The radio telescope at Honeysuckle Creek near Canberra transmitted the first images of Neil Armstrong on the moonWhen the lunar module of Apollo 11 landed on the moon and astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped on to its surface for the first time, millions of people around the world watched the images live on television.Nasa had five tracking stations around the world to record that moment and monitor the mission. The main station was at Goldstone in California, and Spain had one near Madrid. Australia had three: radio telescopes at Honeysuckle Creek and Parkes, and a deep space tracking station at Tidbinbilla. Continue reading...
by Philippa Kelly, Ashley Kirk and Kaamil Ahmed on (#61MRP)
Only one in seven people in low-income countries are fully vaccinated with poorest pushed to the ‘back of the queue’The international target to vaccinate 70% of the world’s population against Covid by mid-2022 was missed because poorer countries were at the “back of the queue” when vaccines were rolled out, say campaigners.The latest figures from Our World in Data show huge inequalities in vaccination rates around the world, with just one in seven people in low-income countries fully vaccinated. By comparison, nearly three in four people in high-income nations have been vaccinated for around a year. Continue reading...
by Presented by Ian Sample, produced by George Cooper on (#61MQ4)
US president Joe Biden campaigned on climate issues, but recent events may have sounded a death knell for his promises. Last week, his attempts to pass sweeping climate legislation were thwarted – by a senator in his own party. And in June, a landmark US Supreme Court ruling has greatly limited the federal government’s ability to regulate emissions from the fossil fuel industry. So where does that leave the Democrats’ climate plans? Ian Sample speaks to Prof Elizabeth Bomberg about what these developments mean for the Biden administration and the rest of the worldArchive: Continue reading...
by Presented by Michael Safi with Hannah Devlin; prod on (#61MNC)
More than two years into the pandemic, the virus continues to evolve in unpredictable and surprising ways, says science correspondent Hannah DevlinWe’re now more than two years into the Covid pandemic in the UK, and despite successive rounds of vaccinations and booster shots the virus is still rife. More than one in 19 people currently have it.The Guardian’s science correspondent Hannah Devlin tells Michael Safi that the way Covid is evolving continues to surprise scientists. Many believed that Covid would behave like other coronaviruses and be a seasonal illness that an annual winter jab could protect against. But this latest wave is in summer, and it has come very close on the heels of the last wave. Not only that but it seems to be continually finding new ways to get around the protections of the body’s immune system. Even those who have had the virus and multiple jabs are still getting reinfected. Continue reading...
Hannah Fry tries to change the minds of seven Covid vaccine refuseniks in this documentary … and you’ll need a saint’s patience to tolerate some of the responsesCan we inaugurate a Bafta for most patient TV host? The mathematician and science podcaster Prof Hannah Fry needs some reward for Unvaccinated (BBC Two), a documentary that requires a near-saintly level of tolerance just to watch, never mind present.Fry gathers seven of the roughly 4 million Britons who have chosen not to receive a Covid vaccine, in the hope of better understanding them. The unvaccinated septet convene in one of those cosily appointed houses TV producers feel obliged to hire when their documentary might become a reality-TV event – although since nobody actually moves in, the only consequence of this is that Fry has a series of debates in rooms that look poorly ventilated, which makes her brave physically as well as intellectually. Continue reading...
Native Hawaiians have protested the $2.65bn project, saying it will further defile an area already harmed by other observatoriesThe National Science Foundation will examine the environmental impacts of a proposed optical telescope on the summit of Hawaii’s tallest mountain, a project that has faced strong opposition from Native Hawaiians who consider the area sacred.Native Hawaiians have long protested the plan to build what would be one of the world’s largest optical telescopes on Mauna Kea, and say the $2.65bn project will further defile an area already harmed by a dozen other observatories. Continue reading...
‘Appalling’ advice on coping with the cost of living crisis from prestigious agency provokes anger among researchersPostgraduates chosen for their “excellent potential” to become future leaders in environmental science and sustainable business should consider selling Avon products, pet-sitting and joining clinical trials to cope with the cost of living crisis.The advice – issued on Wednesday by the prestigious Aries Doctoral Training Partnership funded by the Natural Environment Research Council at the University of East Anglia – provoked outrage among researchers who described the letter as “appalling”, “ridiculous” and “unbelievable”. Continue reading...
Researchers say increased risk of cardiovascular problems also persists in month after infectionPeople who catch Covid-19 have a greater risk of being diagnosed with diabetes and cardiovascular conditions for weeks after the infection has taken hold, according to a major UK study.The risk of heart and circulation problems, such as irregular heartbeats and blood clots on the lungs, was nearly six times higher in Covid patients than uninfected people of the same age and sex, and 80% higher for diabetes, during the month after infection, researchers found. Continue reading...
Replacing 20% of our meat with microbial protein could dramatically reduce carbon emissions and the rate of deforestation, a new study has foundReplacing just one fifth of the red meat we eat with microbial proteins derived from fungi or algae could reduce annual deforestation by a massive 56% come 2050, according to a study published this spring.Climate scientists at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research simulated four future scenarios in which humans replace either 0%, 20%, 50% or 80% of the red meat in our diets with microbial protein, which is a low-calorie, high-protein and high-fiber fermented product that’s already an ingredient in some commercial alt-meats, including Quorn and Nature’s Fynd. The researchers then looked at how this dietary change might affect global forests by 2050.Adrienne Matei is a freelance journalist Continue reading...
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The H5N1 strain of avian influenza is sweeping across the world, killing millions of birds. In the UK, it’s causing disastrous losses of seabirds – populations that were already being hit by a number of threats, including habitat loss, overfishing and global heating. Biodiversity reporter Phoebe Weston tells Madeleine Finlay about how the virus made it into wild birds, why it’s having such a devastating impact, and the long-term impact bird flu could have on some of our most vulnerable species Continue reading...
VFTS243 has a mass nine times that of the Sun’s and is in a binary system with a companion starA dormant black hole nine times the mass of the Sun has been found outside the Milky Way for the first time, in what researchers have called a “very exciting discovery”.Though it is not the first contender, a researcher from the University of Sheffield says this black hole is “the first to be unambiguously detected outside our galaxy”. Continue reading...
Infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci calls for ‘much more vigorous testing’ as CDC confirms 1,814 cases in the USAs health authorities in the US warn that monkeypox must be taken more seriously, at-risk communities continue to face a limited supply of vaccines and lack of access to testing, while those contracting the virus in the US have struggled to receive treatment, according to reports.“This is something we definitely need to take seriously. We don’t know the scope and the potential of it yet, but we have to act like it will have the capability of spreading much more widely than it’s spreading right now,” Anthony Fauci, Joe Biden’s top medical adviser, said on CNN this weekend. Continue reading...
The advice was to limit alcohol, avoid high-sugar foods and decrease saturated fats – but warnings like this are just going to encourage meI took a DNA test a few weeks ago. It arrived in the post. I had to prick my finger, squeeze out several drops of blood and put them in a box to post to a lab in Scandinavia.It’s about risk management. For the first time, I’m looking to invest long-term in my body and, to do that, I need to explore what could happen in terms of illness. I want to do what I can now, to optimise my chances of living healthily for longer. I want my body and my mind to be aligned; I want to feel strong and supple and capable. I thought it may mean taking a few more supplements. Exercising more. Eating more greens. Continue reading...
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No treatment or vaccine exists for Marburg, which can spread from infected animals such as batsTwo cases of the deadly Marburg virus have been identified in Ghana, the first time the Ebola-like disease has been found in the west African nation.Earlier in the month, blood samples taken from two people in the southern Ashanti region suggested they had the Marburg virus. Continue reading...
by Hannah Devlin Science correspondent on (#61GE0)
As infections soar in the third major wave this year, experts say Covid may never settle into a seasonal cyclePaddling pools are out, beer gardens are brimming. But a startling proportion of the UK population will be cooped up in their bedrooms having the strange experience of nursing a fever and sore throat in July as Covid infections continue to soar in the third major wave this year.For most this will be an unpleasant inconvenience rather than a tragedy. But with a fourth wave expected in the autumn, a fifth potentially kicking off by Christmas and experts saying that Covid may never settle into a seasonal cycle, some are questioning whether this steady grind of illness is sustainable. Continue reading...
A new memoir brings humour to the everyday pain of pregnancy and motherhoodI meet Marianne Levy in a laidback café near her north London home, doorways wide enough to accommodate the bulkiest of buggies, highchairs stacked in a corner, our conversation punctuated by the odd high-pitched shriek or crying jag (not ours). It’s the kind of place, Levy says, mothers on maternity leave tend to meet, “Where normal people don’t want to sit, because it’s got a screaming baby.” This place is a regular haunt for her and her children: an eight-year-old daughter and a son, nearly four. “It’s big and wide and the staff don’t actively hate children, they’re kind to them.”There’s something a bit pointed about meeting in such a mother-and-child-friendly space to talk about Levy’s memoir, Don’t Forget To Scream, when the book is a heartfelt attempt to break the discourse about motherhood out of this silo, and bring it to a wider and more diverse audience. It’s an unvarnished look at the grimy, lonely, frightening, alienating side of pregnancy and motherhood, spanning birth phobia and physical trauma, the erosion of Levy’s sense of self and self-worth in the early months and years, and the structural, social, economic bind in which so many mothers find themselves. Twenty years since my eldest child was born, it stirred up emotions I had buried, conjuring stultifying, lonely afternoons of quiet pram-pushing despair. Continue reading...
An exhibition in the National Museum of Scotland gives us a glimpse into the mind of a genius – and the grisly history of medical scienceLeonardo da Vinci’s notes on human anatomy remained largely forgotten until the mid-18th century when the Scottish anatomist William Hunter learned of them in the royal collection. A new exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland, called Anatomy: A Matter of Death and Life, brings some of these drawings together with a variety of objects and artwork from the Scottish Enlightenment to illuminate the frequently tense relationship between the furthering of anatomical knowledge, and the need of early anatomists to procure dead bodies. Leonardo got around the problem by working with elite patrons and by assisting an academic professor of anatomy; later Dutch and Scottish anatomists often had to pull bodies from gibbets and graveyards. Modern medicine, the art of postponing death, is built on a foundation of this grave robbery, but had its origins in a more collaborative, consensual attitude typified by Leonardo. It’s an approach that has now returned: the exhibition closes with a moving series of videos from Edinburgh’s current professor of anatomy, a medical student and a member of the public, each explaining the vital role of bequests by people who leave their body to medical science.Some of this history is unavoidably grisly: the exhibition resurrects the story of Burke and Hare, two Irishmen of Edinburgh who obtained bodies for the anatomist Robert Knox through the simple expedient of murdering them. Burke’s fate was to be anatomised: on my way to tutorials in Edinburgh’s medical school I used to pass his skeleton, and it was a surprise to see it across the road in the museum. Burke’s signed confession has been loaned from the New York Academy of Medicine, and some detective work has unearthed details of the lives of his victims. There is Johan Zoffany’s painting of William Hunter lecturing, and from Amsterdam, Cornelis Troost’s three-metre The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Willem Röell – more ghoulish (and more accurate) than Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp, painted almost 100 years earlier. One particularly striking exhibit is an early 19th-century petition, signed by 248 medical students, asking for bodies to be made available to them through legal means. Continue reading...
Kate Bingham suggests lessons not learned about need for scientific and commercial expertise in governmentOpportunities have been missed to prepare the UK for future pandemics, the former vaccines tsar has said.Dame Kate Bingham, the managing partner at the life sciences venture capital firm SV Health Investors, played a crucial role in the UK’s efforts to vaccinate the population against Covid. As head of the UK vaccine taskforce between May and December 2020, she led a team that persuaded the government to back a wide portfolio of potential jabs, securing millions of doses. Continue reading...
Excessive temperatures can harm every part of our bodies causing, in extreme cases, cancer, strokes and heart attacksSunburn is caused by excessive exposure to the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays. The more the body is subjected to sunburn, the more likely a person is to suffer from skin cancer. Too much UV radiation can damage skin cell DNA. DNA tells the cells how to function so, as the damage worsens with each repeated sunburn, cells can start growing out of control, which leads to skin cancer. Continue reading...
The pandemic death toll has just passed 200,000 in the UK. Scientists reach for answers but it’s a messy, slow processThe pace of the news cycle around the Covid-19 pandemic is relentless. Just last week, the UK announced that the grim landmark of 200,000 deaths involving the virus had been reached. And as the current wave of infections, largely fuelled by the Omicron BA.5 variant, starts to recede, fears have been building up that a worse Sars-CoV-2 variant may be on the horizon, in the shape of BA.2.75.There is probably no precedent for a scientific topic having captured the public’s imagination to such an extent – and for so long. In fact, a sizeable proportion of all news articles published over the past two years have been dedicated to the pandemic. It’s also one of the most widely discussed topics on social media, with people from all walks of life taking part in heated, if not at times toxic and confused, debates about the exact meaning of the latest scientific publication. Continue reading...
The inspirational JWST is pushing the limits of how far back in time cosmologists can seeOn Tuesday afternoon, we were treated to some of the most detailed images of the universe that anyone has ever seen. The pictures were the first to be released from the James Webb space telescope (JWST) and were greeted with joy by astronomers and journalists. The former because the images demonstrated that the telescope was working and the latter because the pictures would be much more pleasing to view on a newspaper’s front page than the candidates for leadership of the Conservative party.The first images are, literally, wonderful. Specialist astronomers can see details of the birth and death of stars, as well as all the stages in between; and witness gravitational lensing, predicted by Einstein, previously only partially recorded by the JWST’s predecessor, the Hubble space telescope (HST). They continue to rhapsodise about the number and diversity of exoplanets – planets outside the solar system – that the JWST should find, and how instruments on the telescope will be able to detect and analyse exoplanetary atmospheres. The first signature of life on a planet beyond the solar system might be recorded by the JWST. Continue reading...
We all know these busy insects are good for crops and biodiversity, but proof is emerging that they are also clever, sentient and unique beingsThey have been revered by the ancient Egyptians, lauded by Shakespeare, feared by Winnie-the-Pooh and, most recently, battled by Rowan Atkinson in the new Netflix hit Man vs Bee. But love or loathe them, you may be surprised to discover just how much bees know.“We now have suggestive evidence that there is some level of conscious awareness in bees – that there is a sentience, that they have emotion-like states,” says Lars Chittka, professor of sensory and behavioural ecology at Queen Mary University of London. Continue reading...
The last time a probe visited the distant ice giant was in 1986, yet learning more about this cold world could tell us a lot about the galaxyOn the night of 13 March 1781, William Herschel was peering through his telescope in his back garden in New King Street, Bath, when he noticed an unusual faint object near the star Zeta Tauri. He observed it for several nights and noted that it was moving slowly against background stars. The astronomer first thought he had found a comet but later identified it, correctly, as a distant planet. Subsequently named Uranus, it was the first planet to be discovered since antiquity. The achievement earned Herschel membership of the Royal Society, a knighthood and enduring astronomical fame.Studies have since shown Uranus to be a very odd world. While the rest of the planets in our solar system spin like tops, Uranus lies on its side. And although it is not the farthest planet from the sun, it is the solar system’s coldest. Continue reading...
Nasa and Roscosmos made the announcement of integrated flights shortly after the Russian space program leader was replacedThe US and Russia have struck a deal to fly each other’s astronauts to the International Space Station, an apparent break in tensions between the nations over the war in Ukraine that includes the removal of the Russian space program’s bellicose leader.Nasa and Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos made the announcement of integrated flights Friday, shortly after Moscow said President Vladimir Putin had replaced Dmitry Rogozin with the less confrontational Yuri Borisov, the country’s deputy prime minister and a former minister of defense. Continue reading...
Trevor Jones and Tim Watson reflect on an editorial about the mathematician and would-be poet Prof June HuhWith reference to your editorial on maths and poetry (8 July) and the mathematician and would-be poet Prof June Huh, there is a parallel with Sir Christopher Wren and Le Corbusier, as Wren was a professor of astronomy and Le Corbusier had an honorary doctorate in mathematics and philosophy. Both had discovered the art of logic and logic in art: the Stem subjects of their time not being studied at the expense of the arts and humanities.They had no problem of analysis versus synthesis – a deeply rooted schism that the psychologist Jane Abercrombie in The Nature and Nurture of Architects was critical of – it being assumed that it is easier to teach analysis than to teach synthesis, and that a student must learn to analyse before they can synthesise. She points out that in children the development of synthetic and analytic skills are simultaneous rather than sequential – not creating a divide between those who reject analysis as a basis for synthesis and those so tied down to analysis that they can never bring themselves to synthesise.
Ravishing new images of deep space, from the world’s most advanced telescope, raise as many questions as they answerThe first images from Nasa’s James Webb telescope, released this week, offer wondrous glimpses into stars and planets billions of light years away: in what is truly a space opera, the telescope shows them being born and dying, and cosmic material being sucked into black holes.The telescope is the most powerful space-based observatory ever built. It does not circle the Earth, like its predecessor, the Hubble space telescope, but is in orbit around the sun. Apart from offering stunningly beautiful images, it is a new milestone in the human understanding of the cosmos, a technological marvel that it is hoped will continue to beam down new insights for decades to come. Continue reading...
The best of this week’s wildlife pictures, including killer whales hunting a seal off Shetland and endangered mountain bongos in Kenya Continue reading...
Citizen science survey should aid knowledge of populations, including that of small tortoiseshell ‘missing’ from buddleiasThe apparent alarming absence of butterflies feeding on buddleia flowers this summer will be tested by the launch of the world’s largest insect survey.People are being urged to take part in the Big Butterfly Count today to help discover if anecdotal reports of a lack of butterflies reflect a wider reality across Britain this summer. Continue reading...
Men 69% more likely to die from melanoma than women, says Cancer Research UK, warning that lack of sun protection is a factorSkin cancer death rates among men have more than tripled since the 1970s, research reveals, prompting fresh warnings from experts to stay safe in the sun.Since 1973, death rates from melanoma – the deadliest form of skin cancer – have increased by 219% in men, compared with the rise of 76% in women, Cancer Research UK found. As many as 1,400 men are now dying from the disease each year, in contrast to 980 women. This amounts to a total of six people a day, the charity said. Continue reading...
Fears extra expense and paperwork caused by Brexit will make Britain unattractive to global drugmakersThe UK approved fewer new medicines than the EU and the US in 2021, the first year after the end of the Brexit transition period, researchers at Imperial College London have found.Their analysis shows that only 35 new drugs were approved for use in the UK by the country’s medicines regulator last year, compared with 40 approvals in the EU and 52 in the US. Continue reading...
For astrobiologists like me, the first image from Nasa’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals infinite possibilities of life beyond EarthThis week the James Webb Space Telescope made history, proving itself to be the most powerful space-based observatory humanity has ever built and revealing a tiny sliver of the vast universe around us in breathtaking detail. Astronomers the world over have been shown cheering, in floods of tears and lost for words. Astrobiologists like myself, who study the origins, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe, are getting pretty excited too. By revealing images of galaxies from the dawn of time and chemical data of planetary atmospheres, the JWST has the power to help us answer one of humanity’s oldest questions: are we alone in the universe?The first spectacular image released was of the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, known as Webb’s First Deep Field. This image covers just a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone on the ground – and yet it is crowded with galaxies, literally thousands of them. Within each galaxy, there could be on average 100 billion stars, each with its own family of planets and moons orbiting them.Louisa Preston teaches planetary science and astrobiology at the UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory
The James Webb space telescope’s pictures are impressive – but disco and Daft Punk did it firstWhat did you see when Nasa unveiled the first images from the James Webb space telescope? Your answer may hinge as much on your gasp of astrophysics as on your record collection.The Nasa administrator, Bill Nelson, a former senator and ex-astronaut, was agog at “the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe, so far”, for example. Continue reading...
by Presented by Ian Sample, produced by Madeleine Fin on (#61D1F)
This week, Nasa unveiled the first images from the James Webb space telescope – much awaited pictures that show our universe in glorious technicolour. The $10bn telescope, now 1 million miles from Earth, will allow scientists to look back to the dawn of time. Prof Ray Jayawardhana, who is working with one of the instruments onboard the JWST, speaks to Ian Sample about what these images show us, and what they mean for the very human quest of discovering our place in the cosmos.Archive: NBC News, SciNews Continue reading...
Chief scientific adviser showed similar slides to those Boris Johnson said gave him ‘road to Damascus moment’ on climatePatrick Vallance has warned MPs that the world is about to be plunged into even deeper turmoil than it was during the Covid pandemic because of the impact of climate change.The government’s chief scientific adviser gave an emergency briefing to 70 parliamentarians this week, warning of the dangers of the climate crisis and urging them to act. Continue reading...
Another day, another public figure insisting a deadly virus isn’t going to slow them down. Chuck Schumer, Anthony Fauci, Pete Buttigieg: give it a rest
Even at £30 a packet, the Myrkl ‘pre-drinking’ pill sold out before its UK launch. I spent four days finding out if it does indeed reduce the effects of alcoholWe tend to think of a hangover as the price of inebriation: a little bit of wellbeing borrowed from the future for the sake of a good time, at a cost to be confirmed in the morning. Studies show that commonly touted remedies – ginseng, Korean pear juice, prickly pear, clove extract – don’t do anything, which feels like justice.But what if a hangover cure really existed? What if you could drink too much and avoid the consequences? How would that affect your evening plans? Continue reading...
Procedures such as apheresis, or ‘blood washing’, and anti-clotting therapy are being offered in EuropeThousands of people with long Covid are travelling abroad to spend huge sums of money on unproven treatments such as “blood washing”, prompting warnings from experts and doctors.Patients are attending private clinics in Cyprus, Germany and Switzerland for procedures such as a blood filtering treatment and anti-clotting therapy, according to an investigation by the British Medical Journal and ITV News. Continue reading...
Off message | Hangry for revolution | Drifting into muesli | Big lies | On timeAs a psychotherapist, I often work with couples, one of whom has received a message out of the blue from an old flame (Old friends more grateful to receive a message than we expect, study finds, 11 July. Their reasons for entering therapy often centre around the message, jealousy on one half, doubts on the other, or a yearning to recapture past youthful feelings. Trust me, a message out of the blue is definitely not a good idea for some.
Scientists ‘thrilled and relieved’ to get first images from most powerful space-based observatory ever builtAstronomers have hailed the beginning of a new era of space observation after Nasa unveiled a flurry of full-colour images from the James Webb space telescope, the largest and most powerful space-based observatory ever built.The pictures from the sun-orbiting instrument brought delight – and no end of relief – for researchers who have waited decades for the project to come to fruition and embark on its mission to transform our view of the cosmos. Continue reading...
Analysis: astronomers are hoping future images will show ‘cosmic dawn’, the forming of the first galaxies 13.5bn years agoThe wait, it seems, was worth it. Decades after researchers proposed what became known as the James Webb space telescope, the first colour images have landed and with them a tantalising glimpse of the observatory’s power to peer back in time to the moment when the first stars lit up the universe.Major accomplishments in space observation always ride on a wave of PR and on Monday it was President Joe Biden who unveiled the first colour image, noting the deep implications for Homo sapiens. It was “an historic moment” he said, not only for science and technology, but “for America and all of humanity”. Continue reading...
Academics have long petitioned Nasa to rename the space telescope, given historical accusations linking Webb to anti-LGBT policiesThe release of the first images from the James Webb space telescope, the most powerful ever launched into space, has renewed calls from astronomers for Nasa to rename the instrument amid allegations Webb was complicit in historical persecution of LGBTQ+ people.The $10bn telescope is named in tribute to James Webb, an American official who was the second administrator of Nasa. Webb led the space agency during many of the Apollo missions in the 1960s and also served as the US undersecretary of state from 1949 to 1952. Continue reading...
Experts describe cobalt mine at Alderley Edge as ‘time capsule’ thanks to lack of oxygenA pristine 200-year-old mineshaft that had been undisturbed since it was abandoned by miners during the Napoleonic wars has been discovered by cavers in Cheshire, revealing an almost unique “time capsule” of their underground life.The cobalt mine, at Alderley Edge, was sealed by the miners when the shaft was abandoned, at a date that can be pinpointed fairly accurately thanks to one man who used candle soot to write his initials “WS” and the date 20 August 1810 on the rock wall. Continue reading...
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The varroa mite, a deadly honeybee parasite, has finally found its way into Australia. Varroa destructor affects every other major beekeeping area in the world, damaging honeybees and transmitting viruses across hives. Now, in a fight to contain the mite, the state of New South Wales has destroyed 1,533 infected hives and implemented a statewide standstill on bee movement. Madeleine Finlay speaks to Dr Cooper Schouten, a beekeper and researcher, about why the mite poses such a threat to honeybees, what it means to put bees into lockdown, and what impacts this biosecurity breech could have.Archive: 7News Australia, WSPA 7News Continue reading...
The pictures show elements of the universe as they were 13bn years ago, reshaping our understanding of the cosmosNasa has released an image of far-flung galaxies as they were 13bn years ago, the first glimpse from the most powerful telescope ever launched into space, which promises to reshape our understanding of the dawn of the universe.The small slice of the universe, called SMACS 0723, has been captured in sharp detail by the James Webb space telescope (JWST), showing that particular cluster as it was 4.6bn years ago, as well as the light from many different twinkling galaxies which are among the oldest in the universe. Joe Biden, who unveiled the image at a White House event, called the moment “historic” and said it provided “a new window into the history of our universe”. Continue reading...
Bioluminescence phenomenon has long eluded scientific inquiry owing to its remote and infrequent natureWaking at 10pm, a sailor looked out from the deck of the superyacht Ganesha to see that the ocean had turned white. “There is no moon, the sea is apparently full of plankton, but the bow wave is black. It gives the impression of sailing on snow,” they wrote.For centuries, mariners have described navigating unearthly night-time waters, lit up by a mysterious glow, but such “milky seas” have long eluded scientific inquiry owing to their remote, transient and infrequent nature. Continue reading...
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