323 articles from WEDNESDAY 29.7.2020

Coronavirus live news: US deaths near 150,000 as Italy extends state of emergency

Trump blames US case surge on protesters; Pilgrims quarantined in Mecca as hajj begins; WHO warns pandemic is “one big wave”, not seasonal. Follow the latest updatesCovid-19 still accelerating, warns WHO, as restrictions return in EuropeTwitter limits Donald Trump Jr’s account for posting misinformationClapped out of ICU, dead days later: the secondary impact of Covid-19Outbreak in Xinjiang...

Australia's Covid-19 response shows we can confront major crises. Threats to our planet should be next | Ian Chubb

During the pandemic, we saw ideological nonsense and prejudice mostly put aside – and we saw what we could accomplish when it wasCarl Sagan – one of my heroes and a scientist with a gift for communicating complex ideas in accessible ways – wrote back in 1994: “If we continue to accumulate only power and not wisdom, we will surely destroy ourselves … If we become even slightly more...

What jigsaw puzzles tell us about child development

New research shows that children only learn to do jigsaw puzzles once they have reached a certain stage of development. Three-year-olds use trial and error, but four-year-olds are able to use information in the picture to complete the puzzles. The research team say this understanding is the foundation of learning to draw and paint.

Decline of bees, other pollinators threatens US crop yields

Crop yields for apples, cherries and blueberries across the United States are being reduced by a lack of pollinators, according to new research, the most comprehensive study of its kind to date. Most of the world's crops depend on honeybees and wild bees for pollination, so declines in both managed and wild bee populations raise concerns about food security, notes the study.

Bringing Mars back to Earth

An audacious mission to bring rock samples from Mars back to Earth is about to begin - find our more with our illustrated...

UK studies exploring Covid-19 links with ethnicity awarded £4m

Six projects will help researchers explain the disproportionate BAME death rateCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageSpecially tailored public health messaging, the impact of structural racism and whether healthcare workers should be redeployed are among research projects that have been given funding to explore the link between Covid-19 and ethnicity.More than £4m has been...

A plunge in incoming sunlight may have triggered 'Snowball Earths'

At least twice in Earth's history, nearly the entire planet was encased in a sheet of snow and ice. These dramatic "Snowball Earth" events occurred in quick succession, somewhere around 700 million years ago, and evidence suggests that the consecutive global ice ages set the stage for the subsequent explosion of complex, multicellular life on Earth.

How Salt Lake's buildings affect its climate future

With climate change, we'll need less natural gas for heat and more electricity for cooling -- but what's the balance? Researchers used hyper-localized climate models and building projections to find out. The answer is that buildings' energy use in the future varies wildly, depending on the climate scenario, and that local building policy now could have a big impact on energy use in the future.

Hopes raised for early blood test to help fight Alzheimer’s disease

Studies measuring levels of the protein tau in blood offer hope of developing treatmentsScientists say they have made progress towards a test for Alzheimer’s that could help researchers in the hunt for treatments for the disease.Several studies, presented at a conference in Chicago, showed it was possible to measure the levels of a protein called tau in the blood. Tau and another protein called...