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Up to 500,000 people in city will be tested in bid to measure feasibility of mass population screening

Government sources say information was already public and wrongly labelled ‘official sensitive’Labour has asked the cabinet secretary to “undertake an urgent and swift investigation” into the vaccines taskforce chief after it was claimed she showed US financiers “official sensitive” government documents at a $200-a-head conference last week.Kate Bingham, the head of Britain’s vaccine taskforce, showed a detailed list of vaccines which the UK government is closely monitoring to a “premier webinar and networking event” for women in private equity hosted by a Massachusetts company, the Sunday Times claimed. Continue reading...

Prime minister tells MPs he makes ‘no apology’ for trying to avoid a nationwide lockdown

The solutions to today’s lexical perplexitiesEarlier today I set you three conundrums taken from my new book, the Language Lover’s Puzzle Book. The first problem was about deciphering hieroglyphics, the second about a coding system for the colour blind, and the third about counting in Danish. Below, I repeat the questions and provide the answers.1. Champers for Champollion Continue reading...

PM was presented with some alarming data – with one model forecasting up to 4,000 Covid deaths a day next month

Cardiologist whose large-scale trials of emergency treatment for heart attack patients changed clinical practiceUntil the late 1980s, doctors had little to offer patients who had suffered from heart attacks. Half of them died within two hours. The remainder faced the risk of heart failure, further heart attacks and strokes, with similarly bleak outlooks. Combining scientific curiosity, intellectual rigour and clinical experience, Peter Sleight teamed up with statisticians and epidemiologists to conduct large-scale trials showing that speedy treatment with aspirin and other readily available drugs could significantly cut this toll of death and disease. Millions of patients worldwide have since gained years of healthy life thanks to those studies.Sleight, who has died aged 91, brought to these international collaborations his clinical credibility as Field-Marshal Alexander professor of cardiology at Oxford University (1973-94) and his openness to learning from the expertise of others. Continue reading...

No wonder track and trace failed. Even before the Covid pandemic, the system was in turmoil and life expectancy had stalled

Country aims to be one of first to test entire population of 5.4 million people for virus

The ISS this week celebrates 20 years of taking on board its first guests – but the accommodation is not exactly five starThis week marks 20 years since the first residents arrived on the International Space Station (ISS). The orbiting habitat has been continuously occupied ever since.Twenty straight years of life in space makes the ISS the ideal “natural laboratory” to understand how societies function beyond Earth. Continue reading...

Study suggests white blood cell levels higher in people who had symptoms

Labour leader says chancellor Rishi Sunak’s ‘name is all over’ decision not to act earlier

Strategies for exiting spring lockdowns did not work, and goodwill leached away, allowing infection rates to riseLast week Europe registered 1.5m new cases of Covid-19 – a record – making it once again the centre of the pandemic. The UK is not exempt, and England will enter a new lockdown from Thursday 5 November. From the outside, it might seem the continent is in the grip of a second wave that is ramping rapidly towards its peak. But it is not one wave, it’s many local waves, and that is crucial in understanding how to rein it in and prevent the same thing happening again.Though there is some tentative evidence that the virus itself has undergone a change since the summer, there is none to suggest that this change has affected either the transmissibility or the severity of the disease. Nor can the change explain the synchronous surges in all parts of the continent. Continue reading...

Scientist says delay in imposing tougher restrictions likely to have cost thousands of lives

Up to the task? Decipher yourself!Today you will be asked to replicate the most famous decipherment in history, deduce the rules of a coding system for colourblind people and count to 100 in Danish. (The puzzles are excerpted from my new book, The Language Lover’s Puzzle Book, which features conundrums involving ancient languages, modern languages, invented languages and scientific languages.)1. Champers for Champollion Continue reading...

PM promised public could get results in ‘10 to 15 minutes’ but tests are designed for lab staff

Dr Margaret Harris said ‘high price’ of lockdowns must buy time to improve test and trace

The constellation, one of the 12 zodiacal patterns, is between Ursa Major and Orion in the northern hemisphereThe waning gibbous moon this week will guide you to the heart of the constellation Gemini, the twins.In the northern hemisphere, Gemini sits between the well-known constellations of Ursa Major, the great bear, to the north and Orion, the hunter, to the south. Sandwiched between these two obvious star patterns, Gemini can be easy to overlook. Continue reading...

Opposition of Sunak melted away during quad meeting and PM sided with Gove and Hancock

Russian physicist whose campaigning for human rights in the Soviet Union led to imprisonment and exile to the USThe outstanding Russian physicist Yuri Orlov, who has died aged 96, became one of the bravest champions of human rights in the final period of the Soviet Union. He suffered years of hardship in prison, labour camps and exile to Siberia before having his citizenship withdrawn in 1986 and being sent to the US as part of a spy swap.Born in Moscow, Yuri came from a working-class family. His father, Fyodor Orlov, was a lorry driver who died when Yuri was eight. His mother, Klavdiya Lebedeva, brought him up in a village near Moscow. In 1944 he joined the Soviet army and served for two years before entering Moscow State University. In 1952 he joined the Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics, first as a postgraduate student and then as a researcher into quantum physics, concentrating on particle motion in accelerators. Continue reading...

The prime minister either did not understand what scientists told him about Covid, or he ignored it for political reasons

Scientists are tracking small differences in DNA to explain why the disease has different effects

As the Earth’s ice melts, large numbers of perfectly preserved ancient artefacts are being revealed. But time is running out and ‘glacial archaeologists’ are racing to find these fragile treasuresBack in August 2018, archaeologists William Taylor and Nick Jarman were scrambling around a snowy, scree-strewn slope in the Altai mountains in northwest Mongolia at the end of an exhausting day. A few hundred metres above Jarman, Taylor and his colleagues were surveying the site, a disappearing ice field that local reindeer herders said had not melted in living memory. Now, each summer, it disappears almost completely.Taylor looked down the mountain and saw his methodical colleague dancing and hollering, hopping from rock to rock. Thinking he was injured, Taylor headed down the mountain. Continue reading...

What can science tell us about our urge to celebrate with loved ones this festive season despitethe dangers?

Rules will shut pubs, cafes and non-vital shops, while local reviews will take place after a four-week periodBoris Johnson performed an extraordinary U-turn on Saturday as he unveiled new month-long national lockdown measures across England, amid accusations that government indecision and delay will cost lives and livelihoods across the country.With immediate warnings of the grave economic fallout and a mounting backlash among Tory MPs, the prime minister announced that a series of measures would come into force on Thursday to combat growing Covid infections. They will remain in place until 2 December. Continue reading...

PM says unless action is taken now, capacity will be exceeded in hospitals and there will be thousands of deaths a day11.14pm GMTThis from the BBC’s Nick Robinson:

England lockdown expected early next week; US passes 9m infections; Melbourne records no new cases or deaths. Follow the latest:

Restrictions in place from Thursday are needed to tackle coronavirus spread, PM says

The bushfires and the plague are symptoms of something momentous unfolding on Earth – an acceleration of our impact on nature

Medical textbooks are full of anatomical pictures of the penis, but the clitoris barely rates a mention. Many medical professionals are uncomfortable even talking about itProfessor Caroline de Costa is awaiting feedback. Several months ago the editor of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology requested an editorial from a world-renowned Melbourne urologist to address what she saw as a lack of research and, more concerningly, a persistent lack of knowledge about an essential part of the female reproductive system. Continue reading...

Widespread deficiency shows that current government guidance on supplements is failing

The research scientist and Democratic candidate on the Green New Deal, the importance of facts and why Trump’s stance on masks is ‘unconscionable’Nancy Goroff will be the first female research scientist to serve in the US Congress if she is elected this November. The Democratic candidate is running for one of Long Island’s seats in the House of Representatives against incumbent Republican, Lee Zeldin, an ardent President Trump supporter who has described her as a “radical professor”. Facing a tight race with issues such as the coronavirus pandemic and climate change looming large, Goroff, a professor of chemistry at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is stressing her science credentials.You’ve worked at Stony Brook University for more than two decades developing new organic molecules for solar cells and eco-friendly lighting in your lab. What made you decide to run for Congress?

Blue moons – the second full moon in a month – occur only every few years, and the name is misleadingOn Saturday night, Democrats yearning for a blue wave on election day may choose to look to the skies for an omen: a blue moon.Blue moons, typically defined as the second full moon in one month, are rare, arriving every two to three years. According to Earthsky.org, the last was on 31 March 2018. Continue reading...

A pilgrimage is healing because it encourages you to savour the momentCome autumn, as a way of defying the back-to-school doldrums brought on by a rapid shortening of the days, and to mark what feels like the true start of a year, I go on a pilgrimage. This year, more than ever, I crave the slow and steady rhythm of a walking pace, big skies, and cleansing wind and rain to shake off the cobwebs of a long confinement and to break the domestic routines of daily life. I want to connect to my own pumping heart and the natural world around me, re-oxygenate stale lungs and feel the muscles in my legs stretch and work.Since I’m looking for uplift, there is nowhere for me that’s more rejuvenating and exhilarating than the uplands of Golden Cap in Dorset, the highest point on the south coast of England. In the rinsed light of early autumn, it glows, as if just-hatched, new-born. I have earmarked the little church of St Candida and the Holy Cross, behind these soaring coastal cliffs, tucked into the valleys of Marshwood Vale, a landscape that folds gently in on itself like ribbons of thickened cream. It is part of a medieval pilgrimage trail that connected Bridport to Axminster, containing one of only two shrines with relics of a saint still existing in England (the other being Edward the Confessor’s shrine at Westminster Abbey), somehow miraculously surviving the Reformation and the civil war. St Wite, martyred by marauding Viking hordes, attracts the hopeless and hopeful sick who journey to her quaint limestone shrine. Continue reading...

The form that archaeology has taken in Europe doesn’t apply everywhere. Better knowledge of local cultures is vitalCultural heritage is a basic human need. Yes – humans don’t only need food and shelter, culture is required for them to survive and thrive. Our cultural values glue us to one another and help us create security and a community. I believe that cultural and archaeological sites can be part of that basic human need, too. Cemeteries and sacred places form part of our identity. Often these places are even more critical in times of crises as people search for solace and answers.History keeps us in touch with this identity and sense of community, yet in Africa it has been the preserve of the white investigators. In colonial Africa, archaeology evolved in a different manner to the archaeology of Britain and France, the colonial powers. In Britain, it started as a grassroots project in the 18th century, run by regional societies in the shires, which formed clubs and built collections and libraries. It went from focusing on religious art and ruined monasteries to the Roman era and antiquities, before later becoming more democratic and common in the 20th century. Continue reading...

Some simple checks can help separate an honest statistic from a falsehoodSchool spending hits record levels in England, claims a minister, while some schools close on Friday afternoons because of a lack of funds. China is the biggest environmental polluter in the world, Donald Trump once tweeted. But, per capita, Saudi Arabia emitted the largest tonnage of CO in 2018 and China was in 13th place.What is it about statistics that make them a godsend to people intent on reinventing reality? They arrive with a veneer of scientific exactitude and probity – and the more exact they are, the greater their apparent accuracy. Better still, they convey an air of certitude and give us something to grasp on to in a turbulent world. Few of us are inclined to look deeper. But if we do, we’ll often find a mix of crude lies and sleights of hand – slippery definitions, manipulated percentages, cherrypicked comparisons or rough estimates presented as certainties. Continue reading...

Italy also records 199 further deaths; US record surge killing nearly 1,000 Americans a day; Moscow creates vaccination network. This blog is now closed. Follow the latest below

At least three companies close to revealing results of phase three trials, but to be approved for use safety has to be ensured

Experts say UK’s travel policy in summer was flawed as ‘the virus moves when people move’

Foreign secretary says UK government is prepared to take further measures if necessary

Reusable masks vary hugely in ability to filter particles, say Which? researchers

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

Space-based service will alert users to potential collisions between satellites and orbital junkThe Canadian company NorthStar Earth and Space has contracted Thales Alenia Space to build the first three satellites of its Skylark space traffic monitoring system, with LeoStella, a Seattle-based firm, overseeing the final assembly. This will make NorthStar the first commercial company to monitor space traffic from space.The service will alert users to potential collisions between satellites, both operational and defunct, and other large pieces of debris. The service will become increasingly important as new satellites, especially the mega-constellations such as SpaceX’s Starlink and Amazon’s Project Kuiper, are launched. Continue reading...

Research suggests canines’ varied origins stretch back further – and live on in today’s petsFrom tiny chihuahuas to fluffy Siberian huskies, dogs come in all shapes and sizes. But researchers have revealed there is more to canine diversity than meets the eye.Scientists have found five distinct groups of dogs were already present at the end of the last ice age, and their legacy lives on in our pets today. Continue reading...

Over the summer, the government ignored advice about controlling Covid. A new study shows we’re paying the price

More than 170 teams of researchers are racing to develop a safe and effective vaccine. Here is their progressResearchers around the world are racing to develop a vaccine against Covid-19, with more than 170 candidate vaccines now tracked by the World Health Organization (WHO). Continue reading...

Halting destruction of wild places could slow frequency of deadly outbreaks, say scientists

Removal of millions of tonnes of material from Goodwin Sands, the watery grave of hundreds of ships in the English Channel, would make a mockery of marine protection pledges, critics say

Covid-19 has made this year tougher for those experiencing treatment and those of us who work in cancer careIn March, just before the UK locked down, I speculated about the challenges Covid-19 might pose to people undergoing cancer treatment. Now, with apprehension building as we dive headfirst into the second wave of Covid-19, I reflect on my past seven months as an oncologist. There is no doubt that 2020 has made life for those living with cancer even harder. It’s also become tougher for those of us who work in cancer care.We’ve had to adapt our communication skills. For some patients, the shift to phone consultations is a welcome change. For others, a phone call removes the small talk part of consultations, where doctors and patients get to know each other. A physical examination tells us more about our patients than the physical findings alone. The silences we so often employ in face to face conversations, generally intuitively without conscious thought, are awkward on the telephone. Video consultations are better, but do not equate to real life. We would never normally start difficult, life-changing conversations with the words: “Can you hear me?” Continue reading...

They are among the most enigmatic phenomena in the universe, confounding physicists and mathematicians alike. Black holes pull in the matter around them and anything that enters can never escape. Yet they contain nothing at all. Guided by the physicist and author of the Black Hole Survival Guide, Janna Levin, Madeleine Finlay takes Science Weekly on an interstellar voyage to visit one of these incredible astrophysical objects.In the second of two episodes, the pair discuss spaghettification, white holes, Hawking radiation and whether we actually live inside a hologram Continue reading...