Researchers find link between learning instrument while young and improved thinking skills later in lifeThe ageing rocker clinging on to their youth may be a figure of mockery, but research suggests they should be envied for their sharpness of mind.Researchers have found a link between learning a musical instrument in youth and improved thinking skills in old age. People with more experience of playing a musical instrument showed greater lifetime improvement on a test of cognitive ability than those with less or no experience, a paper from the University of Edinburgh has said. Continue reading...

Not all of the constellation is visible from the UK, but some may see the most recognisable central portionIt is time to take a look at the summer constellation Sagittarius. From the UK, the constellation never rises high in the sky. The chart shows the view looking south from London at 9.30pm BST on 29 August. Although not all of the constellation is visible from the UK, the most recognisable central portion can be seen by those with a good southern horizon.For those in more built-up areas, viewing from a nearby hilltop can sometimes make all the difference because it elevates your line of sight. The central portion of Sagittarius creates an asterism that is known to astronomers as the teapot because of its obvious shape. Continue reading...

Sensor-rigged dummies named Moonikin Campos, Helga and Zohar will oversee cargo ranging from cubesats to Apollo artefacts and Shaun the SheepAt three metres tall, Nasa’s Orion capsule is roomier than Apollo’s capsule and seats four astronauts instead of three, but for Monday’s test flight it will have a payload ranging from a mannequin named Helga to bits of Apollo 11’s engine and the odd stuffed toy.For the flight, a full-sized dummy in an orange flight suit will occupy the commander’s seat, rigged with vibration and acceleration sensors. The “commander” was named Moonikin Campos in a public contest, in honour of Arturo Campos, a Nasa engineer who helped save Apollo 13 from disaster by working out how to jury-rig its partly crippled electrical system to bring the astronauts home. Continue reading...

Exclusive: analysis of 126,000 cases over a decade shows black and Asian people wait longer for diagnosis than white peopleBlack and Asian people in England have to wait longer for a cancer diagnosis than white people, with some forced to wait an extra six weeks, according to a “disturbing” analysis of NHS waiting times.A damning review of the world’s largest primary care database by the University of Exeter and the Guardian discovered minority ethnic patients wait longer than white patients in six of seven cancers studied. Race and health leaders have called the results “deeply concerning” and “absolutely unacceptable”. Continue reading...

Richard Zimler is trying to keep the terrible facts alive in the stories he writesIn 1968, when I was 12, I read The Diary of Anne Frank for the first time. Closing the book’s cover created an ache of guilt in me because I seemed to be shutting the door on Anne in her hiding place in Amsterdam. I wanted to stay with her and somehow keep her from being sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.A few days later, Anne’s diary gave me the courage to speak for the first time to a Hungarian-Jewish neighbour in our New York suburb who had his camp number tattooed on his arm. His name was Aaron Goldberg and he was from Budapest. His wife, Sara, also had an identification number on her arm. Continue reading...

Poets and songwriters have long known that love hurts, but now scientists are examining the physical anguish caused by a breakup – and the results are helping people understand and recover from their distressIn the winter of 2004, women started arriving at Japanese hospitals complaining of chest pains and a shortness of breath. It was a month since a major earthquake had shaken the country, causing mudslides in the mountains, injuring 4,805 people and killing 68. In emergency rooms, doctors hooked the women up to ECG monitors, and saw the same extreme changes they’d expect with heart attacks. But subsequent tests showed their coronary arteries weren’t blocked, as they would be by a heart attack. Instead, their hearts had changed shape. It didn’t take long for these cases to be diagnosed as takotsubo cardiomyopathy, or “broken heart syndrome”.Heartbreak is not simply a metaphor. Today, up to 7% of all sudden cardiac hospital admissions in Japan are diagnosed as takotsubo, when stress hormones after a traumatic event have caused a weakening of the left ventricle, meaning it can no longer pump effectively – for a while, it gives up. It hurts. And it clearly shows the link between the stresses happening in a person’s life, whether an earthquake or the end of a relationship, and their heart. Continue reading...

Archaeologists and volunteers make find at what may be one of UK’s best-preserved deserted medieval villagesArchaeologists believe they may have found the remains of a medieval alehouse or inn on a dig uncovering what could be one of the UK’s best-preserved deserted medieval villages.The archaeological work at a field in High Hunsley, near Beverley in east Yorkshire, is a dig with a difference in that a key motivation of organisers has been to get new people involved in heritage projects. Continue reading...

Psychiatrists may soon recognise ‘maladaptive daydreaming’ as a clinical disorder. But what is it, and how can it be treated?Every day, Kyla* travels to a fictional universe with advanced space travel. It’s not real, of course – but an incredibly vivid daydream, centred on a protagonist with a detailed history. “It covers 79 years in the life of my main character,” she says. “I know how the whole thing plays out, and I can drop into it at whatever point I want to experience.”Today, this habit is pure entertainment, which she limits to just an hour a day. “It’s like watching Netflix,” she says. “I just go into my head and enjoy it.” In the past, however, she had felt that her fantasies had become all-consuming. “There was a point where it was like an addiction.” Continue reading...

Archaeologists fear they are ‘villains of the piece’ in movie, co-written by Coogan and directed by Stephen Frears, about search for British monarchKing Richard III did not deserve his evil reputation, yet battles waged in his name have raged on long after his death more than five centuries ago at the Battle of Bosworth. Now, on the eve of the premiere of a starry British film about the amazing discovery of his remains under a Leicester car park, the great “lost king” of England is again the subject of conflict.The group of expert archaeologists who retrieved his bones from the hidden ruins of the Greyfriars church 10 years ago last week, and who skilfully proved who he was, are this weekend fighting to stop their side of the story being buried for ever. They fear that the “pretty reckless” new film, The Lost King, will reduce their role in the extraordinary historical find. Continue reading...

Britain was ill-prepared for a pandemic because politicians didn’t want to make the risks publicBlame-shifting is the oldest political trick in the book.Recent comments from Rishi Sunak and others about the role of scientists in the management of the pandemic – blaming us for encouraging lockdowns and thereby exacerbating the disaster – are an example of rewriting history. They also overlook the important role that the political classes and their acolytes have had in the crisis. I want to put the record straight. Continue reading...

Megarocket to lift off from Florida on Monday morning, one of final crucial test steps before astronauts’ return to the moonThe most powerful space rocket ever to leave Earth will take a 50-year leap across the heavens when it rises from its Florida launchpad on Monday, one of the final crucial test steps before humanity’s return to the moon for the first time since 1972.Artemis 1, comprising Orion, a six-person deep-space exploration capsule, atop a 98m (322ft), 2,600-tonne (2,875-ton) Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket, is scheduled for its maiden liftoff at 8.33am ET (1.33pm UK time) from the same Cape Canaveral launch complex that staged the Apollo lunar missions half a century ago. Continue reading...

Half a century ago the Apollo programme helped change our perspectives on our own world. Imagine what the view from Mars will doIf all goes to plan on Monday, the first vehicle in 50 years that is capable of ferrying humans to the moon will lift off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The giant Space Launch System rocket will hurl aloft an Orion spacecraft, designed to carry up to six astronauts, on a 1.3m mile test mission labelled Artemis 1. If successful, the 42-day flight, which will take its unmanned Orion craft 40,000 miles beyond the far side of the moon, will demonstrate that the United States is once again ready to put humans on the lunar surface.The achievement will come at a price, however. The US taxpayer will pay $93bn to fund the Artemis programme that will take humans back to the moon before acting later as a springboard to send astronauts to Mars. It is a colossal investment and there are nagging doubts that it is justified at a time when private space companies, such as Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX, are developing giant reusable rockets that could slash deep-space mission costs. From this perspective, many analysts say that private enterprise should bear the brunt of ferrying people to the moon and Mars. Continue reading...

Researchers believe vertebrae and ribs indicate a brachiosaurid sauropod 25 metres long and 12 metres highThe remains of what could be the largest dinosaur ever found in Europe have been uncovered in a back garden in Portugal.Excavation work began in the garden in the city of Pombal in 2017, when the owner of the property noticed fragments of fossilised bone and contacted researchers from the University of Lisbon. Continue reading...

As her new book on the origins of the universe is published, the Albanian-American scientist explains how her work on multiverse theory influenced Stephen Hawking, and how Soviet rule shaped her hunger for knowledgeLaura Mersini-Houghton was born in Albania and grew up under a totalitarian communist regime which, until its collapse in 1991, cut the country off from the rest of the world. Influenced by her father, Nexhat Mersini, a mathematician, she developed a keen interest in physics and, in 1994, won a Fulbright scholarship to study in the US. Her first book, Before the Big Bang, describes her quest to illuminate the origins of our universe and prove that we are one of many universes in a much vaster multiverse. Mersini-Houghton is now professor of theoretical physics and cosmology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, though she is currently in Cambridge, England, where she spends time every summer doing research.How did life in a closed society shape your thinking?

Dame Kate Bingham aghast at civil service database changes that ‘will deter’ volunteers from signing upThe leader of Britain’s successful Covid vaccination programme has accused health officials of dismantling a critically important database, set up to aid Covid vaccine trials, when it could be used for other vital medical research programmes.“All this talk about the UK becoming a serious science superpower is bollocks,” Dame Kate Bingham told the Observer. “These people don’t actually care. If you really want to make our clinical research strong, you don’t start dismantling what’s been put in place.” Continue reading...

This week, columnist Marina Hyde asks why all the blame for the sewage dumping scandal is pointed towards politicians and not the water company bosses (1m50s), writer Sam Parker on the Gen Z entrepreneurs who are turning their backs on office nine to fives and turning their personal passions into full-time jobs (9m20s), historian Lucy Worsley on whether best-selling author, Agatha Christie, really did go into hiding to frame her husband for murder (26m06s), and finally, neuroscientist and psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett asks: can we really tell what animals are feeling, or are we merely projecting? (43min19)

The late actor best known as Lieutenant Uhura will join James Doohan, who played Scotty, and creator Gene RoddenberryThe late actor Nichelle Nichols, best known as Lieutenant Uhura on Star Trek, will become the latest member of the 1960s television series to be memorialized by having some of her earthly remains flown into space.Nichols, who died on 30 July at age 89, is credited with helping shatter racial stereotypes and redefining Hollywood roles for Black actors at the height of the US civil rights movement, as one of the first Black women to portray an empowered character on network television. Continue reading...

Company is suing pharmaceutical rival and its German partner for patent infringementModerna is suing its US pharmaceutical rival Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech for patent infringement in the development of the first Covid-19 vaccine approved in the United States, alleging they copied technology that Moderna developed years before the pandemic.The lawsuit, which seeks undetermined monetary damages, was being filed in US district court in Massachusetts and the regional court of Düsseldorf in Germany, Moderna said in a news release on Friday. Continue reading...

Synthetic embryos and three-person babies among advances revised fertility laws need to consider

Exclusive: HFEA discussing how to ‘future-proof’ legislation to keep pace with scientific advances

Nasa’s original moon mission photographs, kept locked in a freezer in Houston, are some of the most vital artefacts of human endeavour. Now, they have been remastered for a new century. Introduction by Tim Peake. Photographs restored by Andy SaundersYou have to make time for awe and wonder. When you’re working in space, you’re so mission-focused, you can almost forget your environment. It can be hard to process the remoteness and isolation until you get back to Earth.The cover image of Apollo Remastered, a new book of restored images from the Nasa archive billed as the ultimate photographic record of humankind’s greatest adventure, is of Commander Jim McDivitt looking up on Apollo 9 in 1969. I think a lot of people read awe and wonder in his face, but I see immense concentration; he’s docking the lunar module. When you’re docking, you’re using a robotic arm to grab another visiting vehicle, and it’s the most intense 90 seconds of your life. Everything depends on you.Apollo 9, 7 March 1969 James McDivitt docks the lunar module – ‘an almost impossible task’, according to Russell Schweickart, who took the picture. Photograph: Nasa/JSC/ASU/Andy Saunders Continue reading...

The misinformation spouted by the leadership hopeful is dangerous and exacerbates the wrongful mistrust of scientists

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Latest updates: Tory leadership frontrunner reacts to Sunak comments, saying school closures went too far; pair meet Tory members in Norwich

Cooked meals such as pizza provoke stronger reactions than fruit and vegetables, say MIT researchersHomer Simpson may not be the only one with a region of the brain dedicated to doughnuts: researchers have found that images of food appear to trigger a specific set of neurons.Previous research found that similar regions of the brain are highly specialised to identify and remember faces, places, bodies and words. Continue reading...

The team observed carbon dioxide on a hot gas giant called Wasp-39b, about 700 light years awayThe world’s most powerful telescope has made its first observations of a planet beyond our solar system, heralding a new era of astronomy in which distant worlds can be scanned for signs of life.The observations, from Nasa’s James Webb Space Telescope, give new insights into the formation of the planet, a hot gas giant called Wasp-39bthat is 700 light years away in the Virgo constellation. They also provide the first clearcut evidence for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting a distant star. Continue reading...

Large study could aid diagnosis in dogs and improve understanding of age-related illness in humansIf you can’t teach your old dog new tricks, it could be an ominous sign. Researchers have found the odds of a canine having doggy dementia rises by more than 50% with each year of age.While dementia is a well-known condition in humans, dogs can experience a similar decline in cognitive function, with symptoms including disrupted sleep, forgetfulness, walking into things, difficulties adapting to change and getting lost. Continue reading...

With supplies running low, many gay and bisexual men are struggling to get appointments at sexual health centres – and for some, the handling of the outbreak has alarming echoes of the HIV/Aids epidemicIn a waiting room at the Mortimer Market Centre, a sexual health clinic in central London, a slow but steady stream of men who have sex with men (MSM) are arriving to receive their first monkeypox vaccination. It is a sweltering afternoon, and all available slots have been filled, as they have ever since vaccines started to be delivered here in early July.Few know much about the monkeypox virus itself, or how the vaccine works. But everyone at the clinic is acutely aware of how this unpleasant and potentially extremely painful disease has been sweeping through gay and bisexual men: according to the World Health Organization (WHO), they account for 98% of this outbreak’s cases. The 2,500 men who have so far passed through these doors now have some protection, although at what level – and for how long – remains uncertain. In very rare cases the disease can be fatal. Continue reading...

Unapologetically optimistic and bracingly realistic, a philosopher’s guide to ‘ethical living’ for dangerous times“Lately I’m getting the feeling that I came in at the end,” Tony Soprano tells his therapist at their first session, and it’s natural to feel the same about your place in human history: that these are the twilight years. Hundreds of millennia of human activity stretch back behind us – the stone age and the bronze age and the iron age, the ancient world, the middle ages and onwards, culminating in today – whereas our mental image of our species’ future tends either to be hazy or, in the event of an extinction-level catastrophe, terrifyingly short.But there is another way to see things. Even if the world population were to fall by 90%, and if humans survive no longer than the average mammalian species, a million years in total, then 99.5% of all human experience has yet to be lived. If we can dodge the aforementioned catastrophe – a big “if”, obviously – then a staggeringly huge proportion of humanity’s time on Earth is almost certainly yet to come. Continue reading...

The Marches, Shropshire: As the heatwave passes, we seem to be left with decline and decompositionThey are darklings, leathern, nocturnal, folding into themselves, sludging towards corruption. They smell – not foul, but strongly of something overripe, a declining libertine, yeasty and gloriously soiled.These penny buns, the colour of old pennies, are the fruiting bodies of Boletus edulis, a bolete mushroom that appeared in the last days of the heatwave, growing along the edge of an avenue of lime trees in Oswestry’s Brogyntyn Park. Continue reading...

Many teenagers will receive their GCSE results today. These exams can have a significant impact on what they do next, so it can be a stressful time for students, their teachers and parents. Over the past decade, reported mental health problems among teenagers have been on the rise. A recent survey by the NHS statistics agency found rates of probable mental disorders in six- to 16-year-olds reached one in six in 2021. Madeleine Finlay speaks to the academic psychologist Dr Lucy Foulkes about what could be behind this crisis, how schools are trying to tackle it, and how we can help teenagers with their mental wellbeingArchive: Good Morning Britain, PBS News Hour Continue reading...

New research finds women’s relationship with alcohol can differ depending on their social class – for some it’s a social celebration, for others relief from loneliness and stressMany of us enjoy a drink at the end of a stressful day. But for some, this is less of a discretionary treat and more of a nightly must-have.While alcohol reduction campaigns ask us to check our relationship with alcohol, emphasising the role it can play in causing violence and disease, our research has found many Australian women view alcohol in a different way. Many don’t see alcohol as only a bad thing and have complex reasons for their relationships with alcohol.[I drink] just on my own; doesn’t bother me. I don’t need to be sociable and I don’t necessarily drink when I’m out […] alcohol has always played a fairly large role. Continue reading...

Ex-chancellor admits being furious about school closures, adding trade-offs of lockdowns were not properly considered by expertsRishi Sunak has claimed that it was a mistake to “empower scientists” during the coronavirus pandemic and that his opposition to closing schools was met with silence during one meeting.The Conservative leadership candidate believes one of the major errors was allowing the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) to have so much influence on decision making such as closing nurseries, schools and colleges in March 2020. Continue reading...

Academics ‘pretty confident’ extinct hominid species could walk as well as climb trees 7m years agoThe oldest known ancestor of humankind walked on two legs but could still climb trees like an ape, a study of some 7m-year-old bones suggests.Researchers analysed the fossil remains of Sahelanthropus tchadensis, unearthed 21 years ago in the deserts of Chad, central Africa. At the time, the discovery was said to have had “the impact of a small nuclear bomb” as it pushed back the ancestral line of hominids – the line leading to Homo sapiens – by a million years, closer to the split with chimpanzees. Continue reading...

Multiple footprints belonging to the Acrocanthosaurus dinosaur and dating back over 100m years discovered in bed of Paluxy RiverSevere drought conditions in Texas have revealed ancient dinosaur footprints that date back more than 100m years.Multiple dinosaur tracks belonging to the Acrocanthosaurus dinosaur were discovered recently at Dinosaur Valley state park in north-west Texas as widespread droughts have caused a river running through central Texas to dry up almost entirely. Continue reading...

To their admirers, beavers and their dams can help humans hang on to water when it’s scarce, and prevent flooding when it’s not. Others worry that they spell disaster for farmers. We weigh up the evidence from one lush valley in DevonIn the midst of the UK’s worst drought in living memory, a host of unfamiliar experiences assault our senses in a Devon valley. Before us is a field of lush green grass. To one side is a bush of blackberries swollen huge by perfect growing conditions. Squelch, squelch go our feet through the grass. There’s sticky black mud! Hang on, I’ve got wet feet.Despite a few drops of rain earlier in the week, the rolling hills of the West Country are parched yellow. And yet this small valley, where a tributary leads to the River Otter, is deep green. Continue reading...

Flavorings made from mealworms could one day be used on convenience food as a source of proteinInsects can be turned into meat-like flavors, helping provide a more environmentally friendly alternative to traditional meat options, scientists have discovered.Mealworms, the larval form of the yellow mealworm beetle, have been cooked with sugar by researchers who found that the result is a meat-like flavoring that could one day be used on convenience food as a source of protein. Continue reading...

Diligent researchers have drawn up a formula to predict the precise timing of the screams. I could have saved them some workThe first time my son ever went in a car, aged three months, he screamed so hard he foamed at the mouth, turned purple and then passed out for an hour. In a good light, you can still see the self-inflicted nail marks in my thighs.Now, researchers have drawn up a neat little formula to explain precisely when such a tantrum (in this case known as “T”) may rear its head during a long car journey.Nell Frizzell is a journalist and author of The Panic Years Continue reading...

What the telescope’s incredible images show about how it operates – and the universe itself• This piece is extracted from our First Edition newsletter. To sign up, click here.On Christmas Day last year, 30 years after its conception, the James Webb space telescope launched from French Guiana. On 28 December, it went past the moon. On 24 January, it fired its thrusters for five minutes and settled into its final orbit about 1,500,000 km from Earth. On 12 July, after months of painstaking setup, it produced its first image – showing us, for the first time, faraway galaxies as they were more than 13bn years ago.The Webb telescope has been adding to this miraculous beginning ever since. Now it’s brought us something a little closer to home, a mere 615 million km away: the most extraordinarily detailed images of Jupiter we’ve ever seen. Continue reading...

In today’s newsletter: After the James Webb space telescope sends extraordinary images of Jupiter, astrophysicist Dr Becky Smethurst explains why it’s so importantGood morning. I was going to email you this morning about Liz Truss, but the idea filled me with such dread that I thought: sod it, let’s do the ineffable mysteries of the universe instead.On Christmas Day last year, 30 years after its conception, the James Webb space telescope launched from French Guiana. On 28 December, it went past the moon. On 24 January, it fired its thrusters for five minutes and settled into its final orbit about 1.5m km from Earth. On 12 July, after months of painstaking setup, it produced its first image – showing us, for the first time, faraway galaxies as they were more than 13bn years ago.Food | Companies at the centre of the global grain trade have enjoyed a record bonanza amid soaring food prices around the world, prompting calls for a windfall tax. The figures renewed concerns of profiteering and speculation in global food markets that could put staples beyond the reach of the poorest.UK News | An attempted public murder of a senior gang member caused a nine-year-old girl to be mistakenly shot dead while being shielded by her mother inside her Liverpool home, the Guardian has learned. Bouquets and cards were left outside the home of Olivia Pratt-Korbel amid widespread horror in her city at the killing.Conservatives | Liz Truss has refused to commit to appointing an ethics adviser if she became prime minister, saying she has “always acted with integrity”. The previous ethics adviser, Christopher Geidt, quit in June after conceding Boris Johnson may have broken the ministerial code over the Partygate scandal.UK News | The student nurse Owami Davies, who had been missing for nearly seven weeks, has been found “safe and well”, the Met police has said. Concerns had grown for the 24-year-old’s safety since she was last seen on 7 July.Coronavirus | Twice as many deaths involving Covid occurred this summer as last summer, according to analysis of new data. Some 5,700 Covid deaths have been registered since 8 June – but rates have fallen in recent weeks. Continue reading...

Successful sensing of earthquake in Indonesia raises hopes for wider use across planet – and even VenusOn 14 December 2021, a 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck Indonesia; its epicentre was located just under the seabed near the island of Flores.Within minutes, seismometers around the world were jolted by the earthquake waves as they rippled through and around the Earth. Continue reading...

Losing even one hour of rest reduces ‘innate desire of humans to help one another’, US research findsWhen Ebenezer Scrooge woke up on Christmas Day after a fitful night’s sleep, he realised he must renounce his stingy ways.Unfortunately, the same is unlikely to happen for the rest of us, according to research suggesting sleepless nights make us more selfish. Continue reading...

(Nasa Recordings)

Clinical trial will explore whether Tecovirimat can reduce time it takes for skin lesions and ulcers to healThe first clinical trial in patients with monkeypox of an antiviral drug that could speed their recovery has begun in the UK.The trial, known as Platinum, will explore whether Tecovirimat – a drug originally developed for smallpox – may reduce the length of time it takes for skin lesions and ulcers to heal. Continue reading...

Eerie audio emanating from the Perseus cluster reminds social media users of sci-fi films and hungry stomachsIf you were content to go through life without knowing what a supermassive black hole sounds like (perhaps because of its scary name or a desire not to think about endless darkness), your luck has run out.On Sunday Nasa released an audio clip that represents actual sound waves emanating from the enormous black hole at the centre of the Perseus galaxy cluster, which is more than 200m light years away. Continue reading...

On Sunday, Nasa released an audio clip that represents actual sound waves emanating from the enormous black hole at the centre of the Perseus galaxy cluster. The sound is edited so that human ears can hear it, with the agency saying they mixed it with “other data” and amplified it, adding that the idea that there is no sound in space was a misconception. Continue reading...

About 325 million years ago, when Britain sat near the equator as part of the supercontinent Pangaea, two populations of a small, scaly, swamp-dwelling creature separated from each other. One of these lineages, over millions and millions of years, evolved into mammals. Our ancestors shared the planet with dinosaurs, survived an asteroid and made it through an ice age. This fascinating history is documented in The Rise and Reign of the Mammals, a new book by the palaeontologist Prof Steve Brusatte. The Guardian science correspondent Nicola Davis talks to Madeleine Finlay about her visit with Brusatte and what she learned about the strange mammals that once walked the Earth. What might their past reveal about their future in a rapidly changing world? Continue reading...

The infrared images, taken in July, capture unprecedented views of the biggest planet’s storms, moon and surrounding ringsThe world’s newest and biggest space telescope is showing Jupiter as never before, auroras and all.Scientists released the shots on Monday of the solar system’s biggest planet. Continue reading...

The research suggested exercise could affect the severity of infection, rates of hospitalisation and deathRegular exercise lowers your risk of developing Covid-19 or falling seriously ill with the disease, with about 20 minutes a day providing the greatest benefit, a global analysis of data suggests.Regular physical activity is linked to a lower risk of Covid-19 infection, severity, hospitalisation and death, according to the new pooled data analysis of the available evidence published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Continue reading...

Peter Tanner, my father, who has died aged 92, was a research physicist who worked on a number of significant technological innovations.Born in Poplar, east London, Peter was one of five children of Alex (nee Zanerra) and William Tanner, an estate agent, who had served in the Royal Artillery during the first world war. His mother’s tenacity during the stark days of the Depression saw her boys win scholarships to the Coopers’ Company school. Continue reading...