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Links between an anti-lockdown declaration and a libertarian thinktank suggest a hidden agenda

Our sense of smell is crucial to survival – so wearing the right perfume could be more important than you thinkEarlier this year I was asked to give a lecture to a group of fashion journalism students at Condé Nast College – an event that was swiftly moved online thanks to the pandemic. It goes without saying that giving a lecture to a group of students looking back at you from a Zoom grid is no less intimidating than doing it in real life, so as I got ready for the event, I did all the things I could to pump up my confidence: I slipped on my favourite denim shirt, I slicked back my increasingly shaggy lockdown hair and, finally, I sprayed on one of my all-time favourite scents – Hermès Eau de Néroli Doré, a zingy, energizing citrus number with a grown-up saffron afterglow.Of course, there was a bit of muscle memory here from a grooming routine pre-pandemic. I have always worn fragrance before going out to meet people, especially those I want to feel my most confident and professional around. But spraying it on for a virtual meeting when no-one else was there, confirmed something: all along I’ve been wearing scent for me, not for them. As lockdown progressed, fragrance became more important to me. Trapped indoors, scent offered not only an escape for my brain, but an organisational project that was long overdue – I had to build a “fragrance wardrobe”. Continue reading...

Review finds quality of evidence is poor and noise may lead to more disrupted sleepWhether it is nature sounds, the whine of a hairdryer or the incessant hum of a ceiling fan, white noise apps have been downloaded by millions of people around the world in the hope of getting a better night’s sleep. However, research suggests there is no good evidence that they work, and may even be making things worse.True white noise is the hissy fizzing sound of all the frequencies that humans can hear being fired off randomly and at the same intensity. In recent years, numerous apps and devices have been developed that use it – or other “relaxing” sounds such as the hum of a fan or crashing waves – to help people fall asleep. Continue reading...

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...

Chair of modelling group urges curb on capacity in favour of speed if test-and-trace system is to work

Just like the Black Death, influenza and smallpox, Covid-19 will affect almost every aspect of our of lives – even after a vaccine turns upOn 7 September 1854, in the middle of a raging cholera epidemic, the physician John Snow approached the board of guardians of St James’s parish for permission to remove the handle from a public water pump in Broad Street in London’s Soho. Snow observed that 61 victims of the cholera had recently drawn water from the pump and reasoned that contaminated water was the source of the epidemic. His request was granted and, even though it would take a further 30 years for the germ theory of cholera to become accepted, his action ended the epidemic.As we adjust to another round of coronavirus restrictions, it would be nice to think that Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock have a similar endpoint in sight for Covid-19. Unfortunately, history suggests that epidemics rarely have such neat endings as the 1854 cholera epidemic. Quite the opposite: as the social historian of medicine Charles Rosenberg observed, most epidemics “drift towards closure”. It is 40 years since the identification of the first Aids cases, for instance, yet every year 1.7 million people are infected with HIV. Indeed, in the absence of a vaccine, the World Health Organization does not expect to call time on it before 2030. Continue reading...

Animal behaviour expert Konrad Lorenz explains why it is man who is red in tooth and clawYou can see why the goslings on the cover of the Observer Magazine of 1 May 1966 took Konrad Lorenz (‘the world authority on animal behaviour’) to be their parent – with his feathery white hair he could pass for a goose himself. In fact, the geese have a ‘fixed idea’ that his hair is grass, which is why they are trying to eat it.By a lake at the Max Planck Institute near Munich, John Davy talked to Lorenz about what humans can learn from animals, particularly when it came to aggression. The piece began by saying that ‘It is man, not nature, who is red in tooth and claw,’ and that between 1820 and 1945 humans killed 59 million fellow humans in ‘wars, murderous attacks, and other deadly quarrels’. Goose on goose deaths weren’t cited, but you get the idea. Continue reading...

Case numbers grow in Europe as, Belgium and Austria’s foreign ministers test positive, and Angela Merkel asks Germans to stay home. In Australia, Daniel Andrews is expected to announce some easing of restrictions in Victoria

CommonPass aims to create common standard proving a traveller is Covid-free or vaccinated

The winning essay in the Max Perutz science writing award 2020 was written by Sarah Taylor from the MRC Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine at the University of EdinburghIn May, PhD students who are funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) were invited to enter the Max Perutz science writing award 2020 and to tell the general public “why your research matters”. From the many entries received, the 10 that made the shortlist covered diverse topics, including motor neurone disease, self-harm, babies’ experiences of pain, and bone loss resulting from space travel.The essays were judged by the Observer’s Ian Tucker, the Science Museum’s Roger Highfield, Prof Fiona Watt from the MRC, Bristol University’s Andy Ridgeway and the journalist and broadcaster Samira Ahmed. Continue reading...

Reports suggest timeframe between recovery and reinfection ‘relatively short’ for those who contracted virus twice

Belgium seeks to tackle a sharp rise in cases; France cases fall from the 30,621 reported on Thursday; most new infections in Italy since pandemic began. This blog is now closed

Blanket restrictions have served their purpose. Their harms now outweigh their benefitsAs Daniel Andrews signals “significant steps” will be taken to ease Victoria’s Covid rules on Sunday, there is ever more pointed attention to the number five. Five is the target set for the rolling 14-day case average that will allow us to move to the next step of easing restrictions on our journey to social and economic recovery.But getting to that target has proven challenging. In fact, we’ve been sitting firmly on an average of 10 since 7 October. On 16 October Melbourne’s average is now 8.7 cases. Continue reading...

A virtual conference was thrown into confusion when the platform hosting the event came with a pre-packaged ‘naughty word’ censorParticipants in a virtual paleontology session found themselves caught between a rock and a hard place last week, when a profanity filter prevented them from using certain words – such as bone, pubic, stream and, er, beaver – during an online conference.The US-based Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) held its annual meeting virtually this year due to the pandemic, but soon found its audience stifled when they tried to use particular words. Continue reading...

PCS union said decision not to display QR codes at eating establishments is putting members at risk of coronavirus

Expanded workforce will undergo training programme to immunise as much of population as possible

Beloved children’s author will reflect on illness that put him in intensive care for 47 days using mix of poems and nurses’ ward notes

ONS figures estimate 1 in 160 people were infected with Covid in first week of October

I used to think the mental block I have around life admin was to do with an innate lack of focus. But then I discovered ‘decision fatigue’Recently my mother paid me one of her quintessential “compli-sults”: a lashing of praise that somehow leaves a bruise. I’m moving flat, and mentioned that my poor organisational skills were sure to wreak havoc with the process.“Stop putting yourself down, you’re the best at sorting things when you need to be – it’s why I call you in a crisis,” she said. “It’s just the basic, obvious stuff you can’t handle.” Continue reading...

ONS update also shows that males have higher death rate than females

Newly leaked documents reported by Bloomberg News show that ExxonMobil’s climate dishonesty is even worse than we thoughtIn 2017, we published the first peer-reviewed analysis of ExxonMobil’s 40-year history of climate change communications. We found that the company and its parents, Exxon and Mobil, misled the public about climate change and its severity. Central to this conclusion was the contrast between what Exxon and ExxonMobil scientists said in internal reports and scientific articles versus what Exxon, Mobil, and ExxonMobil told the public in non-peer-reviewed publications and in “advertorials” – paid advertisements dressed up to look like opinion pieces – in The New York Times.Newly leaked documents, reported recently by Bloomberg News, show that ExxonMobil’s climate dishonesty is even worse than we thought. While the company privately has an internal “plan for surging carbon emissions…by as much as the output of the entire nation of Greece,” according to Bloomberg, ExxonMobil executives “shield their carbon forecasts from investors.” In other words, ExxonMobil drew up plans to expand fossil fuel production, internally calculated how much this would increase their carbon dioxide emissions, then failed to disclose those estimates to investors. Indeed, the company has never publicly disclosed its emissions forecasts. In response to the Bloomberg report, ExxonMobil claimed that the leaked documents were not up-to-date, but declined to provide “any details on the new projections,” according to Bloomberg. Continue reading...

Measures, which will come into effect on Friday night, accepted in exchange for £42m support

Results of major trial described as sobering, with drug found not to improve survival rates

Netflix’s documentary about the 1986 space shuttle tragedy is a timely meditation on the perils of exceptionalismIn the first episode of Challenger, a new documentary series on Netflix that revisits the 1986 space shuttle disaster, there is a scene that will be remembered by anyone who was old enough to watch the news in that era. The montage of seven smiling astronauts – most famously, Christa McAuliffe, the “first teacher in space” – gives way to footage of the shuttle’s launch and, 73 seconds later, the explosion over Cape Canaveral. The camera shifts to the faces of the spectators, as they move from excitement to the realisation that something terrible has happened.There is nothing so remote as recent history, and it is a jolt to recall how shocking that footage actually was: the deaths of seven people broadcast on live television, watched by millions of Americans. Stranger still, however, is the view of the United States at 30 years’ distance. The documentary does a fine job of piecing together the incompetence at Nasa that led to the disaster, but it’s the chronicle of what happened publicly in the years leading up to the explosion – the agency’s hard sell on the American dream, in line with the country’s confident self-image – that delivers the biggest shock. Watching grainy scenes of big-haired Americans smiling and striving and reaching for the stars, I felt a nostalgia so powerful that before I could stop myself, I’d found myself thinking, “Wow, the US really was great back then.” Continue reading...

As the capital moves to tier 2 restrictions, we look at factors that may – or may not – influence the impact of the virus in London compared with other English citiesThe number of coronavirus infections is rising across the UK, but until recently it was England’s northern cities which seemed to be igniting like powder kegs while London was smouldering but not catching fire. But the announcement that second-tier restrictions (high alert level) would be imposed on the capital from Saturday heralded the possibility that people in London would not escape a second wave.Infection rates in 12 London boroughs already exceed 100 cases per 100,000; Richmond upon Thames tops the list at 140. Continue reading...

Exclusive: claims raise further questions about government’s Covid crisis response

Latest findings from a global study show high blood pressure, obesity and smoking were associated with the highest number of deaths in Australia

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Study reveals increase in high blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar and obesity, all risk factors for diseaseThe failure of governments to tackle a three-decade rise in preventable diseases such as obesity and type 2 diabetes has fuelled the Covid-19 pandemic and is stalling life expectancy around the world, a comprehensive study has found.The latest data from the Global Burden of Disease study, published in the Lancet medical journal, is from 2019, before Covid, but helps explain the world’s vulnerability to the virus. Continue reading...

Environmental tests exposed spacecraft to vibrations and noise it will face during ascentThe James Webb space telescope has successfully completed a series of tests to simulate the harsh conditions it will experience during launch. Known as environmental tests, they subjected the spacecraft to the noise and the vibrations associated with being blasted into orbit. JWST received 140 decibels of sound and was shaken in ways that will happen naturally during its ascent.During a previous set of environmental tests in 2018, before the instruments had been secured to the spacecraft, a number of screws and washers came loose and fell off the sunshield cover. This set back the schedule. The spacecraft has been subject to many delays during more than 20 years of development. It is now scheduled to be launched on 31 October 2021 on an Ariane 5 rocket supplied by the European Space Agency. Continue reading...

Strategies to stop transmission routes of coronavirus must include schools, writes Phil Moorfoot, while Daniel Nucinkis says the government’s rejection of Sage’s proposals will cost thousands of lives. Plus letters from Prof Saville Kushner and Cllr Robert KnowlesEven Keir Starmer is not averse to the Boris factor when referring to “circuit breakers” (Keir Starmer urges PM to impose ‘circuit breaker’ lockdown on England, 13 October). A mini-lockdown that leaves schools open defeats the whole strategy. Pre-summer, we saw images of classrooms with tiny groups of students socially distancing and wearing masks. Unfortunately, the reality is quite different: up to 30 students in a poorly ventilated room with no social distancing, existing in a bubble of over 100 students.The current strategy from ministers is to prevent community transmission, but they are forgetting the elephant in the room. At the heart of all communities, you have schools. It is no surprise that Covid cases increased as schools and colleges returned from the summer break. Students do not socially distance or stay in year-group bubbles as they commute to and from school. Once home, they mix with siblings and parents. This is where community transmission takes place. Continue reading...

Bones of 18th-century Charles Byrne are stored at the Royal College of Surgeons in LondonThe author Hilary Mantel has called for the Royal College of Surgeons to repatriate the skeleton of an Irish “giant” whose bones remain in storage in London two centuries after he asked to be buried at sea.Charles Byrne had a genetic form of gigantism that caused him to grow to more than 2.31 metres (7ft 7in) tall. His height made him a celebrity in 18th-century London, and while he was still alive he went to great lengths to try to ensure his skeleton was not put on display after his death – a fate then usually reserved for executed criminals. Continue reading...

Metamorphosis – where a creature remodels itself between life stages – is one of the most astounding and bizarre feats of biology. It’s also surprisingly common. Why do animals bother undertaking this huge transformational change, and how do they rebuild their bodies from one form to another? Natalie Grover investigates Continue reading...

Serious incident declared over backlog caused by service suspension during Covid pandemic

For 20 years, the psychological illusionist has delighted TV audiences. He explains why he’s ready to give it all up and paint caricatures – and how magic made him question his religious faithA mounted moose’s head looms over Derren Brown’s right shoulder. A black crayfish – “exploded” and expanded for display, its pincers reaching toward the ceiling – sits in the cabinet to his left, flanked by other unrecognisable curios. “I acquire a lot of shit, as you can probably tell,” says Brown over Zoom. His comfortable red fleece, draped over a blue shirt, is at odds with the macabre surroundings. He claims to have acquired more than 200 pieces of ethically sourced taxidermy, displayed throughout his home. The only way he can dust the moose’s head is to blow it with his cordless leaf blower. “Is that weird?” he asks.“I like things that look real and aren’t. I quite like painting. I like my taxidermy. I like magic,” says the psychological illusionist (his term), mentalist, conjuror, writer, painter, photographer and performer. Even explaining the grim process of taxidermy, he manages to be charming and approachable – and to use the same, assured rationality with which he analyses his tricks. Continue reading...

Review of reported neonatal cases finds most babies with virus contract it in hospital

State media reported the company was offering its vaccines to students in Beijing and Wuhan but that the trial had been suspended

Lasting symptoms may not be down to a single syndrome but several different ones

Paris introduces 9pm curvew; Italy sees 7,332 new cases; record new daily infections in Portugal, Switzerland, Iran and Russia. This blog is now closed. Follow our new live blog below

Autoimmune diseases are rising fast but first experimental study shows nature could helpChildren whose outdoor play areas were transformed from gravel yards to mini-forests showed improved immune systems within a month, research has shown.The scientists believe this is because the children had developed significantly more diverse microbes on their skin and in their guts than the children whose playgrounds were not upgraded. Continue reading...

Exclusive: scientists say such tests are ethical and could shorten pandemic

First minister Arlene foster announces closure of businesses and schools as well as new limits on gatherings

National lockdown is a blunt tool. If it is implemented, as per Sage’s advice, we can’t return to square one on testing

Authors of unpublished paper say two-week national lockdown would buy time to improve test-and-trace system

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...

Fever, runny nose, headache? Lost your sense of taste or smell? Your guide to differentiating between the three illnesses

Scientists identify species that appears to absorb potentially lethal UV radiation and emit blue lightThey might be tiny creatures with a comical appearance, but tardigrades are one of life’s great survivors. Now scientists say they have found a new species boasting an unexpected piece of armour: a protective fluorescent shield.Related: Tardigrades: Earth’s unlikely beacon of life that can survive a cosmic cataclysm Continue reading...

Cambridge University study also suggests older people less likely to believe coronavirus misinformation

Study team says Covid-19 patients in intensive care should be asked about hearing loss

Netherlands announces new slew of measures to curb infection spread; Johnson & Johnson confirms pause in vaccine trial