by Presented by Madeleine Finlay, Sarah Boseley and I on (#5C608)
There have been a number of incredible science stories in 2020, from AI deciphering the facial expressions of mice to the discovery of a black hole just 1,000 light-years from Earth. Yet, it was the Sars-CoV-2 virus that came to dominate both the headlines and our lives. In the first of two episodes, health editor Sarah Boseley, science editor Ian Sample and producer Madeleine Finlay give their thoughts on what has happened over the past year, alongside professors Eleanor Riley, John Drury and Christina Pagel. Continue reading...
The answers to today’s puzzlesEarlier today I set you three puzzles concerning the number 2021, which is the concatenation of two consecutive integers, 20 and 21. Before we get to the problems (and the answers), thanks to reader ConradKnightSocks for alerting me to the brilliant fact that 2021 is also the product of two consecutive prime numbers: 43 x 47.The last time this was the case was 1763, which is 41 x 43. Continue reading...
Next year in numbersUPDATE: For the solutions and further discussion click here.Count von Count will be fizzing with excitement. For the first time since 1920, the coming year, 2021, consists of two ascending, consecutive numbers. Enjoy this ‘counting date’ while it lasts, people! It ain’t going to happen again for another hundred and one years.Today’s puzzles reveal more arithmetical patterns concerning 2021. Continue reading...
Search out the brightest star in the night sky and its parent constellationThe winter sky in the northern hemisphere is filled with delights. This week search out the brightest star in the night sky, and from there explore that star’s parent constellation of Canis Major, the greater dog. Continue reading...
Nine months on from the virus, I am seriously debilitated. This is how the new NHS clinics need to help thousands of usWith the excitement of the Covid vaccine’s arrival, it may be easy to forget and ignore those of us with “long Covid”, who are struggling to reclaim our previous, pre-viral lives and continue to live with debilitating symptoms. Even when the NHS has managed the herculean task of vaccinating the nation, Covid-19 and the new mutant variants of the virus will continue to circulate, leaving more people at risk of long Covid. Data from a King’s College London study in September suggested as many as 60,000 people in the UK could be affected, but the latest statistics from the Office for National Statistics suggest it could be much higher.I was acutely ill in March, though – like many people with long Covid – mine was defined as a “mild” case not requiring admission to hospital. Nine months on, I am seriously debilitated, with crashing post-exertional fatigue, often associated with chest pains. On bad days, my brain feels like it doesn’t want to function, even a conversation can be too much. I have no risk factors, I’m in my 50s, and have always been fit, but remain too unwell to work – ironically as a consultant in infectious diseases. Watching the pandemic unfold from the sidelines when I should have been working in the thick of it has only added to the frustration of my protracted illness. Continue reading...
Pascal Soirot says firm has ‘winning formula’ to improve Oxford jab’s efficacy, as countries across Europe roll out vaccination programsSee all our coronavirus coverageThe head of the firm behind the Oxford Covid vaccine has said researchers believe the jab will be effective against the variant strain of the virus that was first found in the UK.AstraZeneca chief executive, Pascal Soriot, told the Sunday Times more tests were needed to be sure, but hailed the discovery of what he called a “winning formula” to improve the vaccine’s efficacy. Continue reading...
The frescoed thermopolium, a Roman-era fast-food stall, is the first to be fully excavatedResearchers said on Saturday they had discovered a frescoed thermopolium or fast-food counter in an exceptional state of preservation in Pompeii.Related: Researchers win £1m grant to unlock secrets of Viking-era treasure trove Continue reading...
The Yale professor has some good news for us: once the pandemic is over, people will party like there’s no tomorrowAs a Christmas present to myself, I had a long, luxurious binge-listen to the wonderful podcast Transmissions: the Definitive Story of Joy Division and New Order. It earns that “definitive” in the title.Narrated by Maxine Peake, and featuring interviews with pretty much everyone you could want to hear from, plus a few surprises, it is in-depth, affectionate and frank. When the story gets to the shambolic opening of infamous Manchester nightclub The Haçienda, with its awful sound, cavernous space and organisational “issues”, I had terrible pangs for a proper night out, even one in a newly opened club where the paint was yet to dry on the dancefloor. Continue reading...
Get off the sofa and become an ‘exerciser’Old friends get you doing the strangest things and so it was that, after a fish supper in a beachside café in West Wittering between lockdowns, I found myself catching one friend as she fell off the other friend’s stationary training bike in her spare bedroom. The falling friend is a ceramicist and, like me, does not identify as an exerciser. When the pedals started going faster than her legs, she screeched, her eyes widened, and then she toppled sideways.“Exerciser”, I should add, is a term I’ve coined myself. It describes what I am not and, in order to see off things I don’t want in my life (pandemic-induced anxiety, panic about finishing my new book), what I am now trying to become. An exerciser. Continue reading...
Changes in composition and production of saliva as people grow older appears to intensify perception of aromasJust as a bottle of wine improves with age, so may our ability to pick out the subtleties of its scent. Changes in the composition of our saliva and how much of it we produce appears to intensify our perception of smokey and peppery aromas in red wine, new research suggests.The findings could lead to the development of wines that are more tailored toward specific groups of consumers. “We could diversify winemaking production to make more enjoyable wines based on consumers’ physiologies,” said Maria Ángeles del Pozo Bayón, of the Spanish Research Council’s Institute of Food Science and Research in Madrid, who led the research. Continue reading...
From observational studies to rapid development of vaccines, knowledge-sharing was a key feature of science in 2020The raw numbers around Covid-19 are simply incredible when you consider that this was a disease almost no one had heard of in December 2019. At the time of writing, this year about 240,000 people in the UK have been admitted to hospital with Covid-19, and more than 70,000 people have had Covid-19 listed as a cause of death on their death certificate.I began 2020 anxious about the reports emerging from Wuhan: they seemed to imply an asymptomatic transmission of a respiratory pathogen that was serious enough to put sufferers into intensive care units. I am a clinical academic with specialist training in respiratory and intensive care medicine; I also lead a research programme that focusses on the lung inflammation caused respiratory infections – to me, and others, what was being reported looked like serious trouble. Continue reading...
To recover from my functional neurological disorder, I had to learn to ‘reset’ my mindRestrictions have come to define many people’s lives this year – understandably frustration has been vented over cancelled plans or the inability to travel. But for me, this was business as usual. For the past two and a half years, I had been unable to walk due to a condition called functional neurological disorder, which blocks messages from the brain to certain body parts. My left leg wasn’t listening, leaving me stuck and immobile.That was, until it all changed. From September this year I was to be enrolled in a five-week treatment programme that could help me regain my mobility. Treatment would mean travelling into London every week by train during the pandemic, staying in a hotel two nights a week and interacting closely with others, taking me away from my small, low-risk Essex village. I hesitated, but my boyfriend encouraged me before I could let the doubt take hold. That was the first lesson: trusting my gut wholeheartedly. Continue reading...
Science has shown how powerful it can be in the face of a formidable challenge like a pandemicYou may think of immunologists as biologists, but we are also in the defence business. This aspect of our role really comes into its own when a new, devastating disease rears its head. We estimate that the new coronavirus Sars-CoV-2 first made the leap to humans last December. Over one and a half million lives have been lost in the past year as a result. Dealing with Covid has undoubtedly left its mark on the field – my field – and it seems like a good time to take stock.Right now I am sitting opposite my Christmas tree, the cat beside me, and I can’t help thinking that swooning over That Plot from the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine briefing (page 58 if you are interested) is probably a phenomenon restricted to viral immunologists. But if this year has taught us anything, it’s not to make assumptions. And sure enough, I’ve seen it shared on social media by non-scientists as a symbol of hope. Continue reading...
Italian Roberto Trignani is known for ‘awake surgery’ and other unorthodox methodsPlaying the violin, watching cartoons and doing crosswords: these are just some of the activities patients have performed while having brain surgery under Roberto Trignani.Trignani, the head of neurosurgery at Riuniti hospital in Ancona, Italy, was already known for his “awake surgery” techniques, which he has used roughly 70 times in the last few years. But he broke new ground in June this year when a 60-year-old woman prepared stuffed olives as he removed a tumour from her left temporal lobe. Continue reading...
by Presented by Nicola Davis and Alex Hern, and produ on (#5C1CX)
As Covid-19 spread around the world, conspiracy theories about its origin, severity and prevention followed closely behind. Now attention has turned to vaccines. False claims circulated among anti-vaxxer groups include the theory that Covid vaccines are being used to implant microchips in people and that they will alter a person’s DNA. In the second of a two-part exploration into Covid vaccine scepticism, Nicola Davis hears from the Guardian’s UK technology editor, Alex Hern, and the researcher Joe Ondrak about how conspiracy theories emerge and spread, and if there’s anything we can do about them Continue reading...
Helped by a spineless press, ministers are set to get away with causing one of the biggest catastrophes in recent historyIt takes effort to imagine how the government could have mishandled the pandemic more disastrously than it has, yet people are blaming the crisis on themselves. For those who wish to hold our authorities to account for one of the worst death tolls in the world, polls offer bleak reading. According to a recent YouGov survey, over half of people think the public are “most responsible for the rise in coronavirus cases over the last month”, with just 31% blaming the people running the country .It is doubtful that the respondents are blaming themselves as individuals. Most would argue they have made huge sacrifices to avoid the spread of Covid-19, which is true. No, they are blaming a nefarious “other”, the ne’er-do-wells down the road, for an imagined failure of personal responsibility. Without stirring the pot of generational warfare, it is worth noting that, while the young tend to blame the government, pensioners overwhelmingly blame the “public”, by which they are likely to mean their grandchildren’s cohort, who are in reality sacrificing some of the best moments of their lives to keep their elders safe. Continue reading...
We need to follow rationality and logic, not hocus-pocus, says John ZarneckiI read with rising horror the piece by Emily Segal (The ‘great conjunction’ kicks off a new astrological epoch. So what now?, 21 December). After the third sentence, it is frankly bunkum and hocus-pocus. Especially at a time when surely we must be following rationality and logic, promoting astrological nonsense such as this is quite irresponsible.As a former president of the Royal Astronomical Society (2016-18), I am sure that I can speak for all astronomers in asserting that there is absolutely no evidence that astrology offers us anything other than an occasional 30-second diversion between other more useful activities. Continue reading...
Unless this government stops dithering and works to eradicate Covid-19, more variants are bound to emergeAn emotional rollercoaster is probably the best way to describe the past few weeks. The UK government has lurched from allowing Christmas bubbles to cancelling Christmas altogether. Weeks after an effective vaccine was approved, the virus turned a new corner. Some have argued the new mutation is nothing to worry about – viruses mutate all the time. Others think it’s cause for panic. The truth lies somewhere in between.With limited information available about the new variant, the lesson from 2020 is to move early and enforce precautions rather than wait for things to unfold. When the government delayed a lockdown in the spring that would have reduced the death rate, Britain learned the hard way that it’s better to prevent an emerging disaster than to wait and watch. As Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, put it: if you see a train speeding towards you, do you wait to see if you get hit, or quickly react to avert the crash? Continue reading...
Dramatic international gestures are unlikely to have much impact. It’s hands, masks and space we should be focusing onBy now we all know a new variant of Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, has been detected in the UK and is spreading rapidly. Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, announced that the variant, called B.1.1.7, is up to 70% more transmissible based on modelling studies. B.1.1.7 caused many infections in south-east England in a short period of time, rapidly displacing other circulating variants. Patients infected with B.1.1.7 also had higher viral loads. While this is certainly concerning, and warrants urgent scientific investigation, data supporting that this variant alone is driving the associated increase in cases is preliminary and inconclusive. Nonetheless, politicians began implementing sweeping policies right away.Multiple countries have imposed travel bans, greatly reducing travel from the UK or blocking it entirely. France closed its borders to most freight transport. New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, called on the US government to impose numerous restrictions, including banning travel from Europe. He later settled for mandatory rapid testing for all travellers on US-bound flights from the UK. Continue reading...
by Jessica Murray (now) Matthew WeaverAlexandra Toppi on (#5BYCV)
Anthony Fauci ‘extremely confident’ in vaccine; BioNTech’s CEO says tests being run on mutant strain. This blog is now closed. Follow our new blog belowCoronavirus live updates11.59pm GMTWe are closing this live blog now, but you can stay up to date with the latest on our new global blog, which you can find below.Related: Coronavirus live news: US cases increase 14% in one week, France to reopen UK border11.40pm GMTTesco has introduced buying limits on items including toilet roll, eggs, rice, soap and handwash. Customers at the supermarket are now limited to one item per person of toilet roll, and up to three products of eggs, rice, soap and handwash.It is understood the extra limits are pre-emptive measures to help smooth demand in the coming weeks, rather than a reaction to shortages or a change in buying behaviour. They are on top of a three-item limit on essential items such as flour, dried pasta and anti-bacterial wipes which has been in place for several months.Related: Tesco limits purchases of toilet roll, eggs, rice, soap and handwash Continue reading...
My team at the Genomics UK consortium sequenced the new Sars-CoV-2 variant, but we’ll need more evidence to understand how it might change the pandemicIt was always predictable that the genome of Sars-CoV-2 would mutate. After all, that’s what viruses and other micro-organisms do. The Sars-CoV-2 genome accumulates around one or two mutations every month as it circulates. In fact, its rate of change is much lower than those of other viruses that we know about. For example, seasonal influenza mutates at such a rate that a new vaccine has to be introduced each year.Even so, over time the virus population will accumulate a fair few mutations in different combinations. The striking feature of the Sars-CoV-2 lineage 1.1.7 that we discovered here at the Covid-19 Genomics UK Consortium (familiar now from headlines as the “new variant”), is that its genome has a large number of mutations compared with other lineages we’ve picked up in the UK. It has a total of 23, which is what sets it apart. Continue reading...