35 articles from SATURDAY 23.7.2022

‘We’re all tired’: the everyday exhaustion of Australia’s third Covid winter

After enduring more than two years of pandemic, we’re facing yet another fresh wave. How can we push through the malaise?Follow our Australia news live blog for the latest updatesGet our free news app, morning email briefing and daily news podcastWhen Angie attended a funeral last week, she wore a mask. “I was very much a minority,” she says. As a close family member of the deceased, the...

If our datacentres cannot take the heat, the UK could really go off the rails | John Naughton

It is understandable that railway infrastructure could not cope with last week’s temperatures, but why did Google and Oracle’s facilities go offline?One of the unexpected delights of the heatwave was the sound of a Conservative transport secretary talking sense. Grant Shapps was on the Today programme on Tuesday morning explaining a basic principle of good engineering design: get the...

Declaring monkeypox an international emergency, WHO chief rejects expert panel’s advice

The World Health Organisation (WHO) today declared the global spread of monkeypox a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), even though a special advisory committee has declined, again, to recommend the action. This is the first time since the PHEIC system was created in 2005 that the agency has made such a declaration without the panel’s endorsement. “This...

Monkeypox declared global health emergency by WHO as cases surge

Declaration is strongest call to action agency can make, with most recent such announcement being for CovidThe global monkeypox outbreak has been declared a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization (WHO) – the strongest call to action the agency can make.It is the seventh time such a declaration has been made since 2009, the most recent being for...

Monkeypox is in Bay Area wastewater

Last month, Stanford’s Sewer Coronavirus Alert Network, or SCAN, added monkeypox to the suite of viruses it checks wastewater for daily. Since then, monkeypox has been detected in 10 of the 11 sewer systems that SCAN tests, including those in Sacramento, Palo Alto, and several other cities in California’s Bay Area. As of July 21, the US had recorded 2,593 monkeypox cases. Globally, the...

Scientists encode 'Wizard of Oz' in a vanishingly small plastic

Imagine being able to hide an extremely complex encryption password or detailed financial information for an organization inside the chemical structure of ink. It might sound like something out of a spy movie, but scientists at The University of Texas at Austin and the University of Massachusetts Lowell recently proved it possible.

‘I’m very pleased we’ve got the same name’: Brian Cox meets Brian Cox

The actor Brian Cox used to be irked by the success of his upstart namesake. Now, for the first time, he and Prof Brian Cox talk science, Succession and what Shakespeare and black holes have in commonWhen anyone mentions Brian Cox, the first question invariably asked is: which Brian Cox are you talking about? Do you mean Prof Brian Cox, physicist, or actor Brian Cox, from Succession? So imagine...