Science | The Guardian

Low levels of certain antibodies found to be more common in those who go on to develop long Covid

Risk analysis tests for IVF embryos are being marketed in US and likely to become more widely availableExperts have warned against the “unproven” and “unethical” use of genetic tests to predict the risk of complex diseases in embryos created through IVF.Though not currently available in the UK, such tests are being marketed in the US and their availability is likely to increase as the technology develops, representatives from the European Society of Human Genetics (ESHG) said. Continue reading...

Earlier this month, in a medical first, surgeons from the University of Maryland transplanted a genetically altered pig heart into a living person. Doctors believed it was their only chance to save the life of David Bennett, a 57-year-old patient who was considered too ill for a human organ replacement. With hundreds of thousands of people worldwide in need of new organs, are animals set to be the future of transplantation?Ian Sample talks to bioethicist Prof Arthur Caplan about how the operation was made possible, and what could be next

$10bn observatory manoeuvred into position at four times the orbit of the moon, with first images expected in JuneThe world’s largest and most powerful space telescope has reached its final destination – an observation post one million miles away from Earth.Nasa’s $10bn James Webb space telescope launched on Christmas Day last year from French Guiana on a quest to behold the dawn of the universe. Due to its sheer size, Webb had to launch folded inside the Ariane 5, a European rocket. Continue reading...

The solution to today’s pro-o-o-o-o-oblemEarlier today I posted the following video, in which I asked Google Assistant to calculate the factorial of 100.The factorial of 100 is the multiplication 100 x 99 x 98 x … x 3 x 2 x 1 in which 100 is multiplied by every whole number below it. Continue reading...

Researchers say ‘wheeze honks’ are identity signals, with reactions ranging from calls to spraying dung linked to level of familiarityA call from a stranger may elicit myriad responses – panic, confusion, maybe even excitement – but it turns out that hippos have a rather more corporeal reaction: they spray dung.Researchers studying hippopotamuses in Mozambique have revealed that the creatures not only react to the vocalisations of other hippos, but that the calls act as an identity signal. In other words, they allow hippos to tell the difference between a familiar individual and a stranger. Continue reading...

Fiona Bruce has encouraged unvaccinated people to join the TV show’s debate. I have misgivings about this attempt to bridge a growing divideAt the start of 2020, I was working on a piece about Question Time, and how it had transformed over time from being an ambling, rather niche discussion show into politics’ answer to Jeremy Kyle, with an audience of incredibly angry people trash-talking imaginary immigrants living in mansions with their 14 imaginary children. Oh, the spiral!Some lefty would invent the term “gammons”, and then the Twitterati would have an even more vicious spin-off row about whether that word was itself more racist than the original racism. It was all quite hard to unpick. So, with what I now know to be a terrifying naivety, I remember thinking, when the pandemic hit: “Thank God; we’ll surely be right as dodgers in a month or two, but for those few weeks nobody will be wanting dispatches from this peculiar front of the culture war.” Continue reading...

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says Covid pandemic has proven that health is ‘an international issue’The head of the World Health Organization has warned member countries that the UN’s global health body is being “set up to fail” without a “paradigm shift” in the way that it is funded and supported.In stark language delivered to the WHO’s executive board, the organisation’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that the coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed more than 5.5 million lives, had underlined the need to strengthen health systems as well as pandemic preparedness plans. Continue reading...

There will be no ‘victory’ or ‘armistice day’ – the reality of how pandemics end is far more complicated than thatThe Covid pandemic has entered a perplexing phase, challenging our beliefs about what the best responses are and how we should behave. Is Omicron now “just like the flu”, meaning we can relax – or does that overlook the continuing crisis in hospitals, the record hospitalisation rates for children, the continuing deadly danger for elderly and clinically vulnerable people, and the lengthening shadow of long Covid? Is it time, as the government has decided in England, to throw away our masks and perhaps to abandon self-isolation rules, or is that recklessly optimistic (if not just politically expedient for the prime minister)?Our pandemic narratives are splintering. Once, aside from a handful of noisy libertarians who insisted that lockdowns and mask mandates were violations of civil liberty, most people accepted that restrictions were necessary to prevent the health system from imploding and to reduce the risks for vulnerable people. Now, even some experts who previously advised caution and criticised lax and tardy government strategy, such as the public health expert Devi Sridhar of Edinburgh University, have suggested that the virus has been largely “defanged” and that it’s time to “move forward” with our lives. Others react to such suggestions with horror, pointing out that this isn’t an option open to all. There’s much talk of the virus having become “endemic” – but that notion of a “persistent, low or moderate level of disease”, generally in a specific geographical region, is a long way from the exponential rise, and now fall, that we have just seen nationwide. It’s likely that it’s where we’ll end up eventually. But the eagerness to reach for the term now reflects an increasing sense that, one way or another, we will have to learn to live with the virus, as the health secretary, Sajid Javid, said last week.Philip Ball is a science writer. His books include The Water Kingdom: A Secret History of China Continue reading...

Obscure, generations-old theorems have been transformative in tech, and there are still plenty out there to be usedIn 1998, a computer science PhD student called Larry Page submitted a patent for internet search based on an obscure piece of mathematics. The method, known today as PageRank, allowed the most relevant webpages to be found much more rapidly and accurately than ever before. The patent, initially owned by Stanford, was sold in 2005 for shares that are today worth more than $1bn. Page’s company, Google, has a net worth of well over $1tr.It wasn’t Page, or Google’s cofounder Sergey Brin, who created the mathematics described in the patent. The equation they used is at least 100 years old, building on properties of matrices (mathematical structures akin to a spreadsheet of numbers). Similar methods were used by Chinese mathematicians more than two millennia ago. Page and Brin’s insight was to realise that by calculating what is known as the stationary distribution of a matrix describing connections on the world wide web, they could find the most popular sites more rapidly.David Sumpter is professor of applied mathematics at the University of Uppsala, Sweden, and author of The Ten Equations that Rule the World: And How You Can Use Them Too Continue reading...

Are you smarter than Google Assistant?UPDATE: Read the solution here.“Hey Google, what’s the factorial of 100?”There are several clips doing the rounds of what happens when you ask Google Assistant this question. The response is both hilarious and terrifying. Continue reading...

MPs urge support for workers after data shows extent of ongoing illness in first 18 months of pandemic

'Highly predatory’ animals emerge from hibernation and move to areas with reindeer and moose calves, finds studyBrown bears switch habitats in the spring so they can hunt reindeer and moose calves, research suggests.After emerging from hibernation, the animals embark on an active hunting strategy to take full advantage of the calving period. Continue reading...

Guardian Australia’s summer wrap of brilliant writing and juicy journalism selected by our lifestyle editor, Alyx Gorman

Early findings in Swedish study show range of chronic olfactory problems in people infected in 2020

Pioneering physicist whose study of elastomers opened up new technology for creating artificial musclesWe are all familiar with elastic bands and other soft, rubbery materials, but familiarity should not diminish our surprise at their properties. What other solids can be stretched many times their original length without breaking, then returned perfectly to their original shape?The theoretical physicist Mark Warner, who has died aged 69 of cancer, not only explained the behaviour of existing soft materials but also predicted the existence and properties of entirely new classes of them – not just once but several times. He imagined the consequences of combining the long, chainlike molecules that make up “elastomers”, such as rubber, with the smaller, rodlike molecules that are found in all liquid-crystal displays, for example on smartphones. Continue reading...

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical conceptsIf you are an alcoholic or addict of some kind and you get amnesia, would you remain an alcoholic? Jane Ricard, AutunPost your answers (and new questions) below or send them to nq@theguardian.com. A selection will be published on Sunday. Continue reading...

Epidemiologist optimistic that UK deaths and hospitalisations will fall thanks to high immunity levels

After serious illness, busy lives mean a proper convalescence is now a rarity. But a full and proper recovery takes time. GP and writer Gavin Francis reveals why a sick note can be a ‘powerful prescription’While training to become a GP, Gavin Francis became ill with a severe sinus problem. In acute pain and exhausted as he waited for an operation, he chose to reduce his hours to three days a week. “I persuaded myself that there was no point risking burnout for the sake of sticking to a schedule,” he writes in his new book, Recovery: The Lost Art of Convalescence. “I qualified all the same, albeit a couple of months late.”This strikes me as an unusually proactive “physician heal thyself” attitude for a junior doctor. But Francis’s whole approach to practising medicine feels unusual. Growing up in Fife with a passion for science, he chose to study medicine because “I wanted to have a job that would give me a kind of trade; all the men in my family seemed to have a trade of one sort or another.” Then there’s the fact that on qualification, after a year as a junior house officer, he headed off to explore the wildest parts of the world for a decade, visiting the Arctic, motorbiking across Asia to New Zealand, and working for the British Antarctic Survey. Continue reading...

From petrol and perfume to Parkinson’s disease, super-smellers can detect scents others are oblivious to. For Krati Garg, the ability’s both power and painA few years ago Dr Krati Garg, an oral surgeon in Melbourne, was in theatre about to commence work on a patient when she told the anaesthetist she could smell sevoflurane.Sevoflurane is the anaesthetic gas used to put – and keep – patients asleep during surgery. Ingested via a tube that is placed down the throat, in large quantities its bitter smell can be noticeable, but trace amounts are largely indiscernible. Continue reading...

Police advise people not to approach cynomolgus monkey believed to be on the loose near Danville after Friday crashResidents of a Pennsylvania county were warned on Saturday not to approach a monkey still missing after a crash involving a pickup towing a trailer taking about 100 of the animals to a research laboratory.State troopers urged people not to look for or capture the cynomolgus monkey following the Friday afternoon crash on a state highway near an Interstate 80 exit in Montour county. Continue reading...

Most people want their sessions to remain private, but a new TV show that lifts the lid on the process is compelling – and rewardingTwo weeks ago, as 2021 turned into 2022, my inbox was suddenly full of couples requesting counselling. It wasn’t that surprising because every year after Christmas, many couples have a meltdown. It’s the fatal combination of forced Christmas jollity and endless hours spent together that makes people realise they don’t know if they like or get on with each other any more. Throw in the confinement of Covid and you have perfect conditions for relationship breakdown.So couples contact me. The journey starts as we delve beneath the veneer of the couple, going to places that most fear to go. Top of the problem agenda is usually sex, followed by money. But, at the heart of all this, is the desire for true intimacy combined with our deep fear of it. Continue reading...

Among the 3.7 million clinically extremely vulnerable people in England, the removal of Covid restrictions has raised concernsThe government has announced the lifting of all plan B restrictions in England from 26 January, which include compulsory mask-wearing in shops and on public transport, and the guidance to work from home.Among the 3.7 million clinically extremely vulnerable people in England, the removal of these measures has raised concerns around their health and welfare. Three people who have been shielding throughout the pandemic told the Guardian about their experiences. Continue reading...

Omicron may have affected risk in England, but other factors could include vaccination and severity of previous infection

In the 1980s we learned that public health messaging divorced from people’s values simply doesn’t workSince the beginning of the pandemic, communication from the government, epidemiologists and health statisticians appears to rely on the belief that if people are shown enough graphs, enough models, enough statistics, enough information, they will all act rationally and do the right thing. Even when that is deeply at odds with the way people live: closing oneself at home, potentially alone, ceasing all intimate contact with people outside, locking down.This was surprisingly successful in 2020, as a response to a sudden disaster, but it isn’t a realistic long-term strategy. The cultural, social and political history of the HIV pandemic taught us that this epidemiological approach of trying to protect a population chiefly by focusing on ideal individual behavioural guidelines doesn’t work.João Florêncio is senior lecturer in history of modern and contemporary art and visual culture at the University of Exeter Continue reading...

Tiny particles including tyre dust found in ice cores stretching back 50 years, showing global plastic contaminationNanoplastic pollution has been detected in polar regions for the first time, indicating that the tiny particles are now pervasive around the world.The nanoparticles are smaller and more toxic than microplastics, which have already been found across the globe, but the impact of both on people’s health is unknown. Continue reading...

Females whose grandfathers began smoking at early age tend to have more body fat, Children of the 90s study suggestsWomen and girls whose grandfathers or great-grandfathers began smoking at an early age tend to have more body fat, research that taps into the extraordinary 30-year-old Children of the 90s study has found.In an earlier piece of work it was discovered that if a father started smoking regularly before reaching puberty, then his sons, but not daughters, had more body fat than expected. Continue reading...

Analysis: Experts say when the rules are relaxed there tends to be a gradual erosion of protective behavioursAll plan B measures in England will be lifted next week, meaning an end to compulsory mask-wearing in shops, vaccine certificates for entering venues, and guidance to work from home. But are the public ready to embrace these freedoms just weeks after Covid cases in the UK hit a record high and with daily deaths higher now than when the measures were introduced?Some are likely to feel more than ready to cast aside restrictions that have been financially and personally cumbersome, while others may fear things are moving too quickly. Regardless of the range of attitudes, changing the rules will shift behaviour. Continue reading...

Rocket strapped to wing of 747 takes off from California space port to launch site above PacificVirgin Orbit has conducted its third successful commercial launch using a rocket strapped to the left wing of a modified 747 aircraft. The flight took off on 13 January from the Mojave Air and Space Port, California, at 1339 PST (0939 GMT). It then flew to the launch site above the Pacific, about 50 miles (80km) south of California’s Channel Islands. Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket weighs about 26 tonnes.Once the aircraft, named Cosmic Girl, was in position and final checks were complete, the rocket was released from the wing. Five seconds later, it ignited and climbed out of the Earth’s atmosphere. About 55 minutes later, the seven small satellites in its nose cone were deployed into orbits approximately 310 miles in altitude and inclined to the equator by 45 degrees. Continue reading...

Breakthrough offers hope of restoration of sight to people suffering vision loss because of dry AMDAn 88-year-old woman has told of her joy at becoming the first patient in the UK to benefit from a groundbreaking bionic eye implant that enabled her to detect signals for the first time since going blind.The woman from Dagenham suffers from geographic atrophy. The condition is the most common form of dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which affects millions of people worldwide and can cause loss of sight. Continue reading...

The scrapping of plan B is driven by the prime minister’s political panic, not scientific guidanceNo one is under the illusion that the ending of Covid restrictions in England from next week is driven by science. The prime minister’s announcement on Wednesday was prompted by political desperation, not data. The daily death rate on Wednesday was reported as 359.Scientists warn that infections are likely to resurge. While the level of infection across the population and health staff absences are falling sharply, the chair of the British Medical Association warned that hospitalisations are double the level that they were when plan B was introduced, and case rates close to twice as high. Dr Chaand Nagpaul noted that the NHS remains under crippling pressure, with a record backlog of six million patients. Continue reading...

Implants that Musk says could allow paralysed people to walk already tested on a macaque and a pigThe billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s brain chip startup is preparing to launch clinical trials in humans.Musk, who co-founded Neuralink in 2016, has promised that the technology “will enable someone with paralysis to use a smartphone with their mind faster than someone using thumbs”. Continue reading...

Exclusive: QuantBioRes says it designs treatments for viral diseases based on electromagnetic frequencyA Danish “biotech” company in which Novak Djokovic holds a majority stake is working on a “frequency” treatment for Covid-19 that an expert says bears similarities to the principles of homeopathy.The world No 1 men’s tennis player was forced to leave Australia on Sunday after the country’s immigration minister cancelled his visa on the basis that his presence in Australia might risk “civil unrest” as he is a “talisman of anti-vaccination sentiment”. Continue reading...

Space Entertainment Enterprise, co-producers of Tom Cruise’s forthcoming space-set film, have announced a production studio 250 miles above EarthThe company co-producing Tom Cruise’s forthcoming space film has unveiled plans for a film production studio and a sports arena in zero gravity.Space Entertainment Enterprise (SEE) has said their planned completion date is December 2024 for the module, named SEE-1, which will dock on Axiom Station, the commercial wing of the International Space Station (ISS). Continue reading...

Information gathered by project could also be used to clear roads and assess avalanche risksBack in 1856, the American naturalist Henry David Thoreau remarked of snowflakes: “How full of the creative genius is the air in which these are generated! I should hardly admire more if real stars fell and lodged on my coat.”The six-sided snowflakes described by Thoreau are one of the many shapes that snowflakes can take on, and now a citizen science project called Snowflake ID is using people’s powers of observation to help train a specially designed camera to classify the different types of snowflake that fall. Continue reading...

Government says gene editing can develop climate crisis resistant crops while critics fear it is another step towards GMResearch into the gene editing of plants in the UK will become much easier with new rules brought forward by the government that will encourage field trials and other development efforts.Ministers said cutting red tape on gene editing research would help to develop new strains of crops that need less pesticide, have less environmental impact and provide better nutrition. The new rules, introduced in the form of a statutory instrument laid in parliament on Thursday, will apply only to research, rather than allowing gene-edited crops into widespread cultivation or consumption. Continue reading...

Could the food we eat and the air we breathe be damaging our immune systems? The number of people with autoimmune diseases, from rheumatoid arthritis to type 1 diabetes, began to increase around 40 years ago in the west. Now, some are also emerging in countries that had never seen the diseases before.Ian Sample speaks to genetic scientist and consultant gastroenterologist James Lee about how this points to what western lifestyles might be doing to our health, and how genetics could reveal exactly how our immune systems are malfunctioningArchive: King 5 News, WXYZ Channel 7 Continue reading...

Now the drug regulator has provisionally approved Paxlovid and Lagevrio, we ask experts how big a game-changer they could be

Czech government scraps decree to avoid ‘deepening fissures’ in country; Bulgaria reports highest daily tally of pandemic with 11,181 infections

Lancet analysis highlights need for urgent action to address antibiotic-resistant bacterial infectionsAntimicrobial resistance poses a significant threat to humanity, health leaders have warned, as a study reveals it has become a leading cause of death worldwide and is killing about 3,500 people every day.More than 1.2 million – and potentially millions more – died in 2019 as a direct result of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections, according to the most comprehensive estimate to date of the global impact of antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

As with any other ineradicable disease, prevention and treatment can be integrated into societyDelaying and preventing infection as much as possible through this pandemic was a worthwhile strategy. In early 2020, there were few treatments, limited testing and no vaccines. The costs of those lockdowns were big, but the effort to buy time paid off. In that time, science has transformed Covid from a deadly virus to a much less serious, nasty disease – one that is manageable at home, for the vast majority of those vaccinated. It has, largely, defanged it.But even as we have had success treating and preventing serious infections, Sars-CoV-2 has become increasingly transmissible. ONS survey data indicates that one in 15 are positive in England, with similar numbers for the other three nations. While the good news is that the Omicron variant is resulting in less severe disease and a smaller fraction of hospitalisations, so many people are infected and isolating that critical services are struggling with staffing. This is what is driving governments to rethink isolation policies, and ask whether they are becoming more disruptive than the virus itself.Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh Continue reading...

Eating upside down | Riding the Gypsy Queen | School mottos | Big dogs | Letters that divided BritainI remember being taught in biology class in our 1950s grammar school in Manchester that peristalsis works both ways (Dairylea cheese ad showing child eating while upside down banned over choking risk, 19 January). Under teacher supervision, two of us held a boy upside down by his ankles while he drank half a bottle of milk through a straw. We all survived the demonstration.

Australian Academy of Science says locally operated Earth observation satellites would ensure Australia’s independence

Committing to six minutes of reading a night before bed sounds easy – and it is. Not only can it improve sleep and reduce stress, but you’ll be better read tooWe’re all on a never-ending pursuit to perfect the art of good shuteye. Theories abound, so it is easy to find yourself in a maze of advice, mindfulness techniques and mum’s advice about the magic of a cup of warm milk at night.But one tactic I found ticked all my boxes: reading for just six minutes before you go to sleep. Relaxing your brain in a way that Netflix before bed just can’t, this simple trick has both improved my sleep and put an end to my reading slump. Continue reading...

Schistostega pennata can grow into huge colonies in the dark and carpet caves in glowing green lightThere are caves where ethereal golden-green lights glow on the ground like emeralds. These light displays are from a luminous moss called Schistostega pennata, known as goblin’s gold, a name that conjures up legends of cave-dwelling creatures. But in daylight, the magical green glow vanishes.The moss is superbly adapted to life in the dark. When its spores germinate they grow filaments that fan out, scavenging for any faint light they can find. Cells on the surface of the moss are covered with tiny lenses that focus any dim light deep down into the bottom of the cells where chloroplasts move around to harvest any pinpricks of light. Continue reading...

Gold and silver tubes, each more than a metre long, were discovered in North CaucasusA set of ancient gold and silver tubes dating to about 5,500 years ago and unearthed in North Caucasus in Russia could be the world’s oldest surviving drinking straws, experts have claimed.The eight thin-walled tubes, each more than a metre in length with a narrow perforated tip, were found in the largest of three compartments containing human remains, discovered during the excavation of a mound near Maykop in the summer of 1897. Continue reading...

Rebecca Sharrock is one of a handful of people worldwide with highly superior autobiographical memory. But remembering minute details of your own life has its downsidesEvery morning since January 2004, Rebecca Sharrock crosses off the date on a calendar in her room. Like many people, the 31-year-old uses it to keep track of time, distinguishing the present day from the ones that came before.Unlike many, Sharrock can remember what happened on specific days five, 10, 15 years ago. Continue reading...

US researchers show negative version of placebo effect behind many symptoms such as headaches and fatigueMore than two-thirds of the common side-effects people experience after a Covid jab can be attributed to a negative version of the placebo effect rather than the vaccine itself, researchers claim.Scientists in the US examined data from 12 clinical trials of Covid vaccines and found that the “nocebo effect” accounted for about 76% of all common adverse reactions after the first dose and nearly 52% after the second dose. Continue reading...

Priti Patel’s crackdown on peaceful protesters ignores all the evidence about how to handle large demonstrationsOn the first day of 2022 – the hottest New Year’s Day on record – Priti Patel announced that cracking down on eco protesters would be one of her priorities for the year.It wasn’t simply rhetoric. The police, crime, sentencing and courts bill for England and Wales being debated in parliament provides the police with a dramatic extension to their powers to stop or constrain protest. It even contains a provision allowing police to fine protesters for inadvertent breaches of restrictions they “ought” to have known about.Stephen Reicher is a member of the Sage subcommittee advising on behavioural science. He is a professor of Psychology at the University of St Andrews. During Cop26 he was part of a research team, funded by the New Institute in Hamburg, which was studying the dynamics of protest.

The coronavirus variant has spread across the UK at incredible speed – but there are signs that the wave may have reached its peak.Madeleine Finlay talks to the Guardian science correspondent Nicola Davis about what we can expect in the weeks and months to come, and whether a second ‘exit wave’ could be here in the summerArchive: CNA, Sky News Continue reading...