With 18 deaths in China, several countries introduce screening for arriving passengersThe World Health Organization has called on the global community to work together to fight the new coronavirus that is causing an epidemic of viral pneumonia and deaths in China, but stopped short of declaring it a public health emergency of international concern.After the second day of meetings of the emergency committee, WHO’s director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on Thursday that nobody should assume there was no risk that it would become a dangerous global epidemic. Continue reading...

Institutions are monitoring staff and students who have recently come from areas affected by the coronavirusUK universities with links to China have issued warnings to staff and students travelling to and from areas affected by the coronavirus, urging anyone with symptoms to seek medical advice.With concern growing about the spread of the virus, universities in the UK are keeping a check on staff who have recently returned from Wuhan, the city at the centre of the outbreak, as well as Chinese students who come from affected areas, many of whom will be concerned about loved ones at home. Continue reading...

Public Health England says five cases confirmed negative with nine awaiting results

Oil and travel shares slide amid fears outbreak could hit growth in second largest economy

Authorities believe new strain of coronavirus came from a market in Wuhan where wildlife was sold illegally

Cancellations mean lucrative films including The Rescue and Detective Chinatown 3 also cannot be seen in UK and US

Researchers in UK recreate Nesyamun’s sound using 3D version of his vocal tractThe “voice” of an ancient Egyptian priest has been heard for the first time since he died and was mummified 3,000 years ago, researchers have said.Nesyamun lived under the pharaoh Rameses XI, who reigned around the beginning of the 11th century BC. Continue reading...

In his Commons statement, health secretary adopts the tone of a disaster movie superhero singlehandedly saving the planetVery few MPs were taking any chances with the new coronavirus outbreak in China. Which is why the Commons chamber was almost entirely empty for the ministerial statement about it. Some clearly appear to believe the risk of contagion is so high that even talking about it can spread the disease.Fortunately the health secretary, Matt Hancock, is more selfless than many. And more fearless. One of the more charming things about Matt – other than his gullibility: he consistently remains the only person in the entire country who believes Boris Johnson will actually build 40 new hospitals – is his tireless dedication to the cause. Tigger doesn’t just wear his NHS badge on the lapel of his suit; he has it attached to his pyjamas in bed at night. As does his Pooh bear teddy. Continue reading...

Beijing is determined to crush this disease as firmly as it crushes dissent. But there is no guarantee a lockdown will workA new disease arrives in a Chinese winter – is history repeating itself? At the end of 2002, Sars erupted in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong. Nearly two decades on, another new virus has struck at roughly the same time of year, this time in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.Though the diseases are similar – Sars and the new Wuhan virus are from the same coronavirus family, and both attack the lungs – there is a great deal of difference in the way China has responded to these outbreaks. Continue reading...

Why does supporting one club mean you have to hate another?By Paul Hyland for The BlizzardEveryone reading this probably has a favourite football team. I’d also be willing to bet that all of you have at least one football club that you hate. Maybe it’s because their star player is a diver, or because they once broke your hearts in a season-defining, must-win game. Though probably it’s because you have to. Being a fan of one club means being expected to hate at least one other. But isn’t it just a little bit arbitrary? Who told you that you have to hate United or City? Arsenal and not Spurs? Then again, who told you that you have to hate anyone at all? Why does supporting one football club even have to mean hating another? In other words, why do we as football fans choose our rivals? And more to the point – how?Our motivations for choosing rivals are an interesting psychological phenomenon, one which the work of the Austrian psychoanalysts in the early 20th century can help to explain. The contemporaries Otto Rank and Sigmund Freud might go a long way to explaining why rivalry is meaningful, why it is that we’re so viscerally connected not just to seeing our local team do well, but also to cheering on just about anyone who crosses paths with rival clubs. Continue reading...

Supermarket shelves empty and face masks sell out as residents retreat indoorsA sense of panic has spread in Wuhan as the Chinese city of 11 million people was put on lockdown in an attempt to quarantine a deadly virus believed to have originated there.On Thursday, authorities banned all transport links from the city, suspending buses, the subway system, ferries and shutting the airport and train stations to outgoing passengers. Continue reading...

Experts fear latest strain of virus from Wuhan may spread across world

Wenlock Edge, Shropshire: Species such as this one contain a remarkable reservoir of potentially medicinal chemicalsGreen feathers in the wood, the plumage of moss: it appears unaffected by a squall that rattles up the lane. Its rain washes around the old, laid trunks of hedge sycamores, its wind blows goldfinch from mullein seedheads under power lines into hazels; its noise silences the thrush who, for some days in his ash tree, has been auditioning an oratory of fragmented phrases repeated in short bursts that will become a heart-stopping song before too long. The moss appears unaffected by the traffic of people, dogs and birds, unaffected by the seasons and the sudden appearance of snowdrops from a recurring dream.Common feather-moss, Kindbergia praelonga, has branching ferny shoots up to 3cm long, with divided leaves that in some woodland forms are bipinnate or tripinnate with triangular-shaped tips so they look like feathers; they can be found in moist, shady places on a variety of surfaces. Continue reading...

Government unveils new countermeasures as country prepares for lunar new year and death toll doubles to 17

American citizen in his 30s was admitted to Washington state hospital on Monday after trip to ChinaDoctors have been using a robot to treat the first person known to have been admitted to hospital in the US with a new strain of the coronavirus, as part of an effort to prevent the spread of the disease, which has killed at least 17 people in China and infected hundreds more.The man in his 30s was admitted to the special pathogens unit in a hospital in Everett, Washington, on Monday. The US citizen had recently returned from a trip to central China and had been diagnosed in Seattle. Continue reading...

Scientists discover vitrified remains caused by immense 520C heat of disaster in AD79When Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD79, the damage wreaked in nearby towns was catastrophic. Now it appears the heat was so immense it turned one victim’s brain to glass – thought to be the first time this has been seen.Experts say they have discovered that splatters of a shiny, solid black material found inside the skull of a victim at Herculaneum appear to be the remains of human brain tissue transformed by heat. Continue reading...

International body to meet again on Thursday to discuss ‘evolving and complex situation’ as China reports 17 deaths

Fight-or-flight response nerves pump out hormone that wipes out pigmentation cellsLord Byron put it down to sudden fears, which took their toll on men at night. For Wordsworth it was shocks of passion that swiftly turned hair white.But while hair cannot lose its colour in an instant – at least not without help from a bottle of bleach – scientists at Harvard University have shown how stress can, over time, speed up the greying process. Continue reading...

It’s all in the grind, say mathematicians who turned to equations to solve mysteryWhat’s the secret of the perfect espresso? It’s a question that has long troubled cafe owners around the world, but now mathematicians say they have worked out the formula for achieving the perfect brew – and it all comes down to the daily grind.“There is a common experience, particularly for people making coffee in their homes, and baristas as well, that you brew two espressos one after the other, you use the same ground coffee and seemingly you brew it in exactly the same way, yet the two shots can taste quite different to one another,” said Dr Jamie Foster at Portsmouth University, a co-author of the research. Continue reading...

Health team including doctor will meet those travelling from Wuhan as cases estimated at 4,000

When treating antibiotic-resistant infections, injecting patients with other people’s excrement can be highly effective. Could it be the answer to dementia, anorexia and obesity too?The man and woman are wearing blue hospital gowns and clear face shields. Dr James Sones and Dr Indu Srinivasan are in a room in the Division of Digestive Diseases at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. They are about to create something that has spread through medicine like, well, a shitstorm.Sones takes a brown gloopy material and spoons it into what looks like a regular kitchen blender. The camera zooms in to a label on it: faecal blender. The brown gloopy stuff is, depending on your profession and level of politeness, faecal matter, stool, excrement or poo. It has been donated by a generous volunteer and it is almost certainly going to transform the life of the person who is going to receive it. Continue reading...

Campaigners have argued for open access to scientific research since the dawn of the internet – so why is it taking so long?In December 2002, a Belfast teenager made world headlines after his father, Don Simms, won him the legal right to access an experimental drug. Jonathan Simms had been diagnosed with variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), a cruel and fatal neurodegenerative condition that gives sufferers an average of one year to live.After receiving the drug pentosan polysulfate, Jonathan lived for another 10 years, defying all medical expectations. The court ruling made medical history: until that point the drug had only ever been tested on animals, and the legal decision opened doors to treatment for other patients. Continue reading...

Prof Sandy Harrison tells the Liberal on his Facebook page that his misuse of her study should not go unchallengedA leading UK climate scientist has used the Facebook page of the MP Craig Kelly to correct his “blatant misrepresentation” of a study she co-authored on a 70,000-year history of bushfires in Australia.Kelly, a serial denier of climate change, has been using the 2011 study to claim rising CO2 in the atmosphere can’t be linked to Australia’s bushfire crisis, because the study had shown total area being burned was going down while CO2 is rising. Continue reading...

A new study showing the 70km-wide Yarrabubba crater dates impact to 2.29bn years agoThe world’s oldest remaining asteroid crater is at a place called Yarrabubba, south-east of the town of Meekatharra in Western Australia.Our new study puts a precise age on the cataclysmic impact – showing Yarrabubba is the oldest known crater and dating it at the right time to trigger the end of an ancient glacial period and the warming of the entire planet. Continue reading...

Sea eagles in England | Loneliness and churches | Circumcision and Shakespeare | English usage | Sperm donationsSo a sea eagle has chosen to live in Oxfordshire (Report, 18 January). It is not the first time. Archaeologists digging near Oxford have discovered sea eagle bones on bronze age and Anglo-Saxon sites. And the name of the village Earley, on the Thames near Reading, means “eagle wood” – probably because of the presence there of sea eagles’ nests over 1,000 years ago. Let’s hope this magnificent bird finds a mate and stays around.

Pioneer of psychopharmacology who was one of the first researchers to test systematically how psychoactive drugs affect the mindThe development of drugs to treat mental afflictions was historically a hit-and-miss affair, without much understanding of their actions on brain pathways, and even less of their wider psychological impact. Hannah Steinberg, who has died aged 95, was one of the first researchers to test systematically how psychoactive drugs affect the mind.Steinberg grasped that the brain produces its own pharmacopoeia of psychoactive substances in response to the challenges of daily living, and argued that the psychological consequences of adding drugs to the mix could not be reliably predicted. “Whatever you administer, you may disturb something else as well,” she said, adding that: “The drug companies on the whole don’t like that concept.” Continue reading...

Only three new treatments available in 10 or more poorer countries, report findsMany antibiotics are unavailable in poorer countries despite higher infection rates, exacerbating the threat of drug-resistant superbugs, according to a report to be presented to world leaders and the bosses of top pharmaceutical companies in Davos.The report, released by the Access to Medicine Foundation, an Amsterdam-based non-profit group, also shows that the number of new treatments being developed for common infectious diseases such as pneumonia, tuberculosis and gonorrhoea has fallen. Continue reading...

Mauro Ferrari joins organisation at a tricky time and says his focus is on identifying ‘breakthrough people’At the age of 43, Mauro Ferrari astonished his peers by giving up his career as a highly regarded professor of engineering at the University of California in Berkeley to enrol at medical school.He had been driven to find a cure for the cancer that had killed his wife at the age of 32, leaving him alone with three traumatised children. “I feel comfortable talking about this now – I didn’t for years,” he says. “Everyone has got a wound that pushes them to do better.” Continue reading...

Scientists had expected fall in levels of HFC-23 after India and China said they had halted emissionsEfforts to reduce levels of one potent greenhouse gas appear to be failing, according to a study.Scientists had expected to find a dramatic reduction in levels of the hydrofluorocarbon HFC-23 in the atmosphere after India and China, two of the main sources, reported in 2017 that they had almost completely eliminated emissions. Continue reading...

Shortage of UK sperm donors means posthumous contributions could help infertile couplesMen in Britain should be able to donate their sperm after death, according to ethicists who argue that posthumous contributions would help infertile couples and relieve the pressure on living donors.The shortage of sperm donors in the UK has led to at least 7,000 samples being imported each year, primarily from Denmark and the US, to keep up with the demand from fertility clinics. Continue reading...

Research shows widening health gap between higher and lower socioeconomic statusThe poorest third of the UK’s older working-age adults today have worse health than people born a century ago had at the same age, according to research that also shows the health gap between rich and poor is growing.The study is the latest to show widening health inequalities. A report compiled by the Centre for Progressive Policy thinktank last year found dramatic regional differences in healthy life expectancy around the UK. It found that people living in former mining towns in Blaenau Gwent spend about 16 fewer years in good health than those living in Wokingham. Continue reading...

This should become the number one priority in public health, writes Dr Guru SinghExcellent article by Edward Bullmore in Journal (Inflammation is the new frontier in public health, 20 January). Unfortunately it does not fully explore the role of prevention. It is now being proven that sleep plays a major role in repairing the body, and in particular the brain, especially from the ravages of inflammation. After all, why do we sleep?Inflammation is an essential part of our existence – it’s the way the body responds to an attack from without or within. Unfortunately this also causes damage in other areas, including the brain. Hence the value of a good night’s sleep. Continue reading...

Americans had the right to know the harms of smoking. They have the right to know the harms of the energy industry, too

The author Kate Murphy thinks our inability to listen properly to other people is leaving us all feeling isolated. In a world of smartphones and busy schedules, can we re-engage?I was very suspicious about this assignment. Kate Murphy’s new book, You’re Not Listening, suggests that many of us – absorbed in our own thoughts and dreams, occupying our little digital bubbles – have lost the ability to listen, creating an epidemic of loneliness and isolation. The thesis seems inherently plausible – but why me? Are you trying to tell me something about my inability, or perhaps unwillingness, to listen?As my editor started telling me how I might approach this piece, I began – much to the amusement of our colleagues – interrupting her. OK, maybe I do have a little problem shutting up for a few minutes to listen; a tendency to anticipate what the other person is going to say and reply before they have even had the chance to express it the way they want to. “Bad listeners are not necessarily bad people,” Murphy says in her book, but being unable or unwilling to listen is not an attractive characteristic. It’s time for a spot of re-education. Let’s hope that after a life of lecturing rather than listening, it’s not too late. Continue reading...

This week’s challenge is to look for the faint star cluster close to Sirius, the Dog Star, the brightest star in the skyWhile you are keeping a watch on Betelgeuse to see if it is returning to its usual brightness, there is another challenge waiting in the skies around the constellation of Orion, the hunter. It is to see the faint star cluster M41 with theT naked eye. Catalogued by Charles Messier in the late 18th century, M41 is a collection of about one hundred stars in a volume about 25 light years across. It lies at a distance of around 2,300 light years from Earth. Continue reading...

The barrier between mind and body appears to be crumbling. Clinical practice and public perception need to catch upUnlikely as it may seem, #inflammation has become a hashtag. It seems to be everywhere suddenly, up to all sorts of tricks. Rather than simply being on our side, fighting infections and healing wounds, it turns out to have a dark side as well: the role it plays in causing us harm.It’s now clear that inflammation is part of the problem in many, if not all, diseases of the body. And targeting immune or inflammatory causes of disease has led to a series of breakthroughs, from new treatments for rheumatoid arthritis and other auto-immune diseases in the 1990s, through to the advent of immunotherapy for some cancers in the 2010s. Even more pervasively, low-grade inflammation, detectable only by blood tests, is increasingly considered to be part of the reason why common life experiences such as poverty, stress, obesity or ageing are bad for public health. Continue reading...

Mice cured of MRSA, raising hopes of treating antibiotic-resistant bacteria

At 50, I knew I was trapped in a gentle, terminal decline. But when I stumbled on boxing, I found the challenge I neededModern life has made us all so ill that we have been compelled to invent its polar opposite, “wellness”. It is not enough just to be well, there is an additional demand to be seen to be well. Wellness is complicated and needs time, money and access to special food, travel and social media. By chance in middle age, I discovered a cheaper, simpler and more enjoyable alternative: I took up boxing.Boxing is cheap, unpretentious, sociable and has transformative powers. On the outside I am an ordinary 56-year-old woman, but on the inside, after six years’ boxing training, I have surpassed notions of “wellness”. I can also skip for England and throw a great jab. Continue reading...

Generet prize will fund more trials by Steven Laureys to help written-off ‘vegetative’ patientsA pioneering Belgian neurologist has been awarded €1m to fund further work in helping diagnose the most severe brain injuries, as he seeks to battle “the silent epidemic” and help people written off as “vegetative” who, it is believed, will never recover.Steven Laureys, head of the coma science group at Liège University hospital, plans to use the £850,000 award – larger than the Nobel prize – to improve the diagnosis of coma survivors labelled as being in a “persistent vegetative state”. Continue reading...

As a study shows 47.2 is the height of misery, what is the economic theory and psychology of wellbeing – and does it offer a brighter tomorrowSo,” I say to my wife, “I’ve been asked to write about happiness peaking when we hit 47.2 years of age.” She stares at me like she’s waiting for a punchline, then shakes her head. “Because I’m about to hit 47.2,” I say, in case she had forgotten that we recently celebrated my 47th birthday. “A team of economists have worked it out.”There is an uncomfortable pause. My wife shakes her head again and says gently: “No, 47.2 is when you hit peak misery. It’s been all over the papers. Have you not been reading them? I was going to send you the links but I didn’t want you to have some sort of meltdown.” Continue reading...

Species around the world are being forced to alter their diet, migratory patterns, feeding grounds and moreLast week it was reported that rising ocean temperatures and changing sea currents are causing leatherback turtles’ journeys from nesting to feeding grounds to double in length. After laying their eggs on some beaches, the turtles must move to cooler waters to feed, but higher temperatures mean some are having to swim further to reach suitable areas, according to France’s Hubert Curien Institute. Continue reading...

Three of the new cases are severe, with experts worried about the disease’s spread ahead of lunar new yearChina reported 17 new cases of the mysterious Sars-like virus on Sunday, including three in a severe condition, heightening fears ahead of China’s lunar new year holiday, when hundreds of millions of people move around the country.The new coronavirus strain has caused alarm because of its connection to severe acute respiratory syndrome, which killed nearly 650 people across mainland China and Hong Kong in 2002-03. Continue reading...

A year after a 90 metre-wide spinning sheet of ice drew global attention, another disc appears to be forming in the same riverWhat goes around comes around.An ice disc appears to be forming in the same Maine river where an unusually large one formed last winter and quickly gained international fame. Continue reading...

Researchers produce gadgets such as gastric balloons that break down when lit by swallowable lightsThe days of needing to have medical devices removed through an invasive procedure could be numbered. Researchers have produced gadgets such as gastric balloons that break down when light from a swallowable LED shines upon them.The team say the approach could be extended to a broader range of medical equipment, as well as offering a new approach to delivering drugs to the right location at the right time. Continue reading...

Individual choices will not solve the climate crisis but ministers should not be encouraging flying

From looking at my phone too much to sucking air through my teeth and biting my nails, I have habits I’d like to change. Can a treadmill desk and cookery lessons with my girlfriend help?

As the bushfires continue to rage across Australia, thousands of people have ended up face to face with the emergency. It’s hard to imagine how you would behave in a disaster like this. Would you panic? Or act quickly and be organised? More than 50 years of psychological and sociological evidence covering mass emergencies shows that people typically behave with cooperation and coordination. Nicola Davis speaks to John Drury, professor of social psychology at the University of Sussex, about why this is, and hears from Guardian Australia’s deputy culture editor, Stephanie Convery, about the fires Continue reading...

There were 11 million deaths in 2017 – more than from cancer – with children in poorer countries most at risk, study findsDeaths from sepsis around the world are twice as high as previously thought, with babies and small children in poorer countries at greatest risk, a major study has revealed.There were almost 50m sepsis cases worldwide and 11m deaths in 2017, according to US researchers writing in the Lancet medical journal. Sepsis, an overcharged response by the body to infection, is associated with one in five deaths worldwide, they say. By comparison, the World Health Organisation estimated that there were 9.6 million deaths from cancer in 2018. Continue reading...