Second world war codebreaking calculations used at Bletchley Park find 9,000 of those species are yet to be discoveredThere are an estimated 73,300 species of tree on Earth, 9,000 of which have yet to be discovered, according to a global count of tree species by thousands of researchers who used second world war codebreaking techniques created at Bletchley Park to evaluate the number of unknown...

Podcaster has made numerous disputed claims about virus, vaccines and lockdownsJoe Rogan pledges to ‘try harder’ after Spotify misinformation controversySee all our coronavirus coverageSpotify has said it will add “content advisories” to episodes of Joe Rogan’s podcast discussing Covid after the singers Neil Young and Joni Mitchell accused the streaming service of helping to spread Covid...

Jane Campion, Benedict Cumberbatch and Sandra Oh all say they have used a coach to harness the power of their dreams and say the results have been extraordinaryName: Dream work.Age: People have been dreaming since people have been people. This is more about the exploration of dreams. Continue...

Government adviser, who says museum ‘inspired me to pursue a career in science’, will take on role in 2023The government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, is to become the next chair of the Natural History Museum, a position he is understood to be taking on in addition to his current roles.Vallance has been a key figure in informing the government’s response to the Covid-19...

As many people return to the office, what about those of us left behind who have got used to the company during the pandemic?As the world returns to the office, doggy daycare is booming. You hear of kingpins who never even have to meet the dogs, but run establishments packed with canines, whose owners are each paying more for the day than the dog-loving apprentices are receiving. They offer...

Exclusive: Liquid biopsy blood tests being offered to patients who have exhausted other options Thousands of NHS cancer patients who have exhausted all other options are being offered liquid biopsy blood tests to match them to personalised medicines.The groundbreaking genetic analysis gives patients a better chance of successfully trying new treatments. A pioneering scheme piloted at the Christie...

Singing to a child is as important to the singers as the listeners – something parents should remember as we seek to quell our raging anxietyWhen my eldest daughter was just a few months old, I threw her in a carrier and took her on a train to visit my friend, the chorus of Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves looping in my head. I arrived, giddy and smug in the notion that my adorable new...

Minister says lower severity of Omicron variant ‘opens the window for us to look at it’Coronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageDowning Street appears likely to drop its policy of dismissing frontline NHS and care staff in England who refuse Covid vaccinations, a minister has strongly indicated, after nursing and care organisations called for this to happen.A decision...

When the pandemic hit, David Ngwerume began creating pieces to inspire and raise awareness. Now, one of his pieces will feature in the Beijing biennaleWhen the pandemic first hit the world, Zimbabwean stone sculptor David Ngwerume took his hammer and chisel and started work on the first of a collection of Covid-inspired pieces.Almost two years and 14 sculptures later, one has made its way to China...

On a good night, up to 10 stars can be seen in cluster known as the seven sistersThis week’s challenge is a longstanding rite of passage for amateur astronomers. It is also a quick and easy way to gauge the quality of a night’s observing conditions whenever the constellation of Taurus, the bull, is visible.It involves counting the number of stars in the Pleiades. One of only a handful of star...

New passion for reviving country’s monuments is returning Little Theatre of Epidavros to heart of communityFor nearly two millennia, the Little Theatre of Epidavros lay underground. Its engraved seats, concentric and tiered, belonged to a world of roots; in this case the roots of an olive grove owned by Christos Zafiris, a local farmer. “They say that had it not been for pigs digging at the...

Sussexes say they are committed to continuing to work with the music and podcast streaming platformCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageThe Duke and Duchess of Sussex have told Spotify they are concerned about Covid-19 misinformation on its platform, saying they are committed to continuing to work with the company, a spokesperson for their Archewell foundation has said....

Carvings can be seen more clearly thanks to painstaking removal of sediment and water damageThere are carvings of dolphins, horses, boar, salmon, mermaids, a magnificently endowed leopard, George and the dragon, and a fox preaching to some chickens – a 500-year-old warning not to trust people in authority.The carvings, about 300 of them, at Carlisle Castle are the subject of a restoration...

Most new infections at winter Games are among new arrivals; NHS will offer vaccinations to vulnerable children between five and 11‘Like sewage and rotting flesh’: Covid’s lasting impact on taste and smellThousands join protest in Canada against Covid vaccine mandatesSchools in England reinstate mask wearing rules as Covid cases soarWill Met inquiry into No 10 lockdown parties ‘neuter’...

We’ve all been there: driven half mad by the colleague who micromanages, the boss who bullies, the co-worker asleep on the job… So how do we navigate the messy world of office politics?Twenty years ago, the American psychologist Tessa West began arriving early to the department store at which she worked, so she could avoid the salespeople she spent most of her time with. Really, she was hoping...

If you see the majestic stones on Salisbury Plain as an emblem of England, think again. A major new British Museum exhibition connects them to many points and cultures across Europe through 1,500 years of immigrationAmong the many treasures in the British Museum’s forthcoming Stonehenge exhibition is a collection of carved and polished spherical stones, each about the size of a cricket ball. The...

Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, the cures in question, have proven to be ineffective in preventing or treating Covid-19Republican state lawmakers across the United States have proposed – and in some cases passed – legislation that they say keeps the government from interfering with doctors who want to prescribe ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine to help prevent and treat Covid-19.But those...

Many sufferers have been left unable to eat due to long-term distortions to their sensesCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageFour months after getting sick with Covid, Anne-Héloise Dautel couldn’t eat anything at all. “I just wanted to vomit, I was gagging at everything around me,” she said. “I couldn’t even stand my own smell. I was showering five times a...

The geneticist offers a short, sharp, illuminating overview of the science, politics, uses and abuses of human gene editingAdam Rutherford begins this sharp and timely study of the science that dare not speak its name with an account of the professor who, in 2018, attempted to genetically modify the embryos of twin daughters, removing them from a woman’s womb and then reimplanting them....

As a kid, Concetta Antico was always ‘a bit out of the box’, but it took decades for her to discover just how differently she was seeing the worldRead more in the Meet the superhumans seriesIt would be easy to look at the vivid array of colour contained in the paintings of artist Concetta Antico and assume she is using artistic licence. The trunks of her eucalyptus trees are hued with violet...

For the first 25 years of my life everyone called me Mandy – and it felt completely wrongMy name is Camilla, so why, for the first 25 years of my life, did everyone call me Mandy? My Jamaican mother loathed the name Camilla. She said my Nigerian father chose the name, but she thought Camilla sounded too damn serious and upper-class. And she was right. Growing up in Luton in the 70s and 80s,...

Findings raise possibility Covid may cause microscopic damage not detected by normal testsCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageAbnormalities have been identified in the lungs of long Covid patients that could offer a potential explanation for why some people experience breathlessness long after their initial infection.The findings, from a pilot study involving 36 patients,...

Entrants asked to tackle trash, faecal matter, foam packaging and exhaled carbon dioxide by 15 MarchNasa wants help in proposing sustainable living techniques for a trip to Mars. On 18 January it launched the Waste to Base materials challenge: sustainable reprocessing in space on the crowdsourcing website HeroX. The challenge runs until 15 March, by which time entrants will have to submit their...

Doing a test with new technique could cost a 10th of a PCR and has been as reliable in small-scale trialCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageScientists have developed a highly sensitive Covid test that relies only on low-tech kit and a smartphone, which could be used as a quicker, cheaper alternative to PCR testing.The team behind the 25-minute saliva test say it provides...