Leading scientists write to PM amid campaign against expansion of clean air zone in LondonWorld-leading air pollution scientists have called on Rishi Sunak to distance himself from Conservative colleagues who are dismissing the facts on the serious health risks of toxic air.In a letter, Prof Frank Kelly and 35 other prominent air pollution scientists call on the prime minister to tell his...

Ian Sample talks to Dr Rachel Clarke about her experience working in palliative care in the NHS and now with hospices in Ukraine. She tells him what dying can teach the living, what we can learn from the Covid pandemic, and reveals the anguish and defiance of trying to provide a dignified death in the midst of warClips: BBC, Al Jazeera Continue...

Submissions at Folbigg’s trial were based in misogynistic stereotypes and had no rational relationship with a charge of murderFollow our Australia news live blog for the latest updatesGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastFor more than 20 years, the Australian legal system has demonised a grieving mother as a child killer. Kathleen Folbigg was convicted in 2003...

Book based on May 2022 review ‘did lockdowns work?’ examines whether legally enforced interventions prevented deathsThe overwhelming majority of academic studies have one chance to make a splash. Once that moment has passed – which tends to be when the paper is published – the spotlight moves on in the relentless search for new material.But not all studies adhere to that trend. Some return...

Oncologists sound alarm over risk of healthcare systems buckling due to rising need for specific careThe world must urgently prepare for a global “tsunami” of millions of older cancer patients or risk healthcare systems being unable to cope, leading doctors have warned.With life expectancy increasing and a rapidly soaring population of older people, a looming increase in elderly patients with...

Monitoring stations that already test for pollution could have dual purpose of mapping declines in biodiversity, reveals new studyFrom owls to hedgehogs to fungi, genetic material from plants and animals is being inadvertently hoovered up by air-quality monitoring stations around the world, creating an untapped “vault of biodiversity data”, according to a new scientific paper.Globally,...

She was labelled a baby killer but advocates say she has suffered one of the country’s gravest injusticesGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastIt was four short questions during a nine-hour police interview in 1999 that made Kathleen Folbigg fully comprehend what was happening.“Kathy, did you kill Caleb?” asks the officer sitting next to Folbigg in a small...

Move into separate rooms can mark a new beginning as couple are well rested and happier, claims expertSleeping in separate rooms due to a snoring partner could improve people’s relationships rather than marking the end, a leading sleep scientist has said.Couples moving into separate rooms can enter the “beginning of a new relationship”, where they are well rested and, ideally, happier,...

It has been said to kill E coli, reduce cholesterol, lower blood sugar and aid weight loss. But not all health experts are convinced of its powersFeeling peckish one day in 2017, Darshna Yagnik, an immunologist and lecturer in biomedical science at Middlesex University, took a punt on something that had been lurking at the back of the fridge. She soon regretted it and started feeling queasy....

Moon and planet will climb into the sky in early hours of 10 June until dawn washes Saturn from viewThose awake in the early hours of 10 June can see the last-quarter moon close to the planet Saturn.The chart shows the view looking south-east from London at 3am BST. Having cleared the eastern horizon at about 2am, the planet and the moon will continue to climb into the sky until the dawn light...

Doctors found some patients could rely on chemotherapy and surgery alone to treat the diseaseThousands of bowel cancer patients could be spared radiotherapy, a study suggests, after doctors discovered they could rely on chemotherapy and surgery alone to treat their disease.Radiotherapy has been used to treat bowel cancer patients for decades, but the side-effects can be brutal. It can cause...

Irish author Naoise Dolan on taking refuge in the German capitalI’ve lived in Berlin for nine months now and I have stopped thinking of myself as “learning German”. Instead I hunt daily for German I still don’t know. I enter new words into a flashcard app on my phone and slowly the proportion of German-yet-unknown-to-me diminishes. If I happen to emerge from this process a Germanophone,...

Taking the drug osimertinib once a day after surgery reduces chance of patients dying by 51%, trials showA pill taken once a day cuts the risk of dying from lung cancer by half, according to “thrilling” and “unprecedented” results from a decade-long global study.Taking the drug osimertinib after surgery dramatically reduced the risk of patients dying by 51%, results presented at the...

Quick and simple tests in GP surgeries could detect cancer of the oesophagus, stomach, pancreas, colon or liverSimply blowing into a bag at a GP’s surgery could show that a patient has cancer. That is the aim of an ambitious new project that is going through its final clinical trials in the UK. If successful, cancer breath tests could be used in a few years in order to pinpoint a range of...

The recent arrest of a number of high-profile scientists has led the scientific community to fear they are being targeted by the KremlinAs Russia’s war in Ukraine has grown into an existential conflict for the Kremlin over the past 15 months, its search for internal enemies has intensified, with a sharp rise in treason cases that experts have equated to a “spymania”.While many of the treason...

Since the pandemic there has been a steep rise in cases of ADHD among children. Here, experts discuss why, parents describe their struggles and campaigners say what needs to changeAttention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental condition that is shrouded in misunderstanding, uncertainty and controversy. There is, for example, no definitive agreement on how many people have...

Role of eat out to help out scheme in increased cases and Treasury hostility to scientific advice may come under spotlightAt the start of a Tory leadership debate hosted by the Sun last July, Rishi Sunak made a series of statements which, 10 months on, all ring equally hollow.Facing Liz Truss – the contest’s eventual winner – Sunak was at pains to acknowledge that Sun readers were struggling...

Leading scientist attacks prime minister as criticism mounts of government approach to science during the crisisRishi Sunak is facing a barrage of criticism in the run-up to the official Covid-19 inquiry as a leading scientist attacks his “spectacularly stupid” Eat Out to Help Out scheme, which is believed to have caused a sudden rise in cases of the virus.The prime minister’s role as...

The lessons to be learned from the government’s mistakes in handling of the coronavirus are crucial. We need all the factsIf one clear lesson is to be taken from our response to the arrival of Covid-19 three years ago, it is an appreciation of the highly effective role played by scientists in fighting the pandemic. Within weeks of the Sars-CoV-2 virus emerging, researchers had sequenced every...

The revolutionary treatment has been shown to significantly shrink tumours in almost half of patients with the diseaseThousands of women with ovarian cancer could benefit from a revolutionary drug combination after it was shown to significantly shrink tumours in almost half of patients with the disease.The new treatment blocks tumour growth, helping keep the disease at bay for years. Experts said...

The Human Cell Atlas is already helping to ensure safer pregnancies, and scientists believe it will help them understand many other conditionsIt provides oxygen and nutrients for a growing baby, removes waste products as they build up in its blood, and protects the life of the foetus. Yet the placenta, the temporary organ that cherishes the unborn, is a puzzle. It carries the DNA of the newly...

The emerging technology is causing pratfalls all over – not least tech bosses begging for someone to regulate themThis story begins on 27 August 2019, when Roberto Mata was a passenger on an Avianca flight 670 from El Salvador to New York and a metal food and drink trolley allegedly injured his knee. As is the American way, Mata duly sued Avianca and the airline responded by asking that the case...

Nice approves mavacamten, used to treat obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, in draft guidance to NHSA first-of-its-kind treatment targeting a chronic heart disease could offer a “greater hope” to thousands of people living with the condition.The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) has approved the use of mavacamten in draft guidance to the NHS. It would be used to...

Horizontal structures, up to 10 light years in length, appear to point in direction of galaxy’s black holeAstronomers have discovered hundreds of mysterious cosmic threads that point towards the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way, after a survey of the galaxy.The strange filaments, each of which stretches five to 10 light years through space, resemble the dots and dashes of...