A bright meteor shot across and lit up the night sky of south Florida and the Bahamas on Monday. The moment was captured by security cameras and dashcams across the region

Analysis: buying new and existing technologies ensured alternatives if a vaccine failed or had supply issues

Local restrictions may be needed, specialists warn, as South Africa strain is identified in London

Mark Winstanley describes the quiet revolution that is transforming care for those with mental illness, while Dr Patrick Roycroft and Dr Sarajane Aris call for more compassion-based psychological helpIn the 1970s, cancer was stigmatised and support was underfunded. We have come a long way since then – albeit with road still left to travel. A key factor in this turn of fortune was hope that things could be a lot better for people living with cancer. That hope is often missing from discussions on mental health. But it is there.You are right to flag some key issues in mental health in your editorial (The Guardian view on mental health: this emergency requires a response, 12 April). We are still some way off parity of esteem, there are problems in ensuring that the workforce is in place to meet demand, and there are genuine concerns about the prevalence of severe mental illness in young adults. But what the editorial didn’t mention was that there is a quiet revolution under way, led by the NHS and supported by the charity sector and public bodies, to transform community mental health services. Continue reading...

More than 200 people submitted reports and videos of a fiery trail and apparent space-rock explosionTo the American Meteor Society it was simply Event 2281-2021, an unremarkable name for a spectacular fireball that made an uncomfortably close pass to Earth on Monday.A fiery trail and apparent space-rock explosion was captured on doorbell cameras and dashcams and was visible to stargazers from Florida to the Bahamas as it passed an estimated 9,300 miles above the planet at about 10.19pm ET. Continue reading...

Prof Marie Scully developed a diagnostic test at University College London hospital after seeing rare side-effect in patient

This documentary about the celebrated folklorist also takes a leisurely look at the working methods of the artists he reveresThere’s an unmistakable slow-cinema vibe to this scrupulously observational documentary, which seems somehow to go on for weeks despite its 100-minute running time. The ostensible subject matter is American anthropologist Henry Glassie, who is college professor emeritus in folklore and ethnomusicology at Indiana University; but it isn’t really “about” him in any conventional sense. Instead, the documentary, directed by Irish film-maker Pat Collins, invites us to experience Glassie’s methods for ourselves, in extended sequences in which it simply watches artists at work, seemingly in real time as they sculpt religious icons, build giant coil pots, weave carpets. The accent is very much on “folk” creators – people with little formal art education, rooted in a community, and whose work is (largely) to serve a function, rather than purely aesthetic.Well, it’s fascinating and hypnotic to watch, and for most of the film Glassie, with his luxuriant Mark Twain moustache, is glimpsed only briefly, sitting in the corner of the frame, taking notes, or snapping the odd picture, or, like us, simply watching. The film follows in his decades-old tracks, starting off with Brazilian metal workers and woodcarvers, visits an Anatolian village that makes traditional rugs, and ends up in County Fermanagh where, in the 70s, Glassie recorded the history and music of this border community. Continue reading...

Initial glitch as over-45s rush to book jab, while third vaccine offers alternative to AstraZeneca for under-30s

After mounting concern over reports of rare but serious blood clots in a small number of recipients of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, last week the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) recommended that healthy adults under 30 should have an alternative jab if they can. To find out what’s behind the change in advice, Nicola Davis speaks to Dr Sue Pavord about what this rare clotting syndrome is, and asks Prof Adam Finn about how the JCVI made its decision Continue reading...

Sixty years ago, an air force pilot named Yuri Gagarin became the first human being in space, taking the Soviet Union's own giant leap for mankind and spurring a humiliated United States to race for the moon. Gagarin's 108-minute mission marked a historic achievement for the Soviet Union, which beat the US in a tight race to launch the first human into space. Continue reading...

Evidence is growing of a link between the Covid-19 vaccine and a deadly thrombosis – and theories are emerging as to whySince rare but severe clotting was seen in some people following vaccination with AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine, researchers worldwide have been grappling to understand why the clotting syndrome, known as “thrombosis with thrombocytopenia” (clotting with a low platelet count), occurs.Most cases of these clots occurred in veins in the brain (a condition called cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, or CVST), though some occurred in other veins, including those to the abdomen (splanchnic vein thrombosis). It has a high death rate. Continue reading...

Nightmare scenarios involving deadly new variants are making us all too gloomy – but there’s a scientific case for optimismIt can be quite easy, reading the press, to believe that the pandemic will never end. Even when good news about vaccines started to arrive in the autumn, this grim narrative managed to harden. In the past month, you could read “five reasons that herd immunity is probably impossible”, even with mass vaccination; breathless reports about yet-uncharacterised but potentially ruinous variants, such as the “double mutant” variant in India, or two concerning variants potentially swapping mutations and teaming up in a “nightmare scenario” in California; get ready, some analysts said, for the “permanent pandemic”.Among many people I know, a sort of low-grade doom has set in. They think the vaccines are a mere sliver of hope, only holding back the virus for a short time before being worn down by a rush of ever-cleverer variants that will slosh around us, perhaps for ever. Things might briefly get better, they believe, but only by a little, and even that is tenuous. Continue reading...

Inhaling budesonide found to shorten recovery for over-65s, and over-50s with underlying conditions

Madrid regional government says it has suspended all activity at Vivotecnia after inspection found ‘signs of animal mistreatment’Regional officials in Spain have temporarily halted all activity at an animal testing facility after the publication of undercover footage that appears to show animals being taunted, smacked, tossed around and cut into with no or inadequate anaesthesia.Since 2000, Madrid-based contract research organisation Vivotecnia has carried out experiments on animals ranging from monkeys to mini pigs and rabbits for the biopharmaceutical, chemical, cosmetic, tobacco and food industries. The facility has in the past secured funding from the EU and Spanish authorities for its projects. Continue reading...

Dizzy diplomats, twitching schoolgirls, children in comas ... psychosomatic illnesses are not always as unexplainable as they seem, writes neurologist Suzanne O’SullivanI cannot resist a news headline that refers to a mystery illness and there is no shortage to keep me interested. “Mystery of 18 twitching teenagers in New York”; “Mysterious sleeping sickness spreads in Kazakhstani village”; “200 Colombian girls fall ill with a mysterious illness”; “The Mystery of the Havana Syndrome”. One medical disorder seems to attract this description more than any other: psychosomatic illness. That the body is the mouthpiece of the mind is evident in our posture, in the smiles on our faces, in the tremor of our nervous hands. But, still, when the body speaks too explicitly, when the power of the mind leads to physical disability, it can be hard to understand why. This perplexity is most apparent when psychosomatic disorders affect groups, spreading from person to person like a social virus, in a phenomenon often referred to as mass hysteria.We are currently caught in a pandemic. We have been ordered to hide and to search our bodies for symptoms. If there was ever a time for a psychosomatic disorder to spread through anxiety and suggestion, this is it. The threat of a virus can affect health in more ways than one. Since 2018 I have been visiting communities affected by suspected contagions of psychosomatic illness. I have seen what fear can do to our physical health. I have also seen the curative effect of hope. Continue reading...

Adequate support now could head off a post-pandemic exodus of health workers who feel broken by their experiences

Pilot scheme is under way to harness forecasts to predict where conditions that fuel cases are likely to developA weather-based surveillance system that could offer advanced warning of outbreaks of meningitis is being piloted across sub-Saharan Africa in a bid to save lives, researchers have revealed.According to the Meningitis Research Foundation, meningitis affects about 5 million people around the world each year, one in 10 of whom die, while two in 10 are left with lasting impacts, such as brain damage. Continue reading...

We can’t afford inaction. The funds needed are a fraction of the trillions Covid is costing us

This week the perennial beauty appears in Taurus so watch the western sky at sunset for it to emergePrepare this week to track down a perennial celestial beauty, a young crescent Moon. This week, it appears in the constellation of Taurus, the Bull. New moon takes place on 12 April at 03:30 BST, so watch the western sky at sunset for it to emerge from the twilight over the coming days. Continue reading...

Head of country’s disease control centre says vaccines ‘don’t have very high protection rates’

Immunity certification could foster ‘an erroneous sense of no risk’ in people’s behaviour, according to analystsCovid-status certificates – to allow those who have been vaccinated, recovered from the virus or have tested negative to attend an event or holiday abroad – could do harm as well as good, UK government science advisers have warned.While they could encourage some people to get vaccinated, the scientists say others may deliberately go out to get infected, in order to test positive for antibodies and get a certificate enabling them to mix more freely. Continue reading...

Loneliness | GPs | Letters | Gorillas | Church of EnglandWhile I was not entirely surprised to learn that nearly three-quarters of the population of West Dunbartonshire had experienced loneliness lately, I was shocked that over half of dwellers in Eden had (3.7m over-16s in Britain often or always feel lonely, ONS finds, 7 April). On reflection, however, I recollected that Adam was 100% lonely until God did something about it!

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical conceptsWhat are thoughts? Where do they come from, and where do they go when they disappear? Are they “filed” somewhere, a bit like memories, where we can find them again, or once a thought has gone is that it?

Using ipatasertib, researchers say some brain cancers could potentially be made vulnerable to immunotherapy agentTwo people with advanced brain cancer of the sort that led to the death of the MP Tessa Jowell have responded well in a small trial to an experimental combination of chemo and immunotherapy drugs. In one case, the life-threatening tumour seems to have disappeared.Doctors at the Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden hospital in London cautioned that this was very early research but said it was unusual to have such a good response in patients in an early trial. Continue reading...

States consider tougher restrictions to slow spread of virus as country fights second wave of infections

Three-quarters of population could be fully immunised by first week in August, according to forecasts

For most people, the risks of Covid outweigh the minimal risks from the vaccinesLast Wednesday, the European Medicines Agency stated there was a plausible link between the Oxford/AstraZeneca (Vaxzevria) vaccine and rare types of blood clotting, which the MHRA estimates may happen in one in 100,000 young adults who get the vaccine.It is challenging to think of such low risks: when we have to count the zeros, all intuition goes. So what else has roughly a one in 100,000 chance for a young adult? We could choose from the risk of dying when under general anaesthesia, or in a skydiving jump, or, on the positive side, winning the Lotto jackpot if you bought 450 tickets, or guessing the last five digits of someone’s mobile phone number. Continue reading...

The Ingenuity helicopter, which arrived on the red planet in February, is expected to take to the skies on WednesdayNasa is gearing up to attempt the first controlled flight on another planet next week, with the tiny Ingenuity helicopter on Mars.The helicopter is expected to take to the skies next week, with Wednesday being the earliest time scheduled. Continue reading...

Three senior academics in medicine, chemistry and physics share their experiences and thoughts on how to improve underrepresentation

Pharmaceutical firms warn of delays to items such as the large bags in which vaccine cells are grown

The Japanese artform, based on a belief that a repaired pot can be stronger, taught me about tragedy and the ability to overcome itMy brother died at the age of 10, when I was eight. When I was nine, I shushed my best friend for mentioning him. At 11, I forced myself to stop turning my head away when we drove past a cemetery. And at 16 I spoke his name aloud for the first time, although it was many more years before I could actually talk about him.“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places,” wrote Ernest Hemingway. Decades after my brother died I found a way to understand this, and that way was through the metaphor of kintsugi (kin=gold + tsugi=joining), the Japanese repair technique that puts a broken pot back together but reveals the breaks and scars by highlighting the seams with pure gold. A shattered pot becomes a new entity, one that says out loud: I was broken, but now, even though I am not perfect, I am more beautiful and stronger than ever. Continue reading...

The state began accepting international arrivals on Thursday after two-month suspension caused by outbreaks linked to hotel quarantine programVictoria has recorded its first overseas Covid-19 case in hotel quarantine since resuming international flights.The state began accepting international arrivals on Thursday following a two-month suspension caused by outbreaks linked to its hotel quarantine program. Continue reading...

People who emigrated before the pandemic struck have found themselves marooned from family for more than a yearSee all our coronavirus coverageJacinda Ardern’s government has been urged to end months of misery for migrant workers in New Zealand and reunite families separated by Covid-19.Hundreds of migrants who moved to New Zealand in the months before March last year were unable to bring their families into the country when Covid-19 prompted border closures. Continue reading...

Island to pay visitors after tourism sector hammered by pandemic; EMA looking at reports of rare bleeding condition and four cases of rare blood clots in J&J jab

Experiments suggest that the subatomic world may be much more complex than we thoughtTo find out how the universe truly works, scientists have for decades worked on the standard model of particle physics. When the Higgs boson was found at the Large Hadron Collider almost a decade ago, it was supposed to be the final piece in the jigsaw at the smallest, subatomic scale. Yet this week came the news that there may be new particles or forces that aren’t accounted for in the standard model.What these might be is a mystery hidden, say researchers at Fermilab in the US, within muons, a bulkier relative of electrons, one of the building blocks of matter. Scientists at Cern in Geneva also think they have picked up something unexpected in muon-electron interactions, contrary to standard model predictions. Do they possess differences besides their mass? The answer might be yes. There are holes in the standard model. It does not account for gravity and does not explain dark matter, which makes up two-thirds of reality, nor why nearly all the anti-matter created in the big bang has disappeared. And it has little about the “dark energy” to which we ascribe the accelerating expansion of the universe. Continue reading...

One in 340 people not in care homes, hospitals or other institutional settings test positive in week ending 3 April in England. This live blog is now closed – please follow the global coronavirus live blog for updates

Space exploration is an incredibly expensive and unnecessary way to ignore the many problems here on earth

People in the UK under 30 will be offered an alternative to the AstraZeneca vaccine because of a possible link to rare blood clots. Could the move dent confidence in the widely used jab?The government’s Joint Committee on Vaccines and Immunisation said this week that people aged 18 to 29 who are not at high risk of Covid should have the option of an alternative jab to the AstraZeneca vaccine if one is available in their area. It follows the accumulation of evidence linking the jab to rare blood clots, although no definitive causation has yet been established. The move has sparked fears of a loss of confidence in the widely used AstraZeneca vaccine, at a point when the UK is emerging from lockdown.The Observer’s science editor, Robin McKie, tells Anushka Asthana that the risks of blood clots are still incredibly low: the current evidence puts the risk at about one in every 250,000 shots. But given there are other vaccines to offer, he says this caution makes sense. Continue reading...

‘Unimaginable amounts’ of water will flow into oceans if that temperature rise occurs and ice buffers vanish, warn UK scientistsMore than a third of the vast floating platforms of ice surrounding Antarctica could be at risk of collapsing and releasing “unimaginable amounts” of water into the sea if global temperatures reach 4C above pre-industrial levels, UK scientists say.Researchers from the University of Reading said that limiting the temperature rise to 2C could halve the area at risk and avoid a drastic rise in sea levels. Continue reading...

Chest-beating behaviour in male gorillas allows them to signal their size and avoid fights with larger rivalsIt is a trope used in films from King Kong to Tarzan – a male primate standing upright and beating its chest, sometimes with a yell and often with more than a dash of hubris.But it seems the pounding action is less about misplaced bravado than Hollywood would suggest: researchers studying adult male mountain gorillas say that while chest-beating might be done to show off, it also provides honest information. Continue reading...

Trichloroethylene was used as a general anaesthetic agent, and chronic exposure over a career could have led to Parkinson’sWe have received reports that anaesthetists exposed to trichloroethylene (TCE) may develop Parkinson’s disease (Rates of Parkinson’s disease are exploding. A common chemical may be to blame, 7 April). TCE was used as a general anaesthetic agent from the 1940s to the early 80s (when it was known by its tradename Trilene). If so, the presumption is that it would be chronic exposure over the course of a career that would present the greatest risk, and there has been no suggestion that patients receiving this agent would develop the disease.We are asking our members to contact us with their experiences of Parkinson’s in themselves or colleagues if they used Trilene. In 1915, it was recognised that TCE could damage nerves. Indeed, its first medical use was to treat trigeminal neuralgia by destroying the nerves that caused (or carried) the very unpleasant facial pain suffered by patients with this condition. A drug used medically to deliberately damage nerves may now be causing harm by damaging nervous tissue after environmental or accidental exposure.

What threat does variant that is causing devastation in Brazil pose, and how is it different?

A scientific journal covering a Hungarian doctor’s discovery is up for sale, alongside a letter from Edward Jenner, apologising for a delay in vaccine supply

Campaigners call for the closure of the Madrid research firm, after whistleblower video allegedly captures unacceptable treatmentUndercover footage of “gratuitous cruelty and abuse” allegedly taken in an animal testing facility in Spain – which has previously secured funding from the EU and Spanish authorities for projects – has been published, provoking calls for the centre’s closure.Madrid-based contract research organisation Vivotecnia conducts experiments on a range of animals including monkeys, dogs, mini pigs, rats, mice and rabbits for the biopharmaceutical, chemical, cosmetic, tobacco and food industries. An animal rights organisation said the footage was taken by a whistleblower who worked at the facility between 2018 and 2020. It appears to show animals housed in barren conditions, being taunted, smacked and shaken, and cut into with no or inadequate anaesthesia. Continue reading...

In coastal North Carolina, evidence of forest die-off is everywhere. Nearly every roadside ditch I pass is lined with dead or dying treesTrekking out to my research sites near North Carolina’s Alligator River national wildlife refuge, I slog through knee-deep water on a section of trail that is completely submerged. Permanent flooding has become commonplace on this low-lying peninsula, nestled behind North Carolina’s Outer Banks. The trees growing in the water are small and stunted. Many are dead.Throughout coastal North Carolina, evidence of forest die-off is everywhere. Nearly every roadside ditch I pass while driving around the region is lined with dead or dying trees. Continue reading...

Conversation rather than conversion is vital in the consulting room – is that the same for politics?Those who find writing a chore are better off not knowing about the literary method of Adam Phillips. Every Wednesday he walks to his office in Notting Hill. On this brief journey some idea begins to take shape, usually related to his day job (Phillips is a Freudian psychoanalyst who spends the rest of the week seeing patients). So long as this notion sparks his interest it will – by the time he sits down at his computer – have been transmuted into his first sentence. The next hours are spent unfurling that sentence into an essay, which typically forms part of a collection. Over 30 years this routine has produced almost as many books, in Phillips’s breezy, aphoristic style, on topics ranging from monogamy to sanity to democracy.The ease of Phillips’s prose is conditioned by his reluctance to “convince” anyone, including himself. The author treats his readers like his patients, aiming to provoke and stimulate rather than persuade. Yet if psychoanalysis – and psychoanalytic literature – is a discourse concerned with change, how is this achieved without arguing, lecturing or coaxing? Is there a paradigm for altering another person from which coercion is entirely absent? That is the question Phillips poses – with a note of anxiety about his own literary and therapeutic practice – in On Wanting to Change. If there is “something pernicious about the wish to persuade people; or rather to persuade people by disarming them in some way”, then psychoanalysis offers “a form of honest persuasion. Or that, at least, is what it aspires to be.” Continue reading...

Cardiovascular problems aren’t just a risk factor for Covid-19, but can also be a complication of having the disease. A growing number of studies are showing that many of those who have been hospitalised for Covid-19, as well as people who managed the initial infection at home, are being left with heart injuries including inflammation, blood clots and abnormal heart rhythms. Nicola Davis speaks to Dr Betty Raman to find out how the virus damages organs outside the lungs, and what’s being done to help Continue reading...

Iain Duncan Smith and second MP warn of eroded confidence in plan after ‘messy’ MHRA advice

US shot is as effective as existing jabs and is easier to store than Pfizer’s – but it is not cheap