The moon is just about as close as it gets to Earth on its orbit, creating a spectacular sight

From Sydney’s Bondi Beach, to Istanbul’s Bosphorus and the mountains of Caracas in Venezuela, the first supermoon of 2021 has been seen across the globe. A supermoon is a name given to a full moon that occurs when the moon is closest to the Earth. According at NASA, this year's super moon has been called a 'pink' super moon, as it appears in April and named after an American plant, pink phlox, that blooms in spring

Group hits out at oil and gas firm’s sponsorship of Our Future Planet exhibition as ‘appalling’Organisers of the school strike movement, in which tens of thousands of young people have taken to the streets to demand urgent climate action, are calling for a boycott of an exhibition at the Science Museum sponsored by Shell.The group described the museum’s decision to have the fossil fuel company as a sponsor of its Our Future Planet exhibition in London as “appalling” and called for the museum to cancel the deal or face a widespread boycott. Continue reading...

Analysis: experts believe a number of things coalesced to cause the world’s worst coronavirus outbreak

Many people have spent more time at home due to the pandemic, creating opportunity for some, to do more stargazing. Readers share their astrophotographyThis photo of the Whirlpool galaxy was taken from my backyard in Commack, New York, over the course of two nights in mid January, 2021. Stargazing has helped me throughout the pandemic because it gave me something to do during the many months I was out of school and home during the summer. I used my Orion 150mm telescope and a dedicated astrophotography camera to take many long exposure images which are stacked together and edited to get the image that you see here. My sighting made me even more curious about the universe and everything that’s in it. It made me realise how small we are when you consider just how large these objects are. Brandon Berkoff, 15, Commack, New York Continue reading...

As the online giant devotes vast resources to instantly gratify our shopping desires, it becomes increasingly hard to resist“Libidinal” is just about the last word that comes to mind when gazing upon Amazon’s rather anonymous warehouse in Bromley-by-Bow. If you want to understand why a significant fraction of all the things bought and sold in greater London in the course of any given day flows through this one building, though, libido is a particularly useful concept to have at hand.The idea, as developed by a line of psychoanalytical thinkers going all the way back to Freud, refers to the rhythms of desire, its frustration and release. Nothing else quite captures what’s going on in the circuit that runs straight through this building, fusing Amazon’s familiar, consumer-facing website to factories on the other side of the world. This is because, like some giant analogue of our response to desire, the entire sprawling apparatus is dedicated to nothing other than the elimination of friction. Continue reading...

Nasa's Ingenuity helicopter stretched its rotors on Sunday 25 April, taking its third flight on Mars.The flight was Nasa's most ambitious to date, with Ingenuity rising to a height of five metres and then accelerating horizontally for 50 metres before returning to its take-off point.

With the moon near the closest point in its orbit to Earth, a spectacular sight should be in storeThis week, take a moment to enjoy the full moon. For the next three nights, our natural satellite will appear more or less fully illuminated. Catch it rising above the horizon if you can, it’s a beautiful moment to witness. Find a clear eastern view, and settle yourself at least five minutes before the time.On Monday night, from London, moonrise takes place at 19:28 BST. On Tuesday, it is at 20:59 BST, and on Wednesday 22:31 BST. On each of these nights, roughly 98% of the moon’s surface will be illuminated from Earth. From Sydney, moonrise times are 16:57 AEST on 26 April, 17:33 AEST on 27 April and 18:13 AEST on 28 April. Continue reading...

Valneva hopes to seek approval as soon as summer, paving way for potential booster shots in autumn

Survey reveals Britain is more popular destination for studying than US, Canada, Australia and Germany

Cancer researcher who sought to make the public case for science as a Labour MPIan Gibson, who has died aged 82 of pancreatic cancer, had a considerable reputation as a cancer researcher before seeking a political career in order to try to advance the cause of science in public life. He was elected for the first time in 1997, aged 58, as the Labour MP for Norwich North and spent the ensuing 12 years in an energetic pursuit of this case, while also propounding his strongly held convictions on a wide range of issues about health and education.He was a popular, charismatic man who won the influential chairmanship of the Commons select committee on science and technology in 2001, despite the opposition of his own party whips. Continue reading...

During the pandemic, I have gone from uttering a few words of encouragement to myself to full-blown arguments. I’m not the only one. I asked psychologists what purpose this serves

Exclusive: MHRA says mass testing regime in England ‘a stretch’ of its authorisation for how kits should be used

Deep Time project investigated how a lack of external contact would affect sense of time – and two thirds wanted to stay longerFifteen people have emerged from a cave in south-west France after 40 days underground in an experiment to see how the absence of clocks, daylight and external communications would affect their sense of time.With big smiles on their pale faces, they left their voluntary isolation in the Lombrives cave to a round of applause and basked in the light while wearing special glasses to protect their eyes after so long in the dark. Continue reading...

Companies may seek to dismantle prejudice among their employees – but psychologists question whether these courses effect lasting changeHere’s a fact that cannot be disputed: if your name is James or Emily, you will find it easier to get a job than someone called Tariq or Adeola. Between November 2016 and December 2017, researchers sent out fake CVs and cover letters for 3,200 positions. Despite demonstrating exactly the same qualifications and experience, the “applicants” with common Pakistani or Nigerian names needed to send out 60% more applications to receive the same number of callbacks as applicants with more stereotypically British names.Some of the people who had unfairly rejected Tariq or Adeola will have been overtly racist, and so deliberately screened people based on their ethnicity. According to a large body of psychological research, however, many will have also reacted with an implicit bias, without even being aware of the assumptions they were making. Continue reading...

Celestial event due to take place shortly before sunset on Tuesday and will be visible until next morningA pink supermoon is set to brighten the night skies over the UK next week, though there will not be any noticeable difference in colour, as the name might suggest.The full moon in April is also known as the “pink moon” as it is named after pink flowers, known as phlox, which bloom in the springtime. Continue reading...

Marine archaeologist unearths evidence suggesting biblical king’s riches were based on voyages he funded with Phoenician alliesKing Solomon is venerated in Judaism and Christianity for his wisdom and in Islam as a prophet, but the fabled ruler is one of the Bible’s great unsolved mysteries.Archaeologists have struggled in vain to find conclusive proof that he actually existed. With no inscriptions or remnants of the magnificent palace and temple he is supposed to have built in Jerusalem 3,000 years ago, the Israelite king has sunk into the realm of myth. Continue reading...

The government has hit both its self-imposed targets so far. How will it go the rest of the way?More than half of the UK population has now received at least a first dose of vaccine against Covid-19. By Friday evening 33,388,637 people had received one of the Pfizer, AstraZeneca or Moderna vaccines. Here’s how it was done, and what is still left to do. Continue reading...

Malaria has still not been eradicated in the poorest countries, but that could be about to changeAnother vaccine from Oxford’s Jenner Institute and one that may have a greater impact than that against Covid-19. Results from trials of its malaria vaccine, R21, show it to be 77% effective. If replicated in larger scale trials, it would be a remarkable breakthrough. Malaria kills more than 400,000 people a year, almost all in sub-Saharan Africa, and mainly children. Until now, the only approved anti-malarial vaccine, Mosquirix, has had a low level of efficacy – among young children it reduced cases by 39%; in infants, says the World Health Organization, it “did not work sufficiently well to justify its further use”.This is what makes the new vaccine so exciting, raising the possibility of reducing deaths to the “tens of thousands”. The reason for slow progress in eradicating malaria is partly technical. The parasite that causes the disease, of which there are five kinds, passes through several life stages, making it more difficult to target with a vaccine. Continue reading...

Declining immunity and new viral variants may mean annual vaccine boosters are neededImmunologists and virologists are questioning the ability of populations to ever achieve herd immunity to Covid-19.They say gradually waning immunity to the virus after infection or vaccination, and the impact of variants, mean it is likely annual vaccinations will be required and cases will continue to occur. Continue reading...

Artists have long been seduced by galactic themes. Now Duran Duran’s Nick Rhodes is releasing a celestial epicNick Rhodes, the most concept-friendly and new-romantic of Duran Duran’s line-up, has been in contemplation. Mostly he’s been thinking about the movements of the heavens and their travelling companion, mythology.If the gods are angry, this thinking goes, their mood swings might be interpreted celestially, providing a natural hedge against uncertainties. It’s a pastime that’s given druids plenty of work opportunities for millennia and, in recent decades, also rock stars (a term that is itself something of giveaway). Continue reading...

Suzanne Simard revolutionised the way we think about plants and fungi with the discovery of the woodwide web. The ecologist’s new book shares the wisdom of a life of listening to the forestWhen Suzanne Simard made her extraordinary discovery – that trees could communicate and cooperate through subterranean networks of fungi – the scientific establishment underreacted. Even though her doctoral research was published in the Nature journal in 1997 – a coup for any scientist – the finding that trees are more altruistic than competitive was dismissed by many as if it were the delusion of an anthropomorphising hippy.Today, at 60, she is professor of forest ecology at the University of British Columbia and her research of more than three decades as a “forest detective” is recognised worldwide. In her new book, Finding the Mother Tree – a scientific memoir as gripping as any HBO drama series – she wants it understood that her work has been no brief encounter: “I want people to know that what I’ve discovered has been about my whole life.” Her moment has come: research into forest ecosystems and mycorrhizal networks (those built of connections between plants and fungi) is now mainstream and there is a hunger for books related to the subject: Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees and Merlin Sheldrake’s Entangled Life – about the hidden life of fungi – extend her thinking about the “woodwide web”, while the heroine of Richard Powers’s Pulitzer prize-winning 2018 novel The Overstory is said to have been inspired by Simard. Continue reading...

After his death, I wanted to know more about his life, and the city that made him and very nearly killed himEvery Hanukkah through my childhood, if I was visiting my grandparents’ Liverpool home, my Grandpa Oskar told me the exact same story. With a pickle on his side plate – my grandma serving up his favourite dinner of latkes, vusht (smoked sausage) and eggs – he’d recount the night during this very Jewish festival in 1937 that his family – our family – fled for their lives from the Nazis.The preparations for their escape might have been secretly in motion for weeks, but the first he knew of the plan was as it was happening: he arrived home from school to be told he and his brother were going on a trip that very December night. They’d be travelling with their mum; their father – my great-grandpa – would meet them on their journey. It was only later that he’d learn their destination was England, a new permanent home for our family, now refugees. Continue reading...

Four astronauts on board Elon Musk’s SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft shared hugs and greetings with the incumbent crew on the International Space Station after successfully docking. It is the first time SpaceX has reused a capsule and rocket to launch astronauts for Nasa, after several years of proving the capability on station supply runs.

Scientists advise ‘simple and side-effect free’ exercise for patients who have lost sense of smell due to virus

Australian Medical Association president Dr Omar Khorshid says state governments are not doing enough to protect those in quarantine from coronavirusContinued leaks from hotel quarantine are “a frustration to all Australians” and state governments are not doing enough to prevent it, the president of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Omar Khorshid, has said, while the Western Australian premier called on the federal government to “step up and help”.Authorities revealed one new community case was detected on Saturday – a man in his 40s – as WA’s Perth and Peel region began a snap three-day lockdown after the latest hotel quarantine outbreak. The virus spread in the corridors of the Mercure quarantine hotel in Perth, infecting a man who was staying adjacent to a couple with the virus who had returned from India. Continue reading...

Scientists in Exeter are identifying Covid through human faeces – this could be be expanded to monitor other diseases

As lockdown puppy sales soar and the cats of Instagram are liked by millions, endangered species are vanishing from the planet. Can pets teach us how to care about all animals?It was the carefree summer of 2019, and I was on a beach in San Francisco – surrounded by a thousand corgis. Sand is not the natural environment for dogs whose legs are only as long as ice lollies. But this was Corgi Con, possibly the world’s largest gathering of corgis. It was weird. It was glorious.There were corgis in baby harnesses and corgis under parasols. There were corgis dressed as a shark, a lifeguard, a snowman, a piñata and Chewbacca from Star Wars (the latter two were overweight). There were stalls selling sunglasses and socks for dogs. I overheard two people considering whether to buy a corgi-emblazoned cushion, but decide against it on the basis that they already had one. Continue reading...

Exclusive: compulsive hygiene habits and fear of public places could remain for some after lockdown lifted, researchers say

The vaccine was temporarily halted while scientists investigated rare but dangerous blood clotsUS health officials have lifted an 11-day pause on Johnson & Johnson vaccinations following a recommendation by an expert panel. Advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday the benefits of the single-dose Covid-19 shot outweigh a rare risk of blood clots.Panel members said it is critical that younger women be told about that risk so they can decide if they’d rather choose another vaccine. The CDC and Food and Drug Administration agreed. European regulators earlier this week made a similar decision, deciding the clot risk was small enough to allow the rollout of Johnson & Johnson’s shot. Continue reading...

Native species have been revered, feared, hunted and tamed. Now experts hope revulsion can give way to fascinationFor many years, the top-rated attraction in the Tasman district of New Zealand was a cafe famed for its rural setting, seafood chowder – and tame eels.For a few dollars you could buy a pottle of mince and a wooden stick to take down to the stream, where a blue-black mass was shining, writhing, waiting. Continue reading...

Some have reported changes amid vaccine rollout but experts say ‘one unusual period is no cause for alarm’Experts are trying to assuage concerns and combat misinformation about how the Covid-19 vaccines may affect menstrual cycles and fertility, after anecdotal reports that some people experienced earlier, later, heavier or more painful periods following the jab.“So far, there’s no data linking the vaccines to changes in menstruation,” Alice Lu-Culligan and Dr Randi Hutter Epstein at Yale School of Medicine wrote in the New York Times. “Even if there is a connection, one unusual period is no cause for alarm.” Continue reading...

Shell sponsorship | Sir George Cayley | Old friends reunited | Retrieving the Guardian | Obtaining the GuardianIn Bob Ward’s point-missing riposte to George Monbiot’s criticism of the Science Museum’s acceptance of sponsorship from Shell, the words “Shell” and “sponsor” are notable by their absence (Letters, 22 April). He doesn’t say if, as an adviser to the carbon capture exhibition, he thought Shell’s sponsorship was wrong, a disagreeable necessity, or just lovely. Could someone ask him?

Study was one of the first to evaluate alterations in human mutation rates in response to manmade disasterFor decades popular culture has portrayed babies born to the survivors of nuclear accidents as mutants with additional heads or at high risk of cancers. But now a study of children whose parents were exposed to radiation from the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 suggests they carry no more DNA mutations than children born to any other parents.The study, published in Science, is one of the first to systematically evaluate alterations in human mutation rates in response to a manmade disaster, such as accidental radiation exposure. Continue reading...

Latest updates: England’s R number rises to between 0.8 and 1, suggesting pandemic is still shrinking but at a slightly slower rate than last week

Academics will follow progress of 10,000 poorer students affected by the Covid-19 pandemic

Yoshihide Suga under pressure to act after sharp rise in infections in Tokyo, only months before Olympics

Event marks first time SpaceX reused a capsule and rocket to launch astronauts for NasaSpaceX launched four astronauts into orbit on Friday using a recycled rocket and capsule, the third crew flight in less than a year for Elon Musk’s rapidly expanding company.The astronauts from the US, Japan and France should reach the International Space Station early on Saturday morning, following a 23-hour ride in the same Dragon capsule used by SpaceX’s debut crew last May. They will spend six months at the orbiting lab. Continue reading...

Mark McGowan says calls a snap three-day shutdown in Perth and Peel after coronavirus spreads from hotel quarantine. This blog is now closed

Researchers in Glasgow find two cases where cats were infected by owners with coronavirus symptoms

Vaccine developed by scientists at Jenner Institute, Oxford, shows up to 77% efficacy in trial over 12 monthsA vaccine against malaria has been shown to be highly effective in trials in Africa, holding out the real possibility of slashing the death toll of a disease that kills 400,000 mostly small children every year.The vaccine, developed by scientists at the Jenner Institute of Oxford University, showed up to 77% efficacy in a trial of 450 children in Burkina Faso over 12 months. Continue reading...

Australian company applies for permission to conduct trial of men and women aged 18 to 55Australia is set to host the first human clinical trial of a genetically modified adenovirus vaccine for Covid-19 delivered via nasal spray.Avance Clinical, an Australian contract research organisation, has applied to the office of the gene technology regulator for permission to conduct the phase 1 clinical trial on behalf US company Tetherex Pharmaceuticals Corporation. Continue reading...

Flight path of Kalahari’s six-tonne asteroid is first tracing of meteorite shedding rock to solar system originAstronomers have reconstructed the 22m-year-long voyage of an asteroid that hurtled through the solar system and exploded over Botswana, showering meteorites across the Kalahari desert.It is the first time scientists have traced showering space rock to its source – in this case Vesta, one of largest bodies in the asteroid belt that circles the sun between Jupiter and Mars. Continue reading...

Analysis of test results from more than 350,000 people finds older people just as protected as younger

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In the wake of the pandemic, mental ill health is on the rise, putting more pressure on what some say is an already broken system. Editor-in-chief Lenore Taylor and associate editor Lucy Clark speak to Gabrielle Jackson about what’s causing Australia’s mental health crisis, and how to fix itCheck out the full Australia’s mental health crisis series here.In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and Beyond Blue can be reached on 1300 22 4636. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org Continue reading...

More than 4 million Australians received mental health-related prescriptions in 2018-19 some 70% of which were for antidepressants

Hospitals pushed to brink after more than 1 million people infected in four days

Australia increasingly isolated as prime minister sticks to 26-28% emissions cut by 2030 on 2005 levelsScott Morrison has confirmed Australia won’t increase its emissions reduction target at a virtual climate summit hosted by the US president, Joe Biden, but the prime minister says his message to allies and global peers will be Australia is “committed” and “performing”.Australia goes into the summit under intensifying diplomatic pressure because the US has significantly ramped up its ambition, with the new administration now pledging to cut emissions by between 50 and 52% on 2005 levels by 2030. Continue reading...

Health workers spent years targeting agonising and blinding eye disease, which was rife in rural areasThe Gambia has become the second country in Africa to eliminate trachoma, one of the leading causes of blindness.The achievement, announced by the World Health Organization on Tuesday, came after decades of work on the disease, which has damaged the sight of about 1.9 million people worldwide. Ghana was the first country in Africa to eliminate the disease in 2018. Continue reading...