The six-year round trip to an asteroid named Ryugu will end in the red sands of Woomera, AustraliaThe Japanese space agency’s remarkable Hayabusa2 mission will on Sunday deliver the second-ever artificially collected sample of asteroid material when a return capsule falls to Earth at the Woomera rocket range in South Australia.The Hayabusa2 probe has been on a 6bn km, ¥30bn ($388m) round trip...
The regulatory fast-tracking of the Covid vaccine in Britain by MHRA has led some to question its methodsCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageThe Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority (MHRA) in the UK has not had a round of applause from anyone other than the UK’s politicians and the vaccine companies. It gave temporary authorisation to the...
Two members of the Royal Statistical Society say UK government’s figures rely on spiked lab tests and not real world testsCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageSaliva tests for Covid-19, which are being introduced for NHS workers as part of the government’s mass testing programme, pick up only 13% of people with low levels of the virus and not 91%, as the official...
Former Gloucestershire home of ‘father of immunology’ Edward Jenner too small for safe social distancing measuresCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageThe future of a museum that tells the astonishing story of the British “father of immunology” is hanging in the balance because it has been forced to close throughout the Covid crisis and faces uncertainty over how it...
Close relatives of Covid-19 virus likely to be circulating in nature beyond China, says Dr Shi Zhengli Coronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageBats in the frontier regions of south and south-west China harbour other coronaviruses that already have the capacity to cross over to humans, a prominent Chinese scientist has said.Dr Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology...
Latest updates: minister defends the UK regulator’s ‘absolutely meticulous’ approach to the Covid vaccine amid criticism of its swift approval Alok Sharma defends UK’s rapid approval of Covid vaccineFauci apologises for implied criticism of speedy UK vaccine approvalCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverage 9.38am GMT A top public health expert has said the prime...
From Palaeolithic paintings to astrophysics … a glittering history takes in explorers, aliens and a world vanishing from viewTwenty thousand years ago, in a cave in France, Palaeolithic humans painted a great bull with a collection of seven dots above his shoulder. Scholars are divided over the meaning of such paintings, but at the start of this book Jo Marchant makes a convincing and...
The corporate race for cultured protein rests on a view of human beings as greedy and incapable of changeThe stuff of science fiction has landed on our plates. Meat grown in a lab, instead of inside the body of an animal, has been approved for sale for the first time. The Singapore Food Agency has given regulatory approval to Eat Just’s “chicken bites”, grown from the cells of a chicken...
Minister says MHRA, which approved coronavirus jab, is ‘gold standard of regulation’Coronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageThe UK business secretary, Alok Sharma, has defended the UK’s “absolutely meticulous” approach to the coronavirus vaccine amid global criticism of its rapid approval by regulators.Sharma said the UK should be “very proud” of becoming the...
Biden will ask Americans to wear masks for his first 100 days in office; Italy approves Christmas restrictions; Iran’s cases top 1mSouth Korea reports highest cases in nine monthsEuropean and US experts question UK’s fast-track of vaccinePublic trust vital for Covid-19 vaccine programmes says WHOSwedes’ support for anti-lockdown stance slips amid rising deathsCyberspies target Covid vaccine...
Gitanjali Rao has used technology to address contaminated drinking water, opioid addiction and cyberbullying A 15-year-old scientist and inventor has been named as Time magazine’s first “kid of the year”.Gitanjali Rao, from Denver, Colorado, has invented new technologies across a range of fields, including a device that can identify lead in drinking water, and an app and Chrome extension...
Japanese craft collected dust from the asteroid Ryugu that scientists hope could shed light on the origins of lifeThe last time Hayabusa2 was seen with the naked eye, Barack Obama was president of the United States and Brexit was a distant Europhobe fantasy.Six years and three days after its groundbreaking mission began, the Japanese spacecraft will drop a capsule onto the Australian outback...
Chris Hipkins says it is understandable that other countries in much worse situations have fast-tracked approvalCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageNew Zealand’s Covid-19 minister has called for patience in the country’s vaccine roll-out programme, saying he was unlikely to follow the UK in using emergency provisions to fast-track approval.Covid-19 minister Chris...
Recent finds have not met criteria as they are made from bronze, not precious metalsThe government plans to change the official definition of “treasure” to cover more rare and precious archaeological finds so that such artefacts can be saved for the nation rather than sold to private collectors.Under the 1996 Treasure Act, objects are designated as treasure trove if found to be more than 300...