On 23 March 2020, the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, announced the first lockdown in response to the growing number of cases of Covid-19. At the same time, countries around the world began to close their schools, restaurants, and offices and ask citizens to physically distance from one another. In the 12 months since, more than 2 million people have died, viral variants have emerged, and we have developed safe and effective vaccines.One year into the pandemic, Science Weekly is asking: what happens next? Ian Sample talks to the professors Martin Landray, Mike Tildesley, and Deborah Dunn-Walters about Covid treatments, vaccines and what the next 12 months may hold Continue reading...

Results of Recovery drug trial also credited with successful treatment of 22,000 people in the UK, says NHS England

No funding earmarked for research agency and Europe’s Horizon scheme despite imminent start to financial yearThe government risks creating a serious funding gap for science, Labour has warned, saying that delays over budgets and cuts to research are undermining the sector and giving the lie to ministers’ boasts about Britain’s status as a science superpower.The party has highlighted a continued standoff over post-Brexit funding for collaboration with European scientists via the Horizon research programme, as well as the lack of an agreed budget for the main government science funding scheme, saying the government risked “badly letting down” the sector. Continue reading...

Vaccinating the world is the only way out of Covid, but a mixture of nationalism and protectionism is blocking the exitCovid-19 has proved to be the greatest humanitarian and economic disaster of the century. A reported 2.7 million people have already died from the pathogen. Its recession is estimated to be twice as deep as that associated with the 2008 crash. Ultimately, the only way out of the pandemic is to vaccinate the world. Yet there has been an alarming outbreak of a “my country first” approach to vaccine allocation. In February, the US announced that it would not donate any doses to poor countries until it had a plentiful supply. Fewer than 10 days later, India cracked down on vaccine exports. These are political decisions, as no one doubts either country’s ability to vaccinate their own populations.That is why the EU’s threat to limit the export of locally produced vaccines is so concerning. Brussels has enough vaccines. Having stumbled, the bloc’s leaders know it looks bad to see doses leaving the EU for Britain, which has already vaccinated half its population. European leaders should realise that only cooperation can end the pandemic. Without worldwide coordination, there will be no way to get jabs to the 8 billion people on the planet. Vaccinating the globe at once has never been done. “But if we can put a rover on Mars,” the director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, wrote in the Guardian this month, “we can surely produce billions of vaccines and save lives on earth.” Continue reading...

Plans to ease restrictions have been rolled back in several countries owing to new variants taking hold

Analysis: as lockdown restrictions ease, the country now faces a race between vaccination and infection

Experts have different theories as to how the cow-sized Arctic animal ended up so far south

Dr Tony Hulse and Dr Caroline Ponmani say they are seeing evidence of diabetes being triggered by the virus in children, while JK Cruickshank explains why there is a likelihood of the condition arising after a Covid-19 infectionThe possibility that Covid-19 could trigger diabetes (Doctors suggest Covid-19 could cause diabetes, 19 March) fits with the experiences of paediatricians treating diabetic children in London and the south-east. Following the first Covid-19 wave, we undertook a study of 178 children from 12 hospitals in south and north-east London, Kent and Sussex who had developed type 1 diabetes between January and July 2020. We found that the prevalence of newly diagnosed children was high when compared with the levels of type 1 diabetes seen in the previous four years. But two inner south London hospitals had unusually high numbers of children with type 1 diabetes.The children who had developed diabetes in the pandemic were significantly sicker than before, with a higher level of diabetic ketoacidosis when they arrived at hospital. This did not relate to a delay in coming to hospital. We also know of two children where there was evidence that their diabetes was triggered by a Covid-19 infection. We are undertaking detailed studies as we believe that there may be link between the two conditions; the cause of type 1 diabetes is complex, but it appears that asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic Covid-19 infections may be a trigger factor.

The solution to today’s puzzle about trust, secrets and the world’s weirdest proofEarlier today I set the following puzzle, based on the remarkable mathematical concept of a ‘zero-knowledge proof,’ which has applications in cyber security. (To find out why this concept is so revolutionary, and how it relates to the puzzle, you can read the original article here.)The stolen paper clip Continue reading...

Three-month gap between vaccinations is recommended but HealthEngine website allows bookings for second jab within days of firstOne of the booking websites contracted by the federal government for the Covid vaccine rollout is erroneously allowing Australians to book in for their second dose within days of their first shot, a problem general practitioners say is compounding demand on their clinics.The next stage of the vaccine rollout, phase 1b, officially started on Monday, allowing a cohort of 6 million higher-risk Australians to begin receiving their vaccinations at about 1,000 GP clinics or 100 commonwealth-run respiratory clinics. Continue reading...

I have had no more than a few hours on my own in a year. All this time with my family means I never have time to think

Cloud of ash and gas engulfed Roman city within minutes and suffocated inhabitants, research saysA giant cloud of ash and gases released by Vesuvius in 79 AD took about 15 minutes to kill the inhabitants of Pompeii, research suggests.The estimated 2,000 people who died in the ancient Roman city when they could not escape were not overwhelmed by the lava, but rather asphyxiated by the gases and ashes and later covered in volcanic debris to leave a mark of their physical presence millennia later. Continue reading...

As Britain prepares for a ‘national day of reflection’, an imam, an ex-nurse’s daughter and a community volunteer recall events of the past year

What makes an elite sports star suddenly unable to do the very thing they have been practising for years? And is there anything they can do about it? By A Mark Williams and Tim Wigmore Continue reading...

The pandemic has revealed the true value of social interaction – and even changed my outlook on meeting new peopleLast year, in what would turn out to be my last night out for a while, I found myself in a dreaded situation: at a friend’s drinks, speaking to a total stranger. Not long into our conversation, my brain started searching for escape routes. I had a full glass and there was a queue for the loo, so I put my acting skills to the test and told this perfectly harmless person that I – a man who has never smoked – “needed a cigarette”.I’m comfortable admitting that, before Covid, I didn’t think “meeting new people” was on my list of preferred pastimes. My Golden Globe-worthy performance as “man with cigarette” suggests I could possibly (definitely) be guilty of writing new people off before getting to know them, particularly if there wasn’t an immediate “spark” between us. As much as I love my friends, maintaining relationships takes time, so why open myself up to someone new if there’s no obvious connection? Continue reading...

Study of over 32,000 people included review of risks of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis

A puzzle about trust, secrets, and the world’s weirdest proofUPDATE: The solution can be read hereToday’s puzzle is based on a ground-breaking mathematical concept which last week won one of its pioneers the Abel Prize, considered the Nobel Prize of maths.The concept is the zero-knowledge proof, and it has many applications in digital cryptography. Let me briefly explain. Continue reading...

I got the gig at a school by stressing my people skills. It turns out I meant I can’t keep my mouth shutI am coming to the end of my tenure as a lateral flow test volunteer at a secondary school. I got the gig by stressing how well qualified I was at public-facing endeavours.This turned out not to be true. It went OK when the kids were off school and we were just testing the teachers, but then all these adolescents swarmed in. They are quite self-conscious, aren’t they? I feel sure there has been literature about this. They absolutely hate to be recognised. If I see the son of a friend, I’ll halloo him mightily: “Hi, Johnny, it’s ME! Under my mask, I’m your mum’s friend!” as if it’s the world’s greatest coincidence, as if I have just fetched up at a petrol station at the end of the universe and, look, there is my cousin drinking a Frappuccino. Continue reading...

With a dark sky and some patience you should be able to see an open star clusterThis week is all about tracking down a faint, open star cluster with the unaided eye. You will need a dark sky and some patience, but once successful you will feel like you have found some buried treasure up there.The star cluster in question is known as the Beehive cluster, or Praesepe, the Latin word for manger. It sits in the faint constellation of Cancer, the crab. Praesepe is an open star cluster, a former stellar nursery whose stars are gradually moving apart to merge with the background of stars in the galaxy. Continue reading...

Researchers will test several drugs at once to speed up identification of those that slow or reverse symptomsDoctors in the UK are to launch a world-first clinical trial to assess whether drugs already on the market can prevent multiple sclerosis (MS) from worsening over time and even reverse the disabilities it causes.The groundbreaking Octopus trial, so named because of its various arms, will allow researchers to investigate the potential benefits of several drugs at once, in the hope of identifying effective new treatments three times faster than if the medicines were trialled separately. Continue reading...

My father, Benjamin Abeles, who has died aged 95, was a renowned physicist whose research led to the technology used to power the Voyager spacecraft. An incredibly hard-working man, he overcame tremendous obstacles in his youth.Born in Vienna, the youngest of two children of Selma (nee Kronberger), a leather artisan, and Ernst Abeles, a businessmen, Benjamin arrived in the UK from Prague as a child refugee on the Kindertransport organised by Nicholas Winton in 1939. He took odd jobs in London, often living in bomb shelters, until in 1943 he enlisted in 311 (Czechoslovak) Squadron of the RAF. Continue reading...

Specialist hospital stresses: ‘We have strong suspicion of transmission from human to pet, not vice versa’

Wellcome Trust director speaks out as Brits are urged to back huge fundraising campaign to deliver jabs to 190 other countries

Hospital admissions and deaths are declining as priority groups vaccinated but number of new diagnoses has stabilised

Scientists warn that Nobel summit and long-term decisions to save the planet are at risk from targeted attacks online

It’s not enough now for science to move in a stately fashion with great cautionThere’s nothing like living through a global pandemic to engender a dawning realisation that real-world science is a different beast from the “hypothesise, test, repeat” science we learn at school. And that just because a claim is made by an eminent scientist it is not automatically elevated to a gold standard truth.A year ago, I would have predicted that the role of science in a global pandemic would be fairly straightforward. The scientists do the science. Then they tell the rest of us what to do, and lives get saved. I would have been shocked if someone had told me how politicised the scientific debate would become, that people claiming to be informed by science would be arguing on the basis of the same facts that we should take directly contradictory action, when the stakes couldn’t be higher. Continue reading...

The microscopic animals can withstand extreme conditions that would kill humans, and may one day help in the development of Covid vaccines. How do they do it?On 11 April 2019, a spacecraft crashed on to the Moon. The Israeli Beresheet probe was supposed to land gently in the Mare Serenitatis, a huge plain of basalt rock formed in a volcanic eruption billions of years ago. It would have been the first privately funded mission to land on the Moon. But owing to a last-minute instrument failure Beresheet did not slow down enough and slammed into the surface at 500 kilometres per hour.From the Moon’s point of view, this was a failed alien invasion. Beresheet was carrying animals called tardigrades, which look like stunted, microscopic caterpillars. They may not seem like an obvious candidate for interplanetary travel, but tardigrades are famed among biologists for their ability to survive conditions that would kill almost any other animal. It is possible that some of them survived the crash. Continue reading...

Major research projects will be cancelled, including those designed to head off future disease threats, warn scientistsThe government’s drastic cut to overseas aid risks damaging the world’s ability to fight the next global health disaster and keep Britain safe, some of its own scientific advisers on Covid are warning.In a significant escalation of the backlash against the cut, which will see major research projects cancelled this year, current and former members of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) are among thousands of academics to confront the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, over cuts affecting projects that target the main threats to human health. Continue reading...

It’s been the hardest four years of my life but now I know my son will always be a part of meIt’s 9 March 2017. I am sitting in an ambulance, holding a plastic cup which contains tea from a machine. I’ve just been told my son is dead. I’m in a kind of paralysis. I feel the cold, smooth vinyl of the trolley I’m sitting on beneath me and look vacantly at the equipment and signs around me. Mind Your Head. Sharps Bin. No Smoking. Clinical Waste.I am alone, apart from a paramedic who is with me. At this particular moment my world has shrunk to the inside of the ambulance. An alienating sense of shock and horror has taken over and reduced me to a stiff and silent state. After a while I am helped out of the vehicle and taken to a nearby Victorian building. I am led into a wood-panelled room where I sit on a sofa. Continue reading...

Charles Oti should be in his NHS job fighting the virus. Instead, the Home Office wants to send him to NigeriaAn infection control specialist who has been offered a job as a senior NHS biomedical scientist to help tackle the pandemic is facing deportation by the Home Office, prompting fresh calls for a more “humane” approach to skilled migrants.The government has refused Charles Oti, 46, from Nigeria the right to remain in the UK even though the job he was offered is among the government’s most sought-after skilled positions. Continue reading...

In China, scientists have turned vast swathes of arid land into a lush oasis. Now a team of maverick engineers want to do the same to the SinaiFlying into Egypt in early February to make the most important presentation of his life, Ties van der Hoeven prepared by listening to the podcast 13 Minutes To The Moon – the story of how Nasa accomplished the lunar landings. The mission he was discussing with the Egyptian government was more earthbound in nature, but every bit as ambitious. It could even represent a giant leap for mankind.Van der Hoeven is a co-founder of the Weather Makers, a Dutch firm of “holistic engineers” with a plan to regreen the Sinai peninsula – the small triangle of land that connects Egypt to Asia. Within a couple of decades, the Weather Makers believe, the Sinai could be transformed from a hot, dry, barren desert into a green haven teeming with life: forests, wetlands, farming land, wild flora and fauna. A regreened Sinai would alter local weather patterns and even change the direction of the winds, bringing more rain, the Weather Makers believe – hence their name. Continue reading...

The government promised to increase funding for vital scientific R&D to 2.4% of GDP – but its target is already slippingEarlier this week, the government put science at the heart of its strategy for the UK’s place in the world. In its integrated review, it argued that cutting-edge science and strong leadership from the UK could make a huge difference for humanity. Researchers in the UK could benefit both the UK and the wider world by working to solve global problems such as climate change, antimicrobial resistance and pandemics.This is completely right – scientists in the UK absolutely can do this. And I’d like to be celebrating the fact that the government has set out this ambitious vision. Unfortunately, the rhetoric doesn’t match the reality. Continue reading...

‘Chance discovery’ near the temple of Zeus was probably used as votive offering, Greek ministry saysRain has helped uncover a small bull idol at ancient Olympia in what the Greek culture ministry said on Friday was a “chance discovery”.It said the bronze idol, found intact, was spotted by an archaeologist at the sprawling ancient site that inspired the modern Olympic Games during a scheduled visit by ministry officials. Continue reading...

The UK’s chief scientific adviser loves good food, enjoys a Scandi drama – and has been called ‘the richest civil servant in history’Sir Patrick Vallance spent his 60th birthday at a podium in Downing Street, flanking Boris Johnson.Whatever plans he had were scrapped. Continue reading...

Anxiety, boredom, claustrophobic relationships... characters from Jane Eyre to Mrs Dalloway can provide vital insights into how to live in these anxious times, writes Josh CohenShould we be suspicious of the idea that fiction can help us to live meaningful lives? After all, as Plato observed (via a fictionalised Socrates), Homer’s stories were composed to stir and entertain rather than to instruct us. They may be a lot of fun, but they have nothing to tell us about living well. How could fictional characters, shadowy beings who exist only in words, offer any meaningful purchase on the all too solid problems of our daily lives?If we try to enlist the help of novels by extracting rules and hacks and counsel from them, we will probably prove Plato right. Novels, or at least the ones worth reading, draw us in not by offering moral instruction or practical guidance, but by helping us to see ourselves in all our strangeness and complexity. Continue reading...

More than 350 clinicians report suspicions of Covid-induced diabetes, both type 1 and type 2A cohort of scientists from across the world believe that there is a growing body of evidence that Covid-19 can cause diabetes in some patients.Prof Francesco Rubino, from King’s College London, is leading the call for a full investigation into a possible link between the two diseases. Having seen a rise in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes in people who have caught coronavirus, some doctors are even considering the possibility that the virus ‒ by disrupting sugar metabolism ‒ could be inducing an entirely new form of diabetes. Continue reading...

University College London’s Marcel Levi talks openly about what he loves and loathes about the health serviceA service so underfunded that hospital roofs leak, is worryingly reliant on overseas staff and with an “insular” culture that repels fresh ideas – but which has also performed superbly to save lives during the Covid pandemic. After four years running one of Britain’s biggest hospitals Prof Marcel Levi has some strong views on the NHS and the government’s stewardship of the nation’s most venerated institution.Levi feels able to speak candidly because he is about to step down as the chief executive of University College London Hospitals trust and return to his homeland in the Netherlands to become its chief scientific officer so no longer fears upsetting NHS bosses. His views offer a counterpoint to the relentless positivity of the government’s airy promises to hire 50,000 more nurses and 6,000 more GPs, build 40 new hospitals and put in record funding. Continue reading...

Astroscale hopes its Elsa-d satellite will demonstrate a system to remove unwanted pieces of junkElsa-d, the world’s first commercial mission to demonstrate a space debris removal system, is scheduled to launch at 06:07 GMT on 20 March from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.Developed by Astroscale, a Japanese-UK company, the mission will be operated from the UK’s in-orbit servicing control centre (IOCC) at Satellite Applications Catapult in Harwell, near Oxford. The End-of-Life Services by Astroscale demonstration mission (Elsa-d) is a small satellite designed to find, rendezvous and clamp on to an unwanted satellite. It will then push it into the Earth’s atmosphere, where it will burn up. Continue reading...

Study comes as separate research indicates that school attendance has minimal impact on serious infections

New species were discovered in the International Space Station – but they probably didn’t come from outer spaceFour species of bacteria – three of them previously unknown to science – have been discovered onboard the International Space Station (ISS), begging questions about how they got there, and how they have managed to survive.Their discovery may also bolster future efforts to cultivate crops during long spaceflight missions, since related species are known to promote the growth of plants and help them fight off pathogens. Continue reading...

PM welcomes vaccine safety vow, then spots new offshore home for folk trafficked here under false pretence – of getting a welcomeAfter a morning spent painting flowers at a primary school in his Uxbridge constituency, Britain’s prize clot returned to Downing Street to lead a press conference on clots. Blood clots to be precise.Following the decision of some countries to suspend their Oxford AstraZeneca vaccination programmes over concerns of blood clot side-effects, Boris Johnson was happy to report that the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency had declared the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine to be absolutely safe. Continue reading...

PM says vaccine supply issues will not affect roadmap; MHRA says no evidence AstraZeneca vaccine causes blood clots but issues new advice. This live blog is now closed – please follow the global coronavirus live blog for further updates

My colleague Alan Clements, who has died aged 93 of Covid-19, was a medical entomologist whose research was dedicated to investigating novel methods of mosquito control.Mosquitoes get a bad press. They transmit tropical pathogens that lead to 700,000 deaths per year and their persistent bites can be unbearable. However, their role in the spread of diseases such as malaria is entirely passive. In addition, mosquitoes are a key source of food for a wide range of birds, bats, insects and fish. The more we learn about mosquito biology, the greater our chances of reducing or even eliminating mosquito-borne diseases. Continue reading...

Health secretary says stocks will be affected by need to retest 1.7m doses and delay from India

‘Superior mirage’ illusion resurfaces in Dorset a fortnight after similar pictures taken near Falmouth

Serum Institute of India, world’s biggest vaccine producer, asked by Delhi to keep more doses in country

Nanoparticles found in foetal brains and hearts, but impact on human health is as yet unknownTiny plastic particles in the lungs of pregnant rats pass rapidly into the hearts, brains and other organs of their foetuses, research shows. It is the first study in a live mammal to show that the placenta does not block such particles.The experiments also showed that the rat foetuses exposed to the particles put on significantly less weight towards the end of gestation. The research follows the revelation in December of small plastic particles in human placentas, which scientists described as “a matter of great concern”. Earlier laboratory research on human placentas donated by mothers after birth has also shown polystyrene beads can cross the placental barrier. Continue reading...

By the time mental ill health is visible, it’s probably very bad. The best risk assessment is to listen rather than lookIn my everyday life, when I see someone who looks happy, I expect them to feel like that, too. I don’t think about it particularly – it’s a reflex. I glance casually at a smiling face and am reassured that all is well. It takes a conscious effort to remind myself of a fact that psychiatrists know very well on an intellectual level but should perhaps recognise more: a cheerful demeanour can be profoundly misleading.The concept of the “happy” depressive is familiar in art and life, with examples ranging from Pagliaccio to Robin Williams. It seems strange to think that people can be very depressed – with all the debilitating symptoms that entails – yet manage to hide this, sometimes even from family. Is their depression as real, or as valid, because they manage to go to work, to smile, even to crack a joke? I think it is. There may come a point when even the happy depressive will crack, unable to maintain that facade any longer. But does that mean they suffer less when smiling? No: in fact, the strain of keeping up appearances, the weight of a misplaced sense of responsibility to others, can be one of the most onerous aspects of mental ill health. The loss of the smile may even be a relief. Continue reading...

Perseverance could perhaps do with a service as Nasa experts investigate unexpectedly high-pitched scratching noiseNasa’s newest Mars rover has sent back the first-ever sounds of driving on the red planet – a grinding, clanking, banging affair that by Earth standards would be pretty worrisome.The noises made by Perseverance’s six metal wheels and suspension on the first test drive two weeks ago are part of a 16-minute raw audio feed released on Wednesday by Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Continue reading...