These insects have declined by a third over 50 years. While their appetites can be a nuisance, ultimately we must protect these gloriously beautiful, elusive creatures “Night opens; night traversed by wandering moths; night hiding lovers roaming to adventure.” So runs a rapturous passage in Virginia Woolf’s The Waves, a novel she had originally considered titling The Moths. The insects are a...

Population immunity to non-Covid viruses could be lower owing to lack of exposure, says PHE officialCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageThe UK should steel itself for a “difficult autumn” and “hard winter” of illnesses because people have lived for an unusually long period without exposure to respiratory viruses, one of country’s top medics has warned.Dr Susan...

1,300 people take part in music event designed to aid decisions on how to reopen country despite coronavirusCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageIt wasn’t quite one of the great carefree, hedonistic nights of the past, but clubbers in Amsterdam were given a short reprieve from lockdown at the weekend as part of an examination of the risks attached to getting people back...

Psychiatrist Bruce Greyson has spent decades talking to people about near-death experiences. His work raises questions about what happens when we die, and how we ought to choose to liveWhen Gregg Nome was 24 years old, he slipped into the churn beneath a waterfall and began to drown, his body pummelled against the sandy riverbed. What he saw there surprised him. Suddenly, his vision filled with...

A pilot study’s analysis of schools’ wastewater shows its potential as an early warning system for public health teamsCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageSchools may have had more Covid-19 infections before Christmas than previous research showed, according to data from a pilot study that senior public health experts believe could provide a crucial early warning...

There is too much messianic passion and not enough enlightening psychology in Peterson’s follow-up to the bestselling 12 Rules for LifeFew books in recent years have had quite so noisy a cultural impact as Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. With its odd mixture of Darwinian determinism, Jungian myth-interpretation and Heideggerian ontology (Being written with a capital...

Behind the numbers: The UK’s gene sequencing labs are at the forefront of global efforts to trace and identify every single caseCoronavirus latest updatesCoronavirus - see all our coverageAll viruses change through random mutations. Through genomic sequencing we now know that the UK epidemic was seeded by more than 1,000 distinct variants from people returning from Italy, Spain and France in...