Event at Sefton Park attended by 5,000 people with no distancing or masks as part of research programme

Readers reflect on the role of chance, randomness and responsibility in their own livesWhat high-quality letters (29 April) on free will. My A-level psychology students always found this fascinating and usually thought that free will was obvious until they had examined their own lives and realised that “soft determinism”, well-expounded by Robert Dimmick, was the likely answer. However, there is a big role for chance.For example, I probably wouldn’t have been born in 1949 if my father hadn’t dropped a large tin of paint and shattered his foot while painting the cruiser that he was on during the second world war. His ship sailed without him and was sunk by Japanese bombers with massive loss of life. My father didn’t choose to drop the paint pot, but thereafter there were broad deterministic tramlines to his and my life.

Covid crisis spurs growing interest in drugmakers, diagnostics and medical equipment firmsUK drugmakers, diagnostics, medical equipment and other life sciences companies have raised £10.6bn from private funding rounds and stock market flotations in the first three months of the year, more than half of last year’s record total, according to a report.Last year, investment into life sciences companies, including mergers and acquisitions, public listings, venture capital, and private equity, amounted to a nearly £20bn. Continue reading...

It’s taken 17 years, with many setbacks and some deaths, and still Richard Branson’s space mission is yet to launchRichard Branson was running almost 15 years late. But as we rode into the Mojave desert on the morning of 12 December 2018, he was feeling upbeat and untroubled by the past. He wore jeans, a leather jacket and the easy smile of someone used to being behind schedule.Branson hadn’t exactly squandered the past 15 years. He’d become a grandfather, moved to a private island in the Caribbean and expanded Virgin’s business empire into banking, hotels, gyms, wedding dresses and more. But he was staking his legacy on Virgin Galactic, the space tourism company he formed in 2004. The idea was to build a rocketship with seats for eight – two pilots, six passengers – that would be carried aloft by a mothership, released about 45,000ft in the air and then zoom just beyond the lower limit of space, float around for a few minutes, before returning to Earth. He was charging $200,000 a seat. Continue reading...

SpaceX safely returned four astronauts from the International Space Station on Sunday, making the first US crew splashdown in darkness since the Apollo 8 moonshot in 1968. The Dragon capsule parachuted into the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Panama City, Florida, just before 3am, ending the second astronaut flight for Elon Musk’s company

Capsule parachutes into Gulf of Mexico at 3am, the first night-time US crew splashdown since 1968SpaceX safely returned four astronauts from the International Space Station on Sunday, making the first US crew splashdown in darkness since the Apollo 8 moonshot.The Dragon capsule parachuted into the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Panama City, Florida, just before 3am, ending the second astronaut flight for Elon Musk’s company. It was an express trip home, lasting just six and a half hours. Continue reading...

Works inspired by messages from staff, volunteers and jab recipients will go on display at the Francis Crick Institute in London

On the centenary of his death, admirers hope to win recognition for the Bristol photographer’s motion picture camera

Vaccinated people can still get infected, but they are less likely to pass it onThere are two ways that getting vaccinated can slow the spread of the virus. First, it can help prevent you getting infected. Second, even if you are unlucky and catch the virus, it may reduce the risk of passing it on. It is crucial to understand how big these benefits are.Two huge new studies have taken advantage of the successful UK vaccine rollout. An Oxford-ONS analysis of more than 370,000 survey participants found infections were reduced by 65% after a single dose. For protection against the virus, one dose was similar to having had a prior infection. There was no major difference between the two available vaccines. Continue reading...

Officials say cases of South African and Brazilian variants picked up in Tower Hamlets

Care and repair is an invaluable mantra for your wardrobe, your mental health, your wallet and the planetIn today’s society, many of us go through our whole lives without ever working with our hands; we live, we work, we eat, we buy, we repeat. Everything is made and delivered at a blistering rate, from fast food to fast fashion and, although this may keep the economy buoyant, it’s not necessarily good for our mental health, or for our planet.But during the past year of lockdown, we have been forced to stay still. The hamster wheel has stopped, and for some of us – without young children to keep entertained – this has provided a unique moment of quiet contemplation. We have suddenly found ourselves with time to spare; time to tackle those half-finished projects and abandoned hobbies – and an increasing desire to be creative, and make things with our hands. Continue reading...

The Green New Deal, formerly seen as radical, is now in mainstream debate. And renewable energy becomes more efficient every day

Vaccine rollout and reduction in cases means family and friends could be allowed to hug in a fortnight

Those who are vaccinated still need to take precautions. Experts advise on the social etiquette

Rate of coronavirus is decreasing across the UK, according to latest ONS figures. This live blog is now closed – please follow the global coronavirus live blog for updates

Leading UK expert says loss of funding certain to damage attempts to tackle virus and variants

Small number have died after being vaccinated, mostly having caught virus before dose could take effectA small number of people vaccinated against Covid have been admitted to hospital with the disease and died, researchers have found, but most were frail and elderly and caught the virus before the jab could take effect.Scientists say their findings are reassuring. They bear out the conclusions of trials of the vaccines in use in the UK, which showed that the jabs are highly effective but do not protect everyone. Continue reading...

My husband, Nicholas Britton, who has died aged 67 of bone cancer, was a pioneering mathematical biologist whose research covered a huge range of subjects, from how malaria is transmitted to the growth of tree rings, and dialects in bird song.His teaching and work on modelling techniques made an important contribution to inspiring and training the generation of researchers who are currently applying these skills and knowhow to solving the problems of the Covid-19 pandemic. Continue reading...

China has sent into space the core module of its space station at the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in the southern province of Hainan, kicking off a series of key launch missions with one of the goals to create a national space laboratory.

Nasa’s sole choice of Elon Musk’s company for mission has been blamed on budget constraints

When the fearless, open-hearted athlete took her own life in October, the shock was immense. Now her family is determined to find out why

Analysis of bones from sixth to 16th centuries reveals the disease was 10 times more prevalent than expectedIt was a time when battles, plagues and ghastly accidents caused many a misery, but now research suggests the inhabitants of medieval Britain were no strangers to another tribulation: cancer.According to Cancer Research UK about 50% of people in the UK born after 1960 will receive a diagnosis of cancer during their lifetime. However, such diseases were thought to be relatively rare in medieval times. Continue reading...

Oliver Burkeman’s long read pitches philosophical readers against the more scientifically minded onesI read the online version of Oliver Burkeman’s long read that raises the question of whether free will is an illusion, and shortly afterwards read the same article again in print (The clockwork universe, Journal, 27 April). I was surprised when I realised that the brief reference to quantum physics online was missing in the printed version. Was it simply a matter of space, or was it left out because it made the whole argument too complicated? Either way, its omission was unfortunate.Most physicists would not regard the events in our universe as deterministic, or clockwork if you insist; they are in fact considered probabilistic and would leave Laplace’s demon scratching its head when attempting to make any long-term predictions. Quantum theory is fundamental to our understanding of reality, and those “tiny fluctuations” that the article mentions are an essential part of our reality. They allow the stars to shine, for instance. The argument for determinism implies a first mover, the unmoved mover, as Thomas Aquinas put it. Perhaps the quantum universe injects a multiplicity of unmoved movers, all that is needed to disrupt a predictable, in theory at least, deterministic universe and restore the possibility of free will.

Dr Dominic Salisbury says poor-quality evidence lies behind some treatments such as CBTIn reviewing the possible role of psychology in treating long Covid (Long Covid is very far from ‘all in the mind’ – but psychology can still help us treat it, 27 April), Dr Carmine Pariante misrepresents why many ME/chronic fatigue syndrome patients remain sceptical about psychological interventions such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). It is not because we deny the important overlap between mental and physical illness, but rather because these interventions are offered as treatments based on poor-quality evidence of short-term marginal improvements in some patients.No cancer patient is offered psychotherapeutic interventions as treatment; rather, these therapies play a supportive role for patients who require them. In contrast, CBT has been recommended as a first-line treatment for ME/CFS for more than a decade. Indeed, the dominance of the biopsychosocial model of ME/CFS – with its emphasis on the roles of thoughts and behaviour, rather than pathology – is one of the reasons why long Covid patients are now facing such limited options in clinics.

Study of 11,584 staff found hesitancy was higher among BAME workers, as well as younger staff

Archaeologists studying Warsaw’s national collection of mummies expected to uncover a male priestPolish researchers examining an ancient Egyptian mummy that they expected to be a male priest were surprised when X-rays and computer tests revealed instead that it was a mummy of a woman who had been seven months pregnant.The researchers said on Thursday it was the world’s first known case of such a well-preserved ancient mummy of a pregnant woman. Continue reading...

Astronaut and pilot of the command module Columbia during 1969’s Apollo 11 missionOn 20 July 1969, Michael Collins, who has died aged 90, became the most solitary human in the universe – even if he derided that categorisation as “phony philosophy”. He orbited the moon alone, inside Apollo 11’s command module Columbia, and out of touch with ground control for 48 minutes on each orbit. Meanwhile, and more famously, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were becoming the first men to set foot on that rock, some 240,000 miles away from Earth.As the command module pilot, on $17,000 a year, Collins was, he later wrote half-jokingly, “the navigator, the guidance and control expert, the base-camp operator, the owner of the leaky plumbing – all the things I was least interested in doing”. He was also, thought Aldrin, probably Nasa’s best-trained command module pilot. Continue reading...

China has successfullylaunched the first moduleof its new space station, part of an ambitiousplan for Beijing to have a permanenthuman presence in space. The Tianhe, or Heavenly Harmony, unmanned core module, launched fromWenchang in China’s Hainan province, is expectedto become fully operational in 2022, with about 10 more missions requiredto launch and assemble parts

Hormones, steroids and antibiotics intended for use on dogs, horses, pigeons and farm animals intercepted by officialsThe government has been urged to open an investigation into illegal imports of veterinary drugs, after the number seized at the UK border increased dramatically last year.The Veterinary Medicines Directorate, the executive agency that regulates animal drugs, seized more than 40 different illegal medicines in the year to March 2021, compared with just one in 2019, one in 2018 and three in 2017. Continue reading...

Impact is on par with adult punch and larvae can move fast enough to capture prey, researchers observedThere’s a small, iridescent crustacean you might have heard of: its powerful punch can crack holes in aquarium glass and be deployed at the speed of a bullet. These aggressive critters – called mantis shrimp – can also be trigger happy, keen to pummel prey, predators and even their own kind if the need arises.So how old do offspring have to be to unleash blows? Pretty young it turns out. Mantis shrimp larvae can bludgeon their dinner nine to 15 days after hatching, researchers have found. Continue reading...

The space station is expected to become fully operational in 2022 after about 10 missions to bring up more parts and assemble them in orbitChina has launched the first module of its new space station, a milestone in Beijing’s ambitious plan to place a permanent human presence in space.The Tianhe or “Heavenly Harmony” unmanned core module, containing living quarters for three crew, was launched from Wenchang in China’s Hainan province on a Long-March 5B rocket on Thursday. Continue reading...

Over her career, first as a forester and then as a professor of forest ecology, Suzanne Simard has been uncovering the hidden fungal networks that connect trees and allow them to send signals and share resources. Speaking to Suzanne about her new book, Finding the Mother Tree, Linda Geddes discovers how these underground webs allow plants to cooperate and communicate with each other Continue reading...

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Collins, known as the ‘forgotten astronaut’, kept command module flying while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moonAmerican astronaut Michael Collins, who was part of the Apollo 11 original moon landing crew and kept the command module flying while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon, has died at the age of 90, his family said on Wednesday.Collins had cancer. He was sometimes known as the “forgotten astronaut” because he didn’t get to land on the moon, while Armstrong and Aldrin became household names. Continue reading...

Michael Collins, who was part of the Apollo 11 moon landing crew and kept the command module flying while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon, has died at the age of 90, his family said on Wednesday. He was sometimes known as the 'forgotten astronaut' because he did not get to land on the moon, while Armstrong and Aldrin became household names. But his role in the mission in 1969 was just as crucial and his task to keep the module in lunar orbit as his crewmates departed in the Eagle lander and then returned safely was just as crucial, nerve-racking and exciting for the mission as a whole.

Examination of 1,400 living and extinct species finds evolutionary selection may not be reason for larger brains

Latest updates: Matt Hancock says UK has secured 60m doses of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to be used for booster shots later this year. This live blog is now closed – please follow the global live blog for Covid updates

Leaders across continent look to gathering pace of vaccinations as key to easing restrictions

Discovery could accelerate development of easy-to-use treatments for mental health conditionsResearchers have identified a psychedelic that doesn’t trigger hallucinations, a key discovery that could allow scientists to accelerate the development of easy-to-use treatments for mental health and neurological conditions.Researchers are racing to harness the therapeutic potential of psychedelics for poorly treated conditions such as depression and PTSD. While antipsychotics typically work by altering brain chemistry, psychedelics appear to promote neural plasticity, essentially allowing the brain to rewire itself. Continue reading...

Sticky property of bacteria used to create microbe nets that can capture microplastics in water to form a recyclable blobMicrobiologists have devised a sustainable way to remove polluting microplastics from the environment – and they want to use bacteria to do the job.Bacteria naturally tend to group together and stick to surfaces, and this creates an adhesive substance called “biofilm” – we see it every morning when brushing our teeth and getting rid of dental plaque, for example. Researchers at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) want to use this sticky bacteria property and create tape-like microbe nets that can capture microplastics in polluted water to form an easily disposable and recyclable blob. Continue reading...

If those who can afford to share treatments and equipment choose not to, this pandemic will drag on for all of us

Covid-19 outbreak in Pacific nation has forced lockdowns across the country, after the island nation avoided transmission for a yearFijian health officials are bracing for a “tsunami” of Covid-19 cases, after the Indian variant was detected in the Pacific nation this week, with lockdowns announced in an attempt to stem the outbreak.The Pacific country had largely managed to avoid community transmission over the course of the pandemic, before a cluster emerged this month linked to a quarantine facility, and exacerbated after a woman with the virus attended a funeral with 500 people. Continue reading...

Research from Public Health England suggests that protection conferred a fortnight after vaccination

Door-to-door initiative targeting elderly people reluctant to have jab to be rolled out after local success

As a specialist in biological communication between the body and brain, I know it can be hard to draw a line between the twoAs the UK nears what will hopefully be the end of lockdowns and high death tolls, our doctors and nurses are left to deal with a worrying secondary aspect of the pandemic in the shape of long Covid. There are more than 1 million people with long Covid in the UK alone, amounting to a human and medical emergency, with potentially a huge impact on society and the workforce. A clinical picture is emerging, with many patients reporting similar symptoms including shortness of breath, difficulty in concentration, body aches, persistent fatigue and other symptoms. The illness has been recognised in the US, Europe and elsewhere. Moreover, long Covid has parallels with CFS/ME, a debilitating condition that has similar symptoms.Unfortunately, in the face of all this suffering, advances in science and clinical care are being jeopardised by an antiquated and unhelpful debate on whether these symptoms are “in the mind”, as if they were a fantasy or a dream. Of course, long Covid and CFS/ME symptoms are not in the mind. No symptoms are. Unfortunately some people with CFS/ME or, more recently long Covid, have been dismissed by health professionals. Some patients might have felt not taken seriously by their doctor while others might have lost the opportunity to benefit from a broader, psychosocial approach. Continue reading...

Worldwide, we drink around 2bn cups of coffee every day. But as coffee plants come under pressure from the climate crisis, sustaining this habit will be increasingly challenging. Recently, a new study provided a glimmer of hope: a climate-resistant coffee plant just as tasty as arabica. Patrick Greenfield asks Dr Aaron Davis about his work tracking it down, and speaks to Dr Matthew Reynolds about developing climate-resistant crops Continue reading...

Younger people invited to get jab at more than 1,600 sites across country

The pink moon is named not because it takes on a particular colour, but for the colour of a flowering phlox

The pandemic’s death toll is now being felt most gravely in developing nations. This virus is not done yet

A growing chorus of scientists and philosophers argue that free will does not exist. Could they be right?Towards the end of a conversation dwelling on some of the deepest metaphysical puzzles regarding the nature of human existence, the philosopher Galen Strawson paused, then asked me: “Have you spoken to anyone else yet who’s received weird email?” He navigated to a file on his computer and began reading from the alarming messages he and several other scholars had received over the past few years. Some were plaintive, others abusive, but all were fiercely accusatory. “Last year you all played a part in destroying my life,” one person wrote. “I lost everything because of you – my son, my partner, my job, my home, my mental health. All because of you, you told me I had no control, how I was not responsible for anything I do, how my beautiful six-year-old son was not responsible for what he did … Goodbye, and good luck with the rest of your cancerous, evil, pathetic existence.” “Rot in your own shit Galen,” read another note, sent in early 2015. “Your wife, your kids your friends, you have smeared all there [sic] achievements you utter fucking prick,” wrote the same person, who subsequently warned: “I’m going to fuck you up.” And then, days later, under the subject line “Hello”: “I’m coming for you.” “This was one where we had to involve the police,” Strawson said. Thereafter, the violent threats ceased.It isn’t unheard of for philosophers to receive death threats. The Australian ethicist Peter Singer, for example, has received many, in response to his argument that, in highly exceptional circumstances, it might be morally justifiable to kill newborn babies with severe disabilities. But Strawson, like others on the receiving end of this particular wave of abuse, had merely expressed a longstanding position in an ancient debate that strikes many as the ultimate in “armchair philosophy”, wholly detached from the emotive entanglements of real life. They all deny that human beings possess free will. They argue that our choices are determined by forces beyond our ultimate control – perhaps even predetermined all the way back to the big bang – and that therefore nobody is ever wholly responsible for their actions. Reading back over the emails, Strawson, who gives the impression of someone far more forgiving of other people’s flaws than of his own, found himself empathising with his harassers’ distress. “I think for these people it’s just an existential catastrophe,” he said. “And I think I can see why.” Continue reading...