Restrictions return in China, South Africa and Germany as countries around the world struggle to contain new variant

US reports 512,553 cases; UK reports 129,000; France reports 179,807; Portugal 17,172; and Greece 21,657

Scientists say ancient human DNA can be recovered from the cement made by head lice to stick eggs to hairAn unusual source of ancient human DNA could help scientists unpick details of our ancestors’ lives and answer longstanding questions. The source? Nit glue.Scientists studying mummified remains from South America that date back 1,500-2,000 years say they have recovered ancient human DNA from the sticky cement produced by head lice to anchor their eggs to hair. Continue reading...

My father, Alan Ward, who has died aged 96, was a physicist who profoundly influenced science education in Africa.Born in Woodford, Essex, to Ursula (nee Vale) and Edward Ward, who worked in a bank, Alan went to Chichester high school for boys in West Sussex. Following a wartime degree in physics at the University of Birmingham, he completed a PhD in 1949, after which he was sent by the Atomic Energy Research Establishment to study Thorotrast poisoning in Denmark for two years. He married Honor Shedden, also a physicist, in 1950. Continue reading...

The US has cut the self-isolation period to five days, while in England it is seven with negative testsThe US has announced it is cutting the recommended self-isolation time with Covid to five days. How long are people with Covid infectious for, and why do the rules vary between countries?What are the rules for self-isolation in the UK? Continue reading...

Beijing urges US to act responsibly after two near misses that it says posed serious threat to astronauts’ livesChina has accused the US of ignoring international treaty obligations and engaging in irresponsible and unsafe conduct in outer space after two near misses between the Chinese space station and satellites operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company.Zhao Lijian, a foreign ministry spokesperson, said on Tuesday that China “urges the US to act responsibly” after incidents involving SpaceX’s Starlink satellites, which he said had posed a serious threat to the lives and safety of astronauts. Continue reading...

It has been more than a century since the groundwork of quantum physics was first formulated and yet the consequences of the theory still elude both scientists and philosophers. Why does light sometimes behave as a wave, and other times as a particle? Why does the outcome of an experiment apparently depend on whether the particles are being observed or not? In the first of two episodes, Ian Sample sits down with the physicist Carlo Rovelli to discuss the strange consequences of quantum theory and the explanation he sets out in his book Helgoland Continue reading...

Amenhotep I ‘unwrapped’ digitally by Cairo scientists, revealing details from his grave jewellery to his teethWith his narrow chin, small nose and curly hair he physically resembles his father, said radiologist Sahar Saleem. Perhaps surprisingly for someone who lived about 3,500 years ago, he also has strikingly good teeth.Saleem is talking about the mummified body of the pharaoh Amenhotep I, a warrior king who has been something of an enigma in that he is one of the few royal mummies not to be unwrapped in modern times. Continue reading...

Founder of the Amazon Biodiversity Center, he discovered that habitat destruction, pollution and global heating were killing species worldwide

The answers to today’s conundrumsEarlier today I set you the following three puzzles:1. What was the question? Continue reading...

Professor Nikolai Petrovsky has been criticised for advocating for Covax-19 vaccine to be approved for use in Australia without making publicly available substantial peer-reviewed clinical evidence to support its efficacy

Cloth or surgical masks just don’t cut it – respirators are far more effective, and they’re comfortable too

German city where early Covid vaccine was developed uses its new-found wealth to slash debt and attract other biotech firmsThe Pfizer/BioNTech jab is having an unexpected side-effect on the German municipality where scientists first developed it: for the first time in three decades the city of Mainz expects to become debt-free thanks to the tax revenues generated by the company’s global success.Mainz’s decision to use its financial windfall to also slash corporate tax rates in the hope of attracting industry, especially biotech companies, however, is drawing criticism from neighbouring cities and economists. Continue reading...

Seesawing studies find that red is for winners or black results in more penalties – while others find effects murky at bestHere’s one to ponder while gazing at another dull and drabby December sky. Can colour affect sporting performance? Tiger Woods certainly thinks so. “I wear red on Sundays because my mom thinks that’s my power colour,” he said, while blasting his way to 15 majors. So does Sir Alex Ferguson, who famously changed Manchester United’s grey kits at half-time during a 1996 defeat to Southampton because, he claimed, his players had struggled to pick each other out. Meanwhile, for more than 15 years a battle has raged in sober journals over whether a red uniform can provide a winning edge – and whether other colours lead to a disadvantage.Newspapers, including the Guardian and New York Times, have also reported on the latest developments with breathless fascination. “Red is the tint for winners,” we wrote in 2005. “When all else is equal, a sporting strip of scarlet is enough to tip the balance.” Our report highlighted a highly influential study in Nature that examined combat sports at the 2004 Olympics and found that across 19 of 29 weight classes in boxing, taekwondo, Greco-Roman and freestyle wrestling, red had more winners than blue. Continue reading...

The New Year in numbersUPDATE: Read the solutions hereIf you like number patterns, here’s something to look forward to next year.Shortly after 10pm on February 22, the time and date will consist of a single repeating digit – the last time it will happen this century. Continue reading...

Medical bodies say thin surgical masks do not provide adequate protection for frontline personnelNHS staff treating Covid patients should be given much more protective facewear than thin surgical masks to help them avoid getting infected during the Omicron rise, doctors say.The British Medical Association (BMA), Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association (HCSA) and Doctors’ Association UK are calling for frontline personnel to be given FFP3 masks. Continue reading...

We have been bombarded with negativity recently; but the English language is a treasure trove of joyous vocabulary

Witchcraft and its deep connection with nature restored my mental healthWitchcraft has always played a large role in my life. While many kids were learning badminton or taking trombone lessons, I was reading up on spellcraft and ways to plant my herb garden. I grew up in the late 1990s when my cultural life became saturated with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Channel-hopping without stumbling across a young woman with magical powers was virtually impossible. But the draw wasn’t just the empowerment that spells and telekinetic forces threw my way; I was intensely charmed by witchcraft’s connection with the world outside and the earth around me.In the evenings I spent time in my garden wrapped up in scarves and blankets to watch the different phases of the moon pass each night; I learned the names of wildflowers growing at the side of the road where no one cast a second glance and wondered how I could use them in a spell. These small things gave me an overwhelming sense of calm, so enthralled was I by constellations, intricate root systems and the dashes of magic I found around me. Perhaps witchcraft was in my blood – my very first word was “moon”. Continue reading...

Despite its reputation as a bourgeois hobby, walking has been a lifeline for millions past and presentIf Christmas is often synonymous with hours spent indoors, the lure of the sofa and endless screentime, our second festive season spent under the shadow of Covid is presumably taking those things to their extremes. The world has shrunk: our lives are full of cautious friends and relatives, cancelled trips and the imperative to stay where we are. The cold and dark complete the picture. Once again, this threatens to be a season of seclusion.To temporarily escape, millions of us will be going for walks – that inbuilt part of many people’s Christmases, which also chimes with how many of us have coped with the past two years. According to Sport England, between January and March this year, against the backdrop of another full national lockdown, 24.7 million people said they had recently engaged in “walking for leisure”, an increase of 5.2 million people compared with 12 months before. In September, the Department for Transport published research showing that in 2020 people in England walked an average of 220 miles (the highest figure since records began nearly 20 years ago) and that the number of walks of a mile or more had jumped by 26% in a single year. The Ramblers, the UK charity and membership organisation that does a huge amount of work around walking and access to open spaces, says that in the second half of 2020 it recruited 30% more new members than it had done a year earlier. These are all fascinating numbers: proof, perhaps, that when our leisure options are suddenly shut down, a lot of us instinctively seek solace in one of the most primal pastimes there is.John Harris is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Government warned it needs to retain innovation facility to deal with future pandemicsMinisters have been urged to retain a facility that can swiftly create and test new vaccines, amid concerns over the sale of a leading centre originally designed to prepare Britain for future pandemics.Some senior medical figures have privately raised concerns that government officials are examining bids for the Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Centre (VMIC), near Oxford, which has benefited from millions in public funding during its development. Continue reading...

The source, the number, and the claim need to be trustworthyWith cases, deaths, reproduction numbers, opinion polls and more, we get bombarded with statistics every day. But how can you spot a naughty number, a shabby statistic or dubious data? Lists of questions have been given by Tim Harford, Dave and Tom Chivers, and in The Art of Statistics (which David wrote), with considerable overlap as they grapple with the same essentials. Here is the short list that we use ourselves.The first question: how trustworthy is the source of the story? Are they honest, competent and reliable or are they trying to manipulate my emotions, say by provoking anxiety or reassurance? Are they giving the whole picture or selecting bits to suit themselves? Like the review that found insects had declined, but it turned out had only searched for studies that showed a decline. Continue reading...

In the outermost parts of our islands, a new industry in satellites, rockets and launch ports is poised for take-offIn the next 12 months, Britain is expected to make a remarkable aerospace breakthrough. For the first time, a satellite will be fired into orbit from a launch pad in the United Kingdom.It will be a historic moment – though exactly where this grand adventure will begin is not yet clear. A series of fledgling operations, backed by the UK Space Agency, are now competing to be the first to launch a satellite from British soil. Continue reading...

The UK’s Covid-19 Infection Survey, one of the largest in the world, offers £50 for enrolment and £25 for testing visitsMore than 500,000 UK participants in one of the biggest ever surveys of the prevalence of Covid-19 have been given shopping vouchers worth more than £210m, figures reveal.The Covid-19 Infection Survey is the largest regular survey of coronavirus infections and antibodies in the UK, helping to provide information to shape the government’s response to the pandemic. Continue reading...

Scientists are often blamed for leading to excessive curbs on society. But they are cautious for a very good reason

Scientists are cautiously optimistic that the variant may be a sign the virus is losing its power, despite the high infection figures

Figures show an 85% increase in first doses for those aged 18 to 24 and 71% for those aged 25 to 30The under-30s are driving a surge in people getting their first jab of the Covid-19 vaccine, with the overall number of people rising by almost half in the week up to 21 December, figures show.The sudden uptick is fuelled by fears of the Omicron variant, as well as the government’s “Get boosted now” publicity drive, which has seen millions of people come forward for their third Covid shot in the past fortnight. Continue reading...

Forget about the danger of robots creating a sci-fi-style dystopia. The modern corporation is already doing all of thatIn the first of his four (stunning) Reith lectures on living with artificial intelligence, Prof Stuart Russell, of the University of California at Berkeley, began with an excerpt from a paper written by Alan Turing in 1950. Its title was Computing Machinery and Intelligence and in it Turing introduced many of the core ideas of what became the academic discipline of artificial intelligence (AI), including the sensation du jour of our own time, so-called machine learning.From this amazing text, Russell pulled one dramatic quote: “Once the machine thinking method had started, it would not take long to outstrip our feeble powers. At some stage therefore we should have to expect the machines to take control.” This thought was more forcefully articulated by IJ Good, one of Turing’s colleagues at Bletchley Park: “The first ultra-intelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make, provided that the machine is docile enough to tell us how to keep it under control.” Continue reading...

Successor to the Hubble telescope takes off on board rocket from ESA’s launch base in French GuianaThe most ambitious, costly robot probe ever built, the $10bn James Webb telescope, has been blasted into space on top of a giant European rocket.Engineers reported on Saturday that the observatory – which has been plagued by decades of delays and huge cost overruns – was operating perfectly after going through the most nervously watched lift-off in the history of uncrewed space exploration. Continue reading...

The $13bn telescope, which replaces the Hubble, will allow us ‘to see back to the beginning of time’, astronomers say

In-the-community figures show London most affected with Sage warning hospitalisations rising fast

Lead scientist on Zoe Covid study says ‘misinformation’ in official messaging must be addressed to save lives

The climate crisis resembles a huge planetary lockdown, trapping humanity within an ever-deteriorating environmentThere is a moment when a never-ending crisis turns into a way of life. This seems to be the case with the pandemic. If so, it’s wise to explore the permanent condition in which it has left us. One obvious lesson is that societies have to learn once again to live with pathogens, just as they learned to when microbes were first made visible by the discoveries of Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch.These discoveries were concerned with only one aspect of microbial life. When you also consider the various sciences of the earth system, another aspect of viruses and bacteria comes to the fore. During the long geochemical history of the earth, microbes, together with fungi and plants, have been essential, and are still essential, to the very composition of the environment in which we humans live. The pandemic has shown us that we will never escape the invasive presence of these living beings, entangled as we are with them. They react to our actions; if they mutate, we have to mutate as well.Bruno Latour is a philosopher and anthropologist, the author of After Lockdown: A Metamorphosis and the winner of the 2013 Holberg prize Continue reading...

Nasa’s flagship mission counts down to launch at 1220 GMT on Christmas Day from Kourou, French GuianaFinal checks and fuelling are under way for the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, a flagship mission for Nasa that aims to observe worlds beyond the solar system and the first stars and galaxies that lit up the cosmos.If all goes to plan, the $10bn (£7.4bn) observatory will become the largest and most powerful telescope ever sent into space when it blasts off at 12.20pm UK time on Christmas Day onboard an Ariane 5 rocket from the European Space Agency’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Continue reading...

The approval comes as reports of shortages in monoclonal antibody treatment arise and cases spikePeople at greater risk of becoming seriously ill from Covid-19 will likely have more treatment options in January.That’s the forecast in the wake of the US Food and Drug Administration’s approval this week of the first two antiviral pills used to treat Covid-19 and reports of shortages of a monoclonal antibody treatment used against the Omicron variant. Continue reading...

Band’s management says singer self-isolating at home and is not showing any symptoms

Chief scientific adviser responds to criticism that Sage modelling has ‘spread gloom’ about Omicron variant

Nasa’s new administrator discusses the space race with China, UFOs, billionaire ‘astronauts’ and building a ‘mission control’ for climate changeWhen Apollo 11 launched in July 1969, Bill Nelson was an army lieutenant on leave behind the iron curtain, listening with colleagues to the BBC on shortwave radio.“There were three young Americans standing on the hills overlooking Budapest, screaming at the top of our lungs, cheering as that rocket lifted off,” Nasa’s new administrator recalled in a video interview. Continue reading...

Mission is step closer to exploring most energetic and exotic celestial objects in universeNasa’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) has successfully extended its 4-metre boom arm to assume its operational configuration.Launched on 9 December atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, IXPE is a space observatory designed to study X-rays from black holes, neutron stars and other exotic celestial objects. Continue reading...

Nearly 120,000 new positive tests recorded as numbers continue to rise

Analysis: smaller proportion of people hospitalised with Covid variant means little when rise in infections is so huge, warn experts

Two studies show people may be at less risk from latest Covid variant but ‘we don’t have conclusive data’

What explains the discrepancy between variant’s apparent prevalence and the relatively low figures in official data?

Is there something great you have always wanted to do, but fear has held you back? Make 2022 the year you go for itThe “comfort zone” is a reliable place of retreat, especially in times of stress – living through a global pandemic, for instance. But psychologists have long ƒextolled the benefits of stepping outsideit, too. The clinical psychologist Roberta Babb advises regularly reviewing how well it is serving you. The comfort zone can, she says, become a prison or a trap, particularly if you are there because of fear and avoidance.Babb says people can be “mentally, emotionally, physically, socially, occupationally” stimulated by facing their fears or trying something uncomfortable. “Adaptation and stimulation are important parts of our wellbeing, and a huge part of our capacity to be resilient. We can get stagnant, and it is about growing and finding different ways to be, which then allows us to have a different life experience.” Continue reading...

Yesterday, daily cases in the UK exceeded 100,000 for the first time since the pandemic began. Despite this, the government has stuck to its guns in refusing to introduce any restrictions in England before Christmas Day. Yesterday also saw the publishing of a report from a team at Imperial College London that suggests, in the UK, the risk of a hospital stay is 40% lower with Omicron than Delta.To find out what all this means for the weeks and months ahead, Madeleine Finlay speaks to the Guardian’s science editor, Ian Sample.Archive: Sky News, ITV News Continue reading...

As the data comes in, experts are confident the new variant will soon be dominant – if it isn’t already

Up to 600 children in the first year and 2,000 the year after will be among first in Europe to receive Palforzia treatmentChildren in the UK will be the first in Europe to receive a life-changing treatment for peanut allergies, after NHS England secured a deal for a drug that decreases the severity of symptoms including anaphylaxis.The oral treatment, Palforzia, will be available to up to 600 children aged four to 17 the first year and 2,000 the following year. Continue reading...

Latest updates: researchers at Imperial College London stress that reduction in severity must be balanced with larger risk of infection

Hundreds of Roman and medieval coins and artefacts uncovered near ancient city of CaesareaArchaeologists in Israel have discovered the remnants of two shipwrecks off the Mediterranean coast, replete with a sunken trove of hundreds Roman and medieval silver coins.The finds made near the ancient city of Caesarea were dated to the Roman and Mamluk periods, about 1,700 and 600 years ago, archaeologists said. They include hundreds of Roman silver and bronze coins dating to the mid-third century, as well as more than 500 silver coins from the middle ages found amid the sediment. Continue reading...

Two weaker doses of Pfizer jab to be given, with some scientists calling for all in age group to be vaccinated• Covid vaccination for UK children: what has been approved?• Coronavirus – latest updatesHundreds of thousands of clinically vulnerable five- to 11-year-olds are to be offered Covid vaccines for the first time, with some scientists calling for the programme to be extended to the whole age group before the new UK school term.The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has recommended vaccinations for about 330,000 younger children at clinical risk, and also those living with someone who is immunosuppressed. Continue reading...

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says there will be enough vaccines for world’s adults – if they are not hoarded