The British entrepreneur Richard Branson has successfully flown to the edge of space and back in his Virgin Galactic passenger rocket plane, days ahead of a rival launch by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Seventeen years after Branson founded Virgin Galactic to develop commercial spacecraft and cater to future space tourists, the spaceplane went into sub-orbital flight on Sunday...
My friend Camilla Bosanquet, who has died aged 100, was a Jungian analyst and psychotherapist. Chair of the Society of Analytical Psychology from 1972 to 1975, she played a leading role in the formation of the Guild of Psychotherapists in 1974.Born in Lancing, West Sussex, she was the daughter of Sir Harry Ricardo, an engineer who played a big part in the development of the internal combustion...
Spaceplane went into sub-orbital flight days ahead of a rival launch by Jeff Bezos The British entrepreneur Richard Branson has successfully flown to the edge of space and back in his Virgin Galactic passenger rocket plane, days ahead of a rival launch by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, as the billionaires compete to kick off a new era of space tourism.Seventeen years after Branson founded Virgin...
The 18-year-old’s withdrawal from Wimbledon has focused attention on the pressure stars faceWhen Emma Raducanu quit Wimbledon after suffering breathing difficulties, she said she felt the experience of competing in the championship’s last-16 had “caught up with her”.Though the details of exactly what forced the 18-year-old to withdraw are unknown, she is not the first star performer in the...
Teenage spots can ravage not just skin but mental health, too. Martin Love considers the lasting issues that can still be triggered years laterPimples, spots, plooks, pustules, boils, eruptions, carbuncles, zits… If there are dozens of different words for snow, there must be at least as many in the school bully’s armoury for spots, or to give the condition its mercilessly judgmental medical...
‘Untenable’ rules will force workers to delete NHS tracing app to avoid being pinged Coronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageFestival organisers have urged the government to change “untenable” self-isolation rules that they say are already causing staffing problems and could lead to people deleting the NHS Covid-19 tracing app to avoid getting “pinged”.Speaking...
Herd immunity is this pandemic’s exit route, but passing the moral buck over to citizens is a dangerous strategy• Coronavirus – latest updates• See all our coronavirus coverageWhen at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic China placed a cordon sanitaire around Wuhan and then quickly extended it to eight other Chinese cities, placing 45 million people under lockdown, the immediate...
As hard-pressed universities axe abstract study, the codebreaker’s great niece and top mathematicians are fighting backAlmost exactly 80 years ago, British codebreakers made a crucial breakthrough. Using methods developed by the mathematical genius of Alan Turing, they were able to decipher the Enigma code that the Nazis were using on the eastern front in the second world war, gaining another...
Nadhim Zahawi says mask guidance indoors is likely to stay in England and denies story that gap between vaccine doses will halfSajid Javid warns NHS waiting lists backlog could reach 13mSurge in Sydney cases leads to first locally acquired Covid death of year‘Their childhood has been stolen’: calls for action to tackle long CovidWoman, 90, infected with Alpha and Beta Covid variants at the...
The inflammation researcher explains the health benefits and dangers of soaking up the sunProf Prue Hart is head of the inflammation research group at the Telethon Kids Institute in Perth, Australia, which studies the beneficial effects of sunlight exposure on our health and whether these are the result of UV-induced vitamin D or other molecules produced in our skin upon exposure to sunlight.What...
Scientists are only just discovering the enormous impact of our gut health – and how it could hold the key to everything from tackling obesity to overcoming anxiety and boosting immunityIf you want to learn more about what’s going on in your gut, the first step is to turn your poo blue. How long it takes for a muffin dyed with blue food colouring to pass through your system is a measure of...
The story of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine is part manifesto for good science communications, part biomedical thriller, while a smart history of quarantines makes their utility resoundingly clearOn the first day of Wimbledon, Dame Sarah Gilbert, professor of vaccinology at Oxford’s Jenner Institute, was treated to a standing ovation from grateful spectators on a packed Centre Court. Together...
NHS approved to use gene therapy to treat baby born with spinal muscular atrophyThe parents of a baby with a fatal condition have succeeded in their campaign for their son to be treated with the world’s most expensive drug.A new gene therapy, Zolgensma, will be used to treat 10-month-old Edward, from Colchester, who has severe spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), after his parents were given the green...
The billionaire, along with two pilots and three other passengers, will reach 55 miles above Earth for about an hourJuly is a frantic month for the two billionaires racing to kick off space tourism, with Richard Branson’s SpaceShipTwo set to launch on Sunday with the British entrepreneur on board just days ahead of rival and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in his rocket.Branson’s extraterrestrial...
Researchers warn ‘phenomenon is probably underestimated’ after the death of woman in BelgiumA 90-year-old Belgian woman who died after falling ill with Covid-19 was infected with both the Alpha and Beta variants of the coronavirus at the same time, researchers have said.The unvaccinated woman was admitted to the OLV hospital in the city of Aalst after a spate of falls in March and tested...