by Sarah Marsh, Clea Skopeliti and Rachel Hall (earli on (#5EZ7B)
Health secretary defends proposed 1% pay rise for NHS staff; UK individual who tested positive for Brazil variant found in Croydon. This live blog has now closed – please follow the global Covid live blog for updates
As the UK government plans to extend the use of lie detectors to terrorism and domestic abuse, our science editor puts himself in the hot seat“Did you plant the bomb?” It’s not a question I’ve been asked before but I’m comfortable enough denying it. Truth is – I didn’t plant a bomb. I planted a pretend bomb – a shoebox filled with webcams and wires – and I’m relying on my physiology to share the pedantic, but surely relevant, distinction. “No,” I answer. There is no bomb.I’ve been told to look straight ahead at the wall so have no idea what Amanda – not her real name – makes of my response. A trainee polygraph examiner, she is hunched over a laptop monitoring my reaction to her questions via sensors on my hand, arm and around my chest. She tells me to sit still. The seat pad has detected a shuffle – a warning I may be deploying “countermeasures”. One such trick, I learn too late, is to firmly clench the buttocks. Continue reading...
Image unexpectedly shows light and dark features, including Aphrodite Terra, a highland area near planet’s equatorA newly released image from Nasa’s Parker Solar Probe unexpectedly shows surface features on Venus. It is a surprising result because Venus is permanently covered in clouds that should block out any view of the surface at optical wavelengths.Previous spacecraft have resorted to radar or infrared cameras to map out the terrain. The image was taken in July 2020 when the spacecraft flew by Venus en route to the sun. During the encounter, the spacecraft’s Wide-field Imager for Parker Solar Probe (WISPR) targeted the planet’s night-time hemisphere, while 12,380km (7,693 miles) away. Instead of clouds, it showed light and dark surface features. The largest of these areas has been identified as Aphrodite Terra, a highland region near Venus’s equator. Continue reading...
by Elle Hunt in Wellington and agencies on (#5EZ0H)
Prime minister thanks New Zealand for complying with seven-day restrictions on fifth day of no new community casesAuckland’s seven-day lockdown is due to lift on Sunday morning after no new cases of coronavirus were recorded in the community on Friday.The prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, said Auckland would go from alert level three to level two at 6am on Sunday, while the rest of the country would move down to level one. Continue reading...
The space debris was spotted falling to Earth near Bordeaux but astronomer admits to ‘needle in a haystack’ searchFrance’s ranks of amateur astronomers have been urged to help find an apricot-size meteorite that fell to Earth last weekend in the south-west of the country.The rock, estimated to weigh 150 grams (just over five ounces), was captured plunging through the atmosphere by cameras at an astronomy education facility in Mauraux, and landed at exactly 10.43pm on Saturday near Aiguillon, about 100km (62 miles) from Bordeaux. Continue reading...
Academics write to Robert Jenrick predicting dire consequences for climate crisis if plans go aheadLeading international climate scientists are among more than 200 academics who have written to the government calling on it to halt what they say would be an ecologically destructive expansion of Leeds Bradford airport.Almost 250 professors, academics and researchers from Leeds University, including two of the lead authors of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, have written to Robert Jenrick, the minister for housing, communities and local government, predicting dire consequences for the climate crisis if the plans go ahead. Continue reading...
by Presented by Natalie Grover and produced by Madele on (#5EXN7)
What we believe is influenced by an array of factors, from our past experience to who our friends are. But a recent paper has now looked at what role how we think plays in sculpting our world-views. Natalie Grover speaks to lead author Dr Leor Zmigrod about the research evaluating the link between cognitive disposition – differences in how information is perceived and processed – and ideologies Continue reading...
Embracing difference is vital for our success as a species, but it places extra demands on the brain. Here’s how to get better at itMost people enjoy variety. We like to eat different foods from meal to meal. We wear different clothes. We like to try new activities and visit new places, which may be hard to remember right now in our tiny, socially isolated rooms, but it’s true. Likewise, with too little variety we become bored. Your favourite food might be duck à l’orange, but you wouldn’t want to eat it for three meals a day, every day.Nevertheless, there’s one place we tend to dislike variety, and that’s in each other. We often have a hard time with people who look different from us, practise different rituals, wear unfamiliar clothes, or hold beliefs or values that we do not share. Continue reading...
Elon Musk’s last two prototypes reached similarly high altitude, but crash-landed in fireballsSpaceX’s futuristic Starship looked like it aced a touchdown Wednesday, but then exploded on the landing pad with so much force that it was hurled into the air.The failure occurred just minutes after SpaceX declared success. Two previous test flights crash-landed in fireballs. Continue reading...
Elon Musks's Starship rocket has made its first test launch, flight and intact landing – before suddenly exploding minutes later. After a delay to the initial flight, SN10 lifted off from Boca Chica, Texas, reaching an altitude of 10 kilometres, before descending and landing upright, albeit apparently on fire at its base. Three minutes after touchdown and soon after the SpaceX live stream was turned off, the rocket exploded. The landing was at least better than the last two times, where the prototypes crashed down and exploded Continue reading...
Australian DJ and neuroscientist Rebecca Poulsen – AKA BeXta – is studying what happens to a zebrafish larvae brains when they hear certain sounds. Then she played one MC Hammer's 1990 hit … 'You can see when the vocal goes ‘ohhh-oh’, specific neurons light up and you can see it pulses to the beat,' she says. 'To me it looks like neurons responding to different parts of the music' Continue reading...
The chancellor would like Britain’s relief response to be seen like Joe Biden’s in the US. But President Biden believes in the power of government, Mr Sunak does notRishi Sunak, the chancellor, has emerged in recent months with the plausible aura of a future Tory leader. This budget was a crucial one for two reasons. First, it was the biggest fiscal event since the UK left the orbit of the European Union. Second, it is dawning on Britons that they can see beyond the shadow of coronavirus. Both beg the question: what sort of country could we expect to live in post-pandemic? Mr Sunak did not have an answer, which exposes him as a man of style, not substance.In doing less than he had promised, the chancellor revealed more about the government than he perhaps wanted. Brexit’s dividend is barely visible in an age of coronavirus. The climate emergency was noticeable by its absence. It is good news that part of the Treasury and a national infrastructure bank will be in the north. Britain is far too centralised a state. But there was a wider, troubling pattern of pork-barrel spending that saw Mr Sunak shower “red wall” seats that voted Tory with free ports and town deals, as well as thinly disguised bids to buy off independence demands in Scotland. The most tangible result of Brexit seems to be an elevated trade deficit. Continue reading...
by Josh Toussaint-Strauss Joseph Pierce Ryan Baxter P on (#5EW49)
There are all sorts of different vaccines but many of them share specific types of ingredients. Josh Toussaint-Strauss talks to Prof Adam Finn to find out what is in most conventional vaccines, as well as what's going on in our bodies when we take them – and why the Covid jabs work differently Continue reading...
Confining rivers creates valuable agricultural land but can lead to greater flood risk downstreamFor many of us across the UK it has felt like another wet winter; yet again homes have flooded and politicians are under pressure to improve flood protection. Engineering our rivers and building defences might bring reassurance, but recent research shows that doing nothing is often more effective at reducing flooding.George Heritage and Neil Entwistle from the University of Salford studied the River Caldew in Cumbria; responsible for three major floods in Carlisle since 2010. Their results, published in the journal Water, show that the straightening, deepening and widening of the river has increased the rate at which sediment whooshes downstream, dumping its load in Carlisle and increasing the chances of overflow there. But where this upstream river maintenance has been relaxed they found the river has reverted to wandering, depositing more sediment upstream and reducing the clogging up in Carlisle. Continue reading...
Christmas Island forest skink and 12 mammals on list, which also includes the desert bettong, broad-cheeked hopping mouse and Nullarbor barred bandicootThe Australian government has officially acknowledged the extinction of 13 endemic species, including 12 mammals and the first reptile known to have been lost since European colonisation.The addition of the dozen mammal species confirms Australia’s unenviable position as the world’s capital for mammal extinction, lifting the total number of mammals known to have died out to 34. Continue reading...
Yusaku Maezawa, an online fashion tycoon, needs to fill eight spare seats on the lunar spaceship being developed by SpaceXIt’s the sort of chance that comes along just once in a blue moon: a Japanese billionaire is throwing open a private lunar expedition to eight people from around the world.Yusaku Maezawa, an online fashion tycoon, was announced in 2018 as the first man to book a spot aboard the lunar spaceship being developed by SpaceX. Continue reading...
Delaying gratification may have evolved in the squid-like creature to maximise efficiencyHumans, chimps, parrots and crows have evolved to exert self-control, a trait linked to higher intelligence. Now, researchers say cuttlefish – chunky squid-like creatures with eight arms – also have the ability to delay gratification for a better reward.Researchers used an adapted version of the Stanford marshmallow test, in which children were given the choice of scoffing an immediate reward (one marshmallow) or waiting to earn a delayed, but better, reward (two marshmallows), on six cuttlefish in an aquarium environment. Continue reading...
Advanced Research & Innovation Agency will be exempt from existing procurement rules for ‘maximum flexibility’, says governmentA new £800m government science and defence research agency will be exempt from existing procurement rules, prompting warnings from Labour that it could be used as “cover for cronyism”.Originally the brainchild of Dominic Cummings, the Advanced Research & Innovation Agency (Aria) will be more lightly regulated than a normal government body. Continue reading...
Not one Covid jab had been administered in 130 of the world’s poorer countries by mid-FebruaryAfter the news in November of the successful trials of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine, a curious photo spread online. It showed a Turkish immigrant family of six in Germany in the 1970s. The father stood in the middle, arms stretched around his head-scarfed wife and children. A shoeless boy hung off to the side, his yellow T-shirt tucked into impossibly high and baggy black trousers. Users of every conceivable social media platform shared this image with an addendum: that scrawny, barefoot boy would one day grow up to be Uğur Şahin, a co-founder of the German pharmaceutical firm, BioNTech, that pioneered the vaccine. This humble, hopeful family would help save the world.The photograph proved to be of another family altogether (it depicted neither Şahin nor his relatives), but it remained happily viral, buoyed up by the feelgood story of the vaccine’s development. The husband-and-wife founders of BioNTech – Şahin and Özlem Türeci – came from Turkish families that moved to Germany. Media outlets championed the couple’s background as if their achievement was not just scientific but also moral, a vindication of the immigrant experience. An article in the Guardian insisted that “BioNTech’s Covid vaccine is a triumph of innovation and immigration”. “Here’s to the immigrant heroes behind the BioNTech vaccine,” cheered Bloomberg. “Like Covid-19 vaccines?” asked the libertarian Reason magazine. “Thank globalisation!” Continue reading...
‘Virtual unfolding’ is hailed a breakthrough in the study of historic documents as unopened letter from 1697 is read for the first time using X-ray technologyIn a world first for the study of historic documents, an unopened letter written in 1697 has been read by researchers without breaking the seal.The letter, dated 31 July 1697 and sent from French merchant Jacques Sennacques in Lille to his cousin Pierre Le Pers in The Hague, had been closed using “letterlocking”, a process in which the letter is folded to become its own envelope, in effect locking it to keep it private. It is part of a collection of some 2,600 undelivered letters sent from all over Europe to The Hague between 1689 and 1706, 600 of which have never been opened. Continue reading...
I can’t rely on the grey sponge in my head any more. But my digital footprint shows how I have been idling away my timeOur memories are shot: I know this, having read, and instantly forgotten, the science. It is the combination of isolation, anxiety and nothing happening, I think, undermining our episodic memory. Repeating myself, forgetting shopping and rereading a simple recipe 10 times, I fear my brain has been smoothed to idiocy by days that pass without contours or relief.What do I remember from last year? A final trip to disaster-movie-eerie London, during which I was so freaked out that I left my handbag (remember those?) on a bench. A Mother’s Day painting that made me cry. The unlikely delight of playing the piano with my son, but we have forgotten the easy piece we fumbled through in April. Continue reading...
by Presented by Ian Sample and produced by Madeleine on (#5ETEQ)
It’s getting towards a year since the UK first went into lockdown. That’s almost 12 months of home-schooling, staying in at the weekends, and not being able to see groups of friends and family in person. For many, the pandemic has also brought grief, loss of financial stability and isolation. So it should come as no surprise that lots of us are feeling emotionally exhausted, stressed and generally worn down. But why are we hitting the wall now? And what can we do about it? Ian Sample is joined again by Prof Carmine Pariante to discuss pandemic burnout and how to look after our mental health over the coming months Continue reading...
by Natalie Grover Science correspondent on (#5ET6C)
Computer modelling suggests fragments of space debris may have landed outside Gloucestershire townThe yellow-green fireball that pierced Earth’s atmosphere on Sunday night, delighting observers from the UK to the Netherlands, is thought to have partially survived the journey in the form of meteorites, most likely landing just north of Cheltenham.Fireballs are particularly bright meteors – space matter that burns up as it enters Earth’s atmosphere. Whatever is left of it when it reaches the surface of the Earth is known as a meteorite. They are of particular interest to scientists as they can offer crucial clues about the history of the solar system. Continue reading...
by Natalie Grover Science correspondent on (#5ET39)
Whether talking to family, friends or strangers, calls hardly ever end when both parties are readySo you just called to say “I love you” – but how long should you stay on the phone?New research suggests no matter who we’re talking to, or what we’re talking about, conversations rarely conclude when the two individuals want them to end. Continue reading...
Health secretary says data shows that, for over-80s, a single vaccine shot leads to a more than 80% reduction in hospitalisation. This live blog is now closed - for updates, please follow the global coronavirus live blog
A large meteor was visible over parts of the UK on Sunday night, delighting those lucky enough to see it.The meteor was spotted shortly before 10pm and was visible for about seven seconds. It was captured on doorbell and security cameras in Manchester, Cardiff, Honiton, Bath, Midsomer Norton and Milton Keynes
Sky-watchers will be rewarded with contrasting celestial colours as red planet approaches blue-white starsMars, the new home of Nasa’s Perseverance rover, closes in on the Pleiades star cluster this week to give sky-watchers a beautiful view of contrasting celestial colours. Continue reading...
by Trevor James, Jim Grozier and Gerard Gilligan on (#5ERM8)
Sir Arnold Wolfendale wrote an article on John Harrison and the invention of his maritime clock (2008) for The Historian, the members’ journal of the Historical Association. On making his acquaintance, I discovered that, along with being a physics professor and astronomer royal, he attended the lectures and other activities of the Historical Association branch in Durham.
At first I felt relieved that my symptoms aren’t too grim. Then I felt bad about my relief, as if I’d failed a basic solidarity dutyIt started with a text that was doing the rounds from Lambeth council’s director of public health: the South African variant of Covid had been discovered in a tiny box of postcodes that included our house, and we were all encouraged to get tested. I forwarded it to a neighbour, who said: “This cuts off just before our houses. This is basically: ‘Don’t go to the supermarket down the road.’” Is it a sign of cognitive impairment that I can’t find my own house on a map? Not really: I can never do that.Still, we had ordered tests by then. I was reasonably sure we were an early-adopter household in the matter of the pandemic. Mr Z had a meeting a year ago with someone else who had just had a meeting with Nadine Dorries, and he felt mortally unwell after that when the news broke that she had Covid. She’s been our go-to yardstick of wellbeing ever since. How do you feel? Well, a bit rough, but not like I’ve had any proxy face-to-face contact with a junior Conservative health minister. Continue reading...
When the pandemic hit, the song of birds offered joy and hope. The author of a new book recalls that glittering spring and explains the science behind bird calls and how to identify themIt’s six in the morning and still dark, 24 March 2020. I wake early and, knowing the children will soon be up, decide to steal half an hour’s solitude in the park. From the dense latticework of trees and shrubs that clothe the wooded slope comes a constant scuttling through dead leaves. The darkness is awake and vigilant; there’s the warning tik-tik of an invisible robin from the bushes, and then the next second it appears on the path. Each individual movement of the bird, each wing-flick and pivot, is brisk and definite yet the overall impression is one of nervousness and indecision. It leaps round once more on the spot, then flits back into the darkness.From close by comes a blast of song from a wren. Its harsh trill is like coarse twine zipping over a flywheel. The air is cool, not cold, and smells deliciously of earth and moss. There’s a sudden disturbance from the deeper shade, and a blackbird comes careering out with a mad clatter and pauses, alert, on the great arm of a beech tree. It’s evidently agitated. It flicks about the bough, dipping then raising its wings, and tilting its head all the while in response to something I can’t sense. After a few seconds of this twitching the bird seems to experience some sort of inner resolution, and, as the first beam of grey light wakes the colours of the tree, it raises its head and lets out a quiet phrase of song. Spring has arrived. Continue reading...
Groups including the Geological and Linnean societies say government’s 3,000% rent rise could force them to quit their Burlington House premises after 167 yearsSome of Britain’s most distinguished learned societies say they may be forced to leave their central London premises because the government has imposed rent rises of more than 3,000% over the past few years.Last week the Geological Society and the Linnean Society announced that they had united with the Society of Antiquaries in a campaign to try to stop the government pricing them out of their premises at Burlington House, on Piccadilly, where they have been since 1854. Continue reading...
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