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My friend James Morrow, who has died aged 74 from lung cancer, was an assistant editor at the Guardian in the 1980s, a psychotherapist and a motorcycle adventurer.Born in Oxford, James was the son of Ian Morrow, a management consultant knighted for his work with Rolls-Royce, and his wife, Elizabeth (nee Thackray). He attended Rugby school in Warwickshire and, after studies at a technical college in Cambridge, dabbled in accountancy and advertising before landing a position with the Kilburn Times. Continue reading...

Before Downing Street urged ‘extreme caution’ around the lifting of restrictions on so-called ‘freedom day’, Shivani Dave spoke to Prof Stephen Reicher about how mixed messages surrounding restrictions can affect our behaviour

Parents need time and empathy in deciding how to negotiate the ethical issues raised by advances in gene technologyAs a genetic counsellor I try to help people make sense of genetics, inheritance and their family history. One important area is having conversations with parents who have an increased risk of having a child born with an inherited condition or disability.While prenatal genetic testing has been available for many years, until recently this was only possible using invasive procedures, which carried small risk of miscarriage. Now a new technology – non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) – allows parents to have genetic testing with no miscarriage risk by testing fetal DNA that is circulating in the mother’s blood. Continue reading...

Pledge to inoculate entire population by December in doubt as states report shortages of vaccine stocks

Sorrow and disappointment are a big part of pandemic life – and England football fans are now feeling them keenly. But there are ways to deal with these distressing emotionsHow do you cope with crushing disappointment? Is it better or worse if everyone’s feeling it at the same time? Should you allow yourself those flights of fancy – where your mind disappears into a different outcome – even if you have to come crashing back to real life? These questions, by the way, are about the emotion of disappointment, not just about the football. Because, as Arj Thiruchelvam, a coach and lecturer in performance psychology, says, with a clear-eyed sense that few of us are feeling at the moment: “Put it in perspective. Flip the mentality. We’ve got back-to-back semi-final and final appearances in the last three tournaments, 2018, 2019 and last night.” In other words, life, or this green corner of it, at least, has never been more amazing.So maybe this isn’t about football or any other sporting event, or indeed any particular event. Let’s just pretend you woke up feeling disappointed and you don’t even know why. What should you do? Continue reading...

As the pace and ambition of space exploration accelerates, preventing Earth-born organisms from hitching a ride has become more urgent than ever“This, what you’re doing today, never happens,” Nasa’s David Seidel told us. “This is a rare chance,” agreed the director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Michael Watkins, welcoming us into the lab’s spacecraft assembly facility, located in the hills outside Pasadena, California. The exceedingly unusual adventure awaiting us was a trip into the clean room where Perseverance, Nasa’s latest Mars rover, having been assembled under conditions of exacting sterility, sat awaiting shipment to Cape Canaveral.Our visit, in December 2019, had been prefaced by a long email laying out extremely detailed rules: we were instructed not to wear any perfume, cologne, makeup or dangly earrings; flannel, wool or frayed clothing was not allowed; even our fingernails had to be smooth, rather than jagged. After a quick welcome, our phones and notebooks were confiscated, and a hi-tech doormat vacuum-brushed the soles of our shoes. In the gowning room, we were issued with face wipes, a sterile full-body “bunny suit”, plastic overshoes, hood, gloves and face mask, then offered a mirror in which to admire the final look. Finally, we were sent through the air shower – an elevator-sized chamber studded with nozzles that blasted us with pressurised air from all sides, in order to dust off any final stray particles – before stepping out into a white-floored, white-walled room filled with white-suited engineers. Continue reading...

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Fundraising decision comes only a day after Richard Branson took a flight to the edge of spaceShares in Virgin Galactic have fallen back to earth with a bump after an announcement by the spaceflight firm of its plans to sell up to $500m (£360m) of stock – only a day after the company’s founder, Richard Branson, completed a flight to the edge of space.Virgin Galactic’s share price had risen by about 9% in pre-market trading on Monday but changed course and plummeted by as much 14% after the company said it intended to sell off shares to raise funds. Continue reading...

The answers to today’s logical conundrumsEarlier today I set the following three puzzles, which have all been set during Oxford university admissions interviews for joint philosophy courses. In each case, there is an initial question, which almost all candidates answer correctly. The follow-up questions are more challenging.1. Stephanie’s surprise. Continue reading...

Average length of friendship before relationship turns romantic is 22 months, study saysWhen Harry first met Sally, he asserted men and women could not be friends because the “sex part always gets in the way”.But new research suggests roughly two-thirds of couples start out as friends and maintain a platonic relationship for long periods before sparking a romance. Continue reading...

When none of the usual people are around to have a conversation with, ‘private speech’ can be helpful as well as funCamille remembers the first time she noticed talking to herself out loud. “It was almost like, ‘Oh, that’s my voice’, in a way that I wouldn’t have thought of it if I’d been speaking in a meeting. I was usually reporting on what I was doing. I might say, ‘Go on, take an onion; take an onion and chop it up.’ I think it reminded me of certain kinds of play.”For all that the pandemic has taken from us, it may have helped us to become more aware of some aspects of our everyday mental processes, like the fact that many of us talk to ourselves, out loud as well as silently in our heads, for much of the time. Many of us will have spent more time alone in the past 16 months than ever before. In the case of my friend Camille, the awareness sprang from deep isolation: her partner was stuck in a foreign country and she was living alone with little contact apart from Zoom meetings. Continue reading...

Covid-19 is a mainly airborne disease. So does our endless disinfecting and hand sanitising serve any purpose – or could it be worse than useless?Claudia, a 26-year-old beauty worker, dreads it when her clients ask to go to the toilet. “It’s a whole other thing to clean,” she says. “They could have touched anything in there. I have to wipe down the whole thing with antibacterial spray and wipes.”It is her job to maintain stringent cleaning protocols at the London skincare clinic where she works. When clients arrive for their appointments, Claudia checks them in, offers them a drink – the clinic only uses disposable cups or plastic water bottles – and takes them through to the treatment room. Continue reading...

Brainteasers for budding philosophersUPDATE: Solutions can now be read here.Do you have what it takes to study philosophy at Oxford? Today’s three puzzles are ‘epistemic logic puzzles’, that is, puzzles concerned with reasoning about knowledge. But I know you know I know you know that.All three puzzles have been set in recent years during Oxford university admissions interviews for joint philosophy degrees. In each case, there is an initial question. Almost all candidates will answer this correctly, and I hope you will too. I’ve also included a sample of the follow-up questions. Only the best candidates will get everything right. Best of luck! Continue reading...

Derogatory use of the “L-word” has increased during Covid and is said to be further marginalising people with the curable diseaseHealth campaigners are calling for an end to the use of the word leper, saying the language frequently used by politicians and others during the pandemic has made people with leprosy even more marginalised.The metaphor of the socially outcast “leper” has been used often, whether in media reports on stigma against early Covid-19 patients or by politicians in Italy and Brazil complaining about being seen as “leper colonies”. Campaigners now want an end to the use of what they call the “L-word”. Continue reading...

Test could be available from GPs within six months, as scientists warn of ‘a lot of damage to a lot of lives’Scientists have raised hopes of a blood test for long Covid after discovering distinctive patterns of rogue antibodies in patients whose symptoms persisted for months.Researchers at Imperial College London identified so-called “autoantibodies” in long Covid patients that were absent in people who recovered quickly from the virus, or who had not tested positive for the disease. Continue reading...

Analysis of 75,000 coronavirus patients found fewer major health problems among people with flu jab

In the northern hemisphere, summer is the best time to see the centre of the galaxy – the combined light of billions of starsThis week, and indeed throughout the month, grab a clear night to stay up late and trace out the Milky Way. Northern summer is the best time to see the centre of the galaxy. Continue reading...

This blog is now closed. Catch up with all our coverage of the pandemic here.11.53pm BSTThis blog is closing now. We’ll be back in a few hours with more rolling coverage of the pandemic from all around the world.In the meantime you can catch up with all our coverage of the pandemic here.11.25pm BSTHere are the key developments from the last few hours: Continue reading...

The British entrepreneur Richard Branson has successfully flown to the edge of space and back in his Virgin Galactic passenger rocket plane, days ahead of a rival launch by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. 'I was once a child with a dream looking up to the stars,' Branson said. 'Now, I’m an adult in a spaceship.'The rocket plane went into sub-orbital flight on Sunday morning, seventeen years after Branson founded Virgin Galactic to develop commercial spacecraft and cater to future space tourists

My friend Camilla Bosanquet, who has died aged 100, was a Jungian analyst and psychotherapist. Chair of the Society of Analytical Psychology from 1972 to 1975, she played a leading role in the formation of the Guild of Psychotherapists in 1974.Born in Lancing, West Sussex, she was the daughter of Sir Harry Ricardo, an engineer who played a big part in the development of the internal combustion engine, and his wife, Beatrice (nee Hale). Continue reading...

Spaceplane went into sub-orbital flight days ahead of a rival launch by Jeff BezosThe British entrepreneur Richard Branson has successfully flown to the edge of space and back in his Virgin Galactic passenger rocket plane, days ahead of a rival launch by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, as the billionaires compete to kick off a new era of space tourism.Seventeen years after Branson founded Virgin Galactic to develop commercial spacecraft and cater to future space tourists, the spaceplane went into sub-orbital flight on Sunday morning, reaching 55 miles (88km) above the Earth’s surface. The launch was slightly delayed until 10.40ET due to weather conditions at the Virgin Galactic’s operational base at Spaceport America in the New Mexico desert. Continue reading...

The billionaire, along with two pilots and three other passengers, will reach 55 miles above Earth for about an hourThe British entrepreneur Richard Branson is set to fly to the edge of space in his Virgin Galactic passenger rocket plane on Sunday, days ahead of a rival launch by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, as the two billionaires race to kick off an era of space tourism.Branson’s extraterrestrial venture Virgin Galactic will send its space plane into sub-orbital flight on Sunday morning, aimed at reaching 55 miles above Earth at its peak altitude. Continue reading...

The 18-year-old’s withdrawal from Wimbledon has focused attention on the pressure stars faceWhen Emma Raducanu quit Wimbledon after suffering breathing difficulties, she said she felt the experience of competing in the championship’s last-16 had “caught up with her”.Though the details of exactly what forced the 18-year-old to withdraw are unknown, she is not the first star performer in the world of sport or the arts to shock fans by stepping away from the big stage. Continue reading...

Teenage spots can ravage not just skin but mental health, too. Martin Love considers the lasting issues that can still be triggered years laterPimples, spots, plooks, pustules, boils, eruptions, carbuncles, zits… If there are dozens of different words for snow, there must be at least as many in the school bully’s armoury for spots, or to give the condition its mercilessly judgmental medical name, acne vulgaris.I was a gloriously acnified teenager – we aren’t talking about the odd sprinkling of spots here and there, more a deeply crusted carapace. I can still feel the heat rising under my throbbing adolescent skin as I traced the ugly bulge of each new ravagement, moving my fingers from one drying scab to the next like a never-ending game of join-the-dots. At times it felt as if I was wearing some grim Halloween mask, and how I wished I could just take it off and reveal my perfect, wholesome skin beneath. Continue reading...

‘Untenable’ rules will force workers to delete NHS tracing app to avoid being pinged

Herd immunity is this pandemic’s exit route, but passing the moral buck over to citizens is a dangerous strategy

As hard-pressed universities axe abstract study, the codebreaker’s great niece and top mathematicians are fighting backAlmost exactly 80 years ago, British codebreakers made a crucial breakthrough. Using methods developed by the mathematical genius of Alan Turing, they were able to decipher the Enigma code that the Nazis were using on the eastern front in the second world war, gaining another crucial advantage for the allies.Yet even as Turing’s contribution has begun to be accorded its proper importance, there are growing concerns among Britain’s most prominent mathematicians – and Turing’s own family – that a search for the Turings and Newtons of the future is being dented by declining opportunities to study pure mathematics. Continue reading...

The inflammation researcher explains the health benefits and dangers of soaking up the sunProf Prue Hart is head of the inflammation research group at the Telethon Kids Institute in Perth, Australia, which studies the beneficial effects of sunlight exposure on our health and whether these are the result of UV-induced vitamin D or other molecules produced in our skin upon exposure to sunlight.What exactly happens when the sun hits our skin?

Scientists are only just discovering the enormous impact of our gut health – and how it could hold the key to everything from tackling obesity to overcoming anxiety and boosting immunityIf you want to learn more about what’s going on in your gut, the first step is to turn your poo blue. How long it takes for a muffin dyed with blue food colouring to pass through your system is a measure of your gut health: the median is 28.7 hours; longer transit times suggest your gut isn’t as healthy as it could be. We are only now beginning to understand the importance of the gut microbiome: could this be the start of a golden age for gut-health science?“The gut microbiome is the most important scientific discovery for human healthcare in recent decades,” says James Kinross, a microbiome scientist and surgeon at Imperial College London. “We discovered it – or rediscovered it – in the age of genetic sequencing less than 15 years ago. The only organ which is bigger is the liver.” And, for all that the internet may be full of probiotic or wellness companies making big health claims about gut health, “We don’t really know how it works,” he says. At the risk of sounding like the late Donald Rumsfeld, there’s what we know, what we think we know, and an awful lot that we don’t yet have a clue about. Continue reading...

The story of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine is part manifesto for good science communications, part biomedical thriller, while a smart history of quarantines makes their utility resoundingly clearOn the first day of Wimbledon, Dame Sarah Gilbert, professor of vaccinology at Oxford’s Jenner Institute, was treated to a standing ovation from grateful spectators on a packed Centre Court. Together with her Oxford colleague Catherine Green, Gilbert had delivered the AstraZeneca vaccine against Covid-19 in record time, and tennis fans, enjoying a rare maskless day out in SW19, were keen to show their appreciation. But as Gilbert and Green point out in their new book, Vaxxers, not everyone shares the Centre Court crowd’s enthusiasm for vaccines, and as long as the coronavirus continues to mutate and conspiracy theories propagate on social media, their job is not over.It is remarkable that Gilbert, a 59-year-old mother of triplets, and Green, a specialist in vaccine manufacture, found time to write this book, given the considerable technical and logistical hurdles involved in developing a new vaccine from scratch in little under a year. The previous “lab-to-jab” record holder was the mumps vaccine, developed in four years in the 1960s. But because of the difficulty of raising funds for vaccine research and the various regulatory hurdles, it takes 10 years for most new vaccines to be licensed, and even then, a hurried press release or an errant remark by a politician can quickly undo your hard work. Continue reading...

NHS approved to use gene therapy to treat baby born with spinal muscular atrophyThe parents of a baby with a fatal condition have succeeded in their campaign for their son to be treated with the world’s most expensive drug.A new gene therapy, Zolgensma, will be used to treat 10-month-old Edward, from Colchester, who has severe spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), after his parents were given the green light earlier this week. The genetic condition, which is caused by a missing protein, weakens the muscles and affects movement and breathing. Continue reading...

Researchers warn ‘phenomenon is probably underestimated’ after the death of woman in BelgiumA 90-year-old Belgian woman who died after falling ill with Covid-19 was infected with both the Alpha and Beta variants of the coronavirus at the same time, researchers have said.The unvaccinated woman was admitted to the OLV hospital in the city of Aalst after a spate of falls in March and tested positive for Covid-19 the same day. Continue reading...

Met urges England fans not to gather in large numbers in capital for the Euro 2020 final on Sunday due to ‘ongoing public health crisis’

Blood Cancer UK calls on chief medical officer to correct statement that double vaccination is ‘highly effective in clinical risk groups’

The BGI group has used data from its popular prenatal test to help the People’s Liberation Army improve ‘population quality’ but they are far from the only ones normalizing eugenicsCould data harvested from millions of pregnant women pave the way for genetically enhanced super-soldiers? According to a recent Reuters investigation, BGI Group, the manufacturers of a popular prenatal test, is working with the Chinese military towards that very goal. Continue reading...

Europe and the US have won the scramble for vaccines – now they must help African nations produce their ownMore than 3bn doses of the Covid-19 vaccine have now been administered worldwide. But as the campaign forges ahead, one continent lags far behind the rest. Africa, home to 17% of the global population, accounts for less than 2% of the shots given to date.In the scramble for vaccines, wealthy countries have come out on top, shoving Covax – the global procurement mechanism on which most of Africa relies – to the end of the queue. The continent’s drive was dealt another blow when India, overwhelmed by a wave of infections, suspended the export of Oxford/AstraZeneca doses manufactured by Covax’s largest supplier, the Serum Institute of India. With shipments unlikely to resume until the end of 2021, only seven out of 54 African nations are on track to immunise even 10% of their populations by September. Continue reading...

NSW reports 47 people in hospital, with 16 in intensive care including a teenager. This blog is now closed

NSW police fine 67 people in south-west Sydney and expand Covid operation to Sutherland, Hurstville and Miranda

Increase in cases of bronchitis and common colds attributed to people mixing after easing of lockdown

If the idea of small talk at a crowded happy hour sounds terrifying to you, you’re not alone. Nearly half of Americans reported feeling uneasy about returning to in-person interaction regardless of vaccination statusWith Covid vaccines working and restrictions lifting across the country, it’s finally time for those now vaccinated who have been hunkered down at home to ditch the sweatpants and re-emerge from their Netflix caves. But your brain may not be so eager to dive back into your former social life.Social distancing measures proved essential for slowing viral spread worldwide – preventing upward of an estimated 500m cases. But, while necessary, 15 months away from each other has taken a toll on people’s mental health. Continue reading...

Team continues to investigate after computer responsible for science instruments malfunctionedNasa continues its efforts to diagnose the problems on the Hubble space telescope and return the veteran space mission to full operation. Science operations were suspended on 13 June when the computer responsible for the specific instruments began to malfunction.The science instruments themselves were automatically placed into safe mode, and the rest of the telescope continued to function normally. Tests of the payload computer indicated the problem was not in the computer’s memory as originally thought, but somewhere else in the science instrument command and data handling unit (SI C&DH). The team is investigating a unit that formats commands and data within the telescope, and a power regulator designed to ensure a steady voltage to the payload computer’s hardware. Continue reading...

Analysis, showing 4% of 5,830 children hospitalised in 12 months to February entered ICU wards, could inform vaccine policyDuring the first year of the pandemic 25 children and teenagers died as a direct result of Covid-19 in England and about 6,000 were admitted to hospital, according to the most complete analysis of national data on the age group to date.Children seen to be at greatest risk of severe illness and death from coronavirus were in ethnic minority groups, and those with pre-existing medical conditions or severe disabilities. Continue reading...

For too many, Johnson’s ‘freedom day’ will bring fear rather than release“The purpose of the state is freedom,” the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza wrote. Its aim is to liberate everyone from fear, he argued, “so that they may live in security so far as is possible, that is, so that they may retain, to the highest possible degree, their right to live and to act without harm to themselves and others”.Boris Johnson might nod in approval at the first part of the statement. But the plans for axing Covid restrictions in England, which the prime minister set out this week, fall far short of Spinoza’s fuller formulation. A more cautious relaxation would have been widely welcomed. Charging ahead in this gung-ho manner, scrapping almost all legal restrictions and failing to introduce mitigation measures (such as air purifiers in schools), or even uphold existing ones (such as compulsory masking), maximises the risk. The government is freeing some to return to aspects of life that they have sorely missed. But in doing so, those people risk serious harm to themselves and others. Continue reading...

Animal Resource Centre decision catches many researchers off guard as others urge Australia to phase out animal research

• Tokyo’s fourth state of emergency will begin on Monday• Kath Grainger: ‘Sense of loss for athletes at empty stadiums’For 125 years they have been an integral part of the world’s largest sports event, inspiring athletes to be faster, higher, stronger. But, for the first time in history, spectators have been barred from most Olympic events after a fourth state of emergency was declared in Tokyo.Organisers had been planning to allow up to 10,000 spectators at venues, despite fears it could lead to the Olympics becoming a super-spreader event. However on Thursday they were forced to perform a U-turn after a spike in cases of the Delta variant. Continue reading...

Research combines data from fossils with climate models, revealing the effect of climate on body and brain sizeA well-known pattern in human evolution is an increase in body and brain size. Our species, Homo sapiens, is part of the Homo genus and emerged about 300,000 years ago. We are much bigger than earlier Homo species and have brains three times larger than humans who lived a million years ago.There has been debate over the factors causing humans to evolve in this way, prompting a research team led by Cambridge University and Tübingen University in Germany to combine data on more than 300 human fossils from the Homo genus with climate models to establish the role the climate played in driving evolution. Continue reading...

Fibromyalgia sufferer Vicky Naylor was successfully managing her condition – until she developed Covid-19. In the second part of our exploration of chronic pain, the Guardian science correspondent Linda Geddes tells Anand Jagatia what we know about the connection between chronic pain, Covid and mental health, and why it affects women more than men Continue reading...

The fossil-fuel multinationals fund ‘thinktanks’ and ‘research institutes’. But it’s gullible public service broadcasters that give them credibilityYes, we should rake over the coals. And the oil, and the gas. Democratic accountability means remembering who helped to stoke the climate crisis. We should hold the fossil fuel companies to account.In 1979, an internal study by Exxon concluded that burning carbon fuels “will cause dramatic environmental effects before the year 2050”. In 1982, as the Guardian’s Climate Crimes series recalls, an Exxon memo concluded that the science of climate change was “unanimous”. Then it poured millions of dollars into lobby groups casting doubt on it. Continue reading...

Too often the prevailing attitude seems to be: ‘They’re knackered and lonely – what do you expect?’When I was a kid, I couldn’t understand why old people weren’t in a constant state of panic. I would look at my grandad, sitting there quietly reading the Birmingham Evening Mail, and wonder how he could stay so calm. How come he wasn’t as horrified as I was at the prospect of him dying before too long? If I was him, I thought, I would be running around the garden screaming in despair and terror. I just didn’t get it, and to some extent I still don’t, which is a considerable worry since I’m a good deal closer to old age than childhood myself.Sorry to sound so miserable. Do read on; there are some positive thoughts further down. Continue reading...