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Australian Daniel Ou Yang, 21, was on the Air New Zealand flight out of virus-struck Wuhan to Auckland. Here he writes about the stress of his evacuationAt 2.52pm, we arrived at Wuhan Tianjin airport.The drive here was smooth, all the big wide roads with no cars on them. We made it through the checkpoints and arrived within an hour. Continue reading...

The global body is accused of failing to act fast to halt epidemic but the true cost of doing politics with Beijing is still unknownOn social media this week the insults were flying thick and fast, some tinged with racism, but all with a common theme: how the World Health Organization, and its head, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, was effectively doing the bidding of the Chinese government in the midst of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak.It is a charge that has also been expressed in less offensive terms elsewhere in columns and articles, some of which have focused on whether, in praising China’s response to the deadly Wuhan coronavirus outbreak during a visit to Beijing, Tedros allowed himself to become complicit in China’s flawed handling of the outbreak in its early days? Continue reading...

5 February 1910: A debate held last night allowed both sides to put forward their views on this contentious subject

Researchers analysed 590 recordings taken in Italian zoos of birds’ distinctive soundThe call of the jackass penguin, a wheezing bray that sounds like a donkey in distress, follows some of the same linguistic laws found in human languages, scientists have found.Researchers say that, just like in our own speech, more frequently used sounds within the call tend to be shorter, while the longer the call, the shorter the sounds within it. It is the first time this pattern has been shown outside primates. Continue reading...

UK citizens should leave ‘if they can’ to reduce risk of exposure to virus, says foreign secretary

Pauline Armory and Maxine Arnott write about a recently completed trial that has the potential to detect lung cancer with a blood test and Prof Martin Marshall says it wrong to blame GPs for failing to spot symptomsYou rightly report that one of the key reasons lung cancer is the biggest cause of cancer deaths in the UK is that up to 56% of lung cancers are only discovered in A&E where patients present with late-stage symptoms, by which point they often have only months to live (Report, 31 January).Every year in the UK around 40,000 people are diagnosed with lung cancer and 35,000 people die – it kills more women, for instance, than breast, cervical and ovarian cancers combined, and is the world’s biggest cancer killer. Continue reading...

Preparedness is everything – so it’s chilling to realise that investment in it is actually being cutMerely a month after a mysterious respiratory illness arose in Wuhan, China, the world is already in the grip of a global outbreak. Now designated a “public health emergency of international concern” by the World Health Organization, and probably not far off earning the more sinister name “pandemic”, the 2019-nCov coronavirus outbreak has already surpassed its cousin Sars in terms of the number of cases confirmed. Although it has a lower fatality rate than Sars, it’s too early to tell whether 2019-nCov will be remembered as something much more frightening.Related: WHO declares coronavirus a global health emergency Continue reading...

Health officials raise concerns that many African countries are ill-equipped to combat the virus

Planes have been chartered and quarantines set up – but some countries have been slow to react

Biodiversity hotspots with millions of years of climate stability could be among the world’s hardest hit regionsBiodiversity hotspots that have given species a safe haven from changing climates for millions of years will come under threat from human-driven global heating, a new study has found.Species that have evolved in tropical regions such Australia’s wet tropics, the Guinean forests of Western Africa and the Andes Mountains will come under increasing stress as the planet warms, the study finds. Continue reading...

Facility was built in less than two weeks in city at the centre of the viral outbreakThe first coronavirus patients have arrived at a Chinese field hospital built from scratch in under two weeks at the frontline of the outbreak, state media said.The 1,000-bed facility was built to relieve hospitals swamped with patients in Wuhan, the city of 11 million people in Hubei province. The national health emergency that has killed more people in China than the 2003 Sars outbreak. Continue reading...

Emergency doctors call for calm amid reports of abuse of Asian-AustraliansDoctors have warned of a rise in racist incidents as Asian-Australians have been targeted amid coronavirus fears. Guardian Australia has been told of one involving a young mother who was racially abused on a Sydney train.The body representing Australian doctors working in emergency departments called for a calm and fact-based response to the new coronavirus, and to avoid “panic and division” amid the spread of misinformation. Continue reading...

Decision described as a ‘significant setback’ by International Aids SocietyThe latest trial of a vaccine against HIV has been halted because interim results show it is not working, the National Institutes of Health in the United States has announced.The end of the trial taking place in South Africa is a blow to the vaccine field and to Aids experts and advocates. As early as the mid-1980s, the US government was forecasting that Aids would be stopped by a vaccine. In 1997, the then-president Bill Clinton pledged money to an effort to find a vaccine within 10 years. But as the decades have passed, no effective vaccine has been discovered. Continue reading...

Wuhan hospitals need more staff and supplies as residents describe increasingly desperate conditionsDozens more people have died in the city at the centre of China’s coronavirus outbreak, where hospitals are severely undersupplied and understaffed and residents have described increasingly desperate conditions.Chinese state media reported 57 new deaths on Monday, all but one in Wuhan, the capital of the central province of Hubei which has been under lockdown for almost two weeks as authorities try to contain the outbreak. Continue reading...

Exhibition marks bicentenary of nursing pioneer’s birth with focus on life after Crimean warAn exhibition on Florence Nightingale which marks 200 years since her birth will shine a spotlight on her as an older woman.Nightingale is often pictured in her 30s, when she nursed wounded soldiers in the Crimean war. Continue reading...

The solar system’s innermost planet can never be seen in the night sky. But there is a chance to see it at twilight during the next two weeksThis coming week offers the chance of seeing Mercury in the evening sky. The innermost planet, Mercury’s orbit is just 0.38 times the size of Earth. Being that close to the sun means that we can never see the planet in the night sky but at certain times of the year we can catch a glimpse of it in the twilight. For the next two weeks, Mercury will be visible in the evening as dusk is falling. To see it, a clear south-western horizon will be needed but at least the bright planet Venus is on hand to act as guide. The chart shows the view looking south-west towards Venus at 1730GMT on 3 February. There will be no other stars visible at this time, only Venus and Mercury will shine through the twilight sky. Mercury is much more of a challenge from the southern hemisphere. From Sydney, Australia, Venus will be to the north of Mercury, which just peeps above the western horizon around 2030 AEDT. Continue reading...

The sound resembles ‘shotgun-like cracks’ and attracts potential matesA wild grey seal (Halichoerus grypus) has been caught “clapping” on camera for the first time, making sounds that resemble “shotgun-like cracks”.The large male was filmed striking its flippers together off the coast of the Farne Islands, near Northumberland, during the breeding season in 2017. Continue reading...

This year could be a crucial one for ocean protection – but threats abound. A robust global treaty is neededThe 60th anniversary of the expedition that first took humans to the highest spot on earth – the peak of Everest – was widely celebrated seven years ago. The 60th anniversary of the first expedition to its deepest point has gone almost unnoticed. Yet that trip to the bottom of the Challenger Deep, at the southern end of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, was an equally remarkable feat and has rarely been repeated.While thousands of climbers have since climbed Everest in the footsteps of Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary, only two more people have followed the route of Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh, who reached the bottom in 1960. It was not until 2012 that film-maker James Cameron conducted a solo dive to the almost 11km-deep valley, collecting samples and video. Last year, explorer Victor Vescovo followed suit. Continue reading...

Australia’s horrific bushfires could be the catalyst that pushes the world to a mass recognition that it’s time to actAs a climate scientist on sabbatical in Australia, I’ve had plenty of conversations about the climate crisis lately as bushfires have burned their way to the front of everyone’s mind. Although the Murdoch media make it seem as if there’s plenty of debate, the reality is that most Australians I talk to get it.And why shouldn’t they? More carbon pollution means warmer temperatures which dry out the landscape, making it easier for fires to spread. The fact that the bushfires tore through Australia as we ended the hottest decade ever recorded is no coincidence. Continue reading...

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The WHO has praised country’s response, but heavy-handed approach could make things worseWhen the World Health Organization declared the 2019nCoV coronavirus outbreak a global health emergency, it effusively praised China’s response to the outbreak. The WHO issued a statement welcoming the government’s “commitment to transparency”, and the WHO director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, tweeted: “China is actually setting a new standard for outbreak response.”The WHO is ignoring Chinese government suppression of human rights regarding the outbreak, including severe restrictions on freedom of expression. In turn, Chinese state media are citing the WHO to defend its policies and try to silence criticism of its response to the outbreak, which has included rights violations that could make the situation worse. Continue reading...

Foreign secretary confirms evacuation as Philippines reports first death outside ChinaDominic Raab has confirmed that 11 evacuees will be flown to the UK from the Chinese city at the centre of the coronavirus outbreak on Sunday, on a French-chartered plane, after they missed a previous evacuation flight on Friday.The foreign secretary said the government was doing everything in its power to help Britons who wished to leave but that the process posed serious challenges. Continue reading...

A sudden bereavement tore my life apart. But even though I’m a trained therapist, I couldn’t find comfort on the couchFive years ago I flew over the Connecticut hospital mortuary where thousands of feet below my husband’s dead body lay. The map on the screen flashed up New Haven as we headed east over the Atlantic… leaving him behind. During the six-hour flight back to London I sat bolt upright, tearless and unable to eat, drink or even visit the loo. I felt nothing, utterly empty, numb and as close to inanimate as I imagine a person can feel.Andrew, at just 52, had died at 8am that morning, killed by a vicious land grabber of a cancer that had taken 14 months to overwhelm every organ in his body. This was my trauma beginning, to be followed, inevitably, by grief. We knew from the start it was bad, but I didn’t somehow think he would actually die. We never discussed it. Now, this seems astounding to me. I am still perplexed by the strength of his denial. And by my complicity. Continue reading...

The benefits of tissue harvesting to delay a supposed middle age hell are doubtfulAgainst a background of tasteful pastel – which signals from the off that we are in the land of discretionary spending on faulty female anatomy – the ProFaM website makes its unique bid for women’s money. Ovarian tissue storage! And not only for fertility-related reasons. Who’d want a menopause? “Will you be ready?” the website challenges. “You never know what the future holds, so freeze the biological clock and prepare for the future.”For many women, alas, the offer will be empty. The ProFaM clockstopping technique requires young ovarian tissue and costs up to £7,000 for removal (storage and reinstatement extra). “Age 25-30 is optimal,” the doctors say. Once reinstalled, the tissue is supposed to function as “natural HRT”. Continue reading...

Australia and other countries follow US in imposing near-total travel ban as foreign companies scale back activityThe growing coronavirus epidemic is isolating China, as other countries, trying to ward off infection or contain their own smaller outbreaks bar, entry to travellers from China, and companies including Apple scale down travel and business there.The UK announced on Saturday it had withdrawn all but essential staff from embassies and consulates in China, as authorities at home dealt with fallout from the first two cases confirmed in Britain – a student at the University of York and a visiting relative. Continue reading...

The Chinese authorities have released details of some of the victims, and not all are elderly with pre-existing health conditionsMost people who died from the new coronavirus appear to have been old, and many had pre-existing health problems, but Chinese government records list at least five victims under 60, with no prior medical issues detailed.These potential “outliers” – aged 36, 50, 53, 55 and 58 – are a reminder that scientists are still racing to understand the nature and impact of the new disease as it spreads in China and around the world. Continue reading...

Death toll rises, with almost 12,000 confirmed cases of infection in China. Follow the latest developments

Professor responsible for ‘reckless’ failure to properly oversee researchersA row over scientific fraud at the highest level of British academia has led to calls for one of the country’s leading geneticists and highest-paid university chiefs to leave his posts.David Latchman, professor of genetics at University College London and master of Birkbeck, University of London – a post that earns him £380,000 a year – has angered senior academics by presiding over a laboratory that published fraudulent research, mostly on genetics and heart disease, for more than a decade. The number of fabricated results and the length of time over which the deception took place made the case one of the worst instances of research fraud uncovered in a British university. Continue reading...

International teams accelerate efforts to find effective immunisation method

Some forced to leave behind loved ones due to short notice after China lifted restrictionsBritons who were on board the evacuation flight from Wuhan have spoken of the confusion surrounding their departure, with some still having to leave loved ones behind.The flight, carrying 87 Britons and 27 foreign nationals from the coronavirus-hit Chinese city, touched down at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire at about 1.30pm and passengers were transferred by coach to Arrowe Park hospital in Wirral, where they will be quarantined for two weeks. Continue reading...

Huge numbers of people are wearing face masks – in Japan and South Korea there have been reports of stores selling out. But experts are divided on how effective they areAs the death toll from coronavirus steadily rises, east Asian countries such as Taiwan have stepped up production of surgical face masks to meet demand. In the Chinese city of Wuhan, at the centre of the outbreak, it is mandatory to wear one in public places, and there have been reports of stores in Japan and South Korea selling out.The hope is that wearing masks in high-risk areas will at least slow the spread of the disease, but just how helpful they are is moot. Raina MacIntyre, a professor of global biosecurity at the University of New South Wales, has been reviewing the literature on protocol for dealing with infectious diseases and finds it wanting. Continue reading...

University of California, Berkeley said on Instagram that spread of the illness may lead to ‘fears about interacting with those who might be from Asia’

What are the symptoms caused by the virus from Wuhan in China, how is it transmitted from one person to another, and at what point should you see a doctor?

The virus can be spread when an infected person coughs or sneezes. Hand-washing is a first line of defenceThe Wuhan coronavirus outbreak is a new illness and scientists are still assessing how it spreads from person to person, but similar viruses tend to spread via cough and sneeze droplets. Continue reading...

Flight carrying 83 British people and 27 foreign nationals will land in the UK on Friday as US tells citizens ‘don’t go to China’

Sixty years ago, explorers first descended the 11,000 metres to the Challenger Deep of the Mariana Trench, the deepest known point in the ocean. In the intervening decades we have discovered more about this mysterious and peculiar environment and its inhabitants. Nicola Davis speaks to Dr Jon Copley about the race to the ocean floor and what is lurking down there in the deep. Continue reading...

‘These days, many have died,’ says bystander as image shows workers in protective suits and masks taking body away

More than 9,320 people infected globally, as WHO director says decision comes amid concern for countries with weaker health systems. This blog is closed

Pacific nations, still reeling from a devastating measles outbreak, have watched news out of Wuhan in panicAs Pacific Islanders watched updates about the coronavirus outbreak over the past few weeks, unease soon gave way to panic.Still reeling in shock from a measles outbreak in Samoa, Pacific Islanders’ fears were stoked as it became apparent that even large, well-developed countries were struggling to contain the outbreak. Low-resourced settings always suffer the greatest losses in global medical crises and people living in these island nations are not blind to that detail. Continue reading...

Organization’s head says move no reflection on China and warns against travel bans to country

Five previous emergencies declared since 2009 with some still activeThe Wuhan coronavirus is just the latest disease that the World Health Organization (WHO) has labelled as a “public health emergency of international concern” (PHEIC). In the past 10 years there have been five other such announcements, covering four diseases.However, the Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (Mers) coronavirus, first identified in 2012, and the yellow fever outbreak in Angola that emerged in late 2015 are not among them, despite emergency committees convening. Continue reading...

Scientists call on the public as they scramble to understand the impact of unprecedented fires across Australia

World Health Organization recommends people take simple precautions against virus to reduce exposure and transmission

Findings suggest human and Neanderthal lineages more closely intertwined that once thoughtAfrican populations have been revealed to share Neanderthal ancestry for the first time, in findings that add a new twist to the tale of ancient humans and our closest known relatives.Previously it was believed that only non-African populations carried Neanderthal genes due to interbreeding that took place after a major human migration out of Africa and across the globe about 60,000 years ago. Continue reading...

Giving up meat could reduce levels of certain E coli bacteria strains in bowel, say scientistsDitching meat may reduce the risk of urinary tract infections, at least in women, research suggests.Urinary tract infections, or UTIs, are common and painful, with more than 150m cases around the world every year. Continue reading...

Commerce secretary says ‘I think it will help accelerate the return of jobs to North America, some to the US’The US commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, said in an interview on Thursday that the coronavirus outbreak could bring back jobs to America.In controversial comments on morning TV, Ross remarked that the deadly illness that has broken out in China and is spreading internationally could lead to job growth for businesses in the US and Mexico. He was speaking during a segment on Fox Business Network. Continue reading...

Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 thriller about the spread of a deadly virus has been back in the iTunes Top 10 – so is this epidemic another thing we can blame on Gwyneth Paltrow?

What are the symptoms caused by the virus from Wuhan in China, how is it transmitted from one person to another, and at what point should you see a doctor?

Scientists at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne have grown the novel coronavirus from a patient sample, which they plan to share internationally under advice from the World Health Organization to provide data to fight the virus.The virus has also been grown in cell culture in China, but the breakthrough in Melbourne will allow accurate investigation and diagnosis of the virus globally. The project comes from a collaboration between the Royal Melbourne hospital and the University of Melbourne Continue reading...