Science | The Guardian

Shooting stars will be flying in all directions from a point near the head of Leo the lionThis week Earth ploughs through the debris stream that has been left in space from the tail of comet Tempel-Tuttle, and that means meteors. The Leonid meteor shower is so-called because all of the shooting stars associated with it appear to originate from a point just below the head of Leo, the lion. The meteors fly in all directions from this point, and at their peak are expected to produce about 10-20 bright meteors an hour. Continue reading...

Vaccine for shielders | Mangold-wurzels | Geordies | Children in Need | Country diaryWhy have those advised to shield from Covid-19 been forgotten when it comes to the priority list for vaccination (How will a coronavirus vaccine be rolled out to the UK population?, 11 November)? The list is mainly based on age, not vulnerability. My healthy wife, aged 65, will have higher priority than me, aged (nearly) 64, even though I am extremely vulnerable because I am on immune-suppressing drugs.

The technology behind the promising Covid-19 vaccine was not of serious interest to big pharma until huge sums could be made from it. That is not a way to advance scienceIn his 2008 book Scientific Freedom, the scientist and author Donald Braben claimed, somewhat controversially, that the 20th century had been transformed because scientists were free to explore the boundaries of their respective disciplines, unhindered by the need for short-term results and the deadening process of peer review. Prof Braben argued that science had been shackled in recent decades, leading to a decline in the rate of technological progress. He quoted a Nobel prize winner as saying “innovation comes only from the assault on the unknown”. His point was that scientists today were not only fighting with their hands tied but often in battles not worth winning.The intriguing question is whether the glimmer of light that is the new vaccine in the dark tunnel of Covid-19 is evidence that proves Prof Braben’s thesis right, or confounds its predictions. The public health emergency requires immediate life-and-death decisions where speed, rather than efficacy, is the overriding concern. Regulators have allowed the normally distinct phases of a drug trial programme to occur at the same time. Scientists are not waiting to publish work in journals, opting instead to share their work online without it being peer-reviewed. (Even with peer review, the Lancet retracted a Covid-19 paper after iffy data came to light.) Continue reading...

Officers interrupt gathering of 30 worshippers after pastor called restriction unlawful

Exclusive: study of low-risk individuals finds impairments four months after infection

Psychologists say changes in behaviour, from talking to yourself to fashion experiments, could be a Covid coping strategy

The psychological impact of the virus is profound, but there is nothing to suggest its physical effects can’t be overcome

Uğur Şahin ‘very confident’ vaccine candidate developed with Pfizer will bring big reduction in cases

Opposition claims that online disinformation poses a threat to the effective take-up of coronavirus vaccinesCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageSocial media companies that fail to act to “stamp out dangerous anti-vaccine content” should be subject to financial and criminal penalties, Labour has demanded.As hopes rise that a vaccine against coronavirus could be ready within weeks, analysis by Labour has revealed that dedicated online groups with hundreds of thousands of members are still churning out disinformation – despite the new measures announced by the government and social media companies last week to tackle the issue. Continue reading...

A six-year mission will soon bring back a few grains of soil that could explain how water arrived on our planetIn a few days, a capsule containing samples of soil from a distant asteroid will be released by a robot spaceship and dropped into Earth’s upper atmosphere. If all goes well, the container will parachute safely on to the Woomera test range in South Australia on 6 December, completing a mission that has involved a three-billion-mile journey across our solar system.The information returned could help solve several major astronomical puzzles, say scientists – including the mystery of how water first appeared on our planet. Continue reading...

The rising number of vaccine-derived polio outbreaks has important implications for how we deal with Covid-19

Better to build social solidarity than to dismiss reluctance to be immunised as ignorance

Would you admit to being an expert in health and disease at a party? No, me neitherIt seems like only yesterday that another frustrated teacher uttered those fell words: “Bouquet, your behaviour is a disgrace”, a charge that was almost certainly always true. Fast forward to today and what do we find?Epidemiologist after epidemiologist warns that we must modify our “behaviours” if we are to counter the pandemic. Quite when it became obligatory for this horde of “experts” to pluralise the word is not known, but I do wish they would desist. And given their track record during coronavirus, with certain honourable exceptions, how many would dare to admit their profession if they were to be asked at a party what they did for a living? They’d be far better off saying they were an actuary. Continue reading...

Prof John Edmunds calls for consistent UK government strategy and warns against relaxing measures

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Call for recommendations from health bodies on how nutrient may prevent and treat virus

How small tasks can benefit our state of mindFor Anna McGovern there is a satisfying, sensory pleasure to be had in rinsing milk bottles: “The very best thing about getting your milk delivered is ‘rinsing and returning’. Don’t cheat by putting your bottles in the dishwasher. Wash them, by hand. Put a small amount of water in the bottle, slosh the water around, put your hand over the top, shake it up and down, upturn the bottle, glugging the water out, then head for your doorstep and put out the bottle with a ‘plink’”.This is one of many meandering, seemingly mundane tasks that McGovern delights in describing in her new book. Another is pegging out the washing (“Pull it out of the basket in a long, sweet-smelling, damp lump.”) In fact, when we speak about pottering, McGovern tells me she has done just that to “help order her thoughts”. Continue reading...

Pfizer was first with the news, but biotech firms, governments, banks and NGOs are all involved in the search for a jab to prevent coronavirus infectionThe leading candidate to become the world’s first Covid-19 vaccine, developed by the US pharmaceutical company Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech, had its genesis in late January 2020. Uğur Şahin, chief executive of the Mainz-based biotech, read about coronavirus in the Lancet and worried that the outbreak could grow into a pandemic.Şahin summoned colleagues to tell them that the company would shift its focus from cancer treatments to finding a vaccine for the deadly virus. It would use a method based on mRNA, whereby a stretch of genetic material from the coronavirus is injected into the body, resulting in human cells producing its so-called spike protein. This in turn triggers an immune response. Pfizer stepped in to help with development and distribution costs. Continue reading...

The £20-a-week rise in UC has been a lifeline for many during the pandemic, but the government wants to end this in spring

Artefacts held by British Museum and other western institutions were looted by British forces in 1897A new museum designed by Sir David Adjaye is to be built following the most extensive archaeological excavation ever undertaken in Benin City, Nigeria, raising hopes of a resolution to one of the world’s most controversial debates over looted museum artefacts.The kingdom of Benin, in what is now southern Nigeria and not to be confused with the modern-day country of Benin, was one of the most important and powerful pre-colonial states of west Africa. Continue reading...

Forecasts of gusty, onshore winds over Florida force reschedule to Sunday of first full mission carrying four astronautsNasa and SpaceX have announced a 24-hour weather delay of their planned launch of four astronauts into orbit for America’s first fully fledged human mission using a privately owned spacecraft.The liftoff time slipped from Saturday to Sunday evening due to forecasts of gusty, onshore winds over Florida – remnants of storm Eta – that would have jeopardised a return landing for the Falcon 9 rocket’s reusable booster stage, Nasa officials said. Continue reading...

Italy also registers 40,000 new infections; Germany records 23,542 new cases; Russia reports its worst day for new infections; Sweden’s hits daily record. This blog is now closed

Prime minister’s controversial chief adviser leaves Downing Street after infighting at heart of government

Three-tier restrictions in England ‘may not be enough’ to suppress virus after lockdown

Politicians struggle to explain why a region so much less affected in spring is so badly hit now

Keanu Reeves among 200 people at studio party where guests came as extras, says report

R number now between 1.1 to 1.2, but slowdown will not be reflected in death toll for several weeks

There is hope that Covid-19 immunisation might soon be a reality, but some scientists are aiming for a broader solution

As the paper lends its support to a Covid vaccine, don’t forget the damage it once did by backing bogus scienceAnti-vaxxers are as old as the very first vaccine. Edward Jenner, who saved the world from the scourge of smallpox, faced ferocious opposition. When Prince Albert unveiled a posthumous statue to him in Trafalgar Square in 1858, it was met with virulent opposition from anti-vaxxers, backed by the military who regarded Trafalgar Square plinths as exclusively theirs.Pulling down statues is nothing new or “woke”. The Times called for Jenner’s to be removed and within a year of Albert’s death in 1861 it was shuffled off to an obscure spot in Kensington Gardens. The British Medical Journal protested that military statues remained while Jenner was banished, “because they killed their fellow creatures whereas he only saved them”. Continue reading...

Discovery could potentially help treat patients suffering from alcohol poisoning, Canadian team saysResearchers in Canada have discovered that hyperventilation can significantly increase the rate at which the body metabolizes alcohol, in a breakthrough that could save thousands of lives.Three million people around the world die from alcohol-related deaths each year and emergency room physicians have few effective tools to treat acute alcohol poisoning. Continue reading...

Public-private partnership with Elon Musk’s company to send four astronauts to international space station on SaturdayIn a rocket ship perfectly named for the year of a global pandemic, three American astronauts and one from Japan are scheduled to blast off from Florida on Saturday evening as Nasa finally returns to the business of routine crewed spaceflight.The 7.49pm launch of the SpaceX capsule Resilience from the Kennedy Space Center, a mission officially designated as Crew 1, will be the first time since the final flights of the space shuttle fleet in 2011 that the US space agency has its own operational rotating program of sending humans to the international space station. Continue reading...

Some trials of lateral flow test from US firm Innova found it was much less accurate than the government said it wasThe lateral flow test bought by the UK government for mass testing in Liverpool, and potentially the whole country, could miss up to half of those who have Covid-19, according to experts.The government has great expectations of the Innova test, having signed two contracts with the California-based company behind it. Innova told the Guardian it was now shipping more than one million tests a day to the UK. Continue reading...

A year ago, the broadcaster Adrian Chiles opened a book on attention deficit disorder (ADD). Suddenly the good, the bad and the mad bits of his life started to make sense. He describes the impact the diagnosis has had on his lifeFour years ago, the broadcaster Adrian Chiles went to see a psychiatrist specialising in adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), who concluded he probably had ADD – ADHD without the hyperactivity aspect. But it was only when he read a book about the condition three years later, and recognised so much of his behaviour on the pages - the inability to focus, the surges of adrenaline, the procrastination - that he went and got an official diagnosis. Chiles talks to Anushka Asthana about the impact the diagnosis has had on his life, and how it has made him reevaluate aspects of it.Asthana also talks to Prof Susan Young, an expert in ADHD, which is defined as a clinically distinct neurobiological condition that is caused by an imbalance of chemicals affecting specific parts of the brain responsible for behaviour. She discusses how it manifests differently in children to adults, ways it can be treated and why it is so over-represented in the prison population. Continue reading...

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Exclusive: BioNTech’s CEO Uğur Şahin says he is confident vaccine can ‘bash the virus over the head’

Climate agencies say fossil fuel burning is driving the increase of dangerous bushfires and days of extreme heatwavesAustralia’s climate has entered a new era of sustained extreme weather events, such as dangerous bushfires and heatwaves, courtesy of rising average temperatures, a new report by the nation’s two government climate science agencies has found.Rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, mostly from fossil fuel burning, has driven more dangerous bushfires, rising sea levels and a rapid rise in the days where temperatures reach extreme levels, the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO said in Australia’s latest State of the Climate Report. Continue reading...

Dr Anthony Fauci says unprecedented 'polarisation' has intensified an anti-science feeling in the US and led people to threaten violence against him.While the top infectious diseases expert commands respect among much of the public, he has received personal death threats as a result of his high-profile statements about the coronavirus pandemic.The health expert Prof David Heymann, who joined Fauci in a Chatham House webinar, said science had become highly politicised to the point that a mask wearer was seen as a Democrat and a non-mask wearer as a Republican

Didier Raoult stands accused of touting drug as a coronavirus treatment without evidenceA French professor who touts the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus treatment – without evidence, scientists say – will appear before a disciplinary panel charged with ethics breaches, an order of doctors has said.Marseille-based Didier Raoult stands accused by his peers of spreading false information about the benefits of the drug. His promotion of hydroxychloroquine was taken up by the US and Brazilian presidents, Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, who trumpeted its unproven benefits in a way critics say put people’s lives at risk. Continue reading...

Study finds fluctuations in white blood cells according to time of day and season, suggesting stronger or weaker immune function

The pharmaceutical industry has long made exorbitant profits by free-riding on research carried out by the public sectorHooray for Pfizer! As news of a vaccine potentially offering 90% protection against Covid-19 offers a life raft for lockdown-weary humanity, perhaps those home-drawn posters on people’s windows thanking the NHS will soon be applauding big pharma instead.The hope of a successful vaccine to liberate us from protracted economic misery should be embraced – but we should be sparing with the bunting for the pharmaceutical industry. If you want a particularly egregious case study of “socialism for the rich”, or of private businesses dependent on public sector research and innovation to make colossal profits, look no further than big pharma. Continue reading...

Ian Sample speaks to Prof Edgar Jones about the comparative psychological impacts of the blitz bombings of London and the Covid-19 pandemic, including the role trust in government plays and what we might expect during the second wave of infections Continue reading...

Finding is based on 50 studies involving medical records of nearly 19 million patients

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...