Animal thought to have caught coronavirus from owners, but experts say there is no evidence pets can pass it to humans

Only half of children aged 12 and above have been vaccinated, despite vaccine being available for monthsWhen Nia Heard-Garris’s son found out the Covid vaccines were authorized for adults in the US late last year, he was thrilled, then asked, “But what about us? What about kids?”The eight-year-old is finally signed up for his first shot later this week. Even though he’s afraid of needles, he can’t wait to get vaccinated so he can return to a greater semblance of normal kid life – hanging out with his friends, going to school, playing sports – without worrying about getting sick or bringing the virus home. Continue reading...

The Science Weekly podcast is in Glasgow, where we are bringing listeners daily episodes from Cop26. Each morning you will hear from one of the Guardian’s award-winning environment team. Today, Guardian global environment editor, Jonathan Watts, talks to Katharine Hayhoe and Peter Stott about their work as climate scientists and how they feel Cop26 is progressingThe Guardian’s global environment editor, Jonathan Watts, talks to eminent scientists Katharine Hayhoe and Peter Stott whose work over the past decades has helped prove that the planet is warming and that humans are responsible. Jonathan asks them about their struggle to convince governments and policymakers of the urgency of the situation and whether they feel optimistic about the progress being made at Cop26.On Tuesday, Carbon Action Tracker projected that the world is on track for disastrous levels of global heating far in excess of the limits in the Paris climate agreement, despite a flurry of carbon-cutting pledges from governments at the UN Cop26 summit. Temperature rises will top 2.4C by the end of this century, based on the short-term goals countries have set out. Continue reading...

Agency says funding issues, along with delays tied to Bezos legal challenge, will push back first landing in a half centuryNasa has delayed putting astronauts back on the moon until 2025 at the earliest, missing the deadline set by the Trump administration.The space agency had been aiming for 2024 for the first moon landing by astronauts in a half century. Continue reading...

Research finds few image databases available to develop technology contain details on ethnicity or skin typeAI systems being developed to diagnose skin cancer run the risk of being less accurate for people with dark skin, research suggests.The potential of AI has led to developments in healthcare, with some studies suggesting image recognition technology based on machine learning algorithms can classify skin cancers as successfully as human experts. Continue reading...

Healthcare firm named in Owen Paterson lobbying scandal has won £500m in UK government contracts

According to psychologists, ‘ambivalent’ relationships can cause us more stress than being with people we actively dislike. Is it time to let go – or can these friendships be salvaged?Roger and Jim have been friends for more than 30 years. When they were younger they were in a band together, and their friendship was forged over a shared love of music and beer. Even now, despite family commitments on both sides, they manage to catch up every couple of months. “Even though he drives me mad,” says Roger.It is Jim who leaps to Roger’s mind at the mention of toxic friendships. Every time they meet, Roger says, they “tend to have the same conversation”, because Jim never listens to what he says. Continue reading...

Four astronauts strapped inside a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule have splashed down safely in the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida coast, ending a six-month Nasa mission onboard the International Space Station and a day-long flight home.The Dragon vehicle, called Endeavour, parachuted into the sea as planned just after 10.30pm EST on Monday, after a fiery re-entry descent through Earth’s atmosphere broadcast live by a Nasa webcast

Study finds patients from other ethnic backgrounds in England 30% more likely to survive for 12 monthsWhite British people diagnosed with brain tumours are more likely to die within 12 months than patients from other ethnic groups, a study suggests.The research is the first of its kind to examine the impact of ethnicity on brain tumour survival. The results are being presented today at the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) festival. Continue reading...

Authorities announced the 100,000 yuan ($15,640) rewards for residents in Heihe, saying illegal hunting or crossing the border should be reported

The Science Weekly podcast is in Glasgow, where we are bringing listeners daily episodes from Cop26. Each morning you will hear from one of the Guardian’s award-winning environment team. Today, Science Weekly host Madeleine Finlay and Guardian reporter Nina Lakhani attend the People’s Summit, which brings together movements from across the world to build solutions for climate changeIn the run-up to Cop26, the UK government had boasted that Glasgow would be the most inclusive summit on record. In reality, about two-thirds of civil society organisations that usually send delegates to Cop have not travelled to Glasgow due to “vaccine apartheid”, changing travel rules, extortionate travel costs and Britain’s hostile immigration system. Global Witness revealed that there are more delegates at Cop26 associated with the fossil fuel industry – 503 – than from any single country.Today, Guardian reporter Nina Lakhani and Science Weekly host Madeleine Finlay attend the People’s Summit, which over four days is bringing together movements from across the world to fight for climate justice. Continue reading...

Ancient rock forms suggest world’s first stable cratons rose above sea level more than 3bn years ago

My father, Peter Pharoah, who has died aged 87 from dementia, was a professor of public health whose work eradicated iodine deficiency in Papua New Guinea and furthered understanding of the causes of cerebral palsy and perinatal death.Peter was son of two teachers, Phyllis (nee Gahan) and Oswald Pharoah. Born in Ranchi, India, he attended schools in Lovedale and Sanawar. After the death of his father when Peter was seven, he came to Britain with his mother and brother in 1948. He attended Palmer’s school in Grays, Essex, and St Mary’s hospital medical school, London, where he met his future wife, Margaret McMinn, also training as a doctor, and ran in a team with Sir Roger Bannister. Continue reading...

As Australia braces for a wet and stormy week, the Bom has released its annual calendar featuring images capturing some of the country’s wildest and most magnificent weather events Continue reading...

For many people, social distancing and lockdowns left them bereft of physical contact. Here, touch experts explain why it is so essential and what we lost in its absenceIn a pandemic that has meant keeping 2 metres away from one another whenever possible, it appears that physical contact is beginning to return. Even handshakes are making a comeback: one poll found younger people were shaking hands again, although older generations are more uneasy about it. “We are wired to respond to emotional touch,” says Francis McGlone, a professor of neuroscience at Liverpool John Moores University. “My analogy is that [touch is] like a vitamin – if we are depleted, there are consequences in terms of our physical health. I make the same argument about the C-tactile afferents – the nerve fibre that evolved in all social mammals to provide the reward associated with close physical contact. When the fibre is stimulated, it does a number of measurable things – it lowers heart rate and it lowers cortisol, the stress hormone.” It’s one reason, he says with a laugh, he believes so many people got pets during lockdown: “That’s the brain recognising ‘I need to touch something’.”For the pet-less, touch-starved, skin-hungry among us, physical contact is a welcome thing. Even before the pandemic, we were living through a “crisis of touch”; perhaps the enforced distance of the past 18 months has made us realise how vital touch is after all. For the people whose jobs rely heavily on touch, it’s been a particularly difficult time. Here’s how they are navigating its return. Continue reading...

They take their name from the constellation Leo and can be spotted from 6 to 30 NovemberThis week, Starwatch is some advance warning for next week’s peak of the Leonid meteor shower. The shower is under way now as it lasts from 6 to 30 November. The peak activity this year is expected in the early morning of 17 November.The chart shows the view from London at midnight as 16 turns into 17 November. From Sydney, Australia, Leo will rise a few hours later. The Leonids take their name because they appear to radiate from a point in the constellation Leo, the lion. The radiant is situated just under the head of the lion, but do not look directly at it when searching for the shooting stars. The meteors, instead, appear in all directions around the radiant, so keep scanning the skies around this location. Continue reading...

‘Game-changing’ research finds unravelling genetic codes in children with cancer could lead to better diagnosis and treatmentReading the full genetic code of childhood cancers can help doctors improve diagnoses, understand how tumours will grow, and find the most effective therapies, according to a pilot study.Doctors in Cambridge used whole-genome sequencing on 36 children with cancer and found that the extra information the test provided changed four of the patients’ diagnoses and revealed new treatment options in seven cases. Continue reading...

The Science Weekly podcast is in Glasgow, where we are bringing listeners daily episodes from Cop26. Each morning you will hear from one of the Guardian’s award-winning environment team. Today, the Guardian’s biodiversity reporter, Phoebe Weston, talks to one of the world’s leading marine ecologists, Dr Enric Sala, about the role our oceans can play in preventing climate catastropheLast week, Panama, Ecuador, Colombia and Costa Rica committed to aligning their marine-protected areas to form a fishing-free corridor covering more than 500,000 sq km (200,000 sq miles). They were the latest in a long list of countries who have realised that our oceans are crucial in the fight to keep global heating within 1.5 degrees.The UK government also announced on Friday, Ocean Action Day, that over 100 countries had signed up to a pledge to protect at least 30% of the global ocean by 2030. Why? Because oceans are estimated to absorb at least a quarter of the world’s CO2 emissions, something known as ‘blue carbon’. Continue reading...

Scientists say 35 novel discoveries included a pair of massive black holes 145 times as heavy as the sun orbiting each other

Sage advisor says ‘Plan B’ Covid measures still under consideration in England; Germany reports 23,543 new cases reported in past 24 hours

Kids usually have something to say and they need us to hear it. So it’s time to start listening – for their future and ours

Story of Ad Gefrin, a royal complex in Northumberland valley discovered in 1950s, to be told at new attraction“Just here would have been the great hall,” says Chris Ferguson to a Guardian reporter and a dozen indifferent sheep chewing grass in a stunning Northumberland valley.“Over there would have been the royal residence and behind that, a grandstand. We are on top of one of the most important sites of Anglo-Saxon history anywhere in this country.” Continue reading...

Instead of investing to cheat death, we should be trying to make old age livable and dignified for allWelcome to the era of immortalists: scientists, dreamers and – crucially – billionaires, who want us to think of age as a curable disease, and our final end as something that could be indefinitely postponed. According to one estimate, the revenues of the global anti-ageing industry will increase from about $200bn today to $420bn by 2030. One sure sign of its rosy prospects is the involvement of high-profile people in the US who have made vast fortunes from the internet. If many of them can avoid taxes, why not death?“Death is sort of an affront to American life,” wrote Zadie Smith in 2003. “It’s so anti-aspirational.” In tech circles, this kind of distaste for mortality often blurs into the culture of “biohacking” (fasting, closely tracking your vital signs, gobbling supplements and “smart drugs”) which is one manifestation of transhumanism: to quote the definition in the Oxford English Dictionary, “a belief that the human race can evolve beyond its current limitations, especially by the use of science and technology”.John Harris is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

The 15-foot dugout canoe was first noticed by a maritime archeologist and her friend while joyriding on underwater scootersA 1,200-year-old, 15-foot (4.5-metre) dugout canoe has been taken from Lake Mendota in Madison, Wisconsin, after two divers stumbled upon it while riding underwater scooters.The vessel was recovered from roughly 27ft of water and brought to shore this week. Continue reading...

Psychedelics have come a long way since their hallucinogenic hippy heyday. Research shows that they could alleviate PTSD, depression and addiction. So will we all soon be treated with magic mushrooms and MDMA?Imagine a medicine that could help people process disturbing memories, sparking behavioural changes rather than merely burying and suppressing symptoms and trauma. For the millions suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, such remedies for their daily struggles could be on the horizon. Psychiatry is rapidly heading towards a new frontier – and it’s all thanks to psychedelics.In an advanced phase trial published in Nature in May, patients in the US, Israel and Canada who received doses of the psychedelic stimulant MDMA, alongside care from a therapist, were more than twice as likely than the placebo group to no longer have PTSD, for which there is currently no effective treatment, months later. The researchers concluded that the findings, which reflected those of six earlier-stage trials, cemented the treatment as a startlingly successful potential breakthrough therapy. There are now hopes that MDMA therapy could receive approval for certain treatments from US regulators by 2023, or perhaps even earlier – with psilocybin, the active ingredient of magic mushrooms, not far behind in the process. (A small study at Johns Hopkins University, published last year, suggested it could be four times more effective than traditional antidepressants.) Continue reading...

Estimating ‘excess’ fatalities, a more robust analysis method, puts the pandemic’s grim toll between 10m and 19m people

The winning essay in the Max Perutz science writing award 2021, published below, was written by Vicky Bennett from the department of biology and biochemistry at Bath UniversityIn May, PhD students who are funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) were invited to enter the Max Perutz science writing award 2021 and write a compelling piece about their research for the non-scientific reader.From the many entries received, the 10 that made the shortlist covered diverse topics, including dementia, childhood adversity, the role of genes in schizophrenia and the use of hypnosis to treat psychosis. Continue reading...

The traveller and TV presenter Simon Reeve on his quest to have a baby after being told he was infertileI still beat myself up about how much of an idiot I was over so many years. I’d always seen having children as a key part of my purpose on this planet, believing that creating new life was part of my biological destiny. It was fundamental to how I navigated the world.I’m slightly jealous, in truth, of those who don’t have that imperative. My wife Anya, for instance, just enjoys life as it comes. Continue reading...

New discoveries are constantly reshaping and enriching the story of our pastThe novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch once wrote that the study of early Greek history “sets a special challenge to the disciplined mind. It is a game with very few pieces, where the skill of the player lies in complicating the rules.” The same could be said of the study of Britain’s Roman period, a long, often overlooked span lasting nearly 300 years. Every year, archaeological discoveries are made that complicate the rules of the game. Sometimes, these are so significant and surprising that they completely overthrow what everyone thought they knew – as when, in 1960, a workman cutting a water main trench at Fishbourne, near Chichester, stumbled across remains that the archaeologist Prof Sir Barry Cunliffe would later establish were those of a stupendously luxurious Roman villa, confounding notions that the province of Britannia was, essentially, a bleak and grim imperial outpost entirely lacking in Mediterranean creature comforts.The past 12 months have been a good period for Romano-British archaeological finds – more drips of exciting new information that intriguingly mess with the rules of the historical game. Last week, archaeologists working on the site of a demolished medieval church near Stoke Mandeville in Buckinghamshire announced their discovery of remarkable sculptures of a man, a woman and a child, probably made in Britain, the woman’s hair in an elaborate braided style. As the site’s lead archaeologist, Dr Rachel Wood, said, it “leads us to wonder what else might be buried beneath England’s medieval village churches” – it being no secret that many Norman churches were built atop Roman buildings, from York Minster right down to the parish church of Woodchester in Gloucestershire, under whose graveyard lies a vast mosaic of Orpheus surrounded by animals and trees. Continue reading...

Experimental antiviral pill taken at home is highly effective at preventing deaths, trial suggests

Period underwear is branching out into leak-proof exercise clothes, swimsuits, sleepwear – even blankets. Is this finally the end of tampons and pads?I suppose everyone who has ever got their period has the same nightmare, though for most of us, it’s come true. Mine happened a couple of years ago while reporting at a festival on New York’s Governors Island. It was August, hot and sticky, and I was wearing a white linen dress and thin cotton underwear. I was interviewing people all day. Later, a woman came up to me. I thought she wanted to speak about the festival. It turned out she had something else on her mind.“I brought you a bottle of water because I think you may have sat in something,” she said. Inside a portable toilet, I found a stain the size of a child’s football, the colour of rust and red grapes. I had got my period and hadn’t even noticed it until that dear woman saved me. It was the worst-case scenario, worthy of the “embarrassing story” section in a teen magazine, and yet I had been menstruating for 25 years. Who knows how long I had been walking around like that? I continue to be mortified by this story, and it’s a long way of saying that I should probably be someone who invests in period-wear. Continue reading...

Children ate less healthily, took less exercise and had more emotional problems, say researchersChildren in the UK ate fewer vegetables, took less exercise and experienced worsening emotional difficulties following the Covid outbreak, according to a research study.A biennial survey conducted by investigators at Cardiff University found that primary school-age children reported a sharp increase in “elevated or clinically significant emotional difficulties” in early 2021, compared with the same survey conducted in 2019. Continue reading...

The aurora alarms were going off as we grabbed our head torches and headed SOUTH!

The Science Weekly podcast is in Glasgow, where we are bringing listeners daily episodes from Cop26. Each morning you will hear from one of the Guardian’s award-winning environment team. Today, host Madeleine Finlay talks to the Guardian’s energy correspondent Jillian Ambrose about plans to end coal use. And as Cop26 week one draws to a close U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry gives his thoughtsMore than 40 countries agreed to phase out their use of coal-fired power, the dirtiest fuel source, in a boost to UK hopes of a deal to “keep 1.5C alive” at the Cop26 summit on Thursday.Major coal-using countries including Canada, Poland, South Korea, Ukraine, Indonesia and Vietnam will phase out their use of coal for electricity generation, with the bigger economies doing so in the 2030s and smaller economies doing so in the 2040s. However, some of the world’s biggest coal-dependent economies, including Australia, China, India and the US, were missing from the deal, and experts and campaigners told the Guardian that the phase-out deadlines countries signed up to were much too late. Continue reading...

UK government’s latest Covid case figures show 37, 269 people tested positive; only 61% of Latvian adults are fully vaccinated, less than EU average of 75%

Scientists make ‘promising’ breakthrough on fast-growing DIPG type of tumourScientists have successfully combined two existing cancer drugs to create a treatment for children diagnosed with deadly brain tumours.Diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), a rare and fast-growing type of brain tumour in children, can mutate and evolve to resist treatment with a single drug. There is currently no cure and many children found to have the disease die within months. Continue reading...

Immune defences in lungs can vary with ethnicity – but doubts remain over data quality and socio-economic factors

Fall for under-18s, logged by Zoe app, may be half-term glitch and older groups still ‘dominate’ hospital cases say other scientists

Finding could partly explain excess deaths seen in some communities in the UK and in south Asia

Pill can be taken twice daily at home and priority will be given to elderly patients and those with health vulnerabilities

Two people tell us about their experiences with CBT and how it changed their livesThe psychotherapist Aaron Beck, known as the father of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), died on Tuesday aged 100 at his Philadelphia home. CBT is a form of treatment that helps patients to analyse and manage negative thinking patterns rather than focusing on past conflicts. Here, two people tell us about their experiences with CBT and how it changed their lives. Continue reading...

Among under-18s, vaccine uptake is low, and there is a growing issue with misinformation spread on social media and at school. Is there anything a concerned caregiver can do?Throughout the pandemic, Anna has worked for the NHS. She has seen the effects of Covid-19 first-hand and, although she worked remotely because she was in a vulnerable group, other colleagues – she is a physiotherapist – were deployed to Covid wards at the height of hospital admissions. “At the trust I work for, they’re setting up a long-Covid service,” she says. She comes home and her son Sam, 16, listens to her talk about it – and yet he is adamant that the coronavirus isn’t happening or that, if it is, it’s not serious. “You know: ‘Covid is a load of rubbish – it’s all about control’,” she says. “It’s all very conspiracy theory, a lot of his stuff.” He was adamant from the start that he wouldn’t be having the vaccine if and when it became available for his age group, and he has stuck to it. “He is very resistant,” says Anna. “He is pretty determined not to conform anyway. Part of it, I think, is him being a teenager, and the other bit of it is conspiracy theory: ‘It’s all a big con.’” His main source of information since the start of the pandemic has been social media, says Anna. “He watches a lot of YouTube.”Just over a month ago, YouTube announced it would remove videos that spread misinformation about all vaccines, and would ban the accounts of anti-vax activists; it had already banned content with false claims about Covid vaccines last year. Facebook did the same in February this year, though a quick search reveals misinformation is still easy to find (one post I found within minutes claimed 80% of vaccinated women had miscarriages). On TikTok, “unvaxxed” content racks up hundreds of thousands of views. Last month, NewsGuard, an organisation that rates the credibility of news organisations and monitors misinformation, found Covid conspiracy theories were being viewed by millions on TikTok, and, in its research, children under 13 – the lower age limit – were able to access the app. Continue reading...

The Science Weekly podcast is in Glasgow, where we are bringing listeners daily episodes from Cop26. Each morning you will hear from one of the Guardian’s award-winning environment team. Today, host Madeleine Finlay talks to the Guardian’s biodiversity and environment reporter, Patrick Greenfield, and shadow Cop26 president Ed Miliband about the announcements from finance dayOn Wednesday, hundreds of the world’s biggest banks and pension funds, with assets worth $130tn, committed to a key climate goal. The finance pledge, known as the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), will mean that by 2050 all assets managed by the institutions will be aligned with net zero emissions. But experts cast doubt on the significance of the move, pointing out that the banks are still free to pour cash into fossil fuels in the next decade. Rishi Sunak announced that London would become the world’s “first net-zero finance centre”, but environmentalists reacted with scepticism.Today, Science Weekly host Madeleine Finlay talks to the Guardian’s biodiversity and environment reporter, Patrick Greenfield, about these announcements from finance day, plus they catch up with Ed Miliband, who discusses whether the proposals amount to much – or are just more greenwashing from the financial industry. Continue reading...

Researchers say leaves of the matalafi plant could also potentially be used to treat cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular diseasesLeaves from a plant which can be found “in back yards across Samoa” could be as effective as ibuprofen in lowering inflammation and could even be used to treat illnesses such as Parkinson’s and cancer, a new study has found.For centuries, the leaves of the psychotria insularum plant, known locally in Samoa as matalafi, have been used in traditional medicine to treat inflammation associated with fever, body aches, swellings, elephantiasis, and respiratory infections. Continue reading...

Microsoft founder says research and development budgets should focus on weaknesses exposed by rapid spread of Covid

Oxford researchers arrive at virus’s toll in 31 countries by looking at deaths and age they occurred

My friend, Hester McFarland Solomon, who has died aged 78, dedicated her professional life to the treatment of psychological illness, as a noted Jungian psychoanalyst of the developmental school. She rose to the heights of her profession as an analyst, author, teacher and administrator, and in 2007 became only the second female president of the International Association for Analytical Psychology (IAAP).Hester was American by birth. She came from a modest background in New Haven, Connecticut, and was a war baby who started life in a garage, later upgraded to a log cabin on a hillside dotted with virgin forest. She was the elder of two children born to Emily Tutak, a nurse, and Orrin McFarland, who was in the building trade. Continue reading...

Guardian readers share their frustrations at trying to obtain a third coronavirus vaccinationHaving read your report (No 10 concerned as 4.5 million eligible people fail to get Covid jab boosters, 2 November), I wonder how many people’s experience mirrors mine? I received a letter from the NHS advising me to contact my GP about a booster, as I am it seems clinically vulnerable, as well as being elderly. My GP could not take action, having run out of vaccines and not knowing when there would be a further supply. The NHS letter told me that – presumably because of my medical condition – I am not able to book a vaccination via the NHS website or phone. Doubtless the same applies to the new walk-in centres. I am not sitting on my hands and ignoring the call. If the government is serious about getting people like me a third jab, perhaps it should look closer to home for the reasons for delay, rather than seeking to shift blame.