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...

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...

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 –...

Currents act as conveyor belts that concentrate microplastics in hotspots, study suggestsScientists have discovered microplastics in greater quantities than ever before on the seabed, and gathered clues as to how ocean currents and deep-sea circulation have carried them there.Microplastics – tiny pieces of plastic less than 5mm in size – are likely to accumulate most densely on the ocean floor...

Trial of remdesivir shows fewer deaths and shorter hospital staysCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageThe first drug against Covid-19 to show promise in trials, reducing the time seriously ill people take to recover in hospital, is unlikely to be available widely in the UK soon, it has emerged.Forty-six people in the UK have received remdesivir as part of the European arm...

Home testing kits will be sent out next week to clear up ‘Wild West’ of Covid-19 estimates Coronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageA randomly selected group of 100,000 people in England will be tested for Covid-19 in an attempt to quantify whether transmission levels of the virus are low enough to exit the lockdown.The tests, next week, will provide a national snapshot of...

It’s tempting to try to construct a league table, but we’ll have to wait months, if not years, for the true picture• Coronavirus latest updates• See all our coronavirus coverageAt prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, Keir Starmer said he had added up a total of 27,241 coronavirus deaths so far, leaving the UK “possibly on track to have the worst death rate in Europe”.Is he right?...

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...

Attendance of Demis Hassabis raises further questions about secretive group advising UK government on Covid-19Coronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageGoogle has confirmed that one of its senior executives participated in the UK government’s scientific advisory group on Covid-19, raising further questions about the composition of the secretive committee.Demis Hassabis, a...

I feel powerless but also hopeful, and want to say thank you to all my hospital colleagues from consultants to cleanersCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageThis is a terrible time to be working in a hospital. It may be the first time in years you are working in one again. People are asking for you in the middle of one of the worst periods in healthcare in the past 60...

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 youCoronavirus - live news updatesFind all our coronavirus coverage hereHow to protect yourself from infectionPlease note: these are government figures on numbers of confirmed cases - some people who report symptoms are not being tested, and are...

A community approach of ‘search, treat and prevent’ was crucial to stopping the spread of tuberculosis in the developed worldThere were three great pandemics in the 20th century. The influenza pandemic of 1918 and the HIV pandemic during the 1980s and 1990s get the most attention. But the third, tuberculosis, was the deadliest by far and in many communities, it’s not yet over.TB has much to...

Ex-Hong Kong governor also says China is ‘turning screws’ on city during pandemicCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageThere is an “overwhelming case” to send a multilateral mission to Wuhan to investigate the coronavirus’s origins and spread, the former British governor to Hong Kong has told Dominic Raab.Chris Patten wrote to the foreign secretary this week to...

Conflicting evidence from early trials is the norm in science. We must be patient as the data unfoldsCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageDrug discovery and testing, even under normal circumstances, is a high-risk process full of red herrings and dashed hopes. In the throes of a global pandemic, the stakes are even higher and the risks remain the same. So although the news...

Study into effects of coronavirus curbs also finds less asthma and preterm birthsThe improvement in air quality over the past month of the coronavirus lockdown has led to 11,000 fewer deaths from pollution in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, a study has revealed.Sharp falls in road traffic and industrial emissions have also resulted in 1.3m fewer days of work absence, 6,000 fewer children...

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...

A summary of the biggest developments in the global coronavirus outbreakFollow our latest coronavirus blog for live news and updatesKey developments in the global coronavirus outbreak today include: Continue...

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...

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...

Nearly 100 cases of unusual illness in at least six countries; UK adds deaths outside hospital to official figure; Trump says he won’t extend social distancing rules. Follow the latest updatesCoronavirus latest: at a glanceTrump says he won’t extend distancing guidelines as deaths pass 60,000Revealed: the inside story of the UK’s Covid-19 crisisAustralia coronavirus updates – liveSee all...

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...

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...

The government’s early approach to the Covid-19 crisis, despite its denials, was to let the disease spreadCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageIn his seminal work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, the philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn developed the notion of the “paradigm” as a way of understanding how a community of researchers makes its judgments. A shared...

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...