University is leading rivals but first drugs may not work fully, says vaccine taskforce chair

Researchers say apocalyptic movies prepare people for Covid-19 and make them more resilient

The UK government needs to be more rigorous and transparent with information if regional outbreaks of Covid-19 are to be containedIn the game of whack-a-mole, the target pops up in one location and, once hammered down, appears immediately somewhere else. The defining features of the exercise are randomness and futility, which makes it an unfortunate metaphor for Boris Johnson to use for his government’s strategy when dealing with local Covid-19 outbreaks.The re-imposition of lockdown controls on Leicester is the first test of that approach and indications are not encouraging. The mayor, Sir Peter Soulsby, has complained about slow sharing of vital information from central government. It appears to have taken almost two weeks for evidence that the disease was surging in the city to translate into practical action. Continue reading...

Former health officials say the government is unfairly laying fault at the door of PHEExperts have accused ministers of shifting the blame for their own mistakes during the coronavirus crisis on to Public Health England, amid speculation that the agency may be scrapped.Downing Street on Wednesday failed to guarantee that PHE will survive in its present form as an executive agency of the Department of Health and Social Care when the government reviews its response to Covid-19. Continue reading...

Attempts to suppress localised flare-ups hampered by failure to share detailed information

Cambridge team say 2013 study was flawed and rarity of tumours in rodents still unexplainedWith a hairless, wrinkly body, a whopping pair of front teeth and tiny eyes, the naked mole rat might seem an unusual creature to fight over, but a row has erupted among scientists over what might be its most unusual feature: a striking resistance to cancer.The burrowing rodents, native to east Africa and described by one expert as resembling a sabre-toothed sausage, have long fascinated researchers. Continue reading...

Experts say further investigation of link is urgently required and may be relevant to managing pandemic

BMA plea comes as ministers face claims of being slow to act on local lockdown in Leicester

The government hopes it will no longer be necessary to shield – but tell that to those people in England who are at highest riskOn Monday, a major change to lockdown will begin: people with underlying health conditions in England who have been shielding since March will be able to meet up outside in groups of up to six people, while those who live alone will be allowed to form a “support bubble” with one other household. The government has said high-risk people will no longer need to shield at all from 1 August.This should be a moment of relief. Shielders have in many ways become the forgotten millions of this pandemic – told to stay inside their homes for almost four months, unable to even go out for five minutes of fresh air for much of that time, yet receiving remarkably little political or media attention. As the rest of the public begins to enjoy significant reductions in lockdown, it may seem right to give some reprieve to the group who more than anyone else have been cooped up away from loved ones. It is also positive for shielders to have some information at last and a timeline in place (with the caveat that shielding may be restarted if necessary), after months of dire communication. Continue reading...

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

US bought more than 500,000 doses, representing all of Gilead’s production for July and 90% of August and SeptemberThe US pharmaceutical giant Gilead has donated a supply of the antiviral medication remdesivir to Australia’s national medical stockpile, with the federal health minister, Greg Hunt, saying there will be enough of the drug to meet Covid-19 patient demand.It followed news overnight that the US government bought virtually all of the global supply of remdesivir for the next three months. The drug has shown some promise in helping Covid-19 patients recover faster. However, it is not a cure. Remdesivir is the first drug approved by licensing authorities in the US to treat Covid-19, prompting the White House under US president Donald Trump to buy more than 500,000 doses, representing all of Gilead’s production for July and 90% of August and September. Continue reading...

The space agency gathered 425 million high-resolution images of the sun, which have now been stitched together to form the videoNasa has released a mesmerising timelapse video of the sun that condenses an entire solar cycle into an hour of footage, using images of the star taken every hour continuously over a decade.Nasa’s Solar Dynamics Observatory has gathered 425 million high-resolution images of the sun, from its launch in February 2010 until June this year, which have now been stitched together to form the video. Continue reading...

New cases jump by 80% in two weeks; South Korea using remdesivir; outbreak in Australia’s state of Victoria worsens

The city is undergoing a suburban testing blitz after premier Daniel Andrews revealed hotspots in suburbs were largely caused by extended families

Hot weather is making mask wearing increasingly uncomfortable, prompting some people to refuse face coverings in defiance of government advice

India has over 550,000 infections; Airbus warns of 15,000 job losses. This blog is now closed

Chinese glaciologists have found the freeze-thaw process has concentrated discharge from the disasterThe Fukushima nuclear accident has added a distinctive signature to snow and ice across the northern hemisphere, new research published in Environmental Research Letters shows. Triggered by the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami off the coast of Japan on 11 March 2011, the disaster resulted in a month-long discharge of radioactive material into the atmosphere, ocean and soil.Feiteng Wang from the Tian Shan glaciological station in Lanzhou, China, and colleagues collected snow samples in 2011 and 2018 from a number of glaciers (spanning a distance of more than 1,200 miles (2,000km) in north-western China. They expected the Fukushima signature to have faded away by 2018, but to their surprise the freeze-thaw processing had made it more concentrated, creating a strong and lasting reference layer in the ice. Continue reading...

Johnson’s vision for the UK to build long-haul Jet Zero aircraft may never leave the groundWill Boris’s Jet Zero ever fly?The prime minister’s call for Jet Zero on Tuesday may owe more to his fondness for a punchy slogan than any realistic view of how UK aviation might develop in the next three decades. Continue reading...

Leicester is unlikely to be the only place to return to tight restrictions, say scientists

Mal Martin, 58, from Cardiff, spent 11 weeks in intensive care and could still lose fingers due to disease

Prof Peter Piot nearly died of coronavirus and says he now wears one wherever he goes

ONS data shows number of deaths below five-year average for first time since March

I have to inject myself with needles just to stay alive. Still, Bayer will continue to sell Roundup, and refused to label it as carcinogenicLast Wednesday was my 71st birthday, a low-key celebration in these Covid-19 times. Then I heard the news that the pharmaceutical conglomerate Bayer has offered a settlement to resolve several massive class-action lawsuits alleging that the company’s herbicide, Roundup, is dangerous and causes cancer.I’m one of the thousands of people who filed suit. The news of the settlement ruined my birthday. Continue reading...

Couples planning to marry given new guidance as lockdown rules ease from 4 July

The city is on a 10-day suburban testing blitz after premier Daniel Andrews revealed hotspots in suburbs were largely caused by extended families

The city is on a 10-day suburban testing blitz after premier Daniel Andrews revealed hotspots were largely caused by extended families

Over the last few months, we’ve all had to come to terms with R, the ‘effective reproduction number’, as a measure of how well we are dealing with the coronavirus outbreak. But, as Nicola Davis finds out from Dr Adam Kucharski, R is a complicated statistical concept that relies on many factors and, under some conditions, can be misleading Continue reading...

This Saturday, lockdown measures in England will ease further, with people able to get a pint in a pub, have a haircut and see another household indoors. The Guardian’s heath editor, Sarah Boseley, looks at whether another lifting of restrictions might result in a second wave, and if it does, why we are better prepared this time roundFrom this Saturday, the government has said that in England, pubs, restaurants and hairdressers will be able to reopen, two households will be able to meet in any setting with physical distancing measures, and people can enjoy staycations with the reopening of accommodation sites. But with the loosening of restrictions comes fears of a second wave. Sir Jeremy Farrar, the director of the Wellcome Trust, has said that the UK is on a “knife edge”, with the next few months set to be “critical” in managing the risk of a second peak of Covid-19.The Guardian’s health editor, Sarah Boseley, tells Rachel Humpheys why if there is another wave of the virus, or even localised spikes across the nation, drug research, well-practised NHS staff and greater awareness of dangers mean the health service is better prepared this time round. Continue reading...

G4 strain has already infected 10% of industry’s workers in China but no evidence yet that it can be passed from human to humanResearchers in China have discovered a new type of swine flu that is capable of triggering a pandemic, according to a study in the US science journal PNAS, although experts said there is no imminent threat.Named G4, it is genetically descended from the H1N1 strain that caused a pandemic in 2009. Continue reading...

Dramatic change in Antarctica’s interior in past three decades a result of effects from tropical variability working together with increasing greenhouse gasesClimate scientists long thought Antarctica’s interior may not be very sensitive to warming, but our research, published this week, shows a dramatic change.Over the past 30 years, the south pole has been one of the fastest-changing places on Earth, warming more than three times more rapidly than the rest of the world. Continue reading...

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says pandemic is ‘speeding up’; India records 19,459 new cases; Iran records highest daily death toll; China’s military approves vaccine for use on its soldiers. This blog is now closed

Study says surge in volcanic activity could not have caused Cretaceous/Paleogene extinction eventA 66m-year-old murder mystery has finally been solved, researchers say, revealing an enormous asteroid struck the killer blow for the dinosaurs.The Cretaceous/Paleogene extinction event resulted in about 75% of plants and animals – including non-avian dinosaurs – being wiped out. But the driving cause of the catastrophe has been a topic of hot debate. Continue reading...

Around the world men and women are responding differently to Covid-19 yet few countries are taking note of these differences. This isn’t unique to this pandemic but typical of how female biology has been largely ignored when it comes to medical research. Gabrielle Jackson examines the resulting knowledge gap and the repercussions for how women and gender diverse people are treated in our medical system Continue reading...

The shattering solutions to today’s puzzlesEarlier today I set the following three puzzles:1. With two straight line cuts, divide the vase into three pieces that can be reassembled to form a square. Continue reading...

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

Smashed it!My puzzle book So You Think You’ve Got Problems is out in paperback this week. Here are three problems from it. The first is about a vase, the second is about a leg, and third is about a set of keys.1. With two straight line cuts, divide the vase into three pieces that can be reassembled to form a square. Continue reading...

Global death toll passes 500,000; Infections pass milestone; Iran makes masks compulsory; global cases exceed 10m. This blog is now closed

Now is the time for stargazers in the northern hemisphere to get their best view of the southern zodiacal constellation ScorpiusAs we head into summer in the northern hemisphere, we reach the time of the scorpion. The southern zodiacal constellation of Scorpius, the scorpion, reaches its peak visibility in the northern hemisphere. Even so, from the UK, the constellation never rises fully into the sky; half of it always remains hidden below the horizon. Continue reading...

British neoliberalism, social inequality and arrogance have left us trailing in Germany’s wake in the fight against coronavirus, argue John Green and Glyn Turton, while Jinty Nelson says the UK has been losing ground in other areas for yearsMartin Kettle is absolutely right in his comparison between Germany’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic and that of the UK (On different planets: how Germany tackled the pandemic, and Britain flailed, 24 June). But one big factor is the fact that Germany is not, as he writes, just “a bit more prosperous” than Britain. Its standard of living is much higher than ours and there is certainly less of a divide between the rich and poor than there is here. The much higher standards of hygiene in Germany and of health care have also been an important contributing factor to the country’s much lower Covid-19 infection and death rates.Our government of Little Englanders and fanatical privateers will never admit that we could learn something from another nation, let alone from Germany. Angela Merkel has pursued a politics of consensus and moderation, whereas our Conservatives have consistently followed the discredited neoliberalism of the US and the chaotic response to this pandemic is a direct result.

The handling of those highly vulnerable to coronavirus speaks volumes about attitudes towards chronic illness and disability

As I reflect on the deaths of earlier Sutherlands, and the writers I’ve written books about, I find myself thinking of Prospero

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

My Covid-19 symptoms lasted for months. As an infectious disease specialist, I know the importance of widespread testing

Scientists think a planet larger than Earth lurks in the far reaches of the solar system. Now a new telescope could confirm their belief and change solar system scienceYou’d think that if you found the first evidence that a planet larger than the Earth was lurking unseen in the furthest reaches of our solar system, it would be a big moment. It would make you one of only a small handful of people in all of history to have discovered such a thing.But for astronomer Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC, it was a much quieter affair. “It wasn’t like there was a eureka moment,” he says. “The evidence just built up slowly.” Continue reading...

The writer Simon Stephenson looks forward to the days when he can eat popcorn in the dark againAs a writer who works from home, my lockdown life has not been so different from my previous existence. Perhaps the biggest change is that I have not gone three months without visiting a cinema since I was a child. It seems a shameful thing to admit when others have been suffering so profoundly, but I have missed those movies on the big screen. They have been my lifelong companions, and I have lamented them like vanished friends.The relationship began for me in the long-ago Easter of 1981 with the release of Superman II. My yearning to see it was elemental: my dad was taking my older brother and I wanted everything he got. When it was broken to me that at three years old I was too young to go to the cinema, I screamed for days, thus confirming that I indeed could not yet be trusted anywhere near one. Continue reading...

New South Wales makes Covid-19 tests mandatory for returned travellers and reports six new cases

A new report by Research Australia details more than 200 ongoing Covid-19 studies that extend far beyond the search for a vaccine

Scientists are currently pushing on an ethical boundary. Will out of body gestation ever replace the experience of human birth?The lamb is sleeping. It lies on its side, eyes shut, ears folded back and twitching. It swallows, wriggles and shuffles its gangly legs. Its crooked half-smile makes it look content, as if dreaming about gambolling in a grassy field. But this lamb is too tiny to venture out. Its eyes cannot open. It is hairless; its skin gathers in pink rolls at its neck. It hasn’t been born yet, but here it is, at 111 days’ gestation, totally separate from its mother, alive and kicking in a research lab in Philadelphia. It is submerged in fluid, floating inside a transparent plastic bag, its umbilical cord connected to a nexus of bright blood-filled tubes. This is a foetus growing inside an artificial womb. In another four weeks, the bag will be unzipped and the lamb will be born.When I first see images of the Philadelphia lambs on my laptop, I think of the foetus fields in The Matrix, where motherless babies are farmed in pods on an industrial scale. But this is not a substitute for full gestation. The lambs didn’t grow in the bags from conception; they were taken from their mothers’ wombs by caesarean section, then submerged in the Biobag, at a gestational age equivalent to 23-24 weeks in humans. This isn’t a replacement for pregnancy yet, but it is certainly the beginning. Continue reading...

Brazil records nearly 47,000 new cases: while the UK announces easing of quarantining for holidaymakers. This blog has now closed. Follow our live news coverage below

Royal College of Nursing welcomed the clarity following a period of ‘confusion and distress’