyrocketed in China. A full picture of the impact is difficult to gauge. Authorities have conceded it is “impossible” for the testing system to keep track, and the narrow parameters for attributing deaths to the virus mean the official count – fewer than 10 this week – is at odds with widespread anecdotal reports of fatalities and high traffic at funeral homes. Continue reading...
by Presented by Madeleine Finlay with Phoebe Weston, on (#670YW)
A historic deal has been struck at the UN’s biodiversity conference, Cop15, which will set a course for nature recovery from now until 2050, including a target to protect 30% of the planet for nature by the end of the decade. One of the key phrases guiding the summit across the two weeks of negotiations was ‘nature positive’.Madeleine Finlay hears from the biodiversity reporter Phoebe Weston about what ‘nature positive’ meant at Cop15, and what she’d like to see from countries now the final agreement has been made, and speaks to biodiversity professor EJ Milner-Gulland about how to stop the term ‘nature positive’ becoming another way for companies to greenwash their businesses. Continue reading...
Robot says it might be sending its last message from Mars as dust chokes out its power supplyNasa’s InSight lander has delivered what could be its final message from Mars, where it has been on a history-making mission to reveal the secrets of the Red Planet’s interior.In November the space agency warned the lander’s time may becoming to an end as dust continued to thicken and choke out the InSight’s power. Continue reading...
Dr Mark Diesendorf questions the claim that nuclear fusion is safe and clean, while Dr Chris Cragg suspects true fusion power is a long way off. Plus letters from Dick Willis and Martin O’DonovanYou report on the alleged “breakthrough” on nuclear fusion, in which US researchers claim that break-even has been achieved (Breakthrough in nuclear fusion could mean ‘near-limitless energy’, 12 December). To go from break-even, where energy output is greater than total energy input, to a commercial nuclear fusion reactor could take at least 25 years. By then, the whole world could be powered by safe and clean renewable energy, primarily solar and wind.The claim by the researchers that nuclear fusion is safe and clean is incorrect. Laser fusion, particularly as a component of a fission-fusion hybrid reactor, can produce neutrons that can be used to produce the nuclear explosives plutonium-239, uranium-235 and uranium-233. It could also produce tritium, a form of heavy hydrogen, which is used to boost the explosive power of a fission explosion, making fission bombs smaller and hence more suitable for use in missile warheads. This information is available in open research literature. Continue reading...
Bottlenose dolphin, a long-finned pilot whale and a third species found to have markers of the degenerative diseaseThree species of cetacean stranded off the coast of Scotland, including a bottlenose dolphin and a long-finned pilot whale, have been found to have the classic markers of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study.Although types of dementia have been fairly widely detected in other animals, Alzheimer’s disease has not been found to occur naturally in species other than humans. Continue reading...
Wasps seen piercing the mouth or other parts of tree frogs with their sharp weapon when being attackedKipling might well have believed that the female of the species is more deadly than the male, but when it comes to mason wasps, the latter have quite the weapon.Researchers in Japan have discovered that male mason wasps use sharp spines on their genitalia to resist being swallowed by predators. Continue reading...
The planets will potentially be visible this week after sunset, but it will require a clear horizon and keeping a sharp eye openThere’s a challenging but beautiful sight awaiting keen-eyed stargazers this week. Mercury and Venus have returned to the evening sky and are nestled together in the sunset twilight.The chart shows the view looking south-west from London at 16.30 GMT on 24 December. The planets are visible for about three-quarters of an hour after sunset, but a clear horizon is needed to see them. Continue reading...
Documents reveal that pathogenic agents, zoonotic bacteria and viruses, including one deemed bioterrorism risk, entered US but ‘no indication CDC has been transparent’Animal activists are calling for the US government to stop the importation of non-human primates for laboratory use after documents from the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reveal that deadly pathogenic agents, zoonotic bacteria and viruses – including one deemed to be a bioterrorism risk – entered the country with monkeys imported from Asia between 2018 and 2021.Documents obtained by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) and seen exclusively by the Guardian, along with a case report by the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science, reveal that there have been six cases of Burkholderia pseudomallei identified in primates imported from Cambodia to the US. Continue reading...
Family traditions are what you make them, Christmas means honouring the people dearest to youIt’s Christmas Eve. The tree lights are off, pine needles dropping on to presents crammed beneath. Cold air seeps in through the window panes and I pull the duvet up tighter around my ears. As I begin to drift off to sleep, I hear the soft click of the door handle, footsteps padding into the room. I freeze, hold my breath, squeeze my eyes shut. A rustle at the end of the bed and then the footsteps retreat. The next morning, I wake to find a stocking – well, not quite a stocking, it’s a pillow case – stuffed with treats. Among the little gifts is a bag of chocolate coins that I tear into, discarding gold and silver foil as I go. This was my first stocking. I was 19 years old.It was my mother-in-law who thought to creep into the room of a young adult on that first Christmas which I spent with my now husband and his family. Her name is Snezana, which means Snow White in Serbian. Her parents emigrated to the UK before she was born. She was there when my husband and I met at university two decades ago and still tells the story of how she saw a spark between us and was convinced that I would be her son’s wife. For her, Christmas represents honouring those you love, and it was important to her to knit me into the tapestry of her family as she sees each new family member as a gift. It is unsurprising, then, that she takes great joy in making this time of year as magical as possible. Continue reading...
My parents weren’t rich but they always made me feel I could have exactly what I dreamed ofI was three and Christmas 1969 was approaching. Neil Armstrong walked on the moon that summer and I wanted what millions of kids must have wanted for Christmas: the Apollo 11 rocket. I announced this and went off to listen yet again to my favourite record: Puff, the Magic Dragon.Our house on a nice new estate in Wrexham was full of craft furniture. My dad, who taught woodwork at the town’s grammar school, made our tables and chairs and the abstract copper-wire artworks on the walls. The space age was happening on television but our Wales was still in the days of oak. Continue reading...
An enthralling project to save the northern white rhino is raising challenging questions as scientists debate the ethics of de-extinctionWhen Dr Natalie Cooper, a scientist at the Natural History Museum, met Sudan, the last surviving northern white male rhino, in Kenya before he died aged 45, she understandably feared the subspecies’ extinction was certain – mostly due to poaching fuelled by human greed for the prized horn. “The sense of enormity when staring extinction right in the eye is difficult to comprehend,” she reflects on that 2013 encounter. “It was fairly obvious by that point that the breeding programme wasn’t going to work – the subspecies seemed doomed, it was just a matter of time.”But almost a decade later, the world’s rarest large mammal could be on the brink of an astonishing return from functional extinction. The growing efforts to save extant, but seriously threatened, species come alongside a controversial wider de-extinction movement that seeks to bring versions of lost animal breeds, such as woolly mammoths, back to life. Continue reading...
Experts monitoring the loss of Scythian artefacts have been shocked at scale of theft by Putin’s forcesThe people the Greeks called Scythians were formidable warriors and nomads who dominated the Eurasian steppe for more than 1,000 years from about 800BC – long before the creation of national borders.The fabulous gold weapons and ornaments they left behind ended up in museums across the region, many of them in Ukraine. Since Russian troops invaded Ukraine in February, however, much Scythian gold – along with millions of other priceless artefacts – has been looted or “evacuated”. Continue reading...
Last week’s experiment in the US is promising, but it’s not a magic bullet for our energy needsThe revelation that researchers had succeeded in creating a nuclear fusion reaction that generated more energy than it consumed made reassuring reading last week. For almost half a century, I have reported on scientific issues and no decade has been complete without two or three announcements by scientists claiming their work would soon allow science to recreate the processes that drive the sun. The end result would be the generation of clean, cheap nuclear fusion that would transform our lives.Such announcements have been rare recently, so it gave me a warm glow to realise that standards may be returning to normal. By deploying a set of 192 lasers to bombard pellets of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, researchers at the US National Ignition Facility (NIF) in Livermore, California, were able to generate temperatures only found in stars and thermonuclear bombs. The isotopes then fused into helium, releasing excess energy, they reported. Continue reading...
Sale of Maximus T rex at Sotheby’s reveals growing interest in palaeontological finds at auction housesSotheby’s New York Luxury Week auctions offered a surprising first earlier this month. This series of sales showcases “the best of the best” in opulent goods, from jewellery and cars to wine and handbags. So you’d expect rare Rolexes or a mint condition 911 Porsche Targa, but the rarest possession up for grabs this time was a skull.Named Maximus, it’s one of the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skulls ever discovered. The first of its kind to appear at public auction, it sold for $6,069,500 to one of a new breed of art collectors who view dinosaurs as collectibles. Continue reading...
A Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Vandenberg space force base, California, carrying the Swot satellite – short for surface water and ocean topography – into orbit. The international mission, jointly developed and operated by Nasa and the French space agency CNES, in partnership with the British and Canadian space agencies, aims to give scientists an unprecedented view of the bodies of water that cover about 70% of the Earth, and help researchers better understand climate breakdown
Analysis shows ‘earliest members of two main veggie dinosaur lineages were not exclusively herbivorous’With its huge feet, long neck and penchant for plants, the diplodocus may be one of history’s biggest vegetarians. But research has revealed the sauropod’s ancestors may have had a taste for flesh.Scientists studying the teeth of some of the earliest dinosaurs to roam the Earth say they have uncovered telltale clues as to what they ate. Continue reading...
The Japanese government held an emergency meeting and share prices crashed after a Pokémon broadcast. For years, its effects went unexplained – until researchers started digging …Twenty-five years ago, at precisely 6.51pm on 16 December 1997, hundreds of children across Japan experienced seizures. In total, 685 – 310 boys and 375 girls – were taken by ambulance to hospital. Within two days, 12,000 children had reported symptoms of illness. The common factor in this sudden mass outbreak was an unlikely culprit: an episode of the Pokémon cartoon series.The instalment in question, Dennō Senshi Porygon (Electric Soldier Porygon), was the 38thin the Pokémon anime’s first season – and initially, at least, it sparked a medical mystery. Twenty minutes into the cartoon, an explosion took place, illustrated by an animation technique known as paka paka, which broadcast alternating red and blue flashing lights at a rate of 12Hz for six seconds. Instantly, hundreds of children experienced photosensitive epileptic seizures – accounting for some, but far from all, of the hospitalisations. Continue reading...
Coolant leak on Soyuz capsule forced last-minute cancellation of spacewalk by two cosmonautsThe temperature in the Soyuz capsule, which is docked with the International Space Station, has risen but the crew is not in danger, the Russian space agency has said.On Thursday, Roscosmos and the US space agency, Nasa, said a coolant leak had been detected on the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft. The leak forced the last-minute cancellation of a spacewalk by two Russian cosmonauts on Wednesday. Continue reading...
Decembers are getting warmer, Met Office data shows. These charts illustrate how this affects the odds of snow on the 25thOutside of advertisements and Hollywood films, idyllic snow-filled Christmas scenes are becoming increasingly rare in the UK, according to a Guardian analysis.The UK has faced bitter cold this week, with Sunday’s snowfall leading to travel disruption and a level 3 cold weather alert for the whole of England until Friday morning. Next week is set to be milder, however, with the chance of a white Christmas remaining low for most parts of the UK. Continue reading...
Reanalysis of millennia-old axes and polished stones found in 1802 has revealed tiny traces of goldA collection of polished “lumps of stone” found in a burial mound near Stonehenge more than two centuries ago are a 4,000-year-old goldsmith’s toolkit, archaeologists have said.Microscopic reanalysis of axes and shaped cobbles found in the grave has revealed tiny traces of gold and wear marks, showing they were used by a skilled craftsperson to hammer and smooth sheets of gold. Continue reading...
Russia aborts International Space Station spacewalk mission after Nasa footage shows particles spraying from MS-22 capsuleA major leak from a Russian capsule docked on the International Space Station was most probably caused when a small meteoroid smashed into a radiator, leading to coolant being sprayed into space, a Roscosmos official has said.Sergei Krikalev, a former cosmonaut who is now director of crewed space flight programs at Russia’s space corporation, said Thursday’s leak from the Soyuz MS-22 could affect the capsule’s overall coolant system but that there was “no threat for the crew” of the space station. Continue reading...
Chemicals that leach out of plastic shown to cause fatal abnormalities, including gut developing outside bodySea urchins raised in sea water with high levels of plastic pollution, including fragments collected from a Cornish surfing beach, die from developmental abnormalities, research shows.Scientists placed fertilised urchin eggs in seawater with varying levels of plastic to compare the effects of newly made plastic pellets, or “nurdles”, with the impacts of high levels of fragments found washed up on Watergate Bay in Cornwall. Continue reading...
A planned spacewalk by two Russian cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station has been cancelled after mission controllers noticed leakage from a docked Soyuz spacecraft.A 'visible stream of flakes' was first observed about 7.45pm EST (0045 UK Thursday) prompting Russian flight controllers to abort the mission, a Nasa livestream showed.Footage showed a torrent of snowflake-like particles spraying from the rear section of the capsule
Nothing is produced at Sellafield anymore. But making safe what is left behind is an almost unimaginably expensive and complex task that requires us to think not on a human timescale, but a planetary oneIf you take the cosmic view of Sellafield, the superannuated nuclear facility in north-west England, its story began long before the Earth took shape. About 9bn years ago, tens of thousands of giant stars ran out of fuel, collapsed upon themselves, and then exploded. The sheer force of these supernova detonations mashed together the matter in the stars’ cores, turning lighter elements like iron into heavier ones like uranium. Flung out by such explosions, trillions of tonnes of uranium traversed the cold universe and wound up near our slowly materialising solar system.And here, over roughly 20m years, the uranium and other bits of space dust and debris cohered to form our planet in such a way that the violent tectonics of the young Earth pushed the uranium not towards its hot core but up into the folds of its crust. Within reach, so to speak, of the humans who eventually came along circa 300,000BC, and who mined the uranium beginning in the 1500s, learned about its radioactivity in 1896 and started feeding it into their nuclear reactors 70-odd years ago, making electricity that could be relayed to their houses to run toasters and light up Christmas trees. Continue reading...
Post-pandemic relaxation of restrictions could weaken animal protection and pose a hazard to public health, say expertsChina appears to be weakening its post-Covid restrictions on the farming of wildlife such as porcupines, civets and bamboo rats, which raises a new risk to public health and biodiversity, warn NGOs and experts.Before the pandemic, wildlife farming was promoted by government agencies as an easy way for rural Chinese people to get rich. But China issued an outright ban on hunting, trading and transporting wildlife, as well as the consumption as food, after public health experts suggested the virus could have originated from the supply chain. Continue reading...
by Presented by Ian Sample, produced by Ned Carter Mi on (#66VPY)
This week, researchers at the US National Ignition Facility in California achieved a major breakthrough in nuclear fusion. For the first time, humans have harnessed the process that powers the stars to generate more energy from a fusion reaction than was used to start it — otherwise known as ‘ignition’. But how close are we to moving this from laboratories to power plants, and will it become the clean, safe, and abundant source of energy the world so desperately needs? Ian Sample speaks to Alain Bécoulet about what’s being called ‘one of the most impressive scientific feats of the 21st century’ Continue reading...
Walking on two legs may not have been linked to environmental shifts, as previously thoughtThe ancestors of humans may have begun moving on two legs to forage for food among the treetops in open habitat, researchers have suggested, contradicting the idea that the behaviour arose as an adaptation to spending more time on the ground.The origins of bipedalism in hominins around 7m years ago has long been thought to be linked to a shift in environment, when dense forests began to give way to more open woodland and grassland habitats. In such conditions, it has been argued, our ancestors would have spent more time on the ground than in the trees, and been able to move more efficiently on two legs. Continue reading...
Swot satellite is scheduled to be launched Thursday morning, and will use advanced radar to more fully map Earth’s vital resourceA Nasa-led international satellite mission was set for blastoff from southern California early on Thursday as part of a major earth science project to conduct a comprehensive survey of the world’s oceans, lakes and rivers for the first time.Dubbed Swot, short for “surface water and ocean topography”, the advanced radar satellite is designed to give scientists an unprecedented view of the life-giving fluid covering 70% of the planet, shedding new light on the mechanics and consequences of climate change. Continue reading...
Marv Adams, deputy administrator for defense programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration explained what happened in the successful fusion experiment with a prop. Holding up a cylinder similar to the one used in the experiment he walked the audience through the process and it's implications, concluding jokingly that his department was now hiring
Successful experiment could pave way for abundant clean energy in future, but major hurdles remainScientists have confirmed a major breakthrough has been made that could pave the way for abundant clean energy in the future after more than half a century of research into nuclear fusion.Researchers at the US National Ignition Facility in California said fusion experiments had released more energy than was pumped in by the lab’s enormous, high-powered lasers, a landmark achievement known as ignition or energy gain. Continue reading...
The US department for energy has announced that it has made a 'major scientific breakthrough' in the race to recreate nuclear fusion. At a press conference on Tuesday US energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm, said scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California 'achieved fusion ignition', which is 'creating more energy from fusion reactions than the energy used to start the process.' Describing the experiments results as a 'BFD' [Big Fucking Deal], she added that 'this milestone moves us one significant step closer to the possibility of zero carbon abundant fusion energy powering our society'
A light coating of gold and your spectacles could be several degrees warmer and 100% less foggy. And the same goes for your car windscreenName: Anti-fog glasses.Age: So they were working on the basis of this technology back in 2019 but … Continue reading...
Trial led by Exeter University psychologist to look at how adding psychedelics to therapy could make it more effectiveOvercoming alcoholism is notoriously difficult, but researchers are hoping a new treatment combination might help: ketamine and psychological therapy.The use of psychedelics alongside therapy is a booming area of research, with ketamine, MDMA and psilocybin – the active ingredient of magic mushrooms – among the drugs that are being studied to tackle mental health problems ranging from depression to PTSD. Continue reading...
by Presented by Ian Sample with Patrick Greenfield, p on (#66S4X)
Invasive non-native species are on the rise around the world and, despite efforts to tackle the issue, their numbers are higher than ever. They have become one of the key driving forces behind biodiversity loss, posing an even greater threat to biodiversity than the climate crisis. Monitoring, tracking and managing invasive species is one of the issues up for discussion at the UN’s biodiversity Cop15, which is now in full swing in Montreal, Canada.Ian Sample gets an update on how Cop15 is progressing from biodiversity and environment reporter Patrick Greenfield, and hears from Prof Helen Roy from the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology about why invasive species pose such a serious risk to native wildlifeArchive: BBC News Continue reading...
Study with 100,000 babies to look at faster diagnosis of rare conditions and how genetic data might be usedGenomics England is to test whether sequencing babies’ genomes at birth could help speed up the diagnosis of about 200 rare genetic diseases, and ensure faster access to treatment.The study, which will sequence the genomes of 100,000 babies over the next two years, will explore the cost-effectiveness of the approach, as well as how willing new parents are to accept it. Continue reading...
Hermaszewski circled Earth in the Soyuz 30 spacecraft in 1978 as part of the Soviet Intercosmos programmePoland’s only cosmonaut, Gen Mirosław Hermaszewski, who circled the Earth in a Soviet spacecraft in 1978, has died. He was 81.The retired air force pilot’s death on Monday was announced via Twitter by his son-in-law, European Parliament member Ryszard Czarnecki. He later told Polish media outlets that Hermaszewski died at a hospital in Warsaw of complications from a surgery he had undergone in the morning. Continue reading...
Researchers managed to release more energy than they put in: a positive gain known as ignitionResearchers have reportedly made a breakthrough in the quest to unlock a “near-limitless, safe, clean” source of energy: they have got more energy out of a nuclear fusion reaction than they put in.Nuclear fusion involves smashing together light elements such as hydrogen to form heavier elements, releasing a huge burst of energy in the process. The approach, which gives rise to the heat and light of the sun and other stars, has been hailed as having huge potential as a sustainable, low-carbon energy source. Continue reading...
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