Despite the Pfizer breakthrough, social distancing and remote working won’t disappear overnight

Venki Ramakrishnan says Horizon programme is vital to ensuring UK retains influence

In his latest science doc, the existential film-maker considers the cataclysmic threat from space – as real now as it ever wasIn 2007, Werner Herzog made a movie about Antarctica called Encounters at the End of the World, where he met the Cambridge University geographer and seismologist Clive Oppenheimer. The resulting partnership has opened up whole new adventures for Herzog in pop anthropology and the history of ideas. Together, Herzog and Oppenheimer made Into the Inferno in 2016, with Oppenheimer largely in front of the camera and Herzog behind, supplying the unmistakable rasping voiceover with its occasional flourishes of nihilist black comedy. Into the Inferno was all about how volcanos create strange belief systems and supplicant ideologies in the humans around them.Related: Werner Herzog: 'I'm fascinated by trash TV. The poet must not avert his eyes' Continue reading...

The lion’s share of the potential Pfizer vaccine is already claimed by high-income nationsThe news that joint efforts by the US pharmaceutical company Pfizer and the German biotech company BioNtech have produced a vaccine that is 90% effective at protecting people from Covid-19 has been understandably applauded – in spite of the caveats. Pfizer states that it can manufacture up to 50m doses by the end of 2020 and up to 1.3bn doses in 2021.Given the desire to get life back to normal, these doses will be in incredibly high demand. Some governments around the world, including the UK, have already begun to indicate to their populations that they will receive a vaccine by Christmas. But how will the distribution of this finite number of vaccines work when we only have enough for one seventh of the global population? Continue reading...

I don’t know my future self yet, but I’m pretty sure she wants me to take off the conventional masks I’ve been wearingThis was meant to be the year of my own private midlife crisis. Instead it has become the year of the novel coronavirus.I’d been anticipating turning 40 this November with a heady mix of pleasure and pain, knowing it would mark not only the beginning of my middle age, but the end of almost nine years of intensively mothering preschool-aged children. Continue reading...

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Agreement yet to be reached with universities as clock ticks towards Christmas ‘travel window’

Big City Birds app launched to help researchers better understand sulphur-crested cockatoo, ibis and brush-turkeyThere’s a new reason to engage with some of Australia’s most ubiquitous birds. A new app allows users to record the whereabouts of “big city” species like the sulphur-crested cockatoo and the Australian white ibis.Researchers at the University of Sydney and Taronga Conservation Society have launched the Big City Birds app to assist scientists with data collection and help them better understand some of our most common species. Continue reading...

Schools, bars and cinemas in Phnom Penh locked down as cases reported after trade trip

Wise governments will take a leaf out of the anti-vaxxers’ book by creating campaigns that persuade through engagementThe world has been offered a first ray of hope for a potential Covid-19 vaccine, created by Pfizer and BioNTech. So far, efforts have been focused on the manufacture and deployment of this and many other vaccines. Now that we have our first candidate, attention will turn to uptake. If researchers offer a vaccine, will people volunteer for it? And if they don’t, why not?As the World Health Organization director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned in March, we are not only fighting a pandemic, but also an “infodemic”, a deluge of information – both factual and incorrect. This can generate doubt and vaccine hesitancy, which the WHO listed as one of the top 10 threats to global health in 2019. A recent survey conducted in the UK found that 36% of people were either uncertain or very unlikely to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Continue reading...

Behavioural scientist devoted to championing hygiene and sanitationThe only person – probably – ever to give a speech at the United Nations featuring a plastic poo, Valerie Curtis, who has died aged 62 of cancer, was one of the world’s first “disgustologists” and was dubbed by her fans the “Queen of Hygiene”. A behavioural scientist, she devoted her career to researching and championing hygiene, sanitation and behaviour change.Val began her career as an architect at Arup Associates, working on the new British Library, before her desire to make a greater difference drove her to take up posts with international NGOs such as Oxfam. She worked in Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda throughout the 1980s, often in conditions of famine and civil war, installing water pumps in remote communities. It was there that she developed her interest in behaviour. Continue reading...

Though scientists are routinely criticised for their projections, calls to wait for precise estimates underplay the urgency of this crisis

Suspicion in Devon town of face masks and 5G means take-up of vaccine may face resistance

Sale by Christie’s in London of 2,400 vintage images ranges from the dawn of space age to the last men on the moonNeil Armstrong’s giant leap for mankind is on sale to the highest bidder after a private collector released a treasure trove of Nasa images from spaceflight’s golden era for auction, including the only photograph taken of the first human walking on the moon.Related: Apollo 11: the fight for the first footprint on the moon Continue reading...

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Promising clinical data from Pfizer and BioNTech help the index to a £28bn one-day gainOptimism that a mass rollout of Covid-19 vaccines will lead to an economic recovery lifted stocks in London again on Tuesday, to their highest closing level in over four months.London’s FTSE 100 index of blue-chip shares rallied by nearly 1.8% to finish at 6,296 points, the highest close since 23 June. This added £28bn to the index’s value, taking its gains so far this week to nearly £100bn after it surged 4.6% on Monday on news of a vaccine breakthrough. Continue reading...

Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca pledged to make their vaccines available on a not-for-profit basis

Europe and US create vast facilities for Covid-19 vaccine but poorer nations lack infrastructure, say experts

At last, there is hope of an end to this pandemic. Scientists appear to have performed an amazing feat, the rest of us must do our best too

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Conspiracies about pandemic on social media must be countered effectively, say experts

The UK usually has a high take-up for vaccines, experts say, but there are fears over misinformation and scepticism

Readers respond to news that an interim analysis has shown Pfizer/BioNTech’s vaccine candidate was 90% effective in protecting people from transmission of the virus in global trials

There are grounds for optimism but also several unknowns around this coronavirus vaccine

Student finds mislabelled fragment of pterosaur, which flew over eastern England up to 66m years agoA fossil that been had languishing in a museum drawer in Brighton, wrongly labelled as a shark fin skeleton, has now been identified as a completely new species of prehistoric flying reptile that soared majestically over what are now the Cambridgeshire fens.Roy Smith, a University of Portsmouth PhD student, identified the creature after realising it was much more unusual and interesting than its label suggested. He identified the fossil as the tip of the beak of a new species of pterosaur (from the Greek for “winged lizard”), a creature that existed 228m-66m years ago and the earliest vertebrate known to have evolved powered flight. Continue reading...

Kate Bingham spent more than £670k hiring PR consultants to oversee media strategy

A combination of scientific advances and people volunteering for trials has finally offered a light at the end of the tunnel

Key PLO figure and advocate for two-state solution dies aged 65Saeb Erekat, the veteran Palestinian peace negotiator and one of the most high-profile figures in its leadership since the early 1990s, has died after contracting coronavirus.Erekat, a lawmaker from Jericho in the occupied West Bank, was a senior adviser to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and also worked for Abbas’s predecessor, Yasser Arafat. He served as the secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Continue reading...

Sars, Mers, now this: we must think hard about how we farm animals that are known hosts of human coronavirusesTwo decades ago, a seminal study from the University of Edinburgh compiled a list of all known human infectious diseases. It found a total of 1,415 different human pathogens, and claimed that 61% were capable of spreading between humans and animals. Today, with the world put on hold by a deadly disease that seems likely to have spread first from bats to humans, we know the dangerous effects of such pathogens all too well.The group of diseases that spread from animals to humans are collectively known as zoonoses. The term encompasses diseases such as measles, which first spread from cattle to humans thousands of years ago but now transmits exclusively between people, and Ebola, which periodically passes from bats to humans, where it then spreads from person to person. It can also refer to food-borne diseases caused by bacterias such as salmonella and campylobacter that we only get from the consumption of animal products and almost never pass from person to person. Continue reading...

Paranthropus robustus walked the earth at roughly the same time as our direct ancestor Homo erectusA two million-year-old skull from a large-toothed distant human cousin has been unearthed at an Australian-led archaeological dig deep in a South African cave system.The discovery is the earliest known and best-preserved example of the small-brained hominin called Paranthropus robustus, La Trobe University researchers say. Continue reading...

Early results from phase 3 trial look promising but there are still many questions to be answered

From the underrated octopus to Dante, the Italian physicist fuses his deep knowledge of science and the artsWe live in a golden age of science writing, where weighty subjects such as quantum mechanics, genetics and cell theory are routinely rendered intelligible to mass audiences. Nonetheless, it remains rare for even the most talented science writers to fuse their work with a deep knowledge of the arts.One such rarity is the Italian theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli who, like some intellectual throwback to antiquity, treats the sciences and the humanities as complementary areas of knowledge and is a subtle interpreter of both. His best-known work is Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, which was a bestseller, most notably in Italy, where he is also well known for his erudite articles in newspapers such as Corriere della Sera. Continue reading...

This month marks 20 years of continuous human habitation of space on the ISS. A new set of images by Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli and photographer Roland Miller captures the station’s interiors through an artistic, minimalist eye Continue reading...

Analysis shows nearly twice as many diagnoses over three months among those testing positive

Global stocks surge and experts optimistic as Covid vaccine exceeds expectations

Linda Geddes speaks to Prof Jacky Smith about one of Covid-19’s most consistent symptoms: the persistent dry cough. As winter arrives in the northern hemisphere, how do we tell the difference between the possible onset of the virus and the kind of routine coughs normally experienced at this time of year? Continue reading...

Interim results show vaccine to be 90% effective, but findings have not been peer-reviewed, Australia has only secured enough for five million people, and there are concerns around its storage temperature• Pfizer says vaccine is 90% effective

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We mustn’t get carried away but the strong reaction to the Pfizer-BioNTec trial results makes sense“A great day for science and humanity,” said the Pfizer chief executive, Albert Bourla. It was a decent one for stock markets too. The FTSE 100 index rose almost 5% as the US firm and its German partner, BioNTech, reported promising initial results from their Covid vaccine trial.There is an obvious danger of getting carried away – of assuming that rapid vaccine development is now a breeze – but the strong market reaction makes sense. For starters, though the tone around the Pfizer-BioNTech trial has been bullish for weeks, the first batch of data was far better than hoped. A 90% efficacy rate is a very strong number in any phase 3 clinical trial. Continue reading...

Couple who set up and run firm are children of long-maligned ‘guest workers’ from Turkey

There are well-established guards against mathematical errors in other sectors, writes Sabina Ali, so why are risks being taken with public health? Plus Carol Granère on testing failuresYour article (Fault in NHS Covid app meant thousands at risk did not quarantine, 2 November) states that an “oversight” from the programmers is at the source of thousands being put at risk. Why is it considered acceptable to take such risks in public health during apandemic? These failings put us in danger. There are ways of ensuring that the maths does not go wrong by using risk assessment strategies well established in other sectors.The government declining to communicate on the number of people advised to self-isolate isn’t acceptable either. There has been a clear lack of transparency from the conception of the app to its consequences. This can only lead to greater distrust from the public, jeopardising our Covid recovery.

The pandemic has shown how a lack of solid statistics can be dangerous. But even with the firmest of evidence, we often end up ignoring the facts we don’t like. By Tim Harford Continue reading...

With test and trace a shambles, many are pinning their hopes on a jab. But experts warn more measures will be needed to vanquish coronavirus

First minister speaks of early tentative signs the measure has brought down infection rate

President-elect due to meet with 12-member advisory board amid concerns over transition process

Technology seen as a vital component in preparations to establish permanent lunar baseWhen astronauts return to the moon in the next decade, they will do more with the dust than leave footprints in it.A British firm has won a European Space Agency contract to develop the technology to turn moon dust and rocks into oxygen, leaving behind aluminium, iron and other metal powders for lunar construction workers to build with. Continue reading...

Observing the sun’s nearest neighbour is always a challenge, so find a viewing location with a clear horizonThere is a beautiful alignment to watch out for in the morning sky this week, as the waning crescent moon heads towards the brilliant beacon of Venus and the seldom glimpsed, inner-most planet Mercury. Continue reading...

If the 2020 election was a referendum on the Trump years, the pandemic provides a test of conservative principles“This is the time to heal in America”. President-elect Joe Biden’s words were directed at a nation suffering after four years of Donald Trump’s dishonesty and fear-mongering. Mr Biden understands Trumpism is arsenic in the water supply of American political culture. It has sloshed around the country, flowing most freely wherever Republicans were in power. Even after the president had clearly lost the popular vote, his Republican enablers embraced his claims about a stolen election rather than denouncing them.Yet Mr Biden wants America to come together not come apart. There is nothing to gain from trading incivilities with Republican opponents. He seeks to bridge divides. Under Mr Trump, the US has become more polarised between educated and less-educated voters; whites and people of colour; haves and have-nots; and urban and rural areas. Mr Biden is right: politics can’t be conducted in a furnace, it’s time to “lower the temperature”. Continue reading...

Medical textbooks are full of anatomical pictures of the penis, but the clitoris barely rates a mention, with many medical professionals uncomfortable even talking about it. Reporter Calla Wahlquist and associate news editor Gabrielle Jackson explain the history and science of the clitoris, and speak to the scientists and artists dedicated to demystifying itYou can read Calla Wahlquist’s piece on why the clitoris is ignored by medical science here. You can also read an edited extract of Gabrielle Jackson’s book Pain and Prejudice here. Continue reading...

Exclusive: ICU nurses will be allowed to treat two people at same time as hospital admissions soar