Stamford, Lincolnshire: The trademark fingerprint of the wood-boring beetles is often hidden from sight“Contracted” is the word that springs to mind as I look closely at the log I’ve pulled from the pile in my garden. It’s cold with frost-shimmer, and as I study its micro-landscape of moss-forest and bark-gully, I find where the rind has flaked away … something on the bare wood beneath.I pick at the bark, like a scab. Beneath is a strange tattoo. At macro scale it resembles a labyrinth; all corners and spurs, tight-wound and interlocking, tortuous and confined. Zoom out and in form it’s like a weird fossil, outstretched wings or limbs or leaves, radiating out from a central spine or arm or trunk. Continue reading...

Drive to immunise 3.5% of the population in weeks comes ahead of the lunar new year festival and as three major cities are locked down

This blog is now closed. We’ve launched a new blog at the link below:

Analysis: some say lateral flow tests could help cut outbreaks, but others argue they offer false reassurance

Production of new flu vaccine each year shows it should be possible to adapt to coronavirus variants if necessary

Latest updates: arrivals from Brazil, Argentina and the rest of South America, alongside Portugal, banned from Friday. This live blog is now closed - please follow the global live blog for the latest updates

The US hasn’t learned from past pandemics. The health of naturalized Americans is intertwined with that of immigrants

Rule requiring travellers to show negative test to come into force on Monday, not Friday as planned

A lonely computer scientist in the year 2038 secretly works on an android version of his wife who died in a car crash – is it romantic, or something more sinister?British illustrator and visual-effects director Gavin Rothery makes his feature debut with this artificial intelligence thriller: a tale of love, death and robotics that has some nicely creepy moments. Set in 2038, it centres on lonely computer scientist George Almore (Divergent’s Theo James), who is holed up in a remote research facility in Japan secretly working on an android version of his wife Jules (Stacy Martin); she has died in a car crash. His prototype, J3 (also played by Martin), is his closest yet to the real thing: a highly advanced humanoid with spookily pale skin who looks like she might be the ghost of his dead wife. Poor old J1 and J2, his earlier, clunkier prototypes: they look on bitterly as the newer, sleeker model gets all George’s attention.The movie opens with sweeping helicopter shots over a snowy forest. Inside the concrete bunker-like facility, Rothery works wonders with a modest budget (he was behind the look of Duncan Jones’s Moon), creating an ungimmicky nearish future that looks a lot like today. When George’s corporate bosses threaten to pull the plug on his research, he hurries to put the finishing touches to J3 – a task involving the contents of a fridge-like archive unit containing his dead wife’s consciousness. George is surrounded by the robot versions of Jules. J1 is boxy, non-verbal and baby-like. J2 is a little more advanced: she can speak, and behaves like a teenager, huffing jealously when George removes her legs to give to J3. Continue reading...

PHE found immunity from earlier infection provided 83% protection against reinfection for at least 20 weeks

Esprit module will supply communications and refuelling to international lunar stationThe European Space Agency (Esa) has signed a contract to begin building the module to supply communications and refuelling for the international lunar Gateway space station.The European System Providing Refuelling, Infrastructure and Telecommunications (Esprit) will consist of two separate units. The communications system will be used by astronauts to provide data, voice and video links to and from the lunar surface. It will be mounted on the Nasa Habitation and Logistics Outpost (Halo) module, which is scheduled for launch in 2024. Continue reading...

The new Covid variant, B117, is rapidly spreading around the UK and has been detected in many other countries. Although it is about 50% more infectious than previous variants, B117 does not seem to cause more severe disease or be immune to current vaccines. Yet it has raised concerns over how the virus may adapt to our antibodies and vaccines in the future. To explore these issues, the health editor, Sarah Boseley, speaks to Prof Ravi Gupta about how and why viruses mutate Continue reading...

Study finds macaques go for tourists’ electronics and wallets over empty bags and then maximise their profitAt the Uluwatu temple in Bali, monkeys mean business. The long-tailed macaques who roam the ancient site are infamous for brazenly robbing unsuspecting tourists and clinging on to their possessions until food is offered as ransom payment.Researchers have found they are also skilled at judging which items their victims value the most and using this information to maximise their profit. Continue reading...

Picture of wild pig made at least 45,500 years ago provides earliest evidence of human settlementArchaeologists have discovered the world’s oldest known cave painting: a life-sized picture of a wild pig that was made at least 45,500 years ago in Indonesia.The finding, described in the journal Science Advances on Wednesday, provides the earliest evidence of human settlement of the region. Continue reading...

The prime minister is getting too comfortable with a pandemic regime that allows him to escape scrutiny and accountabilityEven in the most extreme emergency, the prime minister does not have the power to make law by himself, live on television. The pandemic has sometimes created the impression that something along those lines is happening when Boris Johnson announces new lockdown rules, but his words are mere guidance until parliament upgrades them.That constitutional process matters. Britain’s apparatus of Covid regulations is not reminiscent of East Germany, nor is it evolving into “something akin to a police state”, as Nigel Farage claimed last week. The comparison is proved false by the liberty Mr Farage enjoys to make it. Continue reading...

Shannon Turner feels the stay at home message is unclear when so many shops remain open, while Eric Thomas says the government must not use the public as a scapegoat for soaring Covid cases. Plus letters from Dr Stephen Battersby and Dr Michael QuigleyPerhaps if there were fewer shops open, the stay at home message might be more effective (Police in England say they won’t enforce masks in supermarkets, 11 January). At the moment I’m in a small rural town, and there are a considerable number of shops still legitimately open.People are out browsing cards, clothing, cosmetics, slippers etc. Surely none of these items are “essential”? If these shops are open they should only be able to sell items classified under a strict set of government guidelines that include the basic necessities to survive a lockdown. The rest should be blanked off or stored off the shelves. Continue reading...

Some evidence suggests spacing vaccination doses improves effectiveness

I understand why some pregnant women are nervous about the vaccine. But I looked at the research and feel confident in my decision

What data from the first wave suggests about how much longer cases and deaths will continue to rise

We need a strong sense of self, to feel safe, to be loved. Reading Freud and others in the psychotherapeutic tradition can help, this genial study arguesAn old man with a shaggy white beard and matching hair stands in front of an audience of seekers and flower children. They are looking for ways of amplifying their human potential, of becoming more aware of their sense perceptions. It’s the tail end of the 1960s and the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, is where it’s happening.Throughout the decade, the fame of Fritz Perls – founder of Gestalt therapy in the 50s along with his rarely mentioned wife, Laura, and the once-lauded social critic Paul Goodman – soared. Perls’s so-called Gestalt Prayer was doing the rounds: “I do my thing and you do your thing, / I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, / and you are not in this world to live up to mine. / You are you, and I am I, / and if by chance we find each other, it’s beautiful. / If not, it can’t be helped.” (Even by this time Gestalt had lost its intellectual oomph, having moved away from its earlier therapeutic intent into the world of yogis and platitudes.) Continue reading...

Scientists say temperatures likely to be increasing faster than at any time in past 2,000 years

Quarantine-free movement by April could still be on the cards, even amid extra caution over new variant

Experts looking forward to tasting some of the 12 bottles of Bordeaux that will splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico via a SpaceX Dragon capsuleThe International Space Station bid adieu on Tuesday to 12 bottles of Bordeaux wine and hundreds of snippets of grapevines that spent a year orbiting the world in the name of science.The wine and vines – and thousands of pounds of other gear and research, including mice – will splashdown onboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule on Wednesday night in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Tampa. Continue reading...

Rolls-Royce and UK Space Agency hope to ‘revolutionise space travel’ with deal to build nuclear propulsion enginesBritish spacecraft could travel to Mars in half the time it now takes by using nuclear propulsion engines built by Rolls-Royce under a new deal with the UK Space Agency.The aerospace company hopes nuclear-powered engines could help astronauts make it to Mars in three to four months, twice as fast as the most powerful chemical engines, and unlock deeper space exploration in the decades to come. Continue reading...

Government urged to pause non-lab tests for asymptomatic cases amid fears over accuracy

Over the course of the pandemic, scientists have been monitoring emerging genetic changes to Sars-Cov-2. Mutations occur naturally as the virus replicates but if they confer an advantage – like being more transmissible – that variant of the virus may go on to proliferate. This was the case with the ‘UK’ or B117 variant, which is about 50% more contagious and is rapidly spreading around the country. So how does genetic surveillance of the virus work? And what do we know about the new variants? Ian Sample speaks to Dr Jeffrey Barrett, the director of the Covid-19 genomics initiative at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, to find out

Scientists concerned highly transmissible B1351 may offer resistance to vaccines

Travellers must show evidence of negative test taken in 72 hours before departure

Kit Malthouse says people need to use common sense, as Met police chief calls for more clarity

With the NHS stretched to the limit by Covid, here is the grim truth of what is unfolding in Britain’s hospitals

Scientists express caution about what they may find and the political sensitivity around investigation

It has been nearly four years since New Zealand experienced a month with below-average temperatures, researchers sayNew Zealand recorded its seventh-hottest year on record in 2020, and marked nearly four years since it experienced a month with below-average temperatures.The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) has been collecting New Zealand’s temperature records since the early 1900s, and said on Tuesday that above-average temperatures were becoming increasingly common. Continue reading...

This blog is now closed. We’ve launched a new blog at the link below:

Country has world’s highest rate of infection with critics blaming socialising over festive period

Nobel prizewinning scientist whose work played a significant role in the development of modern particle physics theoryJack Steinberger, who has died aged 99, was one of the three winners of the Nobel prize for physics in 1988 for their work with neutrinos and the discovery of the muon-neutrino. This research did much to advance understanding of fundamental particles.The reality of the ghostly neutrino was not confirmed experimentally until 1956, but back in 1948, working at the University of Chicago, Steinberger had first given indirect hints of its presence in his measurement of decays of the muon – a heavy sibling of the electron. He showed that when a muon converts into an electron, two very light, possibly massless, electrically neutral particles are also produced. These, it was later shown, are neutrinos. Continue reading...

The solution to today’s problemEarlier today I set you the following puzzle, about three extremely logical people in a line. Each person can only see who is in front of them.A hat seller shows them three white and two black hats. She places a hat on each person and hides the remaining two. Continue reading...

A construction worker says they are being forced to work under unsafe conditions, Shirley Osborn highlights the gaps in financial support for low-paid workers and John Lynham laments the absence of effective government communicationI have been closely following the Guardian’s reporting of NHS workers treating Covid patients and their pleas for the public to follow the lockdown restrictions (ICU medics in London plead with public to follow Covid rules, 9 January). I am a project manager working on a commercial construction site in London. I work in a site office where capacity remains at pre-Covid levels and no efforts have been made to provide adequate ventilation. I am expected to conduct inspections in confined spaces at close quarters with others. The wearing of masks is discouraged, as is talking about the pandemic or the risks we are all taking. On raising my concerns with my employer, I was told that I was to come to work or I would lose my job.There are around 500 people working on my site, who travel across London every day. Many are low-paid, with no job security and no incentive to self-isolate or report symptoms for fear of loss of income. The job is for a major developer that can well afford to delay the completion of the project. Continue reading...

NHS urges people to continue donating blood as research will continue on moderately ill patients

You asked us about the fast-spreading coronavirus variant, here are the answers

Staff told to reduce amount used to treat people amid rising number of Covid inpatients

A Q about a queueUPDATE: solution is now upToday’s puzzle concerns these three folk standing in a line, as illustrated below. They are all extremely logical people, and they can only see who is in front of them.A hat seller shows them three white and two black hats. She places a hat on each person and hides the remaining two. Continue reading...

Northern hemisphere skywatchers can search for the planet this month as it rises higher each nightFor northern hemisphere skywatchers, 2021 presents a chance to catch the bright jewel of Mercury in the evening sky. Continue reading...

Creatures that patrolled the oceans 3m years ago were about two metres long at birth, researchers findEnormous megatooth sharks, or megalodons, which patrolled the world’s oceans more than three million years ago, gave birth to babies larger than most adult humans, scientists say.Researchers made the unsettling discovery when they X-rayed the vertebra of a fossilised megalodon and found that it must have been about two metres (6.5 ft) long when it was born. Continue reading...

Analysis shows 12.4 million people infected since start of pandemic, against 2.4 million detected by test and trace

Face coverings should be mandatory the moment you step outside, writes Christine Whatford, while Michael Weedy wants joggers to wear masks“It is inescapable that the facts are changing and we must change our response,” Boris Johnson told the Commons last week (Boris Johnson ‘extremely cautious’ on when England’s schools will reopen, 6 January), so I am surprised this changed response doesn’t include making masks compulsory outside. Masks were considered last spring, and rejected as not being effective. And while it is true that if only some people are wearing them sometimes, they are not protecting themselves, only others from catching it from them, surely if everyone wears them everywhere, everyone is protected?I have a brother living in Spain and a son living in Turkey. In both these countries, mask-wearing everywhere has been compulsory for some time and is strictly adhered to. In March 2020 I could understand a reluctance to go from nothing to compulsory mask-wearing everywhere, as it would have met with public resistance. But with the figures as they now are, isn’t it time to reconsider and look at anything that might slow down the spread?

The face of South Africa’s Covid science on why Africa has been hit less hard than Europe, the new variant in the region, and the danger of vaccine nationalism

Antibodies collected from former patients very rarely target parts of virus mutated in new variant, research finds

Exclusive: coronavirus restrictions and increased uptake of flu vaccine is likely explanation, say experts

Positive thinking and visualising success can be counterproductive – happily, other strategies for fulfilment are availableLike many teenagers, I was once plagued with angst and dissatisfaction – feelings that my parents often met with bemusement rather than sympathy. They were already in their 50s, and, having grown up in postwar Britain, they struggled to understand the sources of my discontentment at the turn of the 21st century.“The problem with your generation is that you always expect to be happy,” my mother once said. I was baffled. Surely happiness was the purpose of living, and we should strive to achieve it at every opportunity? I simply wasn’t prepared to accept my melancholy as something that was beyond my control. Continue reading...

Ask yourself what your ideal personality will be and, with self-awareness and repetitive practice, traits will followAt some point most of us have been assigned a neat label for our personality, as if it were a brand of clothing. It could have occurred during a job interview, for an online dating profile, or in a social-media quiz that matches your traits with a character from Game of Thrones. Or perhaps you’ve endured a conversation with friends in which everyone is declared an “introvert” or “extrovert”, the two tribes into which the entire world’s population can seemingly be divided. ​The dogma of personality classifications, says psychologist and author Dr Benjamin Hardy, is that they reveal “your true core authentic self – and that [once you have] discovered it, you can finally live your true life.” They are supposed to be empowering and are presented as definitive. They work on the assumption that personality is a rigid thing, cast in plaster.Speaking over Zoom from his home in Florida, Hardy says all this is “bogus”. In his recent book Personality Isn’t Permanent, he argues personality isn’t fixed at all. Some shifts occur naturally as we go about our lives – but we can also consciously alter our traits should we so desire. He speaks about personality – “your consistent attitudes and behaviours, your way of showing up in situations” – as a collection of learnable skills, like riding a bike. Continue reading...