Research appears to back up stories of people who believe they got coronavirus at events UK government allowed to go ahead

Proposals suggest seeking volunteers to look after coronavirus patients without protective gear

Primatologist calls for overhaul of food habits to prevent a future pandemic

Crook, County Durham: Today’s sweet briar could be the mongrel offspring of a dog rose – they hybridise so easilySpring, so eagerly anticipated, so riotous, has sashayed into summer. All that remains of crab apple, hawthorn and rowan blossom lies as petal confetti on the pavement. The blackcap in the copse I walk past daily is subdued, its melodious courtship tempered now by the caution of a parent with a brood to protect. Dandelion clocks alongside footpaths have blown away, replaced by frothy cow parsley.For meteorologists, summer begins on 1 June. Astronomically, summer solstice, 20 June, is the magical date. But the natural transition between seasons defies precise measurement. It is the accumulation of countless small events and today, on my morning walk, one such was the blooming of the first wild rose of summer. But which wild rose? There are many. In the few places locally where it can be found, the first is always burnet rose, Rosa pimpinellifolia, easily identified by its ferocious, dense prickles, creamy blooms and intense fragrance. No matter what Shakespeare’s Juliet might have asserted, no native rose by any other name smells as sweet. Continue reading...

Cases in Africa pass 150,000; Germany eases travel ban; Wuhan doctor who worked with whistleblower dies. This blog is now closed

Guardian told all four CMOs discussed and refused No 10 proposal, not just Chris Whitty

News updates: 324 new deaths in the UK; death rate in England higher among BAME people; testing data ‘widely criticised and often mistrusted’

Study may shed light on material and debated origins of some of the 25,000 fragments

Outbreaks after family parties in Göttingen illustrate the problems of containing virus

Gian Piero Gasperini admits he had symptoms prior to Champions League match in Spain

Prof Neil Ferguson tells Lords committee cases will remain steady until September

People of Bangladeshi origin face greatest danger of dying in pandemic, according to PHE

The UK has refused to support a WHO initiative to make Covid-19 treatments patent-free

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical conceptsThe successful launch of the SpaceX rocket Dragon, timed so that the Nasa astronauts onboard could rendezvous with the International Space Station, got me thinking: do all satellites orbit the earth in the same direction? If so, is it clockwise or anticlockwise? Presumably they go in the same direction, or they would crash into each other.Andrew A, London Continue reading...

Keir Starmer says government must ‘stop the excuses’ amid claims delay is due to fears it could stoke tensions

MPs raise concerns about potentially limited impact of measures compared with damage they could do to industry

Notes made in the shadow of a devastating outbreak show the great scientist sketching out some distinctly queasy remedies

Ian Sample talks to Prof Carl Heneghan about the uncertainties in predicting future outbreaks of Covid-19 and what we can do to prevent them Continue reading...

Comprehensive study supports government’s current physical distancing guidance

Prof Ravi Mahajan and Alan Walker respond to Richard Horton’s article in which he questions how scientists can stand by this government. Plus Philip Barber wonders why we are being led by science, while simultaneously disregarding itRichard Horton is correct to highlight the vital need for medical leadership during the Covid-19 pandemic (How can any scientists stand by this government now?, 27 May)(. Unsurprisingly, medical leadership is not only about critiquing the government’s actions during this extraordinary situation. It’s also about questioning and working collaboratively to proactively deliver effective and timely solutions to challenges.The Royal College of Anaesthetists (RCoA), which represents the largest single hospital-based medical specialty, continuously engages and communicates with senior political and healthcare leaders on behalf of its anaesthetist members on issues such as personal protective equipment stocks, testing, the wellbeing of healthcare workers and drug supplies. As with other medical royal colleges, the RCoA has communicated the first-hand experiences of medical staff on the Covid-19 frontline so that decision-makers can learn from their insights. Continue reading...

Reopening places of worship | Anagram origins | Stars | Margaret Meek Spencer | Uses for tightsI do not to go to church much (save for inter-faith events), but I totally support calls from the clergy for places of worship to open in a way compatible with social distancing and other safety measures. If supermarkets can operate to feed our bodies, and bookshops to nourish our minds, then religious buildings can surely do the same to sustain hearts and souls.

The solution to today’s puzzlesEarlier today I set you three puzzles.1) Deduce the Zoom algorithm for placing four faces, using the three screengrabs below taken from three different people’s computers during the same meeting. For those who have never used Zoom before, the yellow outline tells you who is speaking, and doesn’t affect the positions. The fourth screengrab from the same meeting is above, but you can solve the problem without it. Continue reading...

The K value sheds light on how the transmission rate varies and can help identify clusters

More than 24,000 cases of cancer have gone undiagnosed according to Cancer Research UKAlmost 2.5 million Britons have not been screened, tested or treated for cancer because the Covid-19 pandemic has led to “enormous disruption” of NHS care for the disease, experts have warned.More than 24,000 cases of cancer have gone undiagnosed as a result of the suspension of normal services while delays in treatment mean some people’s disease is now inoperable, Cancer Research UK (CRUK) says. Continue reading...

WHO is urging countries to investigate any suspicious deaths so virus can be better understood

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

How the ubiquitous app places our facesUPDATE: Solutions now up here.Today’s first puzzle concerns Zoom. For those of you who have been hiding under a stone all lockdown, it is a video-conferencing app.1) Deduce the Zoom algorithm for placing four faces, using the three screengrabs below taken from three different people’s computers during the same meeting. For those who have never used Zoom before, the yellow outline tells you who is speaking, and doesn’t affect the positions. The fourth screengrab from the same meeting is above, but you can solve the problem without it. Continue reading...

Exclusive: thirty hospitals looking to sign up hundreds of patients to take part in studies

US sends Brazil 2m doses of hydroxychloroquine, despite safety fears; pressure builds on South African president. This blog is now closed please follow our continuing live coverage below

Less spectacular than a total eclipse but no less interesting, the penumbral lunar eclipse to be seen on Friday will be well worth watchingThis week’s astronomical event will be easy to see but hardly anyone will notice it. On 5 June, the full moon will clip the outer portion of Earth’s shadow, creating a penumbral lunar eclipse. This is much subtler than a total lunar eclipse, in which the moon appears to turn red as it passes through the darkest part of Earth’s shadow, situated right behind our planet. Penumbral lunar eclipses are difficult to discern by eye because only a portion of the sun’s light is blocked from reaching the moon. Continue reading...

Many opt for caution amid concerns restrictions are being loosened too quickly

Testing capacity hit 205,634 on Saturday but full figures for tests carried out not released

A rocket ship named Dragon breathed new fire into the US’s human spaceflight programme on Saturday, carrying two astronauts on a much-anticipated mission. The launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon crew capsule from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center to the International Space Station was the first time since 2011 that humans had blasted off into orbit from US soil.It also heralded a new direction for crewed spaceflight, as entrepreneur Elon Musk’s company SpaceX became the first commercial operator to carry astronauts into space under a public-private partnership set up by Nasa in 2010

The neuroscientist who advises Independent Sage on Covid-19 discusses the predictive power of his mathematical modelling and the risk of a second wave

There are more than 130,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the continent

Boris Johnson’s lack of transparency suggests he is more concerned with a political crisis than a health one

Afghanistan similarly reports worst day yet; Angela Merkel said she will not attend G7 if Trump insists on holding it. All the developments live

As more of us wear face masks and rely on eye contact, how will it change the way we relate to each otherA conversation with a girlfriend when I was in Italy a few weeks ago got me thinking about the latest new norm of the post-coronavirus society: enhanced eye contact. She had told me how, standing in the endless queue for the supermarket, wearing her mask, she had caught the eye of a handsome man in another loop of the queue and found herself engaged in a wordless flirtation carried out just with the eyes from a distance. After this, she had taken to piling on extra eyeliner and mascara.“What I am saving in not buying lipstick I am spending on those full-volume mascaras,” she said, laughing. Continue reading...

One scientist says Cummings affair ‘not a recipe for public trust’ at key stage of lockdown

As studies confirm many infected people show no symptoms, contact tracing and face masks assume even greater importance

A summary of the biggest developments in the global coronavirus outbreak

The team behind our popular podcast reflect on how the threat of Covid-19 has galvanised the scientific communityNicola Davis is one of Science Weekly’s presenters, alongside Ian Sample and Hannah Devlin. Madeleine Finlay is one of its regular producers, alongside Max Sanderson and David Waters Continue reading...

Elon Musk’s firm plans flight with Nasa astronauts, following Wednesday’s cancellationElon Musk’sSpaceX is due to undertake a repeat attempt at launching two Americans into orbit from Florida, in a mission that would mark the first spaceflight of Nasa astronauts from US soil in nine years.The mission’s first launch attempt on Wednesday was called off with fewer than 17 minutes remaining on the countdown clock, due to stormy weather around the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. Continue reading...

Scientists prepare to examine sewage in attempt to try to find the source of a Covid-19 infection that killed Nathan Turner

A summary of the biggest developments in the global coronavirus outbreak

Number of people tested for coronavirus for seventh day running has not been disclosedThe government has failed to disclose the number of people tested for Covid-19 for the seventh day running, prompting criticism from senior scientists who said this risked a perception that there is “something to hide”.On Friday, figures showed that less than 131,500 daily tests were carried out the previous day. No 10 insisted that it was “on target” to hit 200,000 daily tests by 1 June, as promised by health secretary Matt Hancock. Continue reading...

Though they display less viral shedding, asymptomatic people can still spread Covid-19Since the Covid-19 outbreak began, many have been concerned about asymptomatic spread – that is, people who have the virus but show no symptoms, so therefore don’t take measures to quarantine themselves.As the virus spreads throughout the world more research can be gathered, and scientists are learning more about asymptomatic spread and its prevalence. Findings published in the BMJ Journal Thorax on Thursday found asymptomatic cases of Covid-19 meant the prevalence of the virus was likely to be significantly underestimated on cruise ships. Australian researchers led by Prof Alvin Ing from Macquarie University in Sydney analysed tests from all 217 passengers and crew on board a ship that departed from Argentina for a 21-day cruise of the Antarctic Peninsula in mid-March, after the World Health Organisation declared a pandemic. They found more than 80% of the 128 people who tested positive for Covid-19 had no symptoms. Continue reading...