We need local data to keep on top of local outbreaksIt’s a myth that statisticians are obsessed with averages. We learn most from examining variability and the current concern with variants hammers home the importance of local data.Across the United Kingdom, confirmed cases of Covid-19 are stable, at 22 per 100,000 people in the week up to 17 May. Six local authorities recorded less than two cases per 100,000; while in Bolton there were 385 per 100,000, over 17 times the national rate. Continue reading...

Germany to bar visitors from UK over Covid variants of concern; sewage samples being tested across England to monitor Covid variants

NHS opens bookings for first dose to about 1 million people aged 32 and 33 as Hancock lauds ‘national effort’

Assurances that I would be looked after as a participant in the Novavax trial now sound hollow

The new Global Pandemic Radar is a welcome step towards comprehensive sequencing of the Covid-19 genome“Nun’s office Tivoli safe!” When I was a child, we used to play a game where several of us whispered a message to one another in sequence. The fun of the game is when errors pop up along the way – and the final listener announces with glee something quite different from the original message.As Covid-19 spreads through a population, it undergoes similar changes, or “mutations”. Every time a new virus is built, errors are made when its genome is copied, just like with the whispered message. This has led to Covid-19 variants popping up all over the globe: in the UK, Brazil, the US and now India. Detecting these variants and monitoring their spread is crucial to protect people from being put at risk, and helps inform public health decisions. Which is why we so enthusiastically welcome the news of the Global Pandemic Radar, a pathogen surveillance network that will track developments in the Covid-19 virus. It will also ensure a global infrastructure is in place to better help humanity understand and protect itself from future pathogens. Continue reading...

Solar-powered Zhurong rover is expected to be deployed for 90 days to search for evidence of lifeChina’s first Mars rover has driven down from its landing platform and is now roaming the surface of the planet, China’s space administration has said.The solar-powered rover touched Martian soil at 10:40am on Saturday Beijing time (0240 GMT), the China National Space Administration said. Continue reading...

Australian and international scientists publish open letter defending Dr Elisabeth Bik and calling for science whistleblowers to be protectedA world-renowned Dutch expert in identifying scientific misconduct and error, Dr Elisabeth Bik, has been threatened with legal action for questioning the integrity of a study promoting the drug hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19.The case, filed with the French state prosecutor by controversial infectious diseases physician Dr Didier Raoult, has prompted hundreds of scientists from across the world to publish an open letter calling for science whistleblowers to be protected. Continue reading...

Some farmers see a vicious pest that should be shot on sight, others a native species that plays a vital role in Australia’s ecosystem

Academics suspect papers with grabby conclusions are waved through more easily by reviewersScientific research findings that are probably wrong gain far more attention than robust results, according to academics who suspect that the bar for publication may be lower for papers with grabbier conclusions.Studies in top science, psychology and economics journals that fail to hold up when others repeat them are cited, on average, more than 100 times as often in follow-up papers than work that stands the test of time. Continue reading...

Boris Johnson still plans to end restrictions in June despite experts’ fears over spread of India and Kent variants

Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing aims to reduce distress that some memories bring onIn a new mental health documentary series with Oprah Winfrey, Prince Harry is seen undergoing a form of therapy known as EMDR (eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing) to treat unresolved anxiety stemming from the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, when he was 12.EMDR was developed in the 1980s by a US psychologist, Francine Shapiro. While walking in a park, Shapiro suspected that her eye movements were lessening the distress of her own traumatic memories. She tested the approach on others and over time built up a standardised psychological therapy for treating people with traumatic memories. Continue reading...

University of Sheffield’s archaeology team argue vital work will be lost if threatened closure goes aheadImportant research on Stonehenge could be put in jeopardy if the threatened closure of one of the UK’s most renowned university archaeology departments goes ahead, leading experts on the prehistoric monument have warned.Current and former members of the University of Sheffield’s archaeology department are at the forefront of some of the most intriguing work at the Wiltshire site and argue that if it is closed, vital work will be lost. Continue reading...

Participants cannot prove they are fully vaccinated on NHS app leaving them unable to travel to Europe

Climate politics is a long game but people must see more positive changes to really appreciate the benefits of ending fossil fuelsThe New Zealand emissions trading scheme (ETS), now in its fourteenth year of operation and much criticised for (so far) failing to cut emissions, is the centrepiece of the government’s climate action. Judging from Budget 2021, it will remain that way for years to come.Auctioning of emissions units began in March, and 2022 will see the introduction of a falling cap on net emissions of long-lived greenhouse gases. (The precise level of the cap will be announced later in the year.) Continue reading...

Southwark Playhouse, London

Total of 3,424 cases of the India variant of coronavirus B1.617.2 have now been confirmed in the UK. This live blog is now closed - please follow the global live blog for updates

Researchers say election may have increased abnormal heart rhythms and worsened high blood pressureHow stressful can an election campaign really be? Potentially life-threatening, researchers say, at least in the case of the 2016 US presidential election. The divisive campaign may have raised the risk of abnormal heart rhythms and worsened high blood pressure in people with underlying cardiovascular disease, two studies suggest.One study focused on nearly 2,500 people (mostly white, with an average age of about 71) with implanted cardiac devices in North Carolina, a swing state in the 2016 election that was subjected to fiercely negative political commercials and campaign events. Continue reading...

Pressure growing for UK and others to follow Biden’s lead at WTO to avoid ‘moral and public health failure’The UK government is in talks about a plan to waive Covid-19 vaccine patents to boost the production of shots in low and middle-income countries, the Guardian can reveal.The discussions come amid growing calls for Britain and other European countries to follow the US in supporting the proposal put before the World Trade Organization (WTO). Continue reading...

Instead of sequencing or data collection, the government is offering patriotic bluster in the face of this deadly second waveThe variant that threatens the British summer has already done far more damage in India. In October last year a sample from the western state of Maharashtra containing what would later be identified as the B.1.617.3 variant was sequenced and uploaded to Gisaid, a global database of Covid-19 samples from across the world. The variant had multiple mutations located on the virus’s spike protein that binds it to receptor cells in the human body. Some of these mutations were present in other variants, or seemed capable of evading immunity. All of this should have set off alarm bells in India and led to increased surveillance across the world.Instead, India’s genome sequencing project continued to flounder through the rest of 2020. For most of last year, India did virtually no genome sequencing, Dr Gagandeep Kang, one of India’s leading virologists, told me. While other countries submitted thousands of sequences to databases such as Gisaid for scientists across the world to study, India submitted only a few hundred. This was partly due to a lack of funding. It was also possibly the result of a lack of interest; last year, India’s Covid curve appeared to be falling. Continue reading...

Prize recognises primatologist’s contribution to work on animal intelligence and humanityThe naturalist Jane Goodall has been announced as the 2021 winner of the Templeton prize in recognition of her life’s work on animal intelligence and humanity.Goodall, 87, built her global reputation on her groundbreaking studies of chimpanzees in Tanzania in the 1960s. Her foundation, the Jane Goodall Institute, works with local communities as well as providing safe habitats for chimpanzees and gorillas, and its educational branch, Roots and Shoots, operates in 67 countries. Continue reading...

Human beings have transformed the planet. Over the last century we’ve disrupted the climate and impacted entire ecosystems. This has led some to propose that we’ve entered another chapter in Earth’s history called the Anthropocene. Anand Jagatia speaks to Dr Simon Turner from the Anthropocene Working Group, given the task of gathering evidence on whether it will become an official unit of geological time Continue reading...

French trial shows dogs were able to detect presence of coronavirus with 97% accuracy

In the absence of proposals from the government, we have a plan to ensure the world is safe now and secure in the future

Joint mission next year will try to replicate China’s recent success of landing robotic craft on planetOn Saturday 15 May, the Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported that the country had landed a robotic spacecraft on Mars. This is an important moment and it could be a taste of things to come.Until China’s Zhurong rover touched down in the Utopia Planitia region of the Mars, only the US had succeeded in operating on the planet’s surface. Next year, however, a joint mission by the European Space Agency and Russia will attempt to replicate the success. Continue reading...

Helmed by Prof David Nutt, this documentary follows volunteers as they swap antidepressants for psilocybin ... and it’s the closest they’ve come to joy in years

Young men look for an attractive partner and young women emphasise personality but as we age, everyone agrees physical attributes are overratedThe characteristics that attract people to an ideal partner differ between men and women, but become more similar with age, a survey of more than 7,000 Australian online dating users has found.Researchers asked 7,325 Australians aged between 16 and 65 to rate the importance of nine characteristics of potential partners on a scale of 0 to 100. Continue reading...

Health secretary says government will make decision on unlocking on 14 June as cases of Indian variant rise 28% in two days. This live blog is now closed - please follow the global coronavirus live blog for updates

Health secretary says sewage testing has helped identify places where vaccinations and testing are being stepped up

Was the explorer from Italy, Spain, Portugal or elsewhere? Researchers hope to find out once and for allSpanish researchers have launched a new attempt to finally settle the dispute over the true origins of Christopher Columbus after various theories have claimed the explorer hailed from Portugal or Spain, rather than Italy as most scholars agree.“There is no doubt on our part [about his Italian origin], but we can provide objective data that can … close a series of existing theories,” said José Antonio Lorente, the lead scientist of the DNA study at the University of Granada. Continue reading...

Study finds burn area from fires that survive winter varies depending on warmth of summersIn the boreal forests of the far northern hemisphere, where the climate is warming faster than almost anywhere else, some wildfires are surviving winter snows and picking up again in spring.Now scientists from the Netherlands and Alaska have figured out how to calculate the scope of those “zombie fires” that smoulder year-round in the peaty soil. Continue reading...

Scientists to test seven vaccines for possible protection against new variants in effort to avert winter surge in infections

What would it have been like to be inside the Big Bang? We meet the ultra-hi-tech art duo who are using light, sound and sub-atomic astro data to recreate the biggest explosion ever‘Step into the heart of the Big Bang,” says the advert for Halo, a walk-in, 360-degree, audiovisual installation about to open in Brighton. Come off it, I want to retort. You couldn’t “step” into the Big Bang without first travelling 13.8 billion years back in time and then being extremely miniaturised. After all, the universe was, according to one estimate, just 17cm in diameter at its inception.What’s more, it was dark inside the Big Bang. In fact, there was no light at all. True, if you stuck around for 380,000 years, according to Nasa, you might have been able to see something because that was when free electrons met up with nuclei and created neutral atoms that would have allowed light to pass through. But who has 380,000 years to hang around waiting in the dark? Continue reading...

Study analysing brain scans of people finds psychedelic drug lowers barriers that constrain thoughtsWhen Aldous Huxley emerged from a mescaline trip that veered from an obsession with the folds in his trousers to wonder at the “miraculous” tubularity of the bamboo legs on his garden chairs, he offered an opinion on how the drug worked.Writing in The Doors of Perception, his 1954 book that took its name from a William Blake poem, Huxley declared that the psychedelic “lowers the efficiency of the brain as an instrument for focusing the mind on the problems of life”. Continue reading...

We are raiding the Audio Long Reads archives and bringing you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors.This week, from 2017: Luxembourg has shown how far a tiny country can go by serving the needs of global capitalism. Now it has set its sights on outer space. By Atossa Araxia Abrahamian Continue reading...

From Robert Burton’s 17th-century Anatomy of Melancholy to new insights from Ed Bullmore, these are welcome guides to one of the loneliest experiences

The world-first system can allow anyone to check if reefs known to be under heat stress have started to bleachScientists have launched a world-first system to detect in almost real time the bleaching of the planet’s coral reefs that are under severe threat from global heating.The developers of the new tool, which has been four years in the making, claim it can allow anyone to check if reefs known to be under heat stress have actually started to bleach. Continue reading...

Authorities impose mask-wearing and limit gatherings after outbreak spreads to half of island’s counties

The new division will comprise army, navy and air force officers and be based at RAAF headquarters in CanberraAustralia is assembling a new space division comprising military officers from the army, navy and air force to better protect satellites from attack.The space division will be established within the Royal Australian Air Force headquarters in Canberra early next year. Continue reading...

Pandemic fatigue and economic woes blamed for lack of action despite rapid rise in number of cases

The cuckoopint, or Arum maculatum, gives off a pungent scent to attract and trap small pollinators before releasing them

Want a booster shot of knowledge? David Olusoga and Steven Johnson’s new show will teach you about the magic, and the horrors, behind the medical breakthroughs of our time

Six fragments returned to archaeological park, some after being illegally trafficked in 1970sSix fragments of wall frescoes stolen from the ruins of ancient Roman villas have been returned to Pompeii’s archaeological park, after an investigation by Italy’s cultural protection police squad.Three of the relics, which date back to the first century AD, are believed to have been cut off the walls of two Roman villas in Stabiae, a historical site close to the main Pompeii excavations, in the 1970s before being exported illegally. Continue reading...

From deep in the bush just outside Bathurst in Australia, Rodney Watters and Niall MacNeill bring the darkness of space into the light.Using an alchemy of high-speed cameras, telescopes and computer processors, the images created for their new book overcome the multitude of challenges involved in capturing celestial bodies light years away Continue reading...

UK study of 25,000 people finds even moderate drinking is linked to lower grey matter densityThere is no safe amount of alcohol consumption for the brain, with even “moderate” drinking adversely affecting nearly every part of it, a study of more than 25,000 people in the UK has found.The study, which is still to be peer-reviewed, suggests that the more alcohol consumed, the lower the brain volume. In effect, the more you drink, the worse off your brain. Continue reading...

One-of-a-kind digital collectables, known as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), have boomed in areas ranging from music, sport and art. As the focus is on digital artists to seize this opportunity to potentially make millions for their work, the Guardian’s technology correspondent, Alex Hern, talks to Shivani Dave about the pros and cons of this emerging technology Continue reading...

Self-portraits by ultra-realistic android go on show at Design Museum in LondonShe, if it can be called a she, began her career with abstract art but has now moved to self, if they can be called self, portraits and they are alarmingly good.“She is getting better all of the time,” said Aidan Meller, the force behind Ai-Da, the world’s first ultra-realistic robot artist, who is the subject of a display at the Design Museum in London. Continue reading...

Environment secretary George Eustice said he could not rule out restrictions in India variant hotspots

Science has got us much closer to getting back to how things were, but if we don’t remember patience and kindness it will count for very littleWith the gradual easing of restrictions, we are all being faced with questions of “how”. How are we going to manage the “new normal”? How are we going to navigate the months ahead? How are we going to feel in all these unfamiliar situations?These are not easy questions to answer. We have never experienced anything like the pandemic and we can’t begin to know how we will feel as we re-engage with the world outside our front doors. We have been through so many changes and had so much uncertainty that we can feel a bit disoriented and a bit lost. And we can feel anxious. Continue reading...

Nigel Topping acknowledges world is running out of time as he lobbies businesses and lawmakers in lead-up to Cop26 summitThe UK’s climate champion, Nigel Topping, says he is stubbornly optimistic that the world will converge on an agreement to forge a transition to a net zero future at the UN climate talks later this year.Topping’s role in the run-up to the UN Cop26 climate summit, to be held in Glasgow in November, is to drive and encourage action from businesses, civil society, and local and regional government on climate change. Continue reading...