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Dominic Cummings repeatedly used this dubious term – but it obscures the real reasons why bad decisions were made

Russia and possibly China have developed technology capable of injuring brain and a US company made a prototype in 2004Portable microwave weapons capable of causing the mysterious spate of “Havana Syndrome” brain injuries in US diplomats and spies have been developed by several countries in recent years, according to leading American experts in the field.A US company also made the prototype of such a weapon for the marine corps in 2004. The weapon, codenamed Medusa, was intended to be small enough to fit in a car, and cause a “temporarily incapacitating effect” but “with a low probability of fatality or permanent injury”. Continue reading...

Rates of mucormycosis were high even before the pandemic, and now the country is running out of antifungal drugsCovid-19 has killed millions around the world, but for some who are lucky enough to survive the infection, the nightmare is not over: adding insult to injury are deadly fungal infections that follow in the wake of the virus. Making matters worse, inequities that long predated the pandemic have left some countries without the capacity to combat these serious infections.

More than 6,000 buildings in Maceió condemned and research suggests more subsidence to comeIt was early 2018 when residents of the Brazilian city of Maceió first spotted cracks appearing in buildings and roads. Heavy rainfall in mid February, followed by a small earthquake at the beginning of March, appeared to trigger the fractures. The situation in the neighbourhood of Pinheiro was so serious that 6,356 buildings were placed under demolition orders and 25,000 residents had to be moved out.Recent research published in Scientific Reports shows that events were set in train long before the rain arrived. Using satellite measurements to assess land movement between 2004 and 2020, Mahdi Motagh and colleagues at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam discovered that the surface subsidence began in 2004 and was sinking by up to 27cm a year by 2017. Continue reading...

News raises optimism in No 10 for unlocking despite warnings from scientists over third wave

Man, 41, in Jiangsu, diagnosed on 28 May but risk of avian virus spread is low, says state health agencyA 41-year-old man in China’s eastern province of Jiangsu has been confirmed as the first human case of infection with the H10N3 strain of bird flu, although health officials in China said the risk of large-scale spread remained low.The man, a resident of the city of Zhenjiang, went to hospital on 28 April after developing a fever and other symptoms, China’s national health commission said. Continue reading...

Britain records no new deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid-19 test for first time since July 2020

Students who attended events during freshers’ week and over Halloween were source of biggest infection cluster

A new study reveals that humans could potentially live to 150 – and dogs can also look forward to much greater longevityName: 150 years old.Age: 150 years old. Continue reading...

Amid claims PM wanted to be infected with Covid on TV, volunteers tell of taking part in a human challenge trial

Updated figures give country a per capita death toll of 500 per 100,000 people – double that of Brazil

Hundreds of flights have been cancelled, and authorities ordered residents of some streets in the Liwan neighbourhood of Guangzhou city to isolateChinese authorities in Guangdong province have cancelled flights and locked down communities in response to what is believed to be the first community outbreak of the Indian variant in China.Guangdong province had been reporting daily single figures of local cases, including asymptomatic cases, for more than a week, until the case load suddenly jumped to 23 on Monday, including three asymptomatic cases, and 11 on Tuesday. Most of Guandong’s cases are in the city of Guangzhou, with some in nearby Foshan, which has a population of 7.2 million. Continue reading...

Moths, bats and owls are just some of the animals you can best observe at night, and they tell us a lot about the health of ecosystems. Age of Extinction reporter Phoebe Weston adventures into a dark wood with Chris Salisbury, author of Wild Nights Out, to see what she can learn by watching and listening to wildlife Continue reading...

The solution to today’s puzzleEarlier today I set you the following puzzle:Baize theorem Continue reading...

In a recent survey, more than a third of people in the UK mislabelled this vital part of female anatomy. So where is it – and what is it for?Name: The clitoris.Age: As old as men and – possibly more importantly – women themselves, would you Adam and Eve it? Older still, for non-creationists. Continue reading...

Amateur archaeologist exploring Dunchraigaig cairn found animal depictions by chanceDelicate prehistoric carvings of adult red deer, thought to be the oldest of their type in the UK, have been found in a tomb in one of Scotland’s most famous neolithic sites.The carvings, which depict two male red deer with full-grown antlers and several thought to be young deer, were discovered by chance in Kilmartin Glen in Argyll, home to one of the UK’s richest accumulations of neolithic and bronze age sites. Continue reading...

For the UK and elsewhere the pandemic’s end is in sight, but less fortunate parts of the world urgently need helpWhen Covid-19 began to spread rapidly in January 2020, governments across the world had limited strategies to deal with it. Without a vaccine or proven treatments for the disease, or even access to mass testing, the only choice political leaders faced was taking the least bad option available.There were four approaches that different governments took during the beginning of the pandemic. China, New Zealand, Vietnam and Thailand chose to eliminate the virus at the cost of stopping international travel. Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea suppressed the virus through rigorous testing, tracing and isolating while avoiding harsh lockdowns. Sweden allowed the virus to spread through the population before realising health systems could not cope with an influx of Covid-19 patients. Meanwhile, European countries including England and France controlled the virus through a cycle of lockdown measures while keeping borders largely open. This resembled a holding pattern for a plane running out of fuel: people grew tired of continual restrictions, the economy suffered and Covid-19 was never fully suppressed. Continue reading...

Scientists say geographical spread ‘entirely predictable’ and window of opportunity has been missed

Date for lifting remaining curbs may be moved amid warnings of third wave driven by India variant

Your turn to break offUPDATE: To read the solution click hereMy cultural highlight of recent weeks has been the brilliant BBC documentary Gods of Snooker, about the time in the 1980s when the sport was a national obsession. Today’s puzzle describes a shot to malfunction the Romford Robot (above left) and put the Whirlwind (above right) in a spin.Baize theorem Continue reading...

Stars in this constellation were mentioned by the ancient Babylonians and later by PtolemyThis week it’s time to track down a large but easily overlooked constellation. Boötes, the herdsman, is an ancient constellation that was catalogued by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy in the second century. References to the stars in this constellation date back even further, however, to the ancient Babylonians, where they represented the god Enil, the patron of farming. Continue reading...

Climate physicist and expert on thunderstorm electrification who was also a published poetHow thunderstorms are generated in clouds is still not fully understood. But John Latham, who has died aged 83, did much to explain the physical processes of cloud electrification, cloud lightning and precipitation – how water falls from clouds in various forms. Later he proposed a way in which clouds could provide a crucial if temporary role in reducing the impact of global warming.The research he began under John (BJ) Mason in 1958 at what is now Imperial College London focused on the role of ice crystals in cloud electrification. His laboratory studies of thunderstorms involved the concept of a temperature difference between graupel – soft hail – and ice crystal surfaces. He and Mason developed the Temperature Gradient Theory and provided numerical predictions of the mechanism. Like all theories of thunderstorm electrification, it proved controversial. Continue reading...

All scientific observations are likely to be superseded by later scientists, writes Ian Flintoff, while Tony Maynard-Smith says that new discoveries do not prove Einstein ‘wrong’A word of caution on the latest observations of the universe and earlier theories such as those of Albert Einstein (Astronomers create largest map of the universe’s dark matter, 27 May). All such observations and conclusions are best qualified by the understanding that even our latest technologies (brilliant as these are), enhancing our five senses plus our intelligence and reasoning (evolved as the best we know on our planet), do not, in all likelihood, amount to a full or final perception of the phenomena in question. Human capacities – sensory and rational – with whatever ingenious technological enhancements, should not be assumed to be even close to the truth of many phenomena. We are not, and will never be, omniscient.The ingenuities and perceptions of time supersede one another, as Einstein superseded Isaac Newton, and no doubt he in turn will be superseded. Meanwhile, new theories might perhaps always best be prefaced with the following warning: with the current state of human understanding, enhanced by human technologies and human reasoning, it looks as if these tentative findings might, for the time being, be discussed further. Perhaps Plato was right: we do not see things as they really are, but merely as we see them.

British aeronautical engineer who played a key role in Nasa and America’s space raceAt 11am on 20 February 1959, the Canadian prime minister John Diefenbaker announced the axing of the revolutionary Avro Arrow aircraft project. The fighter was enormously expensive, but had sustained 25,000 hi-tech Canadian jobs. By 3pm on that day Avro was telling employees (via its PA system) that they were being laid off. Among the thousands to go was John Hodge, a British engineer born in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex.The subsequent career of Hodge, who has died aged 92, embodied the aspiration, triumph, catastrophe – and planning – that made up the saga of space flight during the cold war years, when scientists from across the west were drawn into that vast American enterprise. By 1969, in the wake of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s moon landing, the BBC’s space correspondent Reginald Turnill, citing the “anglonaut” Hodge as an example, was telling Radio 4 listeners that the “astonishing thing about America’s post-Apollo space plans was that they were largely being drawn up by Englishmen”. Continue reading...

‘Very dangerous’ coronavirus variant is ‘more transmissible’ than previously known types

MPs call on Matt Hancock to explain ‘postcode lottery’ despite assertion that clinic network is operational

Their busy buzzing supplies the soundtrack to our summer – and by spotting them I’ve found a fresh sense of inner peaceLockdown started, or reignited, a love of nature in many people. The RSPB reported a 70% increase in visitors to its website during the first lockdown. This came as no surprise to me; stuck at home, without the usual distraction of social engagement, my interest in nature grew. During the winter, I would look up into leafless trees trying to locate a bird whose loud call I could clearly hear. I even bought myself a pair of binoculars so I could acquaint myself with some of the local avian population.But now I have a new hobby. As the warmer weather slowly arrives, I have been lowering my gaze towards the stirring flower beds and roadside verges, as well as rustling in the undergrowth in the hope of spotting my favourite insects. On a sunny day, there’s nothing better than sitting quietly by a patch of swaying flowers or under a blossoming tree to listen for the tell-tale sign of buzzing. This quintessential sound of summer connects me to the seasons and the natural world, even in the inner city, and fills me with joy. It is also a welcome break from staring at a screen all day. I wait peacefully, in anticipation and excitement of seeing different types of bees. Continue reading...

Two months ago, few had been inoculated. Now hundreds of millions have, after health warnings – and gifts

The virus is now in a race with the vaccines and the victor is increasingly uncertainThe UK’s fine performance in sequencing Sars-CoV-2 genomes allows Public Health England to publish detailed analyses on the progress of variants and the latest report represents the changing of the guard. The B.1.1.7 lineage, first identified in Kent, had been dominant in the UK, but the B.1.617.2 lineage, first identified in India, comprised 58% of the most recent sequences, up from 44% the week before. There are strong regional differences, with under 10% of cases in Yorkshire and the Humber being the Indian-identified variant, while in north-west England that share is over 60%.The main concern is about increased risk of transmission and reports also include estimates of what is known as the “secondary attack rate” (SAR), which simply means the proportion of an infected person’s contacts who also get infected. Using NHS test-and-trace data for recent non-travel cases, the estimated SAR for the B.1.1.7 variant was 8.1% (+/- 0.2%), while for the variant identified in India it was substantially higher at 13.5% (+/- 1.0%) – although these are likely to understate the true values due to the limitations of contact tracing. Continue reading...

Mission comes after China was rebuked for uncontrolled crash of rocket that launched the station itselfA Chinese cargo spacecraft carrying equipment and supplies has successfully docked with the core module of the country’s future space station, according to state media.A Long March 7 rocket carrying the Tianzhou-2 cargo craft – loaded with essentials such as food, equipment and fuel – blasted off late on Saturday from the Wenchang launch site on the tropical southern island of Hainan, the Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday. Continue reading...

Harold Pinter theatre, London

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Labour leader slams Tory ‘civil war’ and says prime minister is ‘unfit for office after errors’

The picture is a composite of 370 observations made over the past two decades and depicts billions of stars and black holesNasa has released a stunning new picture of our galaxy’s violent, super-energized “downtown”.Related: Manhattenhenge: miserable Memorial Day weather mars biannual fiery display Continue reading...

As the US and Europe approve plans to immunise teenagers, scientists in Britain advise delayLaunching a programme of Covid-19 immunisations for children should be considered only in special circumstances, leading health experts have warned.They say UK medical authorities, who are currently studying how vaccines for adolescents might be administered, should move with great care over the implementation of such a programme. Continue reading...

Both sides in the ‘natural versus manmade’ debate remain deadlocked as the search for the source of Sars-CoV-2 goes on

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Exclusive: Prof Sir Tim Gowers says ‘things will get bad very quickly’ after June if variant spread underestimated

Business secretary says residents ‘were protected as far as we could’ during early days of pandemic

A navigation error sent Nasa’s Mars helicopter Ingenuity on a wild ride through the Martian atmosphere. The issue is the first major problem since its maiden voyage in April. The technical issue occurred one minute into Ingenuity's sixth test flight after one of the pictures taken by onboard cameras did not register in the navigation system – confusing the helicopter about its location. It was able to land 5 metres from its planned touchdown site

The annual Milky Way photographer of the year competition features the best photos of our galaxy as selected by Capture the Atlas. This year’s images were taken from around the world by 25 photographers of 14 different nationalities. The best time to see and photograph the Milky Way is usually between May and June with maximum hours of visibility on both hemispheres Continue reading...

Trees communicate with each other, store memories and respond to attacks. They have a profoundly positive effect on our emotions … but can we know how they feel about us?Why can’t we communicate with trees the same way we communicate with, say, elephants? Both live in social groups and look after not only their young but also their elders. That famous elephant memory is also found in trees, and both communicate in languages that we didn’t even recognise at first. Trees communicate through their interconnected root systems, and elephants communicate using low-frequency rumbling below the range at which we can hear. We get a feeling of wellbeing when we run our fingers over the rough skin of both creatures, and what we would love above all is to get a reaction from them.Is such communication possible between people and trees? First we have to take a closer look at what we mean by “communicate”. It is not enough that we consciously or subconsciously eavesdrop, so to speak, on the scents trees use to communicate among themselves. We have a physical reaction when we breathe them in, but for communication to happen, the trees also need to react to our signals. Continue reading...

SpaceShipTwo rocket plane soars above Earth on successful test flight to edge of spaceVirgin Galactic has performed its third voyage to the edge of space using the SpaceShipTwo rocket plane. This flight, which took place on 22 May, was the first to take off from the company’s Spaceport America facility in New Mexico.Virgin Galactic’s system comprises two parts: the rocket ship VSS Unity and the carrier aircraft VMS Eve. Together, they travelled to an altitude of about 9.5 miles (50,000ft). Eve then released Unity, which ignited its rocket. During Saturday’s flight Unity achieved a speed of mach 3 that boosted it to an altitude of 55.4 miles. Continue reading...

Problem with camera-based navigation system saw helicopter wobble through the air in biggest tech issue Ingenuity has facedA navigation timing error sent Nasa’s Mars helicopter on a lurching ride, its first major problem since it took to the Martian skies last month.The experimental helicopter, named Ingenuity, managed to land safely after the problem occurred, officials at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said on Thursday. Continue reading...

Medical experts explain how much quarantine breaches, cold weather and pure chance contribute to the spread of coronavirus cases in Melbourne

Archaeologists say White Monument in Tal Banat was tribute to war dead of 3rd millennium BCA burial mound in northern Syria has been identified by researchers as perhaps the world’s oldest known war memorial.The site, known as the White Monument, in the town of Tal Banat had previously been thought to be an ancient mass grave of enemy fighters. However, a report published in the journal Antiquity on Friday suggests it was a memorial for the community’s battle dead from the 3rd millennium BC. Continue reading...

Health secretary dodges question about whether he told No 10 patients would be tested before hospital discharge after Cummings’ allegation. This live blog is now closed – please follow the global live blog for latest updates

International team reveal vast cosmic voids over the Earth’s skies that could challenge EinsteinWe can’t see it, barely understand it, but know that it exists because of the powerful influence it exerts on space.Dark matter makes up about 27% of the universe, and its gravitational force is enough to mesh entire galaxies together in a structure known as the cosmic web. Now, scientists have created the largest ever map of this mysterious substance – and it could imply that there’s something wrong with Einstein’s theory of relativity. Continue reading...

When getting a Covid jab you will be read a list of potential side-effects. You’ll even be given a leaflet to take home with the side-effects on them, and none of those includes changes in menstruation. After anecdotal reports of bleeding, Dr Kate Clancy and Dr Katharine Lee speak to Nicola Davis about why they launched a survey documenting events of this kind Continue reading...