China launched an unmanned probe on 23 July to Mars in its first independent mission to visit another planet.

Delay is result of coronavirus pandemic and technical challenges as troubled project is set to cost £6.8bnNasa has announced that the often delayed James Webb space telescope (JWST) is to be delayed once more. Instead of a launch on 30 March 2021, the mission has now slipped to 31 October 2021.The seven-month delay is the result of impacts from the coronavirus pandemic, as well as technical challenges. The spacecraft is currently being tested at Northrop Grumman, Nasa’s main industrial partner on the mission, in Redondo Beach, California. Continue reading...

Seismologists said high frequency noise fell as much as 50% as planes were grounded and roads emptied

World must act now to protect wildlife in order to stop future virus crises, say scientists

Variola virus DNA found in bones of people from Denmark to Russia around Viking era

New sites in Essex and Oxfordshire will open in 2021, with a rapid deployment facility due this summer

Study of mosquitoes’ biting preferences reveals that urbanisation is shaping behaviourMore species of mosquito may evolve to bite humans instead of other animals and spread disease because of urbanisation, according to a scientific study.While the vast majority of the 3,500 species of mosquito do not bite humans, scientists studied Aedes aegypti, an invasive species which has evolved a taste for humans, and become the primary spreader of infectious diseases including dengue and yellow fever. Continue reading...

Researchers identify Vitis riparia vine as phylloxera’s original host and say it came to Europe from US

Lessons about scientific transparency from the BSE scandal have been forgotten as the government grapples this crisis

AstraZeneca and others should not own a lucrative patent on a medicine that is needed by poor as well as rich nations

Tianwen-1 mission attempts to put China in ‘elite’ club of countries conquering red planetChina has launched its most ambitious Mars mission yet in a bold attempt to join the US in successfully landing a spacecraft on the red planet.With engines blazing orange, a Long March 5 carrier rocket took off on Thursday at about 12.40 pm local time (0540 BST) from Hainan Island, south of the Chinese mainland. Hundreds of space enthusiasts watched from a beach across the bay. Continue reading...

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

A diplomacy shaped around self-serving tittle-tattle now risks lives and undermines America’s standing in the worldThe campaign by the Trump administration against the World Health Organization has often seemed faintly preposterous.Over the months of the coronavirus pandemic its untruths and hyperbole have been dismissed by many as iterations of Trumpspeak, whose main purpose has been to distract from the US’s catastrophic response to Covid-19, which has claimed almost 140,000 lives and devastated the economy. Continue reading...

Shop-owner’s son had apparently come across ancient artefacts while out fishingPolice conducting a routine inspection of a frozen seafood shop in eastern Spain have netted 13 Roman amphoras and an 18th-century metal anchor, all of which were apparently found by the owner’s son on fishing trips and used to decorate the premises.After stopping in at the shop in the coastal town of Santa Pola, in Alicante province, officers from the Guardia Civil’s environmental department noticed rather more than squid, hake and cod on display. Continue reading...

From Elon Musk’s SpaceX, to Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Horizon – there is a growing interest in space exploration by some of the world’s least publicity-shy billionaires. But does the 2020 launch of the SpaceX Dragon 2 spacecraft really mark the beginning of a new privately financed space race? And what do recent international launches, such as the UAE’s Hope probe to Mars, say about changing geopolitical ambitions for space exploration? Ian Sample speaks to space policy veteran Prof John Logsdon about the past, present and future of global space policy. Continue reading...

US has highest number of cases, followed by Brazil and India; Trump urges people to wear masks; number of confirmed cases worldwide passes 15 million. This blog is now closed – follow our live coverage below

OneWeb went bankrupt this year while trying to develop space network to deliver broadbandThe business secretary, Alok Sharma, overrode the concerns of his senior official when the government took a £400m stake in the failed satellite company OneWeb.The UK is part of a consortium with India’s Bharti Global which won a bidding war for the company, which went bankrupt earlier this year while trying to develop a space network to deliver broadband. Continue reading...

Rishi Sunak is preparing an autumn of spending cuts – an economic folly and a political gambleThis is the week that Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak began softening up doctors, teachers and other public sector workers for a squeeze to their pay and cuts to their departmental budgets. They have done their best to muffle that particular bit of bad news. Instead, aides to the publicity-conscious Mr Sunak briefed journalists on an inflation-busting pay rise for public servants – and on Tuesday got the desired morning headlines. Later that same day, the chancellor admitted it was a one-off for this financial year, and that over the longer run “we must exercise restraint in future public sector pay awards”. Meaning cuts are coming. It had been a crass and short-lived publicity trick: flash the cash in a big show now, then admit it would all be taken back in time. Not only that but, as the Trades Union Congress pointed out, in all the government’s trumpeting of its apparent largesse, little acknowledgement was given that there would be no such increment for jobcentre advisers, local government employees or care workers.Spin is a hardly a novelty on Downing Street, but the prime minister has developed a new, yet increasingly tiresome, strategy: blurt a falsehood, confess the truth, then hope the furore around the initial fib fixes it all the more firmly in voters’ minds. So Mr Johnson postures as the new Roosevelt, then announces a small spending commitment – but evidently hopes busy and only half-attentive voters will be left with the magic words “new deal”. Continue reading...

Wearing masks in Melbourne is now mandatory with $200 fines for those not wearing them outside the home. This is a first for Australia, but the enforced wearing of masks has been legislated in numerous countries around the world, particularly in the past few weeks. So why are the rules changing?You can read Graham Readfearn’s article on the changing health advice on wearing masks here. Continue reading...

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report shows Covid-19 not just dangerous for chronically ill and elderlyAustralians who have died from Covid-19 have lost more years of their expected lifespan, on average, than those dying from the country’s three leading causes of death, a new study suggests.The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) report, released on Thursday, makes it clear that coronavirus is not just dangerous for the chronically ill and elderly. Continue reading...

Researchers say development could lead to a coronavirus treatment that can be mass produced

Random sample of 20,000 residents finds 23.48% have antibodies, equating to more than 6.5m people

The longer you spend in an aerosol-rich environment such as a poorly ventilated office with someone who is infected, the greater the risk, say Dr Helen Davison, Dr Finola O’Neill, and Dr Jonathan FluxmanThe health secretary is plain wrong when he says face masks do not work in offices because “you’re there for a long time” with other people (Senior doctors warn second coronavirus wave could ‘devastate’ NHS, 19 July). The risk of transmission of Covid-19 is directly related to viral load and exposure time, so the longer you spend in an aerosol-rich environment such as a poorly ventilated office with someone who is infected, the greater the risk.If masks don’t work because people share the same space for a long time, why is it mandatory for hundreds of thousands of healthcare workers to wear them all day at work? Yes, masks can be uncomfortable, they may become damp and need changing, but they are an indispensable tool alongside hand-washing and distancing in indoor environments, which is where most Covid-19 outbreaks occur. Continue reading...

Artefacts from central Mexico cave are strong evidence humans lived on continent 15,000 years earlier than previously thoughtTools excavated from a cave in central Mexico are strong evidence that humans were living in North America at least 30,000 years ago, some 15,000 years earlier than previously thought, scientists said on Wednesday.The artefacts, including 1,900 stone tools, showed human occupation of the high-altitude Chiquihuite cave over a 20,000-year period, they reported in two studies published in the journal Nature. Continue reading...

We The Curious whittles down thousands of questions posed by residents to seven key themesSome of the questions were not unexpected: how does gravity work, do aliens exist, what happens if bees become extinct?But when Bristol’s science and culture centre asked citizens young and old what questions they really wanted answered, it was amazed and delighted at the size and breadth of the response. Continue reading...

‘Celestial sleuth’ says light and shade show when 17th-century cityscape was paintedHe is known as the “Sphinx of Delft” as so little is known about him. But courtesy of research by Donald Olson, a professor of astronomy from the University of Texas, a little of the mystery surrounding the life and works of the Dutch master Johannes Vermeer may now have been cleared up.Vermeer’s View of Delft, judged by the French writer Marcel Proust to be “the most beautiful painting in the world”, is said to be the most famous cityscape of the 17th century. But debate has raged over when it was painted, given the lack of knowledge about the artist’s life and times. Continue reading...

Uncertainty over climate outcomes reduced but experts warn urgent reduction in CO2 levels is essentialDoomsayers and hopemongers alike may need to revise their climate predictions after a study that almost rules out the most optimistic forecasts for global heating while downplaying the likelihood of worst-case scenarios.The international team of scientists involved in the research say they have narrowed the range of probable climate outcomes, which reduces the uncertainty that has long plagued public debate about this field. Continue reading...

What do we know about the way coronavirus is evolving?

More than 140 teams of researchers are racing to develop a safe and effective coronavirus vaccineResearchers around the world are racing to develop a vaccine against Covid-19, with more than 140 candidate vaccines now tracked by the World Health Organization (WHO). Continue reading...

Yes, they are selfish. Yes, they are putting lives in danger. But do they deserve to be vilified? NoCostco Karen; Walmart Karen; Starbucks Karen; Target Karen. Name a US retail establishment and there’s probably a viral video of a “Karen” (internet slang for an angry white woman) fuming about face masks in it or getting chased out of the store for refusing to wear one. “Mask meltdown” videos have become a feature of the pandemic, part of a larger trend of mask-shaming. Sneering at people who refuse to wear face coverings has become a particularly viral form of virtue signalling.Britain is a few months behind parts of the US in terms of masks. In New York, where I live, they’ve been compulsory in most public places since April. But with face coverings becoming mandatory for English shoppers this week (and already compulsory in Scotland) I’m sure it won’t be long before mask-shaming is as rampant in the UK as it is over here. Continue reading...

Three new Covid-19 clusters have emerged in Brooklyn, Tottenham and Colac in Victoria

Surge in cases forces the government to create an exclusion zone around the capital and pay out for cancellations

There’s no definition of what stage four might mean, what the new rules would be or when it could come into effect in Melbourne, but Victorian premier Daniel Andrews hasn’t ruled it out

Researchers say potent climate-heating gas almost certainly escaping into atmosphereThe first active leak of methane from the sea floor in Antarctica has been revealed by scientists.The researchers also found microbes that normally consume the potent greenhouse gas before it reaches the atmosphere had only arrived in small numbers after five years, allowing the gas to escape. Continue reading...

US secretary of state said the World Health Organization was responsible for Britons who had died from Covid-19

Senior scientists say it is ‘critical’ Britain improves capacity to spot and contain outbreaks before winter

Head of the government’s vaccines taskforce reveals strategy aimed at ‘exploring the landscape’ and hedging bets

MPs hear ministers were told in April that systematic testing was essential to keep staff safe

Team based in China develop test that identifies cancers up to four years before signs appearA blood test can pick up cancers up to four years before symptoms appear, researchers say, in the latest study to raise hopes of early detection.A team led by researchers in China say the non-invasive blood test – called PanSeer – detects cancer in 95% of individuals who have no symptoms but later receive a diagnosis. Continue reading...

More than 140 teams of researchers are racing to develop a safe and effective coronavirus vaccineResearchers around the world are racing to develop a vaccine against Covid-19, with more than 140 candidate vaccines now tracked by the World Health Organization (WHO). Continue reading...

It’s too early to say if the promising therapy can deliver. But it’s a vindication of the UK’s brilliant clinical trial infrastructure

Lifesaving new treatments are at risk due to Covid-19 income slump – unless the government steps in, warns the CRUK chief executiveThe great British tradition of donning trainers to run for charity has been one of the many casualties of the pandemic, with calamitous consequences for the voluntary sector. At Cancer Research UK (CRUK), which funds 50% of all publicly funded cancer research, the cancellation of lucrative fundraising events such as its popular Race for Life series, alongside the temporary closure of its 600 shops, has made the fight to beat cancer that much harder, according to its chief executive, Michelle Mitchell.“It is a blow to our ambition,” says Mitchell, referring to the charity’s aim to ensure that by 2034 three in four people will survive their cancer for at least 10 years. Continue reading...

US president to restart daily briefings; Melbourne records 374 cases; WHO warns South Africa’s crisis could be precursor for more outbreaks in Africa

It may be a respiratory virus, but studies have repeatedly found traces of Covid-19 in the faeces of infected patients. Using this to their advantage, scientists are sampling untreated sewage from wastewater plants in an effort to track the virus.Hannah Devlin speaks to Andrew Singer about how what we flush down the toilet can help detect emerging outbreaks – days before patients begin presenting with symptoms Continue reading...

Reefs from Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea survived rise of seven degrees, say marine scientistsThe scientists cranked the heat above the lethal threshold, and waited for the corals to die.“We were heating the water one degree above the summer maximum temperature,” says Anders Meibom, a researcher with the Institute of Earth Sciences at the University of Lausanne. “On the Great Barrier Reef, after a couple of weeks of that they’d start dying.” Continue reading...

Belgium sees 66% jump in new infections; South Africa Covid-19 deaths pass 5,000; France reports up to 500 virus clusters. This blog is now closed. You can follow our new blog below

Researchers identify 37 ring-like structures known as coronae that are believed to be living volcanoesScientists have identified 37 volcanic structures on Venus that appear to have been recently active – and probably still are today – painting the picture of a geologically dynamic planet and not a dormant world as long thought.The research focused on ring-like structures called coronae, caused by an upwelling of hot rock from deep within the planet’s interior, and provided compelling evidence of widespread recent tectonic and magma activity on Venus’s surface, researchers have said. Continue reading...

The health secretary, Matt Hancock, has welcomed the 'promising news' on Oxford University's coronavirus vaccine.Researchers working on the experimental vaccine said it was safe and generated a strong immune response in the people who volunteered to help trial it, raising hopes it could contribute to ending the pandemic.'Very encouraging news. We have already ordered 100m doses of this vaccine, should it succeed,' Hancock said

The foreign secretary tried to take a tough line but found it wasn’t enough to satisfy any MPsSometimes you just can’t win. Just a week after announcing he was barring Huawei from the UK’s 5G network by 2027 – the Chinese had apparently promised they wouldn’t do any spying in the next seven years – Dominic Raab was back in the Commons to make yet another ministerial statement. This time to indefinitely suspend the extradition treaty with Hong Kong and to impose an arms embargo on the territory.Try to think of it as “tough love”, the foreign secretary insisted. If we didn’t adore the Chinese so much and admire their progress this century then we wouldn’t be making such a fuss. But now we had such high expectations of them, it was only right that we submit China to the same level of scrutiny as we would any other country. Apart from the ones with appalling records of human rights abuses from which we made a small fortune flogging arms. Those could all be safely overlooked. Continue reading...

Early results also indicate vaccine is safe, raising hopes it could help end pandemic