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...

Scientists say failure to follow advice raises questions over test-and-trace policy

When they first started in March the No 10 daily briefings helped people understand the pandemic. Now they are being used to browbeat the publicBoris Johnson’s government began daily Downing Street briefings about the Covid-19 pandemic in the second half of March. Back then, the briefings tried to do two things at once. They addressed an urgent public need for reliable information about the advance of the coronavirus. They also tried to shape the way the public should respond to the health, lifestyle and economic threats that it carried. The structure of the briefings evolved on the hoof. They were far from perfect in a number of ways. Nevertheless, in the absence of parliament, which went into recess until 21 April, the briefings performed a useful public information and advice function for an anxious nation in lockdown.Ten weeks on, that is quite simply no longer true. The gap between the public’s caution and the government’s desire to lift lockdown restrictions is stark. Mr Johnson has also been badly damaged by the Cummings affair. The daily updates have become increasingly tendentious and uninformative. Objectivity has fought a losing battle against the government’s increasingly beleaguered mishandling of the pandemic. It is therefore now time to end the briefings in their current form. Continue reading...

Owner of Britons Protection says city centre pub needs 70% of usual patrons to break evenTwo months after the Britons Protection pub in Manchester city centre had to close its doors, the business’s owner, Mark West, doesn’t know when it will reopen, a source of frustration for him and his furloughed staff.The specialist ale and whisky pub, which has been serving the city’s drinkers including artists and musicians for more than 200 years, is currently “haemorrhaging” money says West, who is using money from his property development business to support the pub. Continue reading...

Scientist says 8,000 daily infections in England makes relaxing restrictions too risky

Testing and tracing is the answer to protecting our most vulnerable – not trying in vain to ‘cocoon’ them away

My father, Cyril Dix, who has died aged 97, was a research physicist who led the team of scientists that, in the early 1980s, established the international definition of how long a metre actually is.The metre had, since 1791, been defined only by the length of a brass rod kept in a cellar in Paris. But in 1983 Cyril led a team at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Teddington, Middlesex, which came up with a new, more precise international measurement that is now independent of any physical artefact and so gives an absolutely standard definition of the length of a metre anywhere in the world. Continue reading...

Matt Hancock may want to make a joke out it, but if the new measures are to be taken seriously, the health secretary has to act accordinglyHas there ever been a more unsettling sight than Matt Hancock, laughing? Nominally, it was because Kay Burley had asked him why test and trace was being rolled out so fast, when it didn’t appear to be ready. One minute we were calling him too slow, he wheezed. And the next we were calling him too fast! HAHAHAHA. Oh, my sides.Whatever it was coursing through his noisy face, it definitely wasn’t mirth. He looked as if he had been taught to laugh by the goats that had unaccountably raised him, and was trying it out for the first time. But that isn’t the question. “Will test and trace be ready?” isn’t even the question, since given any opportunity to outsource a complex and vital process to a monolithic and incompetent services company, the government will take it, and we have to make our peace with that. Continue reading...

Data since start of Covid-19 crisis shows almost 60,000 additional deaths, a fifth higher than usual

Unfunny, nowhere near as bonkers as the real thing and saved only by John Malkovich, who knows what planet the makers of this Trump-adjacent satire were onThe real Space Force – that is, the newest branch of the US military and Trumpian fever dream made flesh and launched last year to the disbelief both silent and vocal of many – broadcast its first recruitment commercial a few days ago. It invited volunteers “to plan for the possible while it’s still impossible”.Where, you might quite reasonably ask, could a comedy about Space Force – were a comedy about Space Force to be made – be expected to go from there? Continue reading...

Latest figures from public health authorities on the spread of Covid-19 in the United Kingdom. Find out how many confirmed cases have been reported in each local authority

We have learned a lot about coronavirus, but UK hospitals face huge challenges ahead

Surgisphere issues public statement defending integrity of coronavirus study published in the Lancet

It is Italy’s richest province yet Covid-19 spread lethally through Lombardy and residents want answers

Malfunction caused rocket to shut down about five seconds after ignitionThe first launch demonstration of Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit LauncherOne rocket ended in failure this week.The California-based company aims to place small satellites into space using LauncherOne, which is carried under the wing of a converted 747 jumbo-jet aircraft. Continue reading...

Johnson unveils lockdown relaxation measures; Durham police say they won’t take further against against Cummings; UK death toll rises by 377 to 37,837

Boris Johnson announces further easing of coronavirus lockdown measures including reopening of dentists

PM gags Vallance and Whitty when they are asked if Cummings breached lockdown

State Department-backed Armenian project to promote democracy instead features false information

Snapshot survey suggests about 133,000 people infected in England in last two weeks

Governments warn of threat of second wave of cases amid local spikes in infections