159 articles from TUESDAY 27.7.2021

NSW Covid update: 172 new cases as Berejiklian flags greater Sydney lockdown lasting into September

NSW premier expected to announce Covid roadmap as Blacktown apartment block locked downFollow our Covid live blog for the latest updatesNSW restrictions; NSW hotspots; border restrictionsVaccine rollout tracker; get our free news app; get our morning email briefingThe New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, has hinted at a prolonged lockdown in greater Sydney well into September as case...

Sporting super spikes: how do they work? – podcast

In the lead-up to the athletics competitions at the Tokyo Olympic Games 2020, Shivani Dave takes look at how advances in running shoe technology are resulting in records being smashed. Talking to Geoff Burns, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Michigan who specialises in biomechanics, Shivani asks how so-called ‘super spikes’ work and if the mechanical advantage they provide...

Scientists discover early signs of frontotemporal dementia in personalized cerebral organoids

Frontotemporal dementias are a group of fatal and debilitating brain disorders for which there are no cures. Researchers describe how they were able to recreate much of the damage seen in a widely studied form of the disease by growing special types of cerebral organoids in petri dishes. This form of the disease is caused by a genetic mutation in tau, a protein that is a hallmark of Alzheimer's...

Jeff Bezos offers Nasa $2bn in exchange for moon mission contract

Billionaire lost out to Elon Musk’s SpaceX in lunar bidContract is to build craft to take astronauts to the moonFresh off his trip to space, Jeff Bezos on Monday offered to cover up to $2bn in Nasa costs if the US space agency awards his company Blue Origin a contract to make a spacecraft designed to land astronauts back on the moon.Nasa in April awarded SpaceX, owned by rival billionaire Elon...