24 articles from SUNDAY 4.10.2020

Mars is closer to Earth this week than it will be for 15 years

With no bright stars in the same part of the sky, the red planet will be unmistakeableMars will be closer to Earth this week than at any other time for the next 15 years. The fourth planet from the sun, it is currently sitting just north of the celestial equator. That means it is almost perfectly placed to be seen from both hemispheres, and it is shining with brilliant intensity in the evening...

Week of Nobel Prize announcement begins with medicine award

A panel at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm will announce the recipient some time after 11:30 a.m. (0930 GMT). The medicine prize carries particular significance this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has highlighted the importance that medical research has for societies and economies around the world. Often the Nobel Assembly recognizes basic science that has laid the foundations...

Trump's steroid Covid treatment adds to confusion over health

Dexamethasone ‘normally reserved for people going into respiratory failure’, says expertTrump coronavirus treatment – live updatesThe latest intervention from Donald Trump’s medical team has been to put the president on dexamethasone, a steroid that is proven, thanks to the UK’s Recovery trial, to benefit Covid-19 patients who are having breathing difficulties.But the decision to...

Australia's 'no jab, no pay' rule has little effect on anti-vaxxer parents – study

Experts say the policy prompts people happy to vaccinate their children but doesn’t work on those who oppose vaccination scienceAustralia’s “no jab, no pay” policy has been associated with a drop in the number of children catching up on their first dose of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, suggesting the policy has had little impact on those who reject vaccination science.However,...

Cupboard love: my biggest romances always begin in the kitchen

Can how much you love someone be judged by how comfortable you are in their kitchen?I am always falling in love in kitchens.Or rather, I suppose it’s not so much that I’m falling in love in kitchens but that I’m always realising I’m in love in kitchens; that the kind of love I love to fall into is the kind of love that’s most at home in the kitchen; a domestic kind of love; an intimate,...

Coronavirus live news: Russia's daily caseload passes 10,000 for first time since May

Russia’s coronavirus crisis centre reports 10,499 new infections, biggest daily tally since 15 May; cases continue to surge across EuropeUS coronavirus – latest news on Donald Trump after positive testAfter avoiding the worst in spring, Italy’s south sounds alarmPanic and confusion following Donald Trump’s Covid diagnosisScientists study whether immune response worsens CovidUK coronavirus...

'Rarest fern in Europe' discovered in Ireland

Variety has only ever been found in Caribbean more than 4,000 miles across AtlanticEurope’s rarest fern has been discovered in Killarney, Ireland, leaving botanists baffled over how it remained undetected for so long.The neotropical fern, Stenogrammitis myosuroides, has only ever previously been found in the mountainous cloud forests of Jamaica, Cuba and the Dominican Republic – more than...

Long Covid: the evidence of lingering heart damage

Cardiologists are finding that problems aren’t related to age or severity of infectionCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageOn 29 February, Melissa Vanier, a 52-year-old postal worker from Vancouver, had just returned from holiday in Cuba when she fell seriously ill with Covid-19. “For the entire month of March I felt like I had broken glass in my throat,” she says,...

Scientists study whether immune response wards off or worsens Covid

Research into antibodies could explain children’s protection against disease, or why virus causes life-threatening effectsCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageBritish scientists have launched a major study aimed at uncovering the critical role that human antibodies and other immune defences play in the severity of Covid-19 cases.Results could support some scientists’...

80-year-old antibiotic redesigned for new medical uses

Chemists at the University of Tokyo have transformed one of the world's oldest antibiotics into new versions that - in preliminary lab tests - appear to be safer, stronger drugs to combat antibiotic resistance. Moreover, these altered versions of the antibiotic exhibit species-specific ion channel activity.

Air stable intrinsically stretchable color-conversion layers for stretchable displays

The development of a stretchable display that can be bent, stretched, and attached to the skin as a free-standing film appeared in science fiction films is expected to be one step closer. The research team led by Prof. Tae-Woo Lee from Seoul National University announced on the 29th that they have successfully achieved a stretchable color conversion layer (SCCL) using perovskite nanocrystals...

How the brain helps us navigate social differences

Researchers found that, among pairs of people who had very different socioeconomic backgrounds - calculated according to education level and family income - there was a higher level of activity in an area of the frontal lobe called the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. The area is associated with speech production and rule-based language as well as cognitive and attentional control.