I’ve travelled the world covering everything from HIV to MMR to Ebola… and then Covid came along. These are stories that changed me – and the worldShe was tall, wrapped in a green patterned dress that clung to her legs and ended just above dusty flip-flops. In the bustling, sweltering market, Grace Mathanga looked at me appraisingly, as if to say: “What have we here?” And I knew she was the one.It was the end of 2002. I had flown to Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, with excitement in my heart and fear of failure eating at my gut. I’d been the Guardian’s health correspondent for a couple of years, and had written some big stories: about the Bristol babies inquiry into the deaths of small children during operations carried out by inadequate surgeons; about suicides on antidepressants, and fake cures for cancer. And I had harried the pharmaceutical industry over their prices and compromising payments to doctors. But now I had been dispatched to Africa in pursuit of an idea dreamed up by the then Guardian editor, Alan Rusbridger, a story with the potential to help save thousands of lives – if I could pull it off. Continue reading...

Restrictions on movement in three LGAs, limits on retail and pause on construction announced. This blog is now closed

Chief health officer Brett Sutton says Victoria needs to brace itself for ‘any possibility’

Fears for Fairfield, Liverpool and Canterbury Bankstown residents, while shutdown of construction sector expected to cost $800m to $1bn per week

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Vaccine drive comes amid warnings of a nightmare winter as immunity falls due to Covid restrictionsThe largest flu vaccination programme in UK history is to be rolled out this year, ministers have said, with jabs offered to all school pupils aged under 17.Last year free flu vaccines were expanded to all adults over 50 and children in the first year of secondary school but this year the plans are even bigger, with secondary school pupils up to Year 11 included in the programme. Continue reading...

Delta variant spreading rapidly, with one in 95 people in England testing positive for the virus last week

Scientists cannot shield the prime minister from the fallout of an unethical policy that will see rising deathsThis week Boris Johnson presented the UK with his plan to lift all of England’s Covid restrictions on Monday. He was flanked by Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, and Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser. Both men were there to show that Mr Johnson is following the science. To many experts, it seemed that the scientists were following the prime minister. Many suspect that their presence was political insurance rather than real reassurance.Such doubts are not unreasonable. England will be the first country in the world to end all constraints in the face of exponentially rising Covid-19 cases. Some experts say this is an unethical strategy of “herd immunity by mass infection”. It is hard to disagree. Other nations in the UK face pressure to follow suit. This policy will lead to more Covid cases, more hospitalisations and more deaths. The NHS risks being overwhelmed. Prof Whitty says the move is demanded by the roadmap out of lockdown. This has been defunct since vaccination rates began freefalling. Doubts persist over a shortage of vaccine stocks, which may explain a reluctance to jab the over-12s. The plan presumed no variants of concern, yet by May we had the highly transmissible Delta variant. Its designation ought to have caused more than just a month’s pause for thought. Continue reading...

If civilisation perishes on planet Earth, Musk, Bezos and Branson seem to think humans have a backup elsewhereBranson, Bezos, Musk: why are these billionaires, with all their worldly riches, fixated on space travel? The Tesla founder, Elon Musk, argues that in becoming “multiplanetary”, humans might gain “failsafe” protection from the risks of extinction or planetary collapse, while Amazon’s Jeff Bezos speaks of “saving the Earth”. If civilisation perishes on one planet, these billionaires seem to think we have a backup elsewhere.Bezos, Musk and Richard Branson seem animated by a lofty goal: securing the future of humanity by going into space. Many have dismissed this as billionaire bravado that pays little attention to real, down-to-earth problems such as environmental collapse. Worse, others say it echoes rapacious, historic land grabs. But “going to space” and “saving the human race” are ideas that have long captivated people on Earth. Their shared history shows why we remain captivated by this prospect, regardless of who, right now, are its cheerleaders. Continue reading...

English Institute of Sport to roll out saliva tests tracking hormones that may drive fluctuation in women’s performanceHighs and lows are a feature of any athlete’s career, but for some female contestants, these peaks and troughs in performance may come more regularly – driven by hormonal changes associated with their menstrual cycles.Now, the English Institute of Sport (EIS) is seeking to level the playing field through the rollout of regular saliva testing to track the rise and fall of two key drivers of these monthly changes: oestrogen and progesterone. Continue reading...

International experts say ‘unethical experiment’ could allow vaccine-resistant variants to develop

I was part of the F1 champion’s commission. As a Black female engineer, I’ve seen the lack of minorities in science and technologyI was delighted to receive an email from Lewis Hamilton last year, asking that I join his newly created commission on diversity in British motorsport. I accepted because Hamilton has become a champion for social change through the platform sport gives him.After 10 months of research, including in-depth interviews, surveys and literature reviews, the report was published this week and is a testament to his leadership and persistence, alongside that of the Royal Academy of Engineering, which co-chaired it. Continue reading...

Tests could show the probability of illnesses occurring in five, 10 or 20 years, with huge moral and ethical implicationsWe’re soon going to have to make our own choices about social distancing, wearing masks and travel. When the legal enforcement of rules is lifted, the way in which each of us deals with the risk of Covid-19 will be down to personal judgment. But how well equipped are we to make these decisions?

Pharmaceuticals firm thinks creating cluster of companies at its site could result in up to 5,000 jobsGlaxoSmithKline is seeking to create a £400m campus in Stevenage for new life sciences companies that it believes could result in up to 5,000 jobs over the next decade.The pharmaceuticals company has kicked off a process to find a private sector developer to transform a third of its existing 37-hectare (92 acres) research and development site in Stevenage into one of Europe’s largest clusters for new life sciences businesses. Continue reading...

Britain has broken the promises Boris Johnson made before the G7 – a change of tack is necessary to make Cop26 a successCovid and the climate crisis are the two defining global crises of our time and Britain has a crucial role to play in addressing them both. As the Cop26 host, it will be responsible for overseeing a successful outcome at the UN climate talks in Glasgow in November.Only a few weeks ago, before the prime minister hosted the G7, Boris Johnson promised the group of wealthy nations would vaccinate the world by the end of the year. Continue reading...

‘Vaccines aren’t perfect,’ epidemiologist says, but offer lower risk of hospitalisation and prevention against spread of virus

Calls for national screening programme as symptoms revealed range from brain fog to tinnitus

University of Queensland researchers are investigating if protein in venom of Fraser Island spider can stop cardiac cells dyingA protein in the venom of a deadly Australian funnel-web spider may be able to reduce cardiac damage from heart attacks and extend the life of donor hearts used in transplants, according to new research.Venom from the Fraser Island funnel-web, named for the south-east Queensland island where it is found, contains a protein known as Hi1a. Continue reading...

The preprint endorsing ivermectin as a coronavirus therapy has been widely cited, but independent researchers find glaring discrepancies in the dataThe efficacy of a drug being promoted by rightwing figures worldwide for treating Covid-19 is in serious doubt after a major study suggesting the treatment is effective against the virus was withdrawn due to “ethical concerns”.The preprint study on the efficacy and safety of ivermectin – a drug used against parasites such as worms and headlice – in treating Covid-19, led by Dr Ahmed Elgazzar from Benha University in Egypt, was published on the Research Square website in November. Continue reading...

Study marks important step toward restoring more natural communication for people who can’t talkIn a medical first, researchers harnessed the brainwaves of a paralyzed man unable to speak and turned what he intended to say into sentences on a computer screen.It will take years of additional research but the study, reported Wednesday, marks an important step toward one day restoring more natural communication for people who can’t talk because of injury or illness. Continue reading...

Nearly all coronavirus restrictions in England are set to be lifted from Monday 19 July. But what are the risks of unlocking when we could be in the middle of a third wave of infections? The Guardian’s science editor, Ian Sample, talks to Anand Jagatia about how cases, hospital admissions and deaths are modelled to increase in the coming weeks, as well as the risks from long Covid and new variants Continue reading...

Anchor Church cave is thought to be one of the oldest intact domestic interiors found in the UKA cave house previously thought to be an 18th-century folly has been identified as one of the oldest intact domestic interiors ever found in the UK and was once, archaeologists tantalisingly believe, the home of an exiled Anglo-Saxon king.In the 18th century, Anchor Church cave in south Derbyshire was used by local gentry as a place for parties, and until now it was officially understood that that was as far back as its history went. Continue reading...

Though it is primarily an airborne pathogen, we still need an integrated approach to hygiene, says Sally F BloomfieldWhile Covid-19 is primarily an airborne pathogen (Hygiene theatre: how excessive cleaning gives us a false sense of security, 12 July), transmission via hands in combination with surfaces recently and frequently touched by other people remains a secondary but real danger, as the World Health Organization, the NHS and the Centers for Disease Control acknowledge. The need for an integrated approach (social distancing, ventilation, face coverings, hands and hand-contact surfaces) for controlling Covid-19 was reiterated in a 6 July government review. While “hygiene theatre”, particularly spraying of surfaces in public spaces, is largely irrelevant, bracketing this alongside – and thus dismissing – contact surface hygiene is a serious error.Prof Emanuel Goldman concluded “I believe that fomites that have not been in contact with an infected carrier for many hours do not pose a measurable risk”, but this does not take account of indoor situations, such as hospitality venues, and particularly the domestic environment, where several or many people are in close proximity for significant periods. Data from the Diamond Princess cruise ship outbreak showed that the contributions of airborne and surface transmission to infected cases were 70% and 30% respectively. If correct, this proportion translates into case numbers across communities which are far from trivial. Continue reading...

Outbreak could not have come at a worse time, after military coup caused hospitals to collapse and threw vaccination campaign into chaos

They are flying with money from taxpayers and/or money that should have been paid as tax! Billionaires should not exist

Under or over is clearly utterly unimportant, yet the choice has inspired an extensive Wikipedia entry, viral videos and record-breaking outcriesBehold the very small, very insignificant hill that I am willing to die on: toilet paper should always hang over the top of the roll rather than under it. Whenever I come across a toilet roll that does not conform to this orientation I feel strangely irritated and get an almost overwhelming urge to fix the damn thing.I do not feel like a complete loo-ser admitting to this pet peeve in public because, guess what? There’s a decent chance you have strong feelings about toilet paper too. It’s a surprisingly fraught issue: there’s even a dedicated Wikipedia entry on “toilet paper orientation” that is more than 2,000 words long and contains 66 footnotes. When the writer of the popular “Ann Landers” advice column was asked her opinion on the subject in 1986, she replied “under” – an assertion so controversial that it generated a record-breaking 15,000 letters in response, along with several follow-up columns. “Would you believe I got more letters on the toilet paper issue than on the Persian Gulf war?” Landers (a pen name) complained in a 1992 column. Continue reading...

Chief scientist says organisation is awaiting data on studies combining vaccines but that health agencies can make decision to mix shots

Researchers behind estimate say more needs to be done to raise public awareness of linkAlcohol is estimated to have caused more than 740,000 cancer cases around the world last year, and experts say more needs to be done to highlight the link.There is strong evidence that alcohol consumption can cause various cancers including those of the breast, liver, colon, rectum, oropharynx, larynx and oesophagus. Research suggests that even low levels of drinking can increase the risk. Continue reading...

Blanket reporting in News Corp papers has been denigrated for relying on dubious sources – yet the theory itself has taken on new life“BAT MAN” screeched the headline in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph on 28 April 2020. “Chinese scientists linked to virus probe worked in Australia.”“An exclusive investigation can reveal the Five Eyes intelligence agencies of Australia, Canada, NZ, UK and US, are understood to be looking closely at the work of a senior scientist at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Peng Zhou, as they examine whether Covid-19 originated from a wet market or whether the naturally-­occurring virus may have been released from the level four laboratory in Wuhan that was studying deadly coronavirus pathogens from bats,” Sharri Markson’s story read. Continue reading...

Socialist specialists | Winifred Nowottny | University lectures | Branson, Bezos and Musk | Middle name confusionZoe Williams’ preference for a socialist dentist (What 22 years of terrible gum disease has taught me about pain, shame and politics, 12 July) reminded me of the time I chose to have my keys cut in a shop in Victoria because a sign in the window read: “Why not have your keys cut by a socialist?” It was only when I collected my keys that I realised the sign said “cut by a specialist”.

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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