Alabama company Dynetics also chosen for moon landing project, as three firms prepare to competeNasa has selected three private space companies to lead the development of lunar landers for its forthcoming moon landings.The three companies are Blue Origin, owned by Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos; Elon Musk’s SpaceX; and Dynetics, based in Huntsville, Alabama, Nasa announced on Thursday. Continue reading...

Telescope has made substantial scientific contributions to almost every branch of astronomyThis year, the Hubble space telescope is celebrating its 30th anniversary in orbit. Launched on 24 April 1990 onboard the space shuttle Discovery, it was deployed into orbit a day later.Since then, Hubble has been extraordinarily successful, making substantial scientific contributions to almost every branch of astronomy. Continue reading...

Rather than admit responsibility for being behind the curve, ministers instead seek to delegitimise the media for asking questions about why Britain failedIbsen’s 19th-century play An Enemy of the People is a political drama about a physician who tries to save his town from water pollution only to wind up as a scapegoat. For the doctor the issue is health; after testing the water supply he urges a shutdown and new pipes to be laid to save lives. The town’s mayor is concerned about the economic cost. Better, the politician reasons, to keep the town open and correct the problem gradually. In the moral combat that ensues it is the doctor who becomes alienated from the town he struggled to protect. The play’s message is a counsel of democratic despair: that might is more powerful than right.This insight has not been lost on the British government. Like Ibsen’s fictional politician, ministers refused to see the viral threat. Boris Johnson did not want to contemplate a draconian response. When they did act, ministers found they were behind in a global race for critical resources such as ventilators, testing capacity and personal protective equipment. The failure to move decisively to suppress the pandemic lies at the root of the mess. Rather than admit responsibility for being behind the curve, ministers refuse to apologise and instead seek to delegitimise the media for asking questions about why Britain failed. Continue reading...

One figure in particular is being closely scrutinised as ministers decide when to end lockdownR, or the “effective reproduction number”, is a way of rating a disease’s ability to spread. It’s the average number of people on to whom one infected person will pass the virus. For an R of anything above 1, an epidemic will grow exponentially. Anything below 1 and an outbreak will fizzle out – eventually.At the start of the coronavirus epidemic, the estimated R for coronavirus was between 2 and 3 – higher than the value for seasonal flu, but lower than for measles. That means that each person would pass it on to between two and three people on average, before either recovering or dying, and each of those people would each pass it on to a further two to three others, causing the total number of cases to snowball over time. Continue reading...

Trial of remdesivir shows fewer deaths and shorter hospital stays

Home testing kits will be sent out next week to clear up ‘Wild West’ of Covid-19 estimates

It’s tempting to try to construct a league table, but we’ll have to wait months, if not years, for the true picture

My wife, Eva Wickham, who has died aged 76, worked for the Inner London Education Authority in Lambeth as an educational psychologist for two decades from 1971. When Ilea was abolished in 1990, she moved to Wandsworth’s educational psychology service, where she remained until her retirement in 2006.She had a deep aversion to doing nothing and in retirement she soon found herself chairing the governing body of a local primary school. Throughout her adult life Eva was involved in various charity projects, usually involving children. She was a trustee for Cave, a literacy project in Clapham, worked as a volunteer breast feeding counsellor for the National Childbirth Trust and, most recently, was a trustee for Lambeth Home Start. Continue reading...

Attendance of Demis Hassabis raises further questions about secretive group advising UK government on Covid-19

I feel powerless but also hopeful, and want to say thank you to all my hospital colleagues from consultants to cleaners

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 near you

Stress can affect the quality and length of sleep. Scientists have been collecting dream data during the coronavirus crisis, with surprising resultsFrom going to bed too late thanks to endless scrolling through theories about the pandemic, to waking up in the night worrying, it is safe to say that Covid-19 is wreaking havoc with our sleep. A major survey conducted by King’s College London with Ipsos Mori showed that two in five people in the UK have reported sleep disturbance. Prof Bobby Duffy, the research lead and director of the Policy Institute at King’s, says: “There is a clear relationship between increased stress and impact on sleep; 53% of those who said they found the crisis stressful reported sleep difficulties.” But many people around the world are also experiencing a new phenomenon: pandemic dreams.Most of us don’t often remember our dreams, but the anxieties of life in isolation and disruption to our normal sleep-wake cycles seem to be changing that. Several researchers are collecting dream data during the pandemic, including Dr Deirdre Barrett, a clinical and evolutionary psychologist at Harvard Medical School. She explains that, although it seems that we are dreaming more often, we are actually remembering them better because we’re sleeping more, but also waking up more during the night. “With more options to sleep, including napping in the day and longer lie-ins, dream recall is maximised, but you have to wake up out of a dream to remember it. We know that increased stress is a cause of waking frequently during the night.” Continue reading...

A summary of the biggest developments in the global coronavirus outbreak

Sarah Boseley talks to Prof Helen McShane about why there has been interest in the tuberculosis vaccine and whether it could play a role in protecting us against Covid-19 Continue reading...

The Zen neighbourhood, on the outskirts of Palermo, feels abandoned by the government — and the mafia have moved inAlongside the postcard-perfect images of Italy’s silent and deserted Renaissance squares under lockdown, there are the filthy streets of the Zen neighbourhood on the northern outskirts of Palermo. In one of the poorest districts in Europe, a stronghold of the local mafia, there appears no light at the end of the tunnel despite Italy being set to begin its route out of lockdown from next week.Unemployment skyrocketed in the Zen – built in the 1960s as the city’s Zona Espansione Nord and falling into dilapidation in the decades after – when retailers were forced to close in order to contain the spread of Covid-19. Continue reading...

Friends and colleagues pay tribute to gifted polymath whose achievements spanned biology, physics and public policy

Schools in Turkey to stay shut until end of May; Germans urged to stay home; Vietnam says it has had no domestic transmission for two weeks. This blog is now closed

Preliminary results of US government trial show patients who received drug recovered faster than othersHopes of an effective drug treatment for coronavirus patients have risen following positive early results from a trial of remdesivir, a drug first tried in Ebola patients.Data from the trial on more than 1,000 severely ill patients in 75 hospitals around the world show that patients put on the drug recovered 31% faster than similar patients who were given a placebo drug instead. Remdesivir cut recovery time from a median of 15 days to 11. Continue reading...

Study says volunteers reported a rapid reduction in desire without impaired self-controlThe risk of some men sexually abusing children could be quickly reduced by a drug that lowers testosterone levels, researchers have found.The team behind the project, which was put up for crowdfunding four years ago, said the drug – degarelix acetate – produced the results in men with paedophilic disorder in just two weeks. The drug was developed as a treatment for prostate cancer treatment and blocks the production of testosterone. Continue reading...

The government’s early approach to the Covid-19 crisis, despite its denials, was to let the disease spread

Making chutney | Lockdown marmalade | Father Jack and Trump | Mathematical fright | Morse code clappingFor years I have used a WI friend’s recipe for chutney (The power of pickles: a guide to preserving almost everything – from jam-making to chutneys, 28 April) – equal weights of onions, apples (eaters or cookers), dates, sultanas and brown sugar, chopped up into a bowl and covered with vinegar for 24 hours, stirred and put into jars. No stinking the house out with boiling, no freezing or refrigerating, and delicious chutney. Even easier than making marmalade with tins of prepared fruit.

Alan Finkel joins other academics who are concerned some trials of Covid-19 treatments are being reported prematurely

Government declined ‘game-changing’ US-approved coronavirus saliva tests

Investors shrug off US growth gloom after promising data from remdesivir drug trial

Boris Johnson believed to be looking at plan to let people add close family to their households

Research may lead to simple tool to make prognoses for people with brain injuriesWafting the scent of rotten fish or shampoo under the nose of a patient with severe brain injury could help doctors determine their level of consciousness – and their chances of long-term survival.Scientists say patients are more likely to take a sniff of the odours if they are in a minimally conscious, rather than an unresponsive, state, but if the latter do respond to smell, it bodes well. Continue reading...

Outrage at president’s response to news that more than 5,000 people have lost their lives

Notice sent to universities amid concern over lack of expertise in parts of Covid-19 advisory group

Influential chief scientific adviser to the government who made politicians and scientists think about the public they servedIf you asked Bob May, Lord May of Oxford, to explain the bewildering eclecticism of his scientific interests, he would say that he liked playing games and solving puzzles. His idea of play was anything but frivolous: to him mathematics was “no more – and no less – than thinking very clearly about something”. The things he chose to think about were complex systems: from modelling the survival of species in diverse ecosystems to the spread of Aids, and, later, the stability of global finance.An uncompromising and bluntly spoken Australian, May, who has died aged 84, reached the highest levels of the British scientific and political establishment. As chief scientific adviser to the government from 1995 to 2000, he shook up the cosy relationship between politicians and the scientific community, and made both think about the public they served. A scientific career conducted across three continents ensured that his ecological models, forensically developed and delivered with exemplary clarity, have been influential internationally. Continue reading...

Rock known as (52768) 1998 OR2 will pass by on Wednesday but ‘poses no danger to planet’An asteroid more than a mile wide will pass by Earth on Wednesday while travelling at a speed of about 19,000 miles (30,578km) an hour.The space rock, known as (52768) 1998 OR2, is expected to make its closest approach at 10.56am BST, when it will be just 3.9m miles (6.3m km) away – about 16 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon. Continue reading...

George Eustice denies care homes were overlooked but says there was ‘a real focus’ on NHS

In the absence of life’s daily landmarks, we can stop our brains creating false memories by staging memorable events at home

• Coronavirus: world map of deaths and cases

The government will unveil some of its strategy for ending lockdown this week. It must consult academics across disciplinesPoliticians make mistakes all the time. There is no getting away from it, as being wrongfooted by public opinion can spell the end of a political career. In that sense, they’re a bit like academics: we are also bound to get things wrong. But unlike politicians, we see the advantages in uncovering and learning from our errors and biases, in discovering new things and constantly thinking beyond the immediate problem. –That’s why the national academies – the British Academy, representing the humanities and social sciences, among them – are drawing together the country’s most distinguished researchers to support the government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic by sharing different perspectives, knowledge and insight. Continue reading...

Beijing warns relationship could be damaged ‘beyond repair’ after Australian prime minister Scott Morrison cites ‘extraordinary’ impact of Covid-19

A summary of the biggest developments in the global coronavirus outbreak

Hannah Devlin speaks to Prof Sabra Klein about why women are much less likely to become seriously ill or die from Covid-19, and what the implications of this knowledge for future treatments might be Continue reading...

Infections in Saudi Arabia pass 20,000; Germany’s infection rate back at 1.0; Turkey delivers medical kit to the US. This blog is now closed.

Helping children express, understand and grow from their emotions during Covid-19 is a skill that will last into their adult livesSee all our coronavirus coverageRead more in the Good Place seriesSign up for Coronavirus: Australia at a glance, our daily email newsletterMost families are going through the full gamut of emotions right now. Gratitude, worry, fear, love, compassion, frustration, restlessness and so on – a fragile kaleidoscope of emotions. A fluctuating pattern of colours that changes radically with the slightest nudge.How do we help children deal with the emotions of something that we can’t wrap our heads around ourselves? Continue reading...

Spain also plans ‘transition to normality’ despite rise in German Covid-19 infection rate after relaxation of restrictions

First minister issues new virus guidance but insists there is no ‘divide or split’ with UK advice

Oximeters measure the oxygen in blood. As a GP I think they are useful, but there’s more to assessing how sick you are

As we’re seeing in this pandemic, politicians tend to favour the evidence that supports their argument

Whether it’s helping research a vaccine or supporting those worst hit by the pandemic, private giving is needed as never beforeIn Bill Gates’ eerily prescient 2015 Ted Talk he states that “the greatest risk of global catastrophe … is not missiles but microbes”, which, he predicted, could claim over 10 million lives and wipe $3tn (£2.4tn) off the global economy.Related: Twitter chief to donate quarter of his fortune to coronavirus fight Continue reading...

We were left unprotected and felt like we were going into a battlefield. I don’t think our profession will ever be the same

Hu Xijin, editor of Global Times, responds to calls for inquiry into source of Covid-19

Data from the UN population fund, outlining increases in abuse, FGM and child marriage, predicts a grim decade for many women

Covid-19 is likely to impact aid for people forced from their homes by conflict and disaster around the world, experts warn

After a string of studies that highlight the possible link between air pollution and Covid-19 deaths, Ian Sample hears from Prof Anna Hansell about the complicated relationship between pollution, health and infection with Sars-CoV-2 Continue reading...

It’s likely Covid-19 originated in bats, scientists say. But did it then spread to pangolins and humans?