20 articles from SUNDAY 9.1.2022

UK records 141,472 more coronavirus cases and 97 deaths

Latest Covid figures come amid reports that lateral flow tests will remain freeCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageOver 140,000 more people have tested positive for coronavirus in the UK, amid reports that lateral flow tests will remain free.A further 141,472 lab-confirmed Covid-19 cases were recorded as of 9am on Sunday, the fourth consecutive day that infection numbers...

New treatment may save eyesight of children with ‘devastating’ Batten disease

Brineura, already given to children with life-limiting genetic disease, to be injected into back of eye in Great Ormond Street trialEight children born with a “devastating” genetic disease in England have become the first in the world to receive a “pioneering” treatment aimed at stopping them from going blind.Doctors at Great Ormond Street hospital in London are trialling a drug they...

Why can’t we stop scrolling or eating Haribo? Blame the lizard brain | Eli Goldstone

My life is a constant struggle against the primitive part of my brain – and the forces designed to exploit itI experience frequent, urgent cravings for very specific things and act on them immediately. As soon as I open my eyes I often know exactly what I want: to wear a particular little outfit, buy a sandwich of a certain heft and filling from this shop in this postcode, eat it (for instance)...

Are we witnessing the dawn of post-theory science?

Does the advent of machine learning mean the classic methodology of hypothesise, predict and test has had its day?Isaac Newton apocryphally discovered his second law – the one about gravity – after an apple fell on his head. Much experimentation and data analysis later, he realised there was a fundamental relationship between force, mass and acceleration. He formulated a theory to describe...

Coronavirus: should the UK make vaccination mandatory?

With more countries ready to oblige citizens to receive the Covid jab, what are the key questions in the debate?Coronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageIn Italy, it is now obligatory for people aged 50 or over to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Greece is pondering a similar move. In France, which has seen record numbers of positive cases, President Emmanuel Macron has also...

Global spread of autoimmune disease blamed on western diet

New DNA research by London-based scientists hopes to find cure for rapidly spreading conditionsMore and more people around the world are suffering because their immune systems can no longer tell the difference between healthy cells and invading micro-organisms. Disease defences that once protected them are instead attacking their tissue and organs.Major international research efforts are being...