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...

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...

Researchers say previous studies mistook the organs on female snakes as scent glands or under-developed versions of penises

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...

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...

Pioneering surgeon who became the first female chair of the General Medical CouncilThe trailblazing surgeon Clare Marx, who has died aged 68 from pancreatic cancer, broke innumerable glass ceilings and leaves a profound legacy. As the first female chair of the General Medical Council, she brought a culture of compassionate leadership to the organisation and consistently championed women in medicine.Working initially at St Mary’s hospital in Paddington, west London, Marx was the first British female trauma and orthopaedic (T&O) surgical trainee (1981) and the first female T&O consultant (1990). Surgery in this field was a bastion of masculinity, and Marx got used to incredulity and being asked “if my hands were big enough” or “when I plan to leave the playing field to the boys”.Clare Lucy Marx, surgeon, born 15 March 1954; died 27 November 2022 Continue reading...

The answers to today’s puzzlesEarlier today I set you the following four puzzles. Here they are again with solutions.The questions were taken from a “maths battle”, which is a competitive event that mixes maths and debating. (For more info about maths battles, read the previous post.) Continue reading...

The pandemic has changed the seasonal pattern of infectious diseases, and risky, little-understood blends are the resultAround this time last year, my young daughter caught chickenpox. I thought it was a standard case of a normal childhood illness – we’d manage it by trying to ease the itching and everything would be fine.Instead, my daughter got worse. She developed a sore throat, then a body rash, and struggled to drink liquids. Again, I thought this was a normal progression of her infection and she would eventually get better. It was only after I started talking to my colleagues that I learned that group A strep cases had been reported among schools in the vicinity. I also found out that chickenpox could lead to increased vulnerability against strep A, particularly among children.Daniela Ferreira is professor of mucosal infection and vaccinology at the University of Oxford and the Liverpool School of Tropical MedicineDo 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...

Try your hand at these puzzles for smart 12-year-oldsUPDATE: Read the solutions hereWhat do you get when you combine mathematics with debating?You get a “maths battle”, an event for secondary school students in which two teams solve problems, present their solutions to each other, and are encouraged to pick holes in each other’s workings. Continue reading...

They are thought to be debris from an asteroid rather than a comet, and are also relatively slow-movingIt is time for one of the most reliable meteor showers of the year. The Geminids are active between 4 and 17 December, with the peak of activity usually coming on the night of 13-14 December.This year, the peak is expected to bring about 120 meteors an hour, although a nearby waning gibbous Moon with around 73% of its surface illuminated will make if difficult to see the fainter meteors. As the name suggests, the Geminids radiate from a point within Gemini, the twins, just above the constellation’s two brightest stars Castor and Pollux. The meteors will appear to streak across the sky in all directions from this point, known as the radiant.This article was amended on 13 December 2022. An earlier version said that the moon would be waxing. In fact it would be waning. Continue reading...

From ‘lepak’ to ‘deurmekaar’, terms borrowed from its 1.75 billion global speakers are enriching the language we shareWho owns the English language? The answer to this question is no longer as straightforward as “the English”. According to the latest figures from the British Council, English is “spoken at a useful level” by about 1.75 billion people. Counted among this vast anglophone population are not only the hundreds of millions who speak English as a first language, but also the hundreds of millions more who speak it as a second or foreign language in different parts of the world.English spread across the globe largely as a result of imperialism, as the language was imposed on colonies in Asia, Africa, Australia and the Americas. When these former colonies achieved independence, many chose to retain the use of English, usually to function as a primary working language and neutral medium of communication for their diverse populations. As countries such as India, Nigeria, South Africa, Jamaica and Singapore adopted English as a language, they also adapted it – making significant changes to its pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary, and giving rise to new varieties now collectively known as World Englishes.Danica Salazar is a lexicographer at Oxford Languages, where she leads editorial projects on world varieties of English Continue reading...

US space agency rejoices after re-entry of spacecraft that should clear way for possible lunar landing of astronauts by 2025Fifty years to the day after astronauts last walked on the moon, Nasa’s uncrewed Orion capsule splashed down in the Pacific on Sunday at the end of a mission that should clear the way for a possible lunar landing of astronauts by 2025.The US space agency rejoiced in a near-perfect re-entry of the capsule which splashed down to the west of Mexico’s Baja California near Guadalupe Island. Though it carried no astronauts, the spacecraft did contain three test dummies wired with vibration sensors and radiation monitors to divine how humans would have fared. Continue reading...

Nasa's Orion capsule arrived back on Earth after completing a 1.4m-mile voyage to orbit the moon that lasted 25 days. The splashdown in the Pacific Ocean was the final hurdle Orion faced in its successful demonstration mission. The plan now is for the craft to take humans around the moon for its next mission, expected in 2024 Continue reading...

The mantra of ‘hear hooves, think horse not zebra’ is greatly contributing to diagnostic delays and poor patient experience, says Dr Lucy McKayThank you for highlighting the Hughes’s story about having a family member with an undiagnosed condition (‘Nobody knows what’s wrong with me’ – life with an undiagnosed condition, 6 December). The stories are all too familiar to me and motivate my work every day. I am a second-generation rare disease advocate. My brother died of a rare genetic condition before I was born. My mum founded a charity to connect families and drive research on this condition back in the 1980s. Now my brother’s condition has a treatment.I have watched on the sidelines as the prospects in rare diseases have changed enormously since my childhood. But one thing has changed very little – education for medical professionals. I know this because I trained as a doctor in the UK. I experienced first-hand the way anything rare is marginalised in medical education – in contrast to the government’s drive to bolster the health sciences industry. Continue reading...

As the party season kicks in, so will the effects of having one too many. Here are the sobering facts behind hangovers and tactics that might help you avoid them“Alcohol is a ‘dirty drug’,” says Emily Palmer, a researcher at Imperial College London, who studies hangovers. “It impacts multiple systems in the brain.”Scientists are not exactly sure what is going on in our bodies during a hangover, but they do know it is caused by a variety of biochemical and neurochemical changes. “It doesn’t just affect the liver or the brain,” says Palmer, “it affects almost every organ.” Continue reading...

It’s important for patients to know past relapses don’t define you, and ongoing help from professionals and friends is critical to recovery

Manipulating your body clock can improve health and productivityIt’s 8.30pm on a gloomy November evening and I’m sitting on the sofa under a tartan blanket and wearing a pair of orange-lensed specs. My other half regards me with bemusement. A man who disapproves of paracetamol and plasters, Tim has lived through my audio-bathing phase, my steps-tracker phase and the notorious 2015 installation of our bedroom air-quality monitor, a period during which I informed him he should breathe out less carbon dioxide (could he, I asked, just tape his mouth in bed at night so I didn’t wake up groggy with low oxygen levels?).For all their absence of erotic charm, my latest health gadgets – the light-blocking night glasses and a dome-shaped morning light lamp that turns my face ghostly white – have seen me through five long winters. During these dark months, I’ve risen with a spring in my step and slept as metronomically as a small child – asleep when my head hits the pillow, awake at a regimental 6.32am, with no need for an alarm. Continue reading...

UK teenager is first person in the world to receive ‘base-edited’ cells that could transform cancer medicineScientists in the UK have used a revolutionary new type of gene therapy to treat a young patient with relapsed T-cell leukaemia. The administration of the technique – a world first – has raised hopes it could soon help to tackle other childhood cancers and serious diseases.Alyssa, from Leicester, had undergone chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant in a bid to alleviate her leukaemia, without success. With no further treatments available, prospects for the 13-year-old were grim. Continue reading...

A podcast by two brothers and a film about two silent sisters give fresh impetus to the debate about biology and the environmentAbout one in every 65 pregnancies in the UK results in a multiple birth, a figure that has grown since the advent of fertility treatments, and nearly all of those multiples will be twins. The unusualness of twins has captured the creative imagination going all the way back to the earliest of myths.Take the case of identical twins Romulus and Remus, the apocryphal founders of Rome, through to June and Jennifer Gibbons, the real-life sisters who are the subject of the Polish film maker Agnieszka Smoczyńska’s new film, The Silent Twins. The Gibbons girls, like all identical or monozygotic (MZ) twins, came from the same egg and sperm. When a zygote is split in two at an early stage of development, it creates two separate embryos that share the same genes. Continue reading...

Private members bill paves way for law to end a minority of providers limiting access to relatives, two and a half years after first lockdownPeople would be given a legal right to visit their relatives in care homes and stop providers threatening those who complain with eviction under new legislation proposed last week.The private members bill, introduced in the House of Lords by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath in an effort to spur ministers into action, is designed to stop a small minority of care homes from preventing or limiting visits due to Covid, more than two and half years after the first lockdown began. Continue reading...

Kristina Schellinski on Louise Glück and Annie Ernaux, and Jim Cosgrove on why overdoing the labelling of children as ‘replacements’ is offensiveRe Mary Adams’ letter (Louise Glück and the trauma of being a replacement child, 2 December), children born into grief or even conceived in order to replace a missing sibling deserve recognition and compassionate help to heal their trauma. They deserve a chance to understand the special circumstances of how they came to live their life as replacements and how to start over, to rediscover their own, their original and unique life.Louise Glück, the 2020 Nobel prize in literature winner and Annie Ernaux, the 2022 Nobel prize in literature winner, are both replacement children. Glück’s poems and Ernaux’s novel The Other Girl give comforting insight into this trauma. I would love to see these two poets discuss their creative ways of working through it, getting back their self-esteem, their own identity, working through survivor’s guilt and grief, and maybe discovering in this process a deeper meaning to their life: an existential discovery as reward for their soul-searching. Continue reading...

People tell of distress and panic, adding to concerns about shortage despite government’s assurancesParents are reporting serious difficulties in obtaining antibiotics for their sick children, amid concerns over UK-wide shortages after rising strep A infections.While the government has maintained there are sufficient supplies of penicillin and amoxicillin, pharmacists and GPs around the country have reported they are struggling to get hold of supplies. Continue reading...

Spike in respiratory syncytial virus as well as Covid and flu pushing many hospitals close to brinkBefore Covid, few people had heard of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Increasingly, though, this common cause of pneumonia and bronchiolitis (airway inflammation) is filling up hospital beds across Europe and the Americas. Combined with rising admissions for other respiratory infections, including influenza and Covid, it is pushing some healthcare systems close to the brink of collapse.In its latest report, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said a number of countries had been experiencing unusually early increases in RSV detections, with rising paediatric hospital admissions in France, Ireland, Spain, Sweden and the US. Continue reading...

June will mark end of system that deemed newborns to be a year old, with a year added every 1 JanuarySouth Korea is to scrap its traditional method of counting ages and adopt the international standard – a change that that will knock one or two years off people’s ages on official documents but could take time to seep into daily life.South Koreans are deemed to be a year old when they are born, and a year is added every 1 January. The unusual – and increasingly unpopular – custom means a baby born on New Year’s Eve becomes two years old as soon as the clock strikes midnight. Continue reading...

DNA analysis shows gradual changes to landscape and vegetation are not what future generations can expectA key element of human existence and the prospects for people surviving or thriving was the weather and general climate.Archaeologists have always been able to tell us something about this when digging up Roman or bronze age settlements by using animal bones and burnt seeds as clues. It shows what farmers grew or hunters could catch. But further back in time this becomes more difficult. Continue reading...

Discrimination has ‘profound’ effect on health of disadvantaged people, says Lancet reviewRacism is a “profound” and “insidious” driver of health inequalities worldwide and poses a public health threat to millions of people, according to a global review.Racism, xenophobia and discrimination are “fundamental influences” on health globally but have been overlooked by health researchers, policymakers and practitioners, the series published in the Lancet suggests. Continue reading...

People who do three one-minute bouts of intense activity each day such as climbing stairs have 39% lower risk of death from any causeWhether it is playing with the dog or attacking the housework, clocking up just a few minutes of vigorous activity in daily life could dramatically reduce the chance of early death, research suggests.The study, led by scientists at the University of Sydney, found middle-aged adults who do not undertake leisure exercise such as going to the gym but who manage to rack up three very short bouts of vigorous activity a day have about a 39% lower risk of death than those who do no vigorous activity. Continue reading...

Climate crisis increases risks for subsistence farmers in Africa who usually work throughout pregnancyRising temperatures driven by climate breakdown are causing distress to the foetuses of pregnant farmers, who are among the worst affected by global heating.A study revealed that the foetuses of women working in fields in the Gambia showed concerning rises in heart rates and reductions in the blood flow to the placenta as conditions became hotter. The women, who do much of the agricultural labour and work throughout pregnancy, told the scientists that temperatures had noticeably increased in the past decade. Continue reading...

Negotiators from around the world have landed in Montreal, Canada for the UN’s biodiversity conference, Cop15. The summit has been called an “unprecedented” opportunity for turning the tide on nature loss and comes at a critical time: a million species are at risk of extinction and wildlife populations have plunged by an average of 69% between 1970 and 2018.Madeleine Finlay speaks to the director of science at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Prof Alexandre Antonelli, about the current state of the planet’s biodiversity, what needs to be achieved at Cop15 and how he’s feeling about the possibility of change. Continue reading...

Breakthrough pushes back DNA record by 1m years to time when region was 11–19C warmer than todayTwo-million-year-old DNA from northern Greenland has revealed that the region was once home to mastodons, lemmings and geese, offering unprecedented insights into how climate change can shape ecosystems.The breakthrough in ancient DNA analysis pushes back the DNA record by 1m years to a time when the Arctic region was 11-19C warmer than the present day. The analysis reveals that the northern peninsula of Greenland, now a polar desert, once featured boreal forests of poplar and birch trees teeming with wildlife. The work offers clues to how species might adapt, or be genetically engineered, to survive the threat of rapid global heating. Continue reading...

High court case is landmark test of use of unregulated experts in family justice proceedings in England and WalesA mother whose children were removed from her care against their wishes after an unregulated psychologist said she had “alienated” them from their father has lost a high court appeal to have her case reopened.The landmark test case came before the president of the family division in England and Wales, Sir Andrew McFarlane, who has said he will reinforce the need for the courts to follow guidance on appointing experts in his forthcoming judgment. Continue reading...

RSV, Covid-19 and flu cases are exploding, but many health officials aren’t forcing masks or discouraging in-person gatheringsDr Jason Newland, a pediatric infectious disease doctor at St Louis children’s hospital, is just waiting for his cold to start. “I can list off about 10 people right now that have had some sort of illness in the past five days,” Newland said.That’s because the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza seasons started months earlier than usual, amid the continuing spread of Covid-19 and the common cold. The flu hospitalization rate is the highest it’s been in a decade, according to public health officials. Scientists have described the collision of viruses as a “tripledemic”. Continue reading...

With the help of fishers in Madagascar and Tanzania, scientists named two new species of rare sixgill sawsharksSwimming through the ocean are sharks that look as if they have a hedge trimmer fixed to their heads and a dangling moustache part way along it. These are sawsharks and they use their formidable headgear to slash through shoals of fish. The moustache is a sensory device that helps the sharks detect prey.“Sawsharks are something extraordinary,” says Simon Weigmann from the Elasmobranch Research Laboratory in Hamburg, Germany. Continue reading...

University of Copenhagen study shows more comprehension of domestic than wild animalsIt might not be animal communication Dr Dolittle-style, but researchers have found humans are able to glean insights into the feelings of creatures including pigs, horses and goats based on their vocalisations.The team say the findings suggest certain information within sounds, such as how intense an animal’s emotions are, appears to be conveyed in a similar way across species. Continue reading...

Researchers think sound of vehicles can interfere with birds’ normal song when trying to warn off nearby rivalsIt isn’t just people who get road rage. Robins in the countryside become more aggressive when they hear the sound of traffic, according to a study.Beloved for their plump appearance, proud bearing and sweet song, European robins are actually fiercely competitive creatures, whose calls and behaviours are part of a struggle for territorial dominance fought daily with their neighbours. Continue reading...

Coroner to look at whether misplaced medical tube contributed to death of Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab, 13A misplaced medical tube may have contributed to the death of the first child in the UK to die after contracting Covid, a review of the case heard on Tuesday.Thirteen-year-old Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab’s death on 30 March 2020 at King’s College hospital in London prompted widespread shock, which was compounded when it emerged that his immediate family, including six siblings, could not attend his funeral because of Covid lockdown restrictions. Continue reading...

‘Rare’ blanket measure may be used at primary schools after at least nine UK deaths from bacterial infectionPrimary schoolchildren at risk from a severe form of strep A could be given preventive antibiotics as a blanket measure, in a move described as “rare” by health officials.At least nine children have died due to complications from strep A bacterial infections since September, with one senior health official suggesting the early start to the strep A season in the UK could be a knock-on effect to immunity levels caused by Covid measures, although others have downplayed the impact lockdowns may have had. Continue reading...

Amateur fossil hunters find skull connected to body of marine giant elasmosaur for the first time in Australia

Footage shows large protest at Nanjing Tech University, as rules persist despite steps to ease zero-Covid policy

The UK Health Security Agency issued a rare alert on Friday, telling parents to look out for signs of strep A infection in their children. Since September, eight children in England and Wales have died after becoming unwell with Group A streptococci bacteria.Typically causing illnesses like skin infections, tonsillitis or scarlet fever, very occasionally strep A can become a life-threatening, invasive disease. But why are we seeing such a steep rise in cases in the UK this year?Madeleine Finlay speaks to Chrissie Jones, associate professor of paediatric infection at the University of Southampton, about the significance of this outbreak and the symptoms to be aware of, and asks Shiranee Sriskandan, professor of infectious diseases at Imperial College London, about how the bacteria can evade our immune systems and whether we may one day have a vaccine.Archive: ITV, Sky News Continue reading...

Unnamed expert tells state media outlet Yicai that Covid could be downgraded from a category A disease to category CCoronavirus is weakening and management protocols could be downgraded, an expert on China’s state media has claimed, after unprecedented protests last week led to a major shift in Beijing’s commitment to its zero-Covid policy.Since January 2020, China has classified Covid-19 as a Category B infectious disease but has managed it under Category A protocols, which give local authorities the power to put patients and their close contacts into quarantine and lock down affected regions. Continue reading...