21 articles from SUNDAY 15.1.2023

Tackling threat of mudslides in soaked California

Relentless storms from a series of atmospheric rivers have saturated the steep mountains and bald hillsides scarred from wildfires along much of California's long coastline, causing hundreds of landslides this month.

Splitting the atomic scientists: how the Ukraine war ruined physics

At Cern and elsewhere, a reluctance to give Russian researchers authorship credit on new papers has led to stalemate In normal times, the four large physics experiments using proton collisions at Cern’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland publish numerous scientific articles a year. But in March 2022, the number of new research papers by the LHC experiments fell to zero. The reason: a...

Treasure hunters dive for mammoth bones in New York’s East River

Tale told on Joe Rogan podcast leads fossil hunters to murky depths off Manhattan even as museum pours cold water on storySeveral groups of treasure hunters have been seen on the East River in New York City after a guest on the Joe Rogan podcast claimed a boxcar of valuable prehistoric mammoth bones was dumped in the river in the 1940s.Despite a lack of evidence, treasure seekers have used boats,...

I was struggling to grieve my father’s Covid death – until, strangely, I smelled cigarette smoke

How cigarette smoke – something I’d always been repelled by – finally unlocked my headful of roiling emotions a month after my beloved father diedI have never been a smoker. Even from a very young age, I’ve been actively repelled by it. I confess I did eventually try a cigarette as a drunken student, largely due to peer pressure, and ended up with a scorched larynx and a mouth that tasted...

A young girl’s legacy: pioneering blood test can monitor rare childhood cancer

Charity launched in name of Alice Wakeling funds breakthrough that could lead to less aggressive treatment and save more livesAlice Wakeling was three when a lump began to grow on her neck. Doctors were initially puzzled but, after six weeks of tests, consultants gave her parents, David and Sara, the devastating news. Alice had rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare childhood cancer that develops in muscle or...

UK unions call in cancer expert over fears of asbestos risk to female teachers

Concerns at mesothelioma death rate trigger study to detect exposure to now banned material used in school buildingsThe threat of asbestos-related cancer to female teachers is to be examined after possible signs of an elevated risk of fatal illness.Trade unions are to work with one of the country’s leading cancer experts on a study of the exposure women in their late-40s to mid-60s may have had...

UK pest-control firm made £9m from ‘VIP lane’ PPE deal during pandemic

PestFix had assets of £18,000 and 16 staff but won contracts worth £344m after being put on government’s high-priority supplier listA pest control supplies firm has disclosed it made a profit of more than £9m for supplying personal protective equipment (PPE) during the pandemic after it was put into the government’s controversial VIP procurement lane.Crisp Websites, which trades as PestFix,...