A mutant virus cannot wholly explain why the UK is in this mess or distract from the other failures that have led us hereThe lockdown in the south-east of England may be the shape of things to come. Sixteen million people are under new severe tier 4 restrictions and there are suggestions that these tougher new rules could be in place for months. Many more across the country have seen their plans...

My father was exiled from my emotional life – and it was only when he was dying that I started to understand whyMy father was my first love. It wasn’t a romantic love, of course, but all the ache of love was in it. He was handsome, charming and dangerous. It was more than just a minor crush – it was a fatal, all-consuming yearning for his affection that engulfed me like a slow, devastating...

The response to Covid-19 has been momentous but discoveries in AI, diet, conservation, space and beyond, show the power of science to improve the world post-pandemicIn 2020 the race to space changed gear. The May launch of the SpaceX vehicle Crew Dragon was the first time a private vehicle had delivered astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). It was deeply impressive, but also...

Seasonal damage in bone fossils in Spain suggests Neanderthals and their predecessors followed the same strategy as cave bearsBears do it. Bats do it. Even European hedgehogs do it. And now it turns out that early human beings may also have been at it. They hibernated, according to fossil experts.Evidence from bones found at one of the world’s most important fossil sites suggests that our...

The virus is likely to have spread more widely than the south-east of England, so the lockdown is likely to expandCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageWhile the country has obsessed over the Christmas restrictions over the last few weeks the real story lay elsewhere, it transpires. A new strain of the coronavirus emerged a couple of months ago, probably somewhere in the...

The prime minister made the right decision in the face of rising infections, but he left it far too late‘We don’t want to cancel Christmas… I think that would be inhuman,” the prime minister said just last Wednesday in response to calls from scientific experts to reduce the relaxation of social restrictions allowing households to mix over Christmas.Four days later, he was forced to...