35 articles from SUNDAY 18.7.2021

How can you become a space tourist?

Thrill-seekers might soon be able to get their adrenaline kicks—and envy-inducing Instagram snaps—from the final frontier, as space tourism finally lifts off.

What is the Covid workplace testing scheme Downing Street is part of?

Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak were due to be part of a pilot trialling tests instead of self-isolationCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageCould Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have avoided the need to self-isolate for 10 days despite being contacts of the health secretary, Sajid Javid, who tested positive for Covid-19? On Sunday morning, Downing Street claimed they were due...

Wally Funk Is Going to Space Aboard Jeff Bezos’s Rocket. Here’s Why That Matters

There’s a good reason for all the fuss about Wally Funk this week. On July 20, Funk, 82—an aviator, the first female air-safety investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), and the first female inspector for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)—will climb aboard a Blue Origin New Shepard spacecraft and fly a suborbital arc more than 100 km (62 mi.) up,...

Do you work too hard? It might be time to try being imperfect | Barbara Rysenbry

Accepting that all we can control are our actions and our values is a simpler and more empowering way to liveThe modern mind is a column where experts discuss mental health issues they are seeing in their workAs a psychologist working in the Sydney CBD, I see many people working in high-performance workplace cultures across various business sectors.Nicole was one such client referred for therapy...

The Guardian view on Covid and the world: the pandemic’s impact is growing | Editorial

Cases are soaring in many countries, and the social and political effects are becoming clearer“At the root of every pandemic is an encounter between a disease-causing microorganism and a human being … It is a social phenomenon as much as it is a biological one,” writes Laura Spinney in her book Pale Rider, arguing that Spanish flu “pushed India closer to independence, South Africa closer...

Why England’s sudden lifting of covid restrictions is a massive gamble

England is about to take a huge gamble.  On Monday, July 19, the country is ditching all of its remaining pandemic-related restrictions. People will be able to go to nightclubs, or gather in groups as large as they like. They will not be legally compelled to wear masks at all, and can stop social distancing. The government, with an eye on media coverage, has dubbed it “Freedom...

How data could save Earth from climate change

Using a name inspired by Indonesian farmers, Subak will share information and fund hi-tech solutions to fight global heatingAs monikers go, Subak may seem an odd choice for a new organisation that aims to accelerate hi-tech efforts to combat the climate crisis. The name is Indonesian, it transpires, and refers to an ancient agricultural system that allows farmers to co-ordinate their efforts when...

Masks, hugs and hand washing: 18 new rules for protecting yourself and others

When should you open the windows, wear a mask and take a lateral flow test? As we enter the ‘personal responsibility’ era, here’s an expert guideFreedom day is here, at least for those of us who live in England, and we’re back in the place nobody wants to be. On one hand: yay, freedom. On the other: an uneasy sense that the relaxation of restrictions has very little to do with the data,...

Is 57 a prime number? There’s a game for that.

The Greek mathematician Euclid may very well have proved, circa 300 BCE, that there are infinitely many prime numbers. But it was the British mathematician Christian Lawson-Perfect who, more recently, devised the computer game “Is this prime?” Launched five years ago, the game surpassed three million tries on July 16—or, more to the point, it hit run 2,999,999—after a Hacker News post...

Secrets and pies: the battle to get lab-grown meat on the menu

Sustainable alternatives to livestock farming are being held back by patents, a reluctance to share research and lack of government supportNot a week goes by without Elliot Swartz receiving at least one request from researchers asking him where they can find cell lines (a cell culture developed from a single cell) for use in cellular agriculture – an essential tool for creating lab-grown meat....

The choice is ours – how opening up will turn us into moralists of daily life | Sridhar Venkatapuram

With few rules left to govern our Covid behaviour, we’ll increasingly take on the pleasure, or burden, of working out the right thing for ourselvesSo the prime minister says that with the removal of Covid restrictions we will now be able to make our own “informed decisions” about what we will and will not do. Generally, we might feel it’s a sign of a good government and a good society that...

The era of Covid ambivalence: what do we do as normalcy returns but Delta surges?

We imagined a gleeful summer of pandemic relief. Instead, new anxieties have replaced old onesWe were promised a Hot Vax Summer.The term – a riff on Hot Girl Summer, the hit 2019 summer single – emerged this spring as predictive shorthand for the (perhaps literally) orgiastic welcome of a post-vaccine reality. But, as might be expected of a phenomenon named for the last great summer anthem of...

If sending yourself into space is the ultimate publicity stunt, what next for Richard Branson? | Catherine Bennett

Britain’s own rocket man has arrived to challenge Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. Hurrah!Thinking, maybe, that it brings some purifying wonder to the pointless exercise, space plutocrats like to emphasise that their wish as grown men to ride in a space rocket dates from more innocent times. “Ever since I was five years old I’ve dreamed of travelling to space,” Jeff Bezos says. Specifically to...

‘If you don’t wear a mask, the virus spreads further. It’s as simple as that’

Scientists urge Britons to continue wearing face coverings over summerCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageScientists have strongly endorsed the continued wearing of masks in enclosed public spaces over summer. As Covid-19 cases continue to spiral, face coverings offer people the most robust way of limiting the spread of the disease in cafes, theatres and restaurants, they...

Words matter: Language can reduce mental health and addiction stigma, NIH leaders say

In a perspective published in Neuropsychopharmacology, leaders from the National Institutes of Health address how using appropriate language to describe mental illness and addiction can help to reduce stigma and improve how people with these conditions are treated in health care settings and throughout society. The authors define stigma as negative attitudes toward people that are based on certain...

UK trial aims to find hidden lung damage caused by long Covid

Study is part of £20m research drive that scientists hope will end stigma around the conditionCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageA clinical trial has been launched to detect currently invisible lung damage in people with long Covid, as part of a £20m research drive that scientists hope will end stigma around the condition.Patients still suffering breathlessness will be...