Science | The Guardian

Sage advisers warn of risks of halving 2-metre rule while reopening venues in England

Defence force to assist as spike in Covid-19 cases puts pressure on testing facilities and sparks a rush on supermarkets

England relaxes social distancing rules; Dr Anthony Fauci testifies to US Congress; German district put in local lockdown. This blog is now closed

Covid-19 has slashed donations to medical research funding, charities warn Boris Johnson

Study is latest to find high degree of correlation between gut health and mental healthPeople living with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) have more than twice the risk of developing dementia, researchers have revealed in the latest study to link gut health to neurological diseases.A growing body of research suggests changes in the gastrointestinal tract may affect the brain through two-way communication known as the gut-brain axis. Continue reading...

Lockdown in England to be mostly lifted on 4 July but ‘rules must be rigorously kept to’

Boris Johnson’s determination to kickstart economic recovery is a gamble, when test-and-trace systems are a work in progress and the coronavirus threat is still substantial

Audit finds that of the 71 under-18s who have needed intensive care, most have survived

Those in England most at risk from Covid-19 prepare for 6 July when life will tiptoe back to normal

How PM’s latest announcement affects pubs and restaurants, hairdressers and galleries

Lords committee told children may have to be immunised to protect their grandparents

Members of two households will be able to dine together from 4 July in latest lockdown easing

Local health chiefs say real-time information is crucial to monitor spread of disease

Your questions answered on what type of mask to wear to cut the risk of getting Covid-19

The 55 Beidou project satellites will try to emulate American navigation tool known as GPSChina has launched the final satellite in its Beidou constellation that emulates the US Global Positioning System (GPS), marking a further step in the country’s advance as a major space power.The launch of the satellite onboard a Long March-3 rocket was broadcast live from the satellite launch base of Xichang on Tuesday, deep in the mountains of southwestern China, shortly before 10am. About half an hour later, the satellite was deployed in orbit and extended its solar panels to provide its energy. Continue reading...

With reports that there are lower rates of smokers being admitted to hospital with Covid-19 in France and trials to test whether nicotine patches can reduce the severity of infection, but also data showing that smokers are more likely to contract the disease and develop severe symptoms, what’s actually going on here? Sarah Boseley talks to Dr Nick Hopkinson to find out more Continue reading...

China halts imports from food plant where 481 tested positive; South Africa hits 100,000 cases; New York shops reopen; Lisbon brings back lockdown restrictions. This blog is closed

Men who have fought off virus have higher levels of antibodies in their blood than women

Research aims to shine a light on condition that is believed to affect 250,000 people in UK

The summer gives us a chance to eliminate the virus and reopen the economy without pointless debates about 1 or 2 metre distancing measures

Families of prisoners at notorious Tora complex concerned publicised efforts to contain virus are purely cosmetic

Exclusive: prehistoric structure spanning 1.2 miles in diameter is masterpiece of engineering, say archaeologistsA circle of deep shafts has been discovered near the world heritage site of Stonehenge, to the astonishment of archaeologists, who have described it as the largest prehistoric structure ever found in Britain.Four thousand five hundred years ago, the Neolithic peoples who constructed Stonehenge, a masterpiece of engineering, also dug a series of shafts aligned to form a circle spanning 1.2 miles (2km) in diameter. The structure appears to have been a boundary guiding people to a sacred area because Durrington Walls, one of Britain’s largest henge monuments, is located precisely at its centre. The site is 1.9 miles north-east of Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain, near Amesbury, Wiltshire. Continue reading...

The moon moves through Leo the lion every month, and this week is a good time to identify the constellation and the blue-white star RegulusEvery month the moon slips past the bright star of Regulus in Leo, the lion. It is a good opportunity to identify the constellation, which doesn’t need too much imagination to turn it into a lion. This month the pairing takes place on 25 June. The chart shows the view looking west from London at 23:00 BST. Leo will be heading down towards the horizon. An hour or so later it will have set, and the moon along with it. The moon itself will be a pleasing waxing crescent with about a quarter of its earthward face illuminated. From the southern hemisphere, Leo will appear upside down in the north-western portion of the night sky. Continue reading...

Adults, children and even pets marvelled at the momentary disappearance of the sun Continue reading...

Boris Johnson ‘appalled and sickened’ by stabbings; police say 41 witnesses have come forward after three killed and three seriously injured

Doug Loverro conducted unauthorized discussions with Boeing while it was bidding for Nasa contract, Washington Post says

I can’t help being sceptical about government rules, but I will cover up when I’m told to. Over to you, eyes

Our photojournalists explain how the pandemic has changed their practice – and why physical distancing is no barrier to producing intimate portraitsThroughout the pandemic it has been important to show our readers and viewers what’s happening in the world outside, to make a historical document and to chart the progress of those on the frontline. During the first weeks, it was difficult to gain access to hospitals to see how they were coping – until photojournalist Jonny Weeks was invited on to the Covid-19 wards at University hospital in Coventry. We made a full risk assessment, considering his safety and the risk to those around him, and with the guidance of the staff there he produced a brilliant photo essay. He was one of the very first photojournalists to have this kind of access in the UK and it was a key story for the Guardian. Continue reading...

What lessons can we learn from Laurie Santos, the Yale professor whose ‘happiness’ course became a global hit? And could the current health crisis lead to a wellbeing revolution?In January 2018, a Yale University professor named Laurie Santos launched a course, Psychology and the Good Life, which quickly became the most popular class in the institution’s 319-year-history. After 13 years at Yale, in 2016, the 44-year-old had taken charge of one of the university’s residential colleges and had become alarmed by widespread mental illness and stress. She wanted to explain the paradox of why so many students were still suffering, having achieved their dreams of being admitted to Yale and having met society’s definition of success. Santos created the lecture series in a bid to teach her students what really mattered – to help them carve out lives of meaning and contentment.Within a few days of the course’s launch, roughly a quarter of Yale’s entire undergraduate population had signed up. Administrators struggled to find space to accommodate everyone; having filled the university’s church, they set up an overflow room for students to watch Santos by screen, before moving her to a large concert hall. Standing behind a lectern on the auditorium’s stage, she questioned much of what the students had been taught to crave: good grades, prestigious jobs, high salaries. With her message that we should step back from ceaseless competition, question our priorities and savour our days, she had clearly tapped into a deep hunger for another way of viewing life. Continue reading...

The truth is out there. Only this probably isn’t itThe US presidential election night of 2000 is the only one I’ve ever properly watched on TV. I didn’t have much else to do that evening and my middle-aged intoxication with the prospect of an early night was years ahead of me. Also, thinking about it, the lovely general election of 1997 was still a recent memory; I probably fancied another fix of that feeling, basking as I was in the vague late-90s western sense that everything was going to be fine.Needless to say, I regret staying up. I was tired and hungover the next day and had suffered the worst blow to my sense that everything was going to be fine since discovering that the exhibition at the Millennium Dome was shit. Worse blows were still to come. Continue reading...

In the battle against the virus, we have an unlikely ally. Already used to detect drugs and weapons, dogs are now being trained to sniff out when humans have the virus. Tim Lewis meets the trainers and their houndsAsher was a problem dog. A hyperactive and unruly chocolate-brown cocker spaniel with ears like pittas and a Rudi Völler frizzy shag, he was shunted from owner to owner, maybe as many as seven by the age of three. He was taken on by the charity Medical Detection Dogs, which was looking for working dogs to train up, but even after being placed with a seasoned “socialiser”, Asher still wouldn’t sleep and kept trying to escape. He was set to be returned to a rescue centre until Medical Detection Dogs’s co-founder Dr Claire Guest gave him a final chance.“We work a lot with spaniels and labradors that people have bought as pets, but they end up in rescue because they’re just bouncing off the walls,” explains Guest on a video call from her home near Milton Keynes, before breaking into a broad grin. “That’s just the sort of dog we love. The reason they’re bouncing off the walls is they just want to do and everything they do, they get in trouble for. We give them something to do!” Continue reading...

Your questions answered on what type of mask to wear to cut the risk of getting Covid-19

Thanks to the success of the Human Genome Project, 20 years ago this week, scientists can track biology and disease at a molecular levelTwenty years ago this week, an international group of scientists announced it had put together the first genetic blueprint of a human being. After 10 years of effort, the team – made up of thousands of scientists working on both sides of the Atlantic – revealed it had pinpointed all 3bn units of DNA that make up the human genome.The result was “the most wondrous map ever created by humankind”, US President Bill Clinton told a special White House ceremony to mark the event. A parallel event, hosted by Tony Blair in Downing Street, also featured glittering praise for the effort. Continue reading...

Research suggests joblessness will stay high for years after the pandemicWe are in a jobs crisis with 600,000 fewer employees on payroll and 2 million more of us on universal credit. Tackling this economic and human tragedy will become the central economic challenge of the early 2020s.The Bank of England expects almost one in 10 of the workforce to be unemployed, the highest for 25 years. But will unemployment fall as swiftly as it has surged? Continue reading...

Event will be visible across a narrow band from Congo-Brazzaville to southern ChinaSkywatchers along a narrow band from west Africa to the Arabian peninsula, India and southern China will witness the most dramatic “ring of fire” solar eclipse in years on Sunday.Annular eclipses occur when the moon passes between Earth and the sun, but not quite close enough to our planet to completely obscure the sun’s light. Continue reading...

Although early Covid-19 modelling was inaccurate, experts say it did make us see what could happen if we did nothingWhen Covid-19 shifted from a disease in returned travellers to a virus that was spreading throughout the Australian community, dire predictions of deaths proliferated on social media and in the news.In March, the deputy chief medical officer, Prof Paul Kelly, said modelling revealed the federal government was preparing for 50,000 deaths in a best-case scenario and 150,000 deaths in the worst-case scenario. In the same month, Prof Raina MacIntyre, the head of the biosecurity program at the University of New South Wales’s Kirby Institute, warned of a “flu season but on steroids”, and said “hundreds of thousands” of Australians may die under a worst-case scenario. Health workers in NSW were told to prepare for 8,000 deaths over the duration of the epidemic, and that the “first wave” of the virus could last for up to 22 weeks. Continue reading...

From acoustic engineers in Britain to marine biologists in Canada, researchers made the most of the drastic drop in noise from human activityOne of the few upsides of lockdown was that, if a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square, you had a chance of hearing it. City dwellers across the globe delighted in the silence, the freedom from the incessant rumble of traffic, and the joy of birdsong. How cleaner the air seemed, and how splendid the blue skies without their usual grid of aeroplane contrails!Those memories might now be receding but for some scientists they were not just silver linings to a grim situation. The enforced experiment in which human activity was brought almost to a standstill created an opportunity to conduct studies that are normally impossible, in topics ranging from acoustics to atmospheric science to ecology. “We are being given an extraordinary experiment,” said climatologist Nicolas Bellouin of the University of Reading. Continue reading...

People are realising ‘we cannot keep looking away from these things’, says climate activistGreta Thunberg has said the Black Lives Matter protests show society has reached a tipping point where injustice can no longer be ignored, but that she believes a “green recovery plan” from the coronavirus pandemic will not be enough to solve the climate crisis.Reflecting on the protests that have swept the globe in recent weeks, the Swedish climate activist told the BBC: “It feels like we have passed some kind of social tipping point where people are starting to realise that we cannot keep looking away from these things. We cannot keep sweeping these things under the carpet, these injustices. Continue reading...

Ministers reportedly exploring alternatives to plan announced in 2018 to build rival to EU’s Galileo projectBritish ministers are seeking to scale back plans for a £5bn satellite navigation system that was introduced in 2018 as an alternative to the EU’s Galileo project, it has been reported.The ministers are exploring other options, which include using OneWeb, the UK satellite operator that went bankrupt in March, the Financial Times reported, citing sources. Continue reading...

Country hits grisly milestone as WHO says pandemic is entering ‘new and dangerous phase’

It’s tempting to look back and say ‘if only we had known’ – but that ignores the realitiesThe results of a Covid-19 study have been announced. Unlike most of the previous results, this study seems immediately to be a game-changer – rather than minor benefits from an expensive drug, or spurious nonsense from a dubious trial, these results show that a cheap and common medication, dexamethasone, could reduce the risk of death in people with severe disease by a substantial amount. The study was large enough to be meaningful and its finding likely to be true.This is, without qualification, fantastic news. Continue reading...

PM says ‘watch this space’ when asked about physical distancing measures and schools returning

News updates: education secretary says guidance will be issued to schools in next two weeks; Boris Johnson suggests social distancing will change; death toll rises by 173

Hundreds of crew members stranded for months near London and Bristol due to coronavirus outbreak

The group has published much of its advice - but it’s not there to make political judgments about how this advice gets used

Your questions answered on what type of mask to wear to cut the risk of getting Covid-19

Proposed 100km circular tunnel would be four times as big and six times as powerful as LHCAs the largest scientific instrument on the planet enters its twilight years, Cern scientists have been facing the question of what next after the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Following extensive debate, they appear to have landed on an answer: go bigger or go home.Cern’s council is expected to announce its backing on Friday for a proposed new collider with a 100km circular tunnel, four times the size and six times as powerful as the LHC. A formal vote on the plan is due to go ahead on Friday. Continue reading...

Johns Hopkins says 450,435 have died; WHO condemns Napoli football fans’ celebrations as ‘reckless’; Beijing expert says new outbreak under control. This blog is now closed

From Hancock being forced to bin the test and trace app to Raab’s BLM gaffe, who can rival the cabinet for incompetence?For months now the government has been prefacing all its coronavirus briefings as world-beating when the only thing in which we appeared to be global leaders was our mortality rates. But now I’m beginning to think Boris Johnson and his cabinet may have been on to something after all. Because it’s beginning to look more and more as if we are genuine world beaters: if only in total incompetence.Check out the evidence. In Johnson we have a prime minister who lumbers from one screw-up to the next, blinded to his own failures by a narcissism that borders on the sociopathic. On Thursday, he was meeting President Macron to celebrate the 80th anniversary of De Gaulle’s speech to the French resistance: let’s hope he didn’t give Macron a copy of his book on why Churchill was exactly like Boris, in which he basically wrote off De Gaulle as completely useless. Continue reading...

NHS to switch to alternative design by tech giants, says Matt Hancock in latest U-turn