Highly contagious bacteria behind the infection can in rare cases cause serious illnessesSix children in the UK have died after contracting strep A infection and health officials are warning parents and school staff to look out for its signs and symptoms.While most people who get it will not become extremely sick, the highly contagious bacteria that cause the infection can, in some cases, cause serious illnesses, health complications and death. Continue reading...
The search for a cure for dementia continues, but scientific advance in treatment is a landmark momentFinding a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, is the holy grail of medical research. The incurable malady is – along with other dementias – the leading cause of death in the UK. Until now, no therapy had emerged that could even slow its lethal brain shrinkage, let alone stop or reverse its grim progression. Treating dementia has also been an underfunded cause. By some estimates, more research has been done on Covid in the past three years than on dementia in the past century. Yet this week, a drug that works for Alzheimer’s has appeared on the horizon, raising hopes that there may be some relief from a deadly and cruel condition.The drug, lecanemab, is a landmark in medicine, and the first treatment to slow cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s patients. People understandably focus on breakthroughs that deliver a cure. Dementia is a frightening disease. It may begin innocuously enough, with a little forgetfulness. But the sickness gnaws away at a person’s mental agility, their memory and ultimately their personality. Patients can end up delusional, incontinent and incapable of looking after themselves. Death arrives on average about eight years after the initial diagnosis. Lecanemab’s effect is modest. In a clinical trial involving 1,800 patients in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, the drug slowed its development over 18 months by about a quarter. Continue reading...
Study also found poorer mental health but it is unclear whether this is linked to brain age differenceThe brains of teenagers who lived through Covid lockdowns show signs of premature ageing, research suggests.The researchers compared MRI scans of 81 teens in the US taken before the pandemic, between November 2016 and November 2019, with those of 82 teens collected between October 2020 and March 2022, during the pandemic but after lockdowns were lifted. Continue reading...
Since the bird was ‘rediscovered’ by accident in Borneo in 2020, ornithologists have returned to study the melodious species last documented more than 170 years agoFor more than 170 years, and despite its name, scientists and birdwatchers heard no babbling, chirping, tweeting or any other sounds from the black-browed babbler. The bird was long assumed to be extinct, until an accidental discovery by two local men, Muhammad Suranto and Muhammad Rizky Fauzan, in the forests of Borneo’s South Kalimantan province.“I was out looking for forest products at the limestone hill just behind my home,” recalls Suranto. “I often look for birds and leftover wood to sell. We caught one of these birds on 5 October 2020. I’d seen it for a while, but I was never able to know its species.” Continue reading...
Wearable devices powered by kinetic energy of cows will gather data to help track cattle wellbeingCows on farms could soon have their health, reproductive readiness and location monitored by smart technology powered by the kinetic energy of the animal’s movements.Devices that monitor the health of each cow or keep them within invisible fences are already used on farms but these smart tools are often powered by chemical batteries, which add to energy used by an emissions-intensive industry. Continue reading...
Firm restoring nature on two estates hopes to give ordinary investors 5% annual return over 10 yearsOrdinary people are being invited to invest in projects to rewild the Scottish Highlands by a company that is restoring nature on two estates and seeking to expand its rewilding portfolio.“Citizen rewilders” can invest a minimum of £50 and up to £200,000 in £10 shares in Highlands Rewilding, which hopes to provide a 5% annual return on the investment over 10 years. Continue reading...
by Presented by Ian Sample with Phoebe Weston, produc on (#66CBK)
The UK is in the middle of its worst outbreak of bird flu. The current strain of H5N1 avian influenza has devastated wild bird populations, killing thousands and affecting threatened species such as puffins and hen harriers. Bird flu has also been wreaking havoc on poultry, and since 7 November, all captive birds in England have been kept indoors to prevent them catching the virus.How are both wild and captive bird populations coping with the current strain of avian flu? And is the UK prepared to deal with another major animal disease outbreak? Ian Sample speaks with Phoebe Weston, a biodiversity writer for the Guardian, and Paul Wigley, a professor in animal microbial ecosystems at the University of Bristol.Archive: BBC News, Sky News Continue reading...
Theoretical achievement hailed, though sending people through a physical wormhole remains in the realms of science fictionIt’s a mainstay of science fiction, it’s tiny and it doesn’t exist in physical space, but researchers say they’ve created what is, theoretically, a worm hole.Researchers have announced that they simulated two miniscule black holes in a quantum computer and transmitted a message between them through what amounted to a tunnel in space-time. Continue reading...
Dating back more than 65m years, specimen’s mobile palate challenges understanding of avian evolutionFossil experts have cooked the goose of a key tenet in avian evolution after finding a premodern bird from more than 65m years ago that could move its beak like modern fowl.The toothy animal was discovered in the 1990s by an amateur fossil collector at a quarry in Belgium and dates to about 66.7m years ago – shortly before the asteroid strike that wiped out non-avian dinosaurs. Continue reading...
Filing is latest action against Elon Musk’s rocket venture as Twitter and Tesla are also roiled by lawsuitsSpaceX has become the subject of another worker dispute just weeks after unfair labor complaints were filed against the company.A former engineer at SpaceX, the Elon Musk-run rocket company, filed an age discrimination complaint against the firm with the state of Washington, alleging he was repeatedly passed up for opportunities in favor of younger, less experienced colleagues and was retaliated against when he filed complaints with the company’s human resources department and chief operating officer. Continue reading...
Resident tells of days filled with health codes, constant threat of shutdowns and moments of hopeLife in Beijing these days is spent either in lockdown or preparing for lockdown. Stockpiling food at home, just in case, has become the new norm. Meeting friends is hard because every few weeks one of us is sealed inside their home for days. Carrying out the daily routine of only working, eating and sleeping has become interminably boring and there are the complicated new technologies and rules we have to navigate.The health code dominates every aspect of our lives here. Because the results of my mandatory Covid test, taken every 48 hours, are connected to my public transport pass, I don’t have to use my health code to get into the subway station. But when I arrive at the gate outside my work building, I have to show my scan result to the guard. The young man in uniform gives me a slight nod, his facial expression hidden under the mask. A smattering of cars run through the bright gingko tree-lined streets. Continue reading...
With digital bioacoustics, scientists can eavesdrop on the natural world – and they’re learning some astonishing thingsScientists have recently made some remarkable discoveries about non-human sounds. With the aid of digital bioacoustics – tiny, portable digital recorders similar to those found in your smartphone – researchers are documenting the universal importance of sound to life on Earth.By placing these digital microphones all over Earth, from the depths of the ocean to the Arctic and the Amazon, scientists are discovering the hidden sounds of nature, many of which occur at ultrasonic or infrasonic frequencies, above or below human hearing range. Non-humans are in continuous conversation, much of which the naked human ear cannot hear. But digital bioacoustics helps us hear these sounds, by functioning as a planetary-scale hearing aid and enabling humans to record nature’s sounds beyond the limits of our sensory capacities. With the help of artificial intelligence (AI), researchers are now decoding complex communication in other species. Continue reading...
A submersible off the coast of Western Australia chanced upon an 45-metre-long deep-sea siphonophore arranged in a feeding spiral, trailing its deadly tentaclesIn 2020, about 600 metres (2,000ft) down in an underwater canyon off the coast of Western Australia, scientists encountered a long gelatinous creature suspended in a giant spiral. “It was like a rope on the horizon. You couldn’t miss it,” says Nerida Wilson from the Western Australian Museum. “It was so huge.”It was a deep-sea siphonophore, a relative of the portuguese man o’ war, or blue bottles, that bob like party balloons on the sea surface, trailing deadly tentacles through the water. This one was probably a new species from the genus Apolemia, a group that generally look like tangled feather boas. Continue reading...
Mammals can produce sound from ventricular folds, used by humans only for Tuvan throat singing and ‘death metal grunting’It has long been known Ozzy Osbourne has a taste for bats. But now it seems the mammals are also fans of his.Bats greet each other with death metal growls, scientists have discovered, and possess a vocal range which far surpasses that of most humans. Continue reading...
The skeleton of ‘Barbara’, a pregnant and injured tyrannosaurus, raises a shocking possibility: that these dinosaurs had a touchy-feely sideName: Barbara.Age: About 66m years old. Continue reading...
Mistake at Immensa Health Clinic Ltd lab in Wolverhampton led to 39,000 tests wrongly labelled negativeAt least 23 deaths might have been caused by a blunder at a privately run laboratory after thousands of positive Covid cases were reported as negative, public health experts have estimated.The error, at the Immensa Health Clinic Ltd lab in Wolverhampton, led to about 39,000 PCR tests returning negative results between 2 September and 12 October 2021 when they should have been positive – mostly in the south-west of England. Continue reading...
‘Phenomenal’ finds are named elaliite and elkinstantonite, and Canadian scientists are analysing third mineralA team of researchers in Canada say they have discovered two new minerals – and potentially a third – after analysing a slice of a 15-tonne meteorite that landed in east Africa.The meteorite, the ninth largest recorded at over 2 metres wide, was unearthed in Somalia in 2020, although local camel herders say it was well known to them for generations and named Nightfall in their songs and poems. Continue reading...
Jon Ferry sells old bones used in the teaching of medicine. But the medical bone trade has a murky history of exploitationIn a small, light-filled Bushwick studio space, a brown box rests on a wooden coffee table. Inside is a human head. “Wanna start?” asks Jon Pichaya Ferry, pulling a box cutter out of the pocket of his black skinny jeans.Inside is a lumpy form wrapped in thin aqua foam, which he tears off to reveal a skull’s mandible. Out comes the rest of the skull; he fits the two parts together and places it on the lid of a coffin in the corner of the room, next to a can of Red Bull. Continue reading...
Researchers find no such link for women, suggesting connection between diet and bowel cancer is clearer for menEating a plant-based diet rich in vegetables, whole grains, nuts and legumes can reduce the risk of bowel cancer in men by more than a fifth, according to research.A large study that involved 79,952 US-based men found that those who ate the largest amounts of healthy plant-based foods had a 22% lower risk of bowel cancer compared with those who ate the least. Continue reading...
by Presented by Madeleine Finlay, produced by Ned Car on (#669SY)
At a recent conference in France, scientists and government representatives voted to scrap the leap second by 2035. Leap seconds are added periodically to synchronise atomic time and astronomical time, which get out of sync because of variations in the Earth’s rotation.Madeleine Finlay speaks to JT Janssen, the chief scientist at NPL, the National Physical Laboratory, about the differences between these two times, and what can go wrong when leap seconds are added to our clocks Continue reading...
Strict measures that continue almost three years into pandemic are prompting widespread protests. Here are the factorsChina’s strategy of controlling Covid-19 with lockdowns, mass testing and quarantines has provoked the greatest show of public dissent against the ruling Communist party in decades.Initially, China succeeded in suppressing the virus, but then more transmissible variants emerged, and in recent weeks the outbreak has grown with record numbers of cases reported. Continue reading...
Prof A David Smith highlights an effective approach to the diseaseYour otherwise excellent survey on the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease (‘This looks like the real deal’: are we inching closer to a treatment for Alzheimer’s?, 22 November) hardly mentions the most promising approach, which is disease prevention. Alzheimer’s has multiple causes, and identifying those causes that can be modified is the direction we need to take. Factors such as smoking, high blood pressure, high blood glucose, lack of exercise, poor nutrition and limited social interactions have already been identified. Many of these are modifiable by lifestyle choices and by specific dietary interventions.For example, people with prodromal Alzheimer’s disease who had inadequate B vitamin status showed slowing of brain shrinkage and of cognitive decline when treated with high-dose B vitamins in an Oxford trial. A recent report found that members of the UK Biobank cohort who had diabetes (a risk factor for dementia) had less risk of developing dementia if they adopted healthy lifestyles. If a fraction of the amount spent by drug companies on Alzheimer treatment trials were to be spent on randomised trials of multidomain lifestyle interventions, there is every hope that much future Alzheimer’s disease could be prevented.
The app Visible is also geared towards people living with conditions such as chronic fatigue syndromeWhen Harry Leeming developed symptoms of long Covid, he found the lack of understanding of the condition alarming. “They became so severe that I went to A&E and I was turned away, being told that I had anxiety or that it was deconditioning,” he said. “It’s been very frustrating to not be taken seriously as a patient.”Now, he’s hoping to help those living with the condition by creating tools to track symptoms and manage activity. Continue reading...
Were you a Clevor Trever? The solutions to today’s puzzlesEarlier today I set you these five puzzles from Mathigon’s advent calendar. Here they are again, with solutions. Sorry if you came here to read about Ian Dury, but in recompense you get to get your head around these blocks:1. Hit me with your four cube stick Continue reading...
In Melbourne’s family court, Lucy visits hearings, legal interviews and mediations – all to relieve people’s stress as they navigate the justice system
Attacks on satellites could take out GPS systems, banking systems, power grids, and affect military operations, panel at space conference saysIt would no longer be “life as we know it” if a space war destroyed the satellites that the world now relies on, space commanders have warned, and China and Russia have demonstrated that they’re capable of doing just that.Senior military leaders from the US and Canada are in Sydney for an Australian Strategic Policy Institute conference on space as the new frontier in “commerce, industry, competition and war”. They have discussed the importance of working with allies, including Australia, to counter the threats posed by space war. Continue reading...
Disease is found in various animals and it is inaccurate to associate global outbreak with AfricaMonkeypox has been given a new name by the World Health Organization (WHO), which has announced the disease will now be called “mpox” in a bid to help tackle discrimination and stigma.The WHO announced its intention to rename the disease in June after concerns were raised that its original name is misleading, stigmatising and discriminatory, with a crowd-sourcing effort to find a new name announced in August. Continue reading...
by Richard Sprenger, Noah Payne-Frank, Alex Healey an on (#668X0)
Many people with autoimmune conditions across the UK are facing difficult decisions about funding complementary therapies. In the final episode of the series, Guardian journalist Richard Sprenger, who has multiple sclerosis, looks at how access to wellness therapies is under threat amid an acute cost of living crisis – and meets an NHS consultant in Devon championing a more progressive, integrative approach to holistic healthcare
Clubs also advised to limit heading training after research showing link with brain diseaseProfessional footballers in Scotland will be banned from heading the ball the day before and the day after matches after studies showing how it can affect the brain.Clubs are also being advised to limit heading balls in training to one session a week because of the links between repetitive heading of a football and brain damage. Continue reading...
There ain’t half been some clever brainteasersUPDATE: You can read the solutions hereToday’s questions come from this year’s Mathigon puzzle advent calendar. One of the many reason to be cheerful (Pt. 3) at this time of year.If you have a head for blocks, the first one is for you. Continue reading...
Fresh evidence of owners’ lavish lifestyle discovered at same site as rare Iliad mosaicIf you thought barn conversions were a relatively recent development for the property-owning classes, you’d be wrong – probably by 16 or 17 centuries.Archaeologists at the site of a Roman villa complex in the east Midlands have discovered that its wealthy owners converted an agricultural timber barn into a dwelling featuring a bathing suite with a hot steam room, a warm room and a cold plunge pool. Continue reading...
by Denis Campbell Health policy editor on (#668PB)
UK government-backed Heal-Covid trial finds Apixaban can cause dangerous bleeding and does not improve prognosisA blood-thinning drug given as a potential life-saver to many patients recovering from severe Covid does not work and can cause major bleeding, research shows.The findings have led to calls for doctors to stop advising people to take Apixaban, because it does not stop them from dying or ending up back in hospital and also can have serious side-effects. Continue reading...
Keep an eye out for the planet, appearing like a bright star with a slightly yellowish tingeLook for a pretty pairing of the moon and the planet Saturn this week. Saturn is currently due south in the early evening and cruising through the constellation of Capricornus. It will appear to be the brightest star in that particular region of sky, and will have a slightly yellowish tinge. The moon will be unmistakable with almost 40% of its visible surface illuminated.New moon took place on 23 November, and the moon is currently waxing. It will reach first quarter, or half-moon, on 30 November. Its meeting with Saturn takes place on 29 November. Continue reading...
Scotland and British and Irish Lions legend died over the weekend from motor neurone diseaseDoddie Weir, the former Scotland and British and Irish Lions rugby union player who died over the weekend from motor neurone disease, leaves “a lasting legacy” and will, admirers said, be remembered as a man who helped transform people’s understanding of the disease.Weir’s death aged 52 was announced by his family on Saturday. His wife, Kathy, said he was “an inspirational force of nature”. Continue reading...
A brutal take-down on the TV talent show led Emily Wilson into therapy. A decade later, she has turned her grim experience into award-winning standupIt’s not that Emily Wilson used to be secretive about the fact that, as a teenager, she’d appeared on the American incarnation of the X Factor. Rather, it hadn’t exactly gone well for her – awfully, actually – and by the time she was a 20-something comedian carving out a career in New York City, it was a period of her past she was desperate to forget.To say she’d totally buried the memories, Wilson reckons, might be overly dramatic. “It’s more that I knew it was shitty, and that it impacted me,” the 26-year-old explains over Zoom from her Upper West Side apartment. At 15, she’d appeared on the TV talent show, was treated brutally, had her dreams crushed yet was dragged further into the competition’s gruelling rounds. It’s fair to say a path to pop stardom wasn’t forthcoming. “It was total humiliation,” she says, “so I tried to put it in a box and never go back to it.” If the topic came up in conversation, Wilson would shut it down – “Yeah, it was crazy;” “I know, right?” – giving stock answers to end it. “It was to the point that only eight months into therapy did I first mention it,” says Wilson. Unsurprisingly, her therapist believed it warranted a chat. Continue reading...
The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical conceptsThis week’s question: Will there ever be world government, and would we want it?Will we ever set up an outpost on another planet? Finnley Clarkson, SheffieldSend new questions to nq@theguardian.com. Continue reading...
The prizewinning author’s timely, precise study traces our attempts to understand the units that have such an impact on our healthIn spring 1858, the German scientist Rudolf Virchow published an unorthodox vision of the nature of living organisms. In his book, Cellular Pathology, he argued that the human body was simply “a cell state in which every cell is a citizen”. From a single originator, all other cells are derived, he argued, and when their function is disturbed, disease will often ensue.The origins of Virchow’s arguments are intriguing. A reclusive, progressive, soft-spoken physician who had eschewed a career in the church because he thought his voice too weak for preaching, he championed the cause of public health and promoted free thinking. His views led to frequent clashes with German authorities. He became particularly incensed over their failures to tackle outbreaks of typhus and denounced them in print. For his pains, Virchow was forced to resign from his hospital post in Berlin. Continue reading...
Millions have watched Netflix hit Ancient Apocalypse, which is just the latest interpretation of an enduring tale. But in its appeal to ‘race science’ it’s more than merely controversialFor a story that was first told 2,300 years ago, the myth of Atlantis has demonstrated a remarkable persistence over the millennia. Originally outlined by Plato, the tale of the rise of a great, ancient civilisation followed by its cataclysmic destruction has since generated myriad interpretations.Many versions have been intriguing and entertaining – but none have been as controversial as its most recent outing in the Netflix series Ancient Apocalypse. Continue reading...
Medicine Man exhibits included painting of a black African kneeling in front of a white missionaryA museum in London run by the Wellcome foundation health charity is to close one of its key galleries because it perpetuates “a version of medical history that is based on racist, sexist and ableist theories and language”.The Wellcome Collection’s announcement on Saturday affects a free permanent display called Medicine Man, which includes objects relating to sex, birth and death and includes anatomical models in wood, ivory and wax dating back to the 17th century. These were collected by Sir Henry Wellcome who amassed more than a million items on the history of health and medicine. Continue reading...
To answer life’s biggest questions, says the German theoretical physicist and YouTuber, we need to abandon unscientific ideas such as the multiverseSabine Hossenfelder is a German theoretical physicist who writes books and runs a YouTube channel (with 618,000 subscribers at time of writing) called Science Without the Gobbledygook. Born in Frankfurt, she studied mathematics at the Goethe Universität and went on to focus on particle physics – her PhD explored the possibility that the Large Hadron Collider would produce microscopic black holes. She is now a research fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, where she leads a group studying quantum gravity. Her second book, Existential Physics: A Scientist’s Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions, came out in August.The first question you ask the physicists you interview in the book is: “Are you religious?” How about you?
Nasa considers capsule’s flight a dress rehearsal for the next moon flyby in 2024, with astronautsNasa’s Orion capsule has entered an orbit stretching tens of thousands of miles around the moon, as it neared the halfway mark of its test flight.The capsule and its three test dummies entered lunar orbit more than a week after launching on the $4bn demo that’s meant to pave the way for astronauts. It will remain in this broad but stable orbit for nearly a week, completing just half a lap before heading home. Continue reading...
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