OneWeb went bankrupt this year while trying to develop space network to deliver broadbandThe business secretary, Alok Sharma, overrode the concerns of his senior official when the government took a £400m stake in the failed satellite company OneWeb.The UK is part of a consortium with India’s Bharti Global which won a bidding war for the company, which went bankrupt earlier this year while...

Rishi Sunak is preparing an autumn of spending cuts – an economic folly and a political gambleThis is the week that Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak began softening up doctors, teachers and other public sector workers for a squeeze to their pay and cuts to their departmental budgets. They have done their best to muffle that particular bit of bad news. Instead, aides to the publicity-conscious Mr...

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report shows Covid-19 not just dangerous for chronically ill and elderlyAustralians who have died from Covid-19 have lost more years of their expected lifespan, on average, than those dying from the country’s three leading causes of death, a new study suggests.The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) report, released on Thursday, makes it...

Wearing masks in Melbourne is now mandatory with $200 fines for those not wearing them outside the home. This is a first for Australia, but the enforced wearing of masks has been legislated in numerous countries around the world, particularly in the past few weeks. So why are the rules changing? You can read Graham Readfearn’s article on the changing health advice on wearing masks here. Continue...

Researchers say development could lead to a coronavirus treatment that can be mass produced Coronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageResearchers have identified a potent cocktail of antibodies that may help doctors treat Covid-19 infections and protect people at risk from falling ill with the disease.The antibodies were collected from patients hospitalised with severe...

Artefacts from central Mexico cave are strong evidence humans lived on continent 15,000 years earlier than previously thoughtTools excavated from a cave in central Mexico are strong evidence that humans were living in North America at least 30,000 years ago, some 15,000 years earlier than previously thought, scientists said on Wednesday.The artefacts, including 1,900 stone tools, showed human...

We The Curious whittles down thousands of questions posed by residents to seven key themes Some of the questions were not unexpected: how does gravity work, do aliens exist, what happens if bees become extinct?But when Bristol’s science and culture centre asked citizens young and old what questions they really wanted answered, it was amazed and delighted at the size and breadth of the response....

Scientific breakthrough could lead to phasing out of badger culling to tackle diseaseField trials of a cattle vaccine for bovine tuberculosis have been given the go-ahead as part of moves to phase out badger culling to tackle the disease.The trials are due to get under way in England and Wales to accelerate deployment of a cattle vaccine for TB by 2025, the government announced on Wednesday....

‘Celestial sleuth’ says light and shade show when 17th-century cityscape was paintedHe is known as the “Sphinx of Delft” as so little is known about him. But courtesy of research by Donald Olson, a professor of astronomy from the University of Texas, a little of the mystery surrounding the life and works of the Dutch master Johannes Vermeer may now have been cleared up.Vermeer’s View of...

Scientists predict rise of between 2.6C and 3.9C compared with earlier forecasts of 1.5C to 4.5CDoomsayers and hopemongers alike may need to revise their climate predictions after a study that almost rules out the most optimistic forecasts for global heating while downplaying the likelihood of worst-case scenarios.The international team of scientists involved in the research say they have narrowed...

More than 140 teams of researchers are racing to develop a safe and effective coronavirus vaccine Researchers around the world are racing to develop a vaccine against Covid-19, with more than 140 candidate vaccines now tracked by the World Health Organization (WHO). Continue...

Yes, they are selfish. Yes, they are putting lives in danger. But do they deserve to be vilified? NoCostco Karen; Walmart Karen; Starbucks Karen; Target Karen. Name a US retail establishment and there’s probably a viral video of a “Karen” (internet slang for an angry white woman) fuming about face masks in it or getting chased out of the store for refusing to wear one. “Mask meltdown”...

Three new Covid-19 clusters have emerged in Brooklyn, Tottenham and Colac in VictoriaFollow our Australian coronavirus live blogSign up for Guardian Australia’s coronavirus emailAround the world, certain environments have repeatedly proved to be hotbeds for Covid-19 infection. Chief among these are aged care homes, cruise ships, prisons and abattoirs. As Victoria enters a “second wave” of...

Surge in cases forces the government to create an exclusion zone around the capital and pay out for cancellationsCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageA government-sponsored campaign to revive domestic tourism in Japan has begun in disarray amid fears it could cause a coronavirus “disaster”.The “Go To” campaign was supposed to help kick start the world’s...

Sinovac vaccine becomes third worldwide to enter Phase 3 clinical trial; California cases set to overtake New York’s; Mike Pompeo attacks WHO. Follow the latest updatesTrump urges Americans to wear masksTrump says pandemic will ‘get worse’ at first Covid-19 briefing in monthsUS failure to report vital coronavirus data is hobbling responseCoronavirus vaccine tracker: how close are we to a...