24 articles from SUNDAY 4.12.2022

‘Are we alone in the universe?’: Work begins in Western Australia on world’s most powerful radio telescope

More than 100,000 antennas will be built on Wajarri country, enabling astronomers to peek billions of years back to the ‘cosmic dawn’Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastConstruction of the world’s largest radio astronomy observatory, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), has officially begun in Australia after three decades in development.A huge...

Accelerating pathogen identification in infants and children with bloodstream infections

A collaborative team has re-engineered the process of microbial pathogen identification in blood samples from pediatric sepsis patients using broad-spectrum pathogen capture technology. The advance enables accurate pathogen detection with a combination of unprecedented sensitivity and speed, and could significantly improve clinical outcomes for pediatric and older patients with bloodstream...

What does it take to be an astronaut? After dreaming of the stars, I decided to find out | Kevin Fong

I got very close to becoming a European Space Agency astronaut, but the final lesson was a bittersweet oneIn February 2021, the European Space Agency (Esa) announced it would be recruiting a new astronaut class, the first since 2008. It encouraged applicants from a broader spectrum of gender, physical ability, age and ethnicity, so I fired off an application and joined a WhatsApp group of...

Flapdoodler, roorback, yulehole: Why forgotten words need rescuing from obscurity

As a child, the gift of a dictionary sparked my love of rare words – which snowballed like a hogamadogChristmas morning. I must have been about seven years old. My grandparents had just arrived at our house and my family’s presents were all being excitedly exchanged. At last, they came to me, and my grandmother handed over something that seemed absolutely enormous. It was broad, flat, solid...

Making science more accessible to people with disabilities

The pandemic prompted workplace changes that proved beneficial to people with disabilities in science, technology, engineering, math and medicine (STEMM), but there's fear that these accommodations will be rolled back. With International Day of Persons with Disabilities taking place on Dec. 3, a research team including faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York is calling for...

Telling Americans to ‘eat better’ doesn’t work. We must make healthier food | Mark Bittman

For decades public health authorities have encouraged us to choose healthier foods – yet most choices available to Americans are bad onesDiet-related chronic disease is the perennial number one killer in the United States, responsible for more deaths than Covid-19 even at the pandemic’s peak. Yet we cannot manage to define this as a “crisis”. In fact, our response is lame: for decades...

New toothy diving dinosaur discovered

A new species of non-avian dinosaur with a streamlined body similar to those of modern diving birds, such as penguins and auks, is described in a study published in Communications Biology. The findings represent the first case of a non-avian theropod—a type of carnivorous dinosaur that walked on two legs—to have a streamlined body.

England World Cup success could drive up Covid infections, scientists warn

People attending large gatherings to watch matches are urged to be cautious about visiting vulnerable relatives afterwardsEngland’s progress in the World Cup could drive up the number of Covid cases across the country this winter, scientists have warned.Researchers say that mass gatherings in pubs, and in homes where friends and relatives get together to watch the team compete in Qatar, could...

When exactly do everyday fantasies go from ‘little white lies’ to a mental disorder? | Yvonne Roberts

Billy Liar’s loose grasp on reality is common today but experts say it is less benign. That is, if you believe themBilly Liar, created in the 1950s, is a fantasist; a teller of tall tales who lives much of his time in the imaginary world of Ambrosia.He is engaged to two girls and fancies a third. He is desperate to get out of the dead-end town of Stradhoughton where he lives with his...

Radical new therapy for Parkinson’s will use stem cell transplants

Lab-grown nerve cells will replace those destroyed by disease – scientists hope treatment may be available in five yearsEarly next year, a radical new treatment for Parkinson’s disease involving tissue transplants will receive its first trial with patients – including a group from the UK.Stem cells grown in the laboratory and transformed into nerve cells will be used to replace those...

This latest Alzheimer’s drug breakthrough is reason for hope – and further funding

Researchers are a step closer to unravelling the cruel mystery of the dementia that afflicts my wife and so many othersIn an age of excessive information, we have each developed a filtering system. To compensate, we acquire our own keywords, which pierce these systems, or, in the old parlance, make our ears prick up, be they the names of favourite teams, musicians, pastimes, conspiracy theories....

China’s Xi Jinping ‘unwilling’ to accept western Covid vaccines says US intelligence chief

Despite daily Covid-19 cases near all-time highs and recent protests over lockdowns, US intelligence see no threat to Xi’s stabilityChinese leader Xi Jinping is unwilling to accept western vaccines despite the challenges China is facing with Covid-19, and while recent protests there are not a threat to Communist party rule, they could affect his personal standing, US director of national...