Science Weekly
Alok Jha and the Guardian's science team bring you the best analysis and interviews from the worlds of science and technology.
Will Silicon Valley help us live to 200 and beyond?
While Benjamin Franklin’s famous quote about death and taxes remains true for most, the same might not be said for some of the world’s billionaires. And their efforts to extend life are under way. Most recently, a Silicon Valley start-up called Altos Labs signed up a dream team of scientists,…
What will ‘living with Covid’ actually mean?
Last week Boris Johnson announced that all Covid regulations in England, including the requirement to isolate after testing positive, were due to be abolished on 24 February. Whilst the Omicron variant has caused fewer hospitalisations and deaths than many predicted, some scientists say the changes may be going too far,…
Why does Elon Musk want to read your mind?
A few weeks ago, Elon Musk’s company Neuralink posted a job advert recruiting for a ‘clinical trial director’ to run tests of their brain-computer interface technology in humans. Neuralink’s initial aim is to implant chips in the brain that would allow people with severe spinal cord injuries to walk again…
How worried should we be about the new Omicron subvariant?
Late in November, the World Health Organization designated the Covid variant B.1.1.529, with its many mutations, as a variant of concern. Dubbed Omicron, within weeks it had rapidly spread across the globe and become the dominant variant. But not far behind has been its even more transmissible cousin, BA.2. Initially…
Are we getting any closer to understanding long Covid?
Extreme fatigue, brain fog, sleep disturbances, chest pain and skin rashes. These are just a few of the on-going symptoms of long Covid, a disorder that can persist for many months after an initial Covid infection. With such a vast range of symptoms, and health organisations stretched to capacity by…
Alternative menopause treatments: empowering or exploitative?
There have never been more products and services devoted to helping women through the menopause, from hormones and supplements to apps and even laser treatments. But is all this choice actually helpful? And what’s the evidence that any of them actually work? Madeleine Finlay speaks to the Guardian science correspondent…
What are the hidden costs of our obsession with fish oil supplements?
They may be one of the world’s favourite supplements but, according to a recent study, more than one in 10 fish oil capsules are rancid. Most of the oil comes from Peruvian anchovetas, a type of anchovy, which is also used to feed pigs, poultry and farmed fish. And despite…
How the first pig-to-human heart transplant was done
Earlier this month, in a medical first, surgeons from the University of Maryland transplanted a genetically altered pig heart into a living person. Doctors believed it was their only chance to save the life of David Bennett, a 57-year-old patient who was considered too ill for a human organ replacement…
Are western lifestyles causing a rise in autoimmune diseases?
Could the food we eat and the air we breath be damaging our immune systems? The number of people with autoimmune diseases, from rheumatoid arthritis to type 1 diabetes, began to increase around 40 years ago in the west. Now, some are also emerging in countries that had never seen…
Covid-19: the Omicron wave is slowing - what lies on the other side?
The coronavirus variant has spread across the UK at incredible speed – but there are signs that the wave may have reached its peak. Madeleine Finlay talks to the Guardian science correspondent Nicola Davis about what we can expect in the weeks and months to come, and whether a second…
Why Theranos’s blood-testing claims were always too good to be true
Last week, the tech CEO Elizabeth Holmes – once described as ‘the next Steve Jobs’ – was convicted of fraud, and could face decades in prison. Her now collapsed company, Theranos, promised to revolutionise medicine with a machine that could run hundreds of health tests on just a pinprick of…
Is the world’s most important glacier on the brink of collapse?
It’s been called the most important glacier in the world. The Thwaites glacier in Antarctica is the size of Florida, and contains enough water to raise sea levels by over half a metre. Over the past 30 years it has been melting at an increasing pace, and currently contributes 4%…
Why are so many people getting re-infected with Covid-19?
On Wednesday, 194,747 daily confirmed Covid cases were reported for the whole of the UK. But this doesn’t include all the people who have caught the virus for the second, or even third time. In fact, official figures for England, Scotland and Northern Ireland don’t include those who have had…
Why is it so hard to lose that festive weight – and keep it off? – podcast
New year resolutions often include eating more healthily, doing exercise and trying to shift some of the extra weight put on over Christmas. Yet research suggests the vast majority of people who do lose weight ultimately end up putting nearly all of it back on. So why is it so…
From the archive: Carlo Rovelli on how to understand the quantum world (part two)
From electrons behaving as both particles and waves to a cat in a box that’s both dead and alive, the consequences of quantum physics are decidedly weird. So strange, that over a century since its conception, scientists are still arguing about the best way to understand the theory. In the…
From the archive: Carlo Rovelli on the weirdness of quantum mechanics (part one)
It has been more than a century since the groundwork of quantum physics was first formulated and yet the consequences of the theory still elude both scientists and philosophers. Why does light sometimes behave as a wave, and other times as a particle? Why does the outcome of an experiment…
Covid-19: what will Omicron mean for 2022? podcast
Yesterday, daily cases in the UK exceeded 100,000 for the first time since the pandemic began. Despite this, the government has stuck to its guns in refusing to introduce any restrictions in England before Christmas Day. Yesterday also saw the publishing of a report from a team at Imperial College…
Environment stories you might have missed in 2021
Cop26 may have dominated the headlines this year, but there have been lots of other fascinating, devastating and hopeful environment stories over the past 12 months. Madeleine Finlay speaks to Guardian environment editor Damian Carrington and biodiversity reporter Phoebe Weston about some of their favourites, from reintroducing wild bison to…
The climate crisis and devastating drought in eastern Africa
For three consecutive rainy seasons, the eastern Horn of Africa has experienced poor rainfall. Confounded by Covid-19 and desert locust invasions, millions are now facing starvation across parts of Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia. Already, livestock and wildlife are dying of thirst and hunger in large numbers. And at the heart…
Covid-19: Will boosters be enough to slow down Omicron?
As England moves to plan B, Boris Johnson has announced that all adults will be offered a booster vaccine by the end of December. But will that be enough to protect the NHS from being overwhelmed? Madeleine Finlay speaks to the Guardian’s science editor, Ian Sample, about the spread of…