In the final week of British summer time, meteors from Comet Halley will be streaking across the night skyThis week, keep an eye open for the Orionid meteor shower. It may not be the brightest or the most spectacular meteor shower of the year but it derives from the most famous comet of them all: Comet Halley. Meteors are tiny pieces of dust that have been left in space from the tails of comets....
New modelling indicates mandatory masks and strict closures of public spaces early in the state’s second wave could have eradicated the virusVictoria cases trend map; Full Australian Covid statsMelbourne stage 4 restrictions; Vic stage 3 rulesSign up for Guardian Australia’s coronavirus emailElimination of Covid-19 has been found to have been achievable in Victoria within six weeks had the...
Links between an anti-lockdown declaration and a libertarian thinktank suggest a hidden agenda Coronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageEarlier this month, in a wood-panelled room at a country estate in Massachusetts, three defiantly unmasked professors gathered around a large oak table to sign a declaration about the global response to the pandemic. One academic had flown...
Our sense of smell is crucial to survival – so wearing the right perfume could be more important than you thinkEarlier this year I was asked to give a lecture to a group of fashion journalism students at Condé Nast College – an event that was swiftly moved online thanks to the pandemic. It goes without saying that giving a lecture to a group of students looking back at you from a Zoom grid is...
Review finds quality of evidence is poor and noise may lead to more disrupted sleepWhether it is nature sounds, the whine of a hairdryer or the incessant hum of a ceiling fan, white noise apps have been downloaded by millions of people around the world in the hope of getting a better night’s sleep. However, research suggests there is no good evidence that they work, and may even be making things...
More than 170 teams of researchers are racing to develop a safe and effective vaccine. Here is their progress Researchers around the world are racing to develop a vaccine against Covid-19, with more than 170 candidate vaccines now tracked by the World Health Organization (WHO). Continue...
Chair of modelling group urges curb on capacity in favour of speed if test-and-trace system is to workCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageA massive expansion of testing will still leave Britain struggling to keep Covid-19 infections under control unless the system can inform people they are positive within 24 hours, one of the government’s most senior scientific...
Just like the Black Death, influenza and smallpox, Covid-19 will affect almost every aspect of our of lives – even after a vaccine turns upOn 7 September 1854, in the middle of a raging cholera epidemic, the physician John Snow approached the board of guardians of St James’s parish for permission to remove the handle from a public water pump in Broad Street in London’s Soho. Snow observed...
Animal behaviour expert Konrad Lorenz explains why it is man who is red in tooth and clawYou can see why the goslings on the cover of the Observer Magazine of 1 May 1966 took Konrad Lorenz (‘the world authority on animal behaviour’) to be their parent – with his feathery white hair he could pass for a goose himself. In fact, the geese have a ‘fixed idea’ that his hair is grass, which is...