No funding earmarked for research agency and Europe’s Horizon scheme despite imminent start to financial yearThe government risks creating a serious funding gap for science, Labour has warned, saying that delays over budgets and cuts to research are undermining the sector and giving the lie to ministers’ boasts about Britain’s status as a science superpower.The party has highlighted a...

Vaccinating the world is the only way out of Covid, but a mixture of nationalism and protectionism is blocking the exitCovid-19 has proved to be the greatest humanitarian and economic disaster of the century. A reported 2.7 million people have already died from the pathogen. Its recession is estimated to be twice as deep as that associated with the 2008 crash. Ultimately, the only way out of the...

Plans to ease restrictions have been rolled back in several countries owing to new variants taking holdCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageSeveral European countries are extending or reintroducing lockdown measures as a third wave of the pandemic sweeps the continent fuelled by more contagious new variants of coronavirus such as the B117 mutation first detected in the...

Analysis: as lockdown restrictions ease, the country now faces a race between vaccination and infection Coronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageBritain’s latest lockdown has dramatically reduced cases of coronavirus, and the number of people being admitted to hospital and dying from the disease. What the country faces now is essentially a race between vaccination and...

Experts have different theories as to how the cow-sized Arctic animal ended up so far south It could have been the incongruity of the walrus turning up on the Welsh coast. Or perhaps it was the discovery that the creature appeared to be on something of a tour of the British and Irish Isles while the human population remained in lockdown, their own chances of a foreign getaway shrinking daily....

The solution to today’s puzzle about trust, secrets and the world’s weirdest proofEarlier today I set the following puzzle, based on the remarkable mathematical concept of a ‘zero-knowledge proof,’ which has applications in cyber security. (To find out why this concept is so revolutionary, and how it relates to the puzzle, you can read the original article here.)The stolen paper clip...

I have had no more than a few hours on my own in a year. All this time with my family means I never have time to thinkWhat would you give for a day on your own? Fifty pounds, £1,000, a toe? Perhaps that feels offensive: it depends, of course, how you have spent the past 365. You might sacrifice a digit for a soft body to slump against on the sofa, for the hot, heavy weight of a sleeping child...

Cloud of ash and gas engulfed Roman city within minutes and suffocated inhabitants, research saysA giant cloud of ash and gases released by Vesuvius in 79 AD took about 15 minutes to kill the inhabitants of Pompeii, research suggests.The estimated 2,000 people who died in the ancient Roman city when they could not escape were not overwhelmed by the lava, but rather asphyxiated by the gases and...

What makes an elite sports star suddenly unable to do the very thing they have been practising for years? And is there anything they can do about it? By A Mark Williams and Tim Wigmore Continue...

The pandemic has revealed the true value of social interaction – and even changed my outlook on meeting new peopleLast year, in what would turn out to be my last night out for a while, I found myself in a dreaded situation: at a friend’s drinks, speaking to a total stranger. Not long into our conversation, my brain started searching for escape routes. I had a full glass and there was a queue...

Study of over 32,000 people included review of risks of cerebral venous sinus thrombosisCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageThe Covid-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca was 79% effective in preventing symptomatic illness in a large trial in the US, Chile and Peru, the company said on Monday, paving the way for it to apply for US approval.The vaccine...

A puzzle about trust, secrets, and the world’s weirdest proofToday’s puzzle is based on a ground-breaking mathematical concept which last week won one of its pioneers the Abel Prize, considered the Nobel Prize of maths.The concept is the zero-knowledge proof, and it has many applications in digital cryptography. Let me briefly explain. Continue...

I got the gig at a school by stressing my people skills. It turns out I meant I can’t keep my mouth shutI am coming to the end of my tenure as a lateral flow test volunteer at a secondary school. I got the gig by stressing how well qualified I was at public-facing endeavours.This turned out not to be true. It went OK when the kids were off school and we were just testing the teachers, but then...

With a dark sky and some patience you should be able to see an open star cluster This week is all about tracking down a faint, open star cluster with the unaided eye. You will need a dark sky and some patience, but once successful you will feel like you have found some buried treasure up there.The star cluster in question is known as the Beehive cluster, or Praesepe, the Latin word for manger. It...