25 articles from SATURDAY 6.2.2021

Fungi in the gut prime immunity against infection

Common fungi, often present in the gut, teach the immune system how to respond to their more dangerous relatives, according to new research from scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine. Breakdowns in this process can leave people susceptible to deadly fungal infections.

Arctic stew: Understanding how high-latitude lakes respond to and affect climate change

To arrive at Nunavut, turn left at the Dakotas and head north. You can't miss it—the vast tundra territory covers almost a million square miles of northern Canada. Relatively few people call this lake-scattered landscape home, but the region plays a crucial role in understanding global climate change. New research from Soren Brothers, assistant professor in the Department of Watershed Sciences...

Nearly 11.5m get first Covid jabs and over 500,000 second doses in the UK

Latest figures show 17.2% of the UK population have now received their first vaccinationAlmost 11.5 million people have now had their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine in the UK, with more than 500,000 now fully vaccinated after receiving a second dose, the latest government data shows.The figures mark an increase of 494,163 first doses since the data was released on Friday, and means that 17.2%...

Discoveries at the edge of the periodic table: First ever measurements of einsteinium

Since element 99 -- einsteinium -- was discovered in 1952 from the debris of the first hydrogen bomb, scientists have performed very few experiments with it because it is so hard to create and is exceptionally radioactive. A team of chemists has overcome these obstacles to report the first study characterizing some of its properties, opening the door to a better understanding of the remaining...

Whole of the moon: Tim Easley's lunar photography - in pictures

London-based photographer and designer Tim Easley has spent the past few years taking emotive monochrome photographs of the moon. “I’ve always loved it,” he says, “and, being from the city, it’s often the only celestial object that you can see.” The 60 or so images have now been collected in a book, The Moon, available from his website. “The moon invokes so much wonder and awe, so I...

US billionaires vie to make space the next business frontier

Technological advances mean taking humans to play among the stars is just one of the aims of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and a host of eager investorsLater this year Jeff Bezos, the first person to have led a business from nothing to a trillion-dollar valuation, will step down from his job as head of Amazon. But as you’d expect from a tech multibillionaire, his eyes are on a potentially bigger prize:...

How to have a better relationship with your tech

Our dependency on tech has soared during the pandemic. The app analytics company App Annie found that people spent around 4 hours and 18 minutes per day on mobile devices in April 2020. That’s a 20% increase from the year before, equating to an extra 45 minutes per day of screen time. Research shows that there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with spending more time on screens—especially...