Science | The Guardian

To study the stuff of the universe, you have to block it out, and that is exactly what a bold project in regional Victoria is trying to do

From willow bark to mosquitoes, nature has been a source of vital medications for centuries. But species die-off caused by human activity is putting this at riskWhat will biodiversity loss mean for drug discovery?

Dr Peter Goadsby’s pioneering work has changed our understanding of migraines. Eva Wiseman, who has endured them since she was a child, hears how he found his way to the source of the pain – and what can be done about itI started yawning, and that was it. That was the sign a migraine was beginning, that I was rolling slowly down that padded cliff. It was inevitable that this would happen half an hour before my interview with neurologist Dr Peter Goadsby, the man forcing the world to take migraines seriously, inevitable but not ideal, so I sipped my water and watched as he scrolled through his Zoom backgrounds. Beach scene? Too casual. Meeting room with framed certificates? Too formal. Home study, with heaving bookcase? Just right.How much do I know about migraine, Dr Goadsby asked politely, and I took a moment to consider. On one hand, too much. I have one now, I said. I’ve had them regularly since I was a child, an early memory being the evening I found I could no longer read a book and thought, oh well, nice while it lasted. A couple of years ago I was diagnosed as having had a series of strokes when I developed a blind spot in my right eye and later found that blind spot to be a “persistent aura”, the scintillating light that typically arrives at the beginning of a migraine, but in my case, never left. I have become so accustomed to breathing through headaches that I was reassured when I first felt labour pains – I knew this agony, I had survived it monthly. But on the other hand, I know very little. Something to do with blood vessels? Chocolate? Continue reading...

Government urged to take action as one in 14 secondary school children in England infected last week

A vocal minority tout their supplements as alternatives, donate large sums of money to anti-vaccine organizations and sell anti-vaccine ads on Facebook and Instagram, the AP discoveredThe flashy postcard, covered with images of syringes, beckoned people to attend Vax-Con ’21 to learn “the uncensored truth” about Covid-19 vaccines.Participants traveled from around the country to a Wisconsin Dells resort for a sold-out convention that was, in fact, a sea of misinformation and conspiracy theories about vaccines and the pandemic. Continue reading...

Service NSW says pilot still has weeks to run in order to test connectivity and security between the app and the Australian Immunisation Register

Estimated 76m extra cases of anxiety and 53m extra cases of depression during pandemic, say researchers

Details are deficient, scientific analysis contentious and expert voices missing in Markson’s thesis about ‘what really happened’ in China, which establishes a crime scene around the Wuhan Institute of VirologyWith 4.55 million deaths from the Covid-19 pandemic so far, the hunt for its origins has turned into something akin to an inquest on a mass scale. Are we dealing essentially with a terrible accident, negligence or even something more sinister?The Australian journalist Sharri Markson’s conclusions fall somewhere close to the latter. She has established a crime scene around the Wuhan Institute of Virology in central China, with the murder weapon a virus called Sars-CoV-2. Continue reading...

A data scientist and economics student joined forces in search of the real pandemic death toll – and the results are startling

Aerial Archaeological Mapping Explorer will allow users to see landscapes from England’s pastA digital aerial archaeology tool will allow people to discover previously unknown details about local landscapes, including prehistoric hill forts, Roman settlements and cold war military installations, through virtual flights over England.The virtual map is like a “huge archaeological jigsaw puzzle,” according to Historic England, the agency that looks after the country’s historic environment. Continue reading...

We look at where to get the jab, parental consent and the impact of natural infection

People have been advised to reduce consumption by 30% for health and environmental reasonsBritons have cut their meat consumption by 17% over the past decade but will need to double these efforts if they are to meet targets for healthy diets and sustainable food production set out in the national food strategy earlier this year.Meat production is a major contributor to global heating and land degradation, while eating lots of red and processed meat has been linked to a greater risk of developing cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer. Continue reading...

Jabs could begin within weeks if US government approves request, with children getting a third of dose given to adultsA Covid vaccine for kids aged five to 11 just got another step closer to authorization, with Pfizer-BioNTech announcing on Twitter that the full application has been submitted to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).Experts say authorization of the vaccine for children will be critical to controlling the pandemic. Nearly 850,000 cases were confirmed among US children in the past four weeks, and kids still account for a disproportionate share of weekly cases. Continue reading...

Pictures taken by Perseverance rover show how water helped shape planet’s landscape billions of years agoImages from Mars reveal how water helped shape the red planet’s landscape billions of years ago, and provide clues that will guide the search for evidence of ancient life, according to a new study.In February, Nasa’s Perseverance rover landed in Jezero crater, where scientists suspected a long-gone river once fed a lake, depositing sediment in a fan-shaped delta visible from space. Continue reading...

Material retrieved by China’s Chang’e-5 spacecraft sheds new light on the moon at a time when it was thought to be cooling down

The rage we all feel today will create the politics of tomorrow. I’m not sure we’re ready for thatEvery chapter of this pandemic has had its attendant emotions – and since we’re all in this together, it’s possible to sense a collective emotional experience along with the physical experience of lockdowns and restrictions.Initially there was confusion, then deep fear and anxiety, then when lockdowns lifted joy and pride. With Delta we returned to fear again and later weariness, depression, lethargy and listlessness. Continue reading...

The space cemetery, named for the fictional captain in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, is where the International Space Station is likely to end up. Deputy editor, David Munk, recommends this story about deep and dark spaces

Highlights of the Royal Society of Biology’s photography competition 2021, from ants feasting on honeydew to zebras drinking in the savannah Continue reading...

Instead of relying on vaccines alone, countries such as France and Germany are using extra measures to keep cases and deaths lowOnly two months after being forced at the last minute to “cancel Christmas” in 2020, Boris Johnson committed to a “cautious and prudent” roadmap out of lockdown that recognised the evolving epidemiology of the virus. But memories are short. On 19 July, all social distancing and face-covering requirements, as well as limits on the number of people at indoor or outdoor events, were lifted in England. As the summer progressed, international travel restrictions were eased and fully vaccinated people and children were no longer required to isolate if they had been in contact with someone who contracted Covid-19.Some people in England, and many more elsewhere, watched with astonishment. Israel, a world leader in vaccinations, was already seeing the beginning of a rapid increase in cases driven by the new Delta variant. England had a rising number of cases; 54% of the population was fully vaccinated by 19 July. CNN, capturing a widespread view, called England’s approach an “experiment” (a leader in the Irish Times prefaced that word with “reckless”). Fortunately the large increase in cases that some feared would arrive after 19 July didn’t materialise. According to the Sage modelling subgroup, this was largely due to a slow return to pre-pandemic behaviour, school holidays and continued home-working.Christina Pagel is director of UCL’s Clinical Operational Research Unit, which applies advanced analytical methods to problems in healthcare. Martin McKee is professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Our powers of reason have undoubtedly made the world a better place. So why are we so in thrall to fake news?‘Rationality ought to be the lodestar of everything we think or do.” This is the opening sentence of Steven Pinker’s call for a return to reason at a time when critical thinking and the grounding of belief in evidence is in short supply. Everyone, he argues, should want to be rational, yet 75% of Americans believe in at least one phenomenon that defies the laws of science, including psychic healing, extrasensory perception, haunted houses. Even intellectual sophisticates argue that reason, objectivity and truth are merely social constructs that justify the privilege of dominant groups. Why, Pinker demands, is humanity losing its mind? Less than a year after Covid-19 emerged, scientists achieved the magnificent feat of discovering a vaccine, yet at the same time there was an eruption of irrational conspiracy theories: the pandemic was a hoax, a plot by global elites to control the world economy or a bioweapon engineered in a Chinese laboratory.Reasoning, Pinker explains, is a mechanism in the brain that enables us to argue and evaluate arguments. No human being has ever attained perfect rationality but, convinced that objective truth is a possibility, we have developed rules that enable us to approach it. We can cultivate the rules of reason and make them normative. And, Pinker insists, it works. Reason has enabled human beings to reach the moon, extinguish smallpox and invent computers, so it puts us in touch with objective truths. Reason also tells us that some people are oppressed, and others privileged, and that measures should be taken to rectify such injustice. As a result, we have developed the golden rule, which was not revealed by “God” but is a product of human evolution, developed independently and rationally by all cultures. Continue reading...

Last week the pharmaceutical company Merck released promising early data on a pill for Covid-19, which trials suggest halves hospitalisations and deaths. So what do we know about this experimental treatment? Madeleine Finlay talks to the Guardian’s science correspondent Hannah Devlin about whether this antiviral could be a gamechanger. And as some UK experts warn ‘there isn’t much A&E capacity left’, we also hear from Prof Peter Horby on the importance of drugs in the fight against Covid-19Archive: NBC News Continue reading...

Nasa’s Artemis mission to send a crewed vehicle to the moon set to further partnership between the two countries

World Health Organization’s director general hails ‘historic day’ in fight against parasitic diseaseThe World Health Organization has recommended the widespread rollout of the first malaria vaccine, in a move experts hope could save tens of thousands of children’s lives each year across Africa.Hailing “an historic day”, the WHO’s director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that after a successful pilot programme in three African countries the RTS,S vaccine should be made available more widely. Continue reading...

New laws require prescriptions for nicotine vaping products; sellers are offering links to doctors they say can prescribe their products

Benjamin List and David MacMillan’s findings revolutionised development of drugs and hi-tech materialsTwo scientists have won the 2021 Nobel prize in chemistry for the discovery of a new class of catalyst that has revolutionised the development of drugs and hi-tech materials.The winners, Scottish-born David MacMillan, and Benjamin List from Germany, will share the award, presented by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and worth 10m Swedish kronor (£870,000). Continue reading...

Chilblain-like inflammation causes redness on hands and feet and can last for months

Cooling impact of very explosive eruptions could be amplified while moderate eruptions have less effectIt’s well known that volcanic eruptions alter the climate but can human-made climate change alter volcanic eruptions? Curiously, the answer appears to be yes.When the Philippine volcano Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991, the resulting sulphuric acid haze suppressed global temperatures by 0.5C for more than a year. Very explosive eruptions like this are rare – they occur once or twice a century on average – but their cooling impact could be amplified by as much as 15% as the world becomes warmer. Continue reading...

With queues outside petrol stations and claims that selfish punters are using jerry cans to stockpile fuel, one word has become synonymous with the supply chain crisis that has hit the UK in recent weeks: panic. But the social psychologist Clifford Stott says something different is going onThe fuel crisis that began last month was precipitated by a shortage of HGV drivers – but in newspaper headlines and ministerial interviews ever since, it has largely been blamed on “panic buying”. Whatever the original cause, the argument goes that it is the irrational response of the public, who are buying petrol they do not need, that is responsible for how big the problem has become – and if we would all calm down, it would just melt away. As the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, who described the crisis as a “manufactured situation”, told Sky News: “If everyone carries on buying it when they don’t need it then you will continue to have queues … We appeal to people to be sensible.”That argument is so commonly accepted as to be unremarkable. But there is another view – and it has significant evidence to support it. Prof Clifford Stott, a social psychologist at Keele University and member of Sage’s advisory subcommittee on public behaviour, has spent his career examining the behaviour of crowds, both in person and acting collectively online. He argues that the tendency to describe a large group’s urgent response to difficult circumstances as a “panic” misrepresents the reality – and says that, in fact, people tend to work together and think rationally about how best to combat the situation. Continue reading...

Russia has sent an actor and a director to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of plans to make the first film in orbit. Actor Yulia Peresild and director Klim Shipenko joined cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov on a flight to the ISS where they will spend 12 days filming The Challenge. The film crew spent four months training for the mission and will complete the final scenes back on earth. The Russian film is likely to beat a proposed Hollywood project announced by Tom Cruise, Nasa and Elon Musk’s SpaceX into cinemas

Head of the Waikato Mongrel Mob chapter Sonny Fatupaito was asked to encourage gang members and their families to get tested

Pendraig milnerae was related to T rex and likely to have been apex predator despite its size, say expertsA dinosaur distantly related to Tyrannosaurus rex – but with a body the size of a chicken – that would probably have ruled the roost about 200m years ago has been discovered.The diminutive but fearsome creature, whose fossilised remains were found in a quarry in south Wales, is the oldest theropod – a group that includes T rex and modern birds – found in the UK. Continue reading...

Six canines, all border collies, have proved some possess a remarkable grasp of human languageYour dog might follow commands such as “sit”, or become uncontrollably excited at the mention of the word “walkies”, but when it comes to remembering the names of toys and other everyday items, most seem pretty absent-minded.Now a study of six “genius dogs” has advanced our understanding of dogs’ memories, suggesting some of them possess a remarkable grasp of the human language. Continue reading...

Official figures show 348 in every 100,000 people have Covid in the UK; less than 90% of pupils are currently at school in England

Actor and director on International Space Station push ahead of Hollywood project led by Tom CruiseThe list of “firsts” in orbit under the Soviet space programme is legendary: first satellite, first dog, first man, first woman.Now another looms after Russia sent an actor and a director to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of plans to make the first film in orbit – and once again put one over on the Americans. Continue reading...

Prof Neil Ferguson calls for booster rollout and teenagers’ second jabs to be accelerated to ease NHS pressure

Pair likely to beat Hollywood project announced by Tom Cruise, Nasa and Elon Musk’s SpaceXA Russian actor and director have arrived at the International Space Station in an attempt to beat the US and film the first movie in orbit.The Russian crew are likely to beat a Hollywood project announced last year by Tom Cruise, Nasa and Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Continue reading...

Sykuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi share award for advancing climate knowledgeThree scientists have won the 2021 Nobel prize in physics for their groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of complex physical systems – including how humanity influences the Earth’s climate.The winners, Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi, will share the award, announced on Tuesday, presented by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and worth 10m Swedish kronor (£870,000). Continue reading...

Welcome to our monthly roundup of the biggest issues in farming and food production, with must-read reports from around the webWe’ve been running a startling investigation into Europe’s multibillion-pound meat industry, revealing how it has become a global hotspot for outsourced labour, hiring thousands of workers through subcontractors, agencies and bogus co-operatives on inferior pay and conditions. Continue reading...

Meeting the Paris agreement’s goal of keeping global temperature rises to below 2C by the end of the century requires drastic cuts to fossil fuel use and carbon emissions. The problem is, even if we do this we’ll still need to draw down the carbon dioxide that’s emitted in the meantime. To find out how, Shivani Dave speaks to Phoebe Weston and Damian Carrington about the natural and synthetic ways of pulling COout of the atmosphere Continue reading...

Only 31% of pregnant Americans are fully vaccinated. I felt responsible for this bean-like bundle forming in my body. But the conflicting advice made it hard for me to decideThese are the first three things I did when I found out I was pregnant in February. I took about six more tests. Then, I called the doctor’s office to make an appointment. A few days later, I signed up for a Covid-19 vaccine. I stood in line, freezing, at a high school in Coney Island to get my shot.Deciding to get the vaccine that same month was not easy – even as a former health reporter accustomed to deciphering medical journals. I felt a very visceral and personal responsibility toward this bean-like bundle forming in my body. There were only preliminary studies about vaccine safety – saying the vaccine was likely safe – based on participants who didn’t know they were pregnant during trials. Gynaecologists and family physicians had not yet achieved full and public consensus on their recommendations as most have now. Continue reading...

Study shows protection against severe illness stays high, but scientists say boosters key to stopping spread of infectionTwo doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid vaccine are “highly effective” at preventing hospitalisations for at least six months, a large-scale study shows, but protection against infection nearly halves over the same period.Effectiveness against all Covid infections fell from 88% within a month of having two doses to 47% after six months, according to the research. However, effectiveness against hospitalisations remained high at 90% overall – and crucially across all variants, including delta. Continue reading...

Russia’s daily cases at highest levels since January; EMA says people with weakened immune systems should get Pfizer or Moderna booster

Lacks, whose cells were used in multiple medical advances, is honoured by the city’s universityThere were tears of joy and pride as the first statue of a black woman created by a black woman for a public space in the UK was unveiled in a sunlit garden at the University of Bristol.Three generations of of Henrietta Lacks’ family travelled from the US for the unveiling of the bronze statue of her, sculpted by the Bristol artist and campaigner Helen Wilson-Roe. Continue reading...

The UK public health community, along with the government, ignored the evidence that Covid could be suppressed, writes Dr Greg PhiloLaura Spinney offers a defence for the worst public health disaster in a hundred years, saying that “scientists were in the dark” (Covid lawsuits and inquiries are looming – but blame won’t prevent future pandemics, 29 September).In fact, a section of the UK public health community had embraced the deeply flawed approach of herd immunity, and, along with the government, flatly ignored the evidence coming from abroad that the virus could be suppressed. Continue reading...

The solutions to today’s puzzlesEarlier today I set you the following puzzles, designed by the South Korean puzzle master Han Dongkyu. The first two are a slow build up to what is one of the most fiendishly brilliant geometrical puzzles I have ever seen.If you want a print out of the puzzles, click here. Continue reading...

‘Stunning’ neuroscientific advance gives hope to those with mental illness not helped with drugsA woman with severe depression has been successfully treated with an experimental brain implant in a “stunning” advance that offers hope to those with intractable mental illness.The device works by detecting patterns of brain activity linked to depression and automatically interrupting them using tiny pulses of electrical stimulation delivered deep inside the brain. Continue reading...

90-year-old actor who played Captain Kirk in Star Trek will become the oldest person to reach spaceWilliam Shatner, who played Captain James T Kirk in Star Trek, has confirmed that he will go to space this month on the second launch staged by the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s space travel company, Blue Origin.Shatner, 90, will take off from West Texas on 12 October, making him the oldest person to travel to space. Continue reading...

David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian share 10m-kronor prize for discovery of receptors for temperature and touchTwo US researchers have won the 2021 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine for work that unlocked the secrets of the sense of touch.Prof David Julius, a physiologist at the University of California in San Francisco, and Prof Ardem Patapoutian, a neuroscientist at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California, were honoured for their discovery of receptors in the skin that sense heat, cold and touch – making them crucial for survival. The work paves the way for a range of new medical treatments for conditions such as chronic pain. Continue reading...

Covid experts warn against complacency after transport secretary hails lack of face coverings at Tory conference event

Prodigies such as Emma Raducanu spend thousands of hours honing their skills, but could anyone deliver a world-class performance with enough dedication?At the end of every edition of his children’s TV show Record Breakers, Roy Castle used to sing: “If you want to be the best, if you want to beat the rest, dedication’s what you need.” But is it all you need? Tennis star Emma Raducanu seemingly came from nowhere at 18 to triumph at this year’s US Open, prompting much speculation as to what in her early life could have seeded such prodigious success. Or perhaps it could all be summed up in the old joke: “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?” “Practice!”One thing most people have heard about practice is that you need to do 10,000 hours of it to get really good at something. This claim was widely popularised by Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers (2008), which cited a study suggesting that the best violinists at a conservatoire were those who had done thousands of hours more solitary practice than their peers. But the author of that study, the psychologist K Anders Ericsson, said Gladwell had misrepresented it. “First, there is nothing special or magical about 10,000 hours,” Ericsson writes in his own book about his research, Peak (2016). “Gladwell could just as easily have mentioned the average amount of time the best violin students had practised by the time they were 18 – approximately 7,400 hours – but he chose to refer to the total practice time they had accumulated by the time they were 20, because it was a nice round number.” Moreover, he points out, the figure of 10,000 hours for the best 20-year-old violinists was “only an average”: half of the best players had not actually accumulated that much practice. Continue reading...