Documents reveal that pathogenic agents, zoonotic bacteria and viruses, including one deemed bioterrorism risk, entered US but ‘no indication CDC has been transparent’Animal activists are calling for the US government to stop the importation of non-human primates for laboratory use after documents from the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reveal that deadly pathogenic...

Family traditions are what you make them, Christmas means honouring the people dearest to youIt’s Christmas Eve. The tree lights are off, pine needles dropping on to presents crammed beneath. Cold air seeps in through the window panes and I pull the duvet up tighter around my ears. As I begin to drift off to sleep, I hear the soft click of the door handle, footsteps padding into the room. I...

From moon missions to fast-charging batteries and AI-sourced antibiotics, in no particular order, the year’s significant scientific developmentsThe year opened with a bang. Or rather, it didn’t. The successful film Don’t Look Up, in which a comet is found to be on a collision course with Earth, had been released just before Christmas 2021. In the bleak days of post-festive gloom, the news...

My parents weren’t rich but they always made me feel I could have exactly what I dreamed ofI was three and Christmas 1969 was approaching. Neil Armstrong walked on the moon that summer and I wanted what millions of kids must have wanted for Christmas: the Apollo 11 rocket. I announced this and went off to listen yet again to my favourite record: Puff, the Magic Dragon.Our house on a nice new...

An enthralling project to save the northern white rhino is raising challenging questions as scientists debate the ethics of de-extinctionWhen Dr Natalie Cooper, a scientist at the Natural History Museum, met Sudan, the last surviving northern white male rhino, in Kenya before he died aged 45, she understandably feared the subspecies’ extinction was certain – mostly due to poaching fuelled by...