Cosmologist who asked whether the existence of intelligent life has implications for the nature of the universeThe cosmologist John Barrow, who has died aged 67 from colon and liver cancer, was a renowned populariser of science. He combined mathematical and physical reasoning to increase our understanding of the very first moments of the universe.This he did by giving elegant mathematical...

US scientists release report on meteorite fragments from 2018 eventA fireball that struck near Hamburg, Michigan, in 2018 could offer new insights into the history of the solar system, researchers have said.The fireball – a type of very bright meteor that would even be observed in daylight – was spotted in several states as it flew across the sky on the evening of 16 January 2018; the meteor...

Surprise announcement comes as region struggles to contain soaring Covid infectionsAs Catalonia faces the prospect of another coronavirus lockdown, the region’s government has announced it is investing €2.5m (£2.3m) to establish its own space agency and a further €18m in launching six communications satellites.The surprise announcement comes amid soaring Covid-19 infection rates and...

Exclusive: expedition discovers new source of greenhouse gas off East Siberian coast has been triggeredScientists have found evidence that frozen methane deposits in the Arctic Ocean – known as the “sleeping giants of the carbon cycle” – have started to be released over a large area of the continental slope off the East Siberian coast, the Guardian can reveal.High levels of the potent...

A ‘women’s pastime’ practised by Queen Victoria, ‘seaweeding’ spread from the UK to California – now the samples are providing a glimpse into historyOn his first day as the new science director for the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California in 2016, a giant blue storage locker caught Kyle Van Houtan’s eye. The locker was obscured by a dead ficus plant and looked as if no one had opened...

Vaccine being trialled by Oxford University and AstraZeneca offers hope for all age groupsCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageOne of the world’s leading Covid-19 experimental vaccines produces an immune response in both older and young adults, raising hopes of a path out of the gloom and economic destruction wrought by the novel coronavirus.The vaccine, developed by the...

They are among the most enigmatic phenomena in the universe, confounding physicists and mathematicians. Black holes pull in the matter surrounding them and anything that enters can never escape. Yet they contain nothing at all. Guided by the physicist and author of Black Hole Survival Guide, Janna Levin, Madeleine Finlay takes Science Weekly on an interstellar voyage to visit one of these...

Figure has dropped by over a quarter in three months, fuelling concerns over reinfectionCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageThe proportion of people in England with coronavirus antibodies dropped by more than a quarter in the space of three months, researchers have revealed, fuelling concerns over reinfection. The findings come from the React-2 study, which is based on...