Science | The Guardian

Mass rapid university testing will help some, but there is a real risk of potentially devastating false-negative results

Cabinet Office minister dismisses reports customers may need to have the jab to go to pubs or sports events

Alex Bourne’s firm only recently gained safety certification for Covid testing product and had no experience in medical supplies

Wildlife recordist Chris Watson and spatial audio sound artist Prof Tony Myatt begin a three-part journey to the Sea of Cortez hunting for the song of the largest, and possibly loudest, animal that has ever lived – the blue whale. It’s also an animal that Chris has never managed to record. Will this trip change that?In episode one of this three-part series, pioneering nature sound recordist Chris Watson sets off on a journey to record one animal that has so far evaded his microphones – the blue whale.Despite being the largest animals to have ever lived, much of their lives remain a mystery. As Chris travels to Mexico to try to find the whales, he meets scientists, conservationists and others who are also keen to learn more about their behaviour and the ocean environment they inhabit. Continue reading...

Scientists suggest parts of expanse that once connected Britain to mainland Europe survived waves and had settlementsBreaking away from Europe has never been straightforward.Eight thousand years ago, a series of enormous tsunamis swept through the North Sea and struck the coast of what is now Britain, with devastating effects. Continue reading...

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Scientists use powerful new instrument in outback WA to map three million galaxies in 300 hours, unlocking deepest secrets of the universeA powerful new telescope developed by Australian scientists has mapped three million galaxies in record speed, unlocking the universe’s deepest secrets.The Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (Askap) broke records as it conducted its first survey of the entire southern sky, mapping approximately three million galaxies in 300 hours. Continue reading...

The solutions to today’s puzzlesEarlier today I set you the following chess-themed conundrums:1. The quintet of queens. Continue reading...

Increase in women being diagnosed with depression partly behind rise in useAn increase in women being diagnosed with depression is partly behind a significant rise in prescriptions of the antidepressant sertraline – sold under the brand name Zoloft – which is in the list of Australia’s most commonly prescribed drugs for the first time.On Tuesday Australian Prescriber published its annual list of the 10 most commonly taken drugs – based on standard daily doses for every 1,000 people in the population each day – along with a list of the 10 most costly drugs to government, and the 10 most common drugs by prescription counts. Continue reading...

Our success with mass flu vaccination bodes well for getting Covid-19 under control

US company submits data to start approval process with regulators around the world

George Eustice says up to 100 Tory MPs have concerns over post-lockdown tier system

Puzzles to have you in piecesUPDATE: The solutions are now up hereThanks to the Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit, chess is having a moment. Today’s three puzzles are in homage to world-class female players, both fictitious and real.1. A quintet of queens. Continue reading...

The brightest star in this ancient constellation is Capella, a yellow giant just 43 light years awayThis week, use one of the most prominent winter constellations to find one of the fainter ones. The constellation we are searching for is Auriga, the charioteer. It is an ancient constellation, having been among the 48 listed by Ptolemy in the second century AD. The easiest way to find Auriga at this time of year from the northern hemisphere is to locate Orion, the hunter. Continue reading...

A retreat for grieving parents provides therapeutic benefits, writes a mother whose daughter was stillborn 22 years agoAfter my daughter Grace died when I was eight months pregnant, my first impulse was to write it all down: the birth, surrounded by candles; the coffin and funeral where there should have been a christening; how her death had been accompanied by snowdrops fighting their way through the frozen ground in the first stirring of spring. I felt I was the only one really to have known her and I wanted her acknowledged. I wrote a diary as a way of making my daughter real, and published it in a magazine. It helped.I’ve since learned that this is a common impulse in the bereaved – especially among bereaved parents, who feel an urgent and deep-seated need to remember and honour their children. Continue reading...

Months after coming down with the virus, Eleanor Morgan is still struggling with ‘long Covid’. What is it and how can the burden be eased?

Four-letter words were once rebellious and cool, but the denizens of the finance sector have put paid to thatDoes Prince Charles ever swear at his plants, I wonder. Somehow I doubt it. We all know he talks to them, of course, because he said so in an interview in 1986 when discussing his garden. “I just come and talk to the plants, really,” he said. “Very important to talk to them. They respond.” This much-mocked revelation was supplemented only last year when the panel show QI tweeted that he also shakes hands with trees. At tree-planting ceremonies, he apparently always gives a branch a bit of a waggle to wish it well.This all makes perfect sense to me. It’s no surprise that a man in his position, when presented with an array of silent and quivering organisms, automatically starts chatting and shaking limbs. That’s what almost all royal events must be like. The nervous crowd he’s presented with when he gets out of the Bentley to cut a ribbon isn’t going to be significantly more responsive than your average clump of dahlias. He’s been instinctively filling silences with inane chatter all his life and it’s vital for his self-esteem to believe that, on some level, these mute lifeforms appreciate the effort. Continue reading...

Trials will not reveal all the facts on prevention for each new drug – that process could last for years

Neil Ferguson says relaxing coronavirus restrictions for five days will increase transmission

Those with conditions such as blood, bone or lung cancer put in same category on interim guidance list as over-70s

Painting of astrophysicist joins male-dominated collection at organisation’s London HQA British astrophysicist who made one of the most significant scientific discoveries of the 20th century but was overlooked by the Nobel prize committee has joined the male-dominated portrait collection of the Royal Society.Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell was a 24-year-old graduate student when in 1967 she discovered a new type of star later called a pulsar. It was a sensational find, recognised with the Nobel prize for physics in 1974 that went not to her, but to her male PhD supervisor. Continue reading...

Trudeau previously warned country would not get first doses; Italy to ease measures in five regions; singing and playing wind instruments ‘can increase risk of infection’, say Swiss authorities. This blog is now closed

Modelling was presented to government before decision to allow three-household festive ‘bubbles’

Scientists hope remains, thought to be up to 5,000 years old, will deepen knowledge of whale species and of rising sea levels

Plan hatched by new ‘Union unit’ to counter rise in Scottish nationalism

PM to publish analysis into approach amid row over data used to justify restrictions

Oxford/AstraZeneca planning new trial of lower-dose jab to see how well it works in older people

You’d be forgiven for thinking we would exit lockdown into something better, but the prime minister’s harsh tier system was our destiny“Now is not the time,” gibbered the prime minister, “to take our foot off the throat of the beast.” Its throat? A lot of people feel like they’ve been living in the beast’s colon for most of the year. Still, see you guys in tier 4 in January.Incredibly, the above was not even the worst line of Boris Johnson’s Thursday evening press conference. Johnson is unaccountably celebrated as a brilliant prose stylist but frequently spouts the sort of sub-inspirational shit you might see slapped on a photo of a crossroads on Instagram. This outing was a case in point, as the prime minister intoned: “Your tier is not your destiny – every area has the means of escape.” Wow. I want to say “#makesuthink”, but I’m going to go with: “Then tell us what the means of escape is! Why does everything have to be a bleeding ring quest?” Continue reading...

Pioneered by a Turkish-German couple, its significance exceeds its practical valueThe world took note when the German startup BioNTech announced its breakthrough in the development of a new type of vaccine to combat Covid-19. After testing tens of thousands of people, BioNTech’s vaccine has been shown to be 95% effective in providing protection for those who would otherwise have been infected. The company was the first to apply for emergency use authorisation for a coronavirus vaccine in the US and it has announced it will soon take similar steps in Europe.Antiviral vaccines are usually made with devitalised viral materials fabricated outside the body but BioNTech has pursued a new method of injecting genetically modified RNA into the patient. This prompts the patient’s cells to produce a characteristic protein of the relevant Sars-CoV-2 virus themselves, enabling the body’s immune system to build up an effective response before it encounters the real virus. Continue reading...

Daily cases continue to fall in France; health campaigners fear Africa will have to wait until mid-2021 for vaccine; weddings banned and cafes closed in Croatia

Researchers hopes Galleri trial will be a ‘gamechanger’ for early diagnosis and save many livesThe NHS is to trial a simple blood test that may help identify more than 50 forms of cancer years before diagnosis, in what it hailed as a potential “gamechanger”.If successful the blood test, known as Galleri, could revolutionise early diagnosis of cancer and save many lives by identifying symptoms quickly enough for prompt treatment to make the difference between life and death. Continue reading...

Spacecraft known as Hope carries instruments designed to study the tenuous Martian atmosphereThe Emirates Mars Mission (EMM) is on course to arrive at the Red Planet on 9 February. A third and final major trajectory correction manoeuvre (TCM) was completed on 10 November. An additional minor TCM in December will tee it up for a Mars orbit insertion manoeuvre next year. Without the need for further major course corrections, the mission team can begin early science observations of Mars and interplanetary space.The EMM spacecraft, also known as Hope, carries three instruments primarily designed to study the tenuous Martian atmosphere. With its arrival, the United Arab Emirates will become the fifth region, after the US, Russia, Europe and India, to reach Mars. Launched in July 2020, it is one of three spacecraft currently en route to the red planet. China’s Tianwen orbiter and rover, and the US rover Perseverance were also launched at the same time. Continue reading...

Report suggests tree growth will not store nearly as much carbon as scientists hopedGlobal heating appears to be making trees drop their leaves earlier, according to new research, confounding the idea that warmer temperatures delay the onset of autumn.The finding is important because trees draw huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the air and therefore play a key role in managing the climate. Continue reading...

As millions of people will hopefully be inoculated in the next six months, this will be the ideal time for clinical trials to compare the vaccines head to head, writes Dr Andrew Hill. Plus letters from Dr Niamh Martin and Roy GrimwoodWe now have three vaccines against Covid-19, giving between 70% and 95% protection (Vaccine results bring us a step closer to ending Covid, says Oxford scientist, 23 November). However, there are many unanswered questions. Which vaccine will protect people from Covid-19 infection for the longest time? Is one vaccine more protective for frontline healthcare workers, who could be exposed to high levels of virus? Are there any differences in safety? So far, each vaccine has been compared with a placebo in separate trials. The trials differ in designs and populations enrolled, so it is hard to compare the effectiveness and safety of these vaccines reliably.In the next six months, millions of people in the UK will be vaccinated with vaccines from Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech or Oxford/AstraZeneca. This is an ideal opportunity to conduct new randomised clinical trials, comparing these vaccines head to head. The NHS has discovered the survival benefits of dexamethasone in the Recovery trial. The World Health Organization has shown remdesivir to be of no benefit in its Solidarity trial. At this stage, we need to continue running large independent trials to further our understanding of the vaccines. Otherwise, if there are unexpected breakthrough infections on one vaccine or new safety issues, the results could be very hard to interpret.

Share price drops as critics question claim vaccine could protect up to 90% of people

Do not demonise. To optimise the vaccine rollout, all of us must show respect to those who are unsure about inoculations

Guardians of Sleep project working with Canadian university to compile Covid-19 dreams

Statistics show how ‘world-beating’ tracing scheme fails to follow up on Covid-19 cases at every stepIt was in May that Boris Johnson promised the UK would have a “world-beating” test-and-trace operation in place within weeks.“Our test-and-trace system is as good as, or better than, any other system anywhere in the world,” he doubled down in July. Continue reading...

Honesty, competence and a willingness to give us all the facts are essential for establishing who to trust

Five-day easing prompts warning that one guest could infect a third of people at a gathering

Jake Haendel spent months trapped in his body, silent and unmoving but fully conscious. Most people never emerge from ‘locked-in syndrome’, but as a doctor told him, everything about his case is bizarre

With a number of Covid-19 vaccines seemingly on the way, Nicola Davis talks to Prof Eleanor Riley about how they might help the body’s defence mechanisms fight the virus Continue reading...

Public Health England disputes Warwick University economists’ findings as ‘misleading’

Fears easing restrictions over festive period will lead to rise in cases and overwhelm NHS

Support group warns that large gatherings are too risky and calls for low-key festive period

Results from clinical trials have shown that the world has three apparently highly effective vaccines for Covid-19. With the race now on for regulatory approval, production and distribution, is the end of the pandemic within reach?After a gruelling year of successive waves of Covid-19 infections and national lockdowns there has been a burst of good news this month, with three separate vaccine candidates performing extremely well in clinical trials.First, Pfizer and Moderna announced that their vaccines were testing at an efficacy of around 95%. Then came the news that the AstraZeneca vaccine (the one pre-ordered in bulk by the UK government) was hitting 90%. It marks not just a new phase in the Covid-19 pandemic but potentially a revolution in vaccine technology itself. Continue reading...

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