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Vaccine hesitancy is one of the greatest threats to global health – and the pandemic has made it worse
stockpexel/Shutterstock The COVID pandemic has disrupted many areas of routine healthcare including, importantly, childhood vaccination. The pandemic saw levels of essential childhood immunisations decline in more than 100 countries around the world, leading to outbreaks of infectious diseases such as yellow fever, cholera, diphtheria and polio. There are many reasonsContinue Reading
Biting flies are attracted to blue traps – we used AI to work out why
Flies which feast on blood – such as tsetse and horse flies – inflict painful bites and spread debilitating diseases among people and animals alike. So a lot of work has gone into designing the most efficient traps to control the populations of these flies. Biting fly traps tend toContinue Reading
Nigel Farage blasts private bank as ‘dishonest’ after losing account
N igel Farage has not denied a report that he isn’t wealthy enough to hold an account at private bank Coutts. The Brexit leader fell below the financial threshold needed to hold a Coutts account, and was offered a standard account at NatWest instead, the BBC reported on Tuesday. TheContinue Reading
J. Robert Oppenheimer: the real ‘father of the atomic bomb’ at centre of new blockbuster
J. Robert Oppenheimer, the subject of a soon-to-be-released blockbuster directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Cillian Murphy, could be one of the most misunderstood figures of the 20th century. He is remembered as “the father of the atomic bomb”, but his story “is more than how the world’s most destructiveContinue Reading
Orkney councillors back plan to explore governance changes
C ouncillors in Orkney have voted to back a motion to explore the future governance of the islands. Orkney Islands Council leader Councillor James Stockan proposed a motion that instructs the local authority’s officers to publish a report on different options available to the islands, including exploring previous “Nordic connections”.Continue Reading
Sir Gavin Williamson to introduce Bill on Somaliland recognition
The Tory former cabinet minister will seek to table his Republic of Somaliland (Recognition) Bill on Tuesday, with the aim to challenge the diplomatic inertia that has kept the East African nation unrecognised on the international stage for decades. Somaliland, a self-declared independent state in the north-western part of Somalia,Continue Reading
Labour will ensure local decisions taken by those ‘with skin in the game’
A Labour government will ensure that community decisions are taken by “people with skin in the game”, according to the party’s deputy leader. Angela Rayner is expected to use a speech on Tuesday to pledge that a Sir Keir Starmer premiership will give local people a “bigger stake” in theContinue Reading
Cleverly hails ‘close and friendly’ UK-EU ties in Brussels speech
T he Foreign Secretary hailed the “close and friendly” co-operation between London and Brussels in a speech to EU parliamentarians. James Cleverly said the “level of trust” between him and European Commission diplomat Maros Sefcovic was part of the reason the Windsor Framework was secured. He accepted that it hadContinue Reading
How do we know health screening programmes work?
Egor Kulinich/Shutterstock The UK is set to roll out a national lung cancer screening programme for people aged 55 to 74 with a history of smoking. The idea is to catch lung cancer at an early stage when it is more treatable. Quoting NHS England data, the health secretary, SteveContinue Reading
Did our mammal ancestors live alongside dinosaurs? New research hopes to end long-running debate
david.costa.art/Shutterstock If you were asked to think of a mammal, chances are high you would think of a placental mammal – horses, dogs, cats, humans, even bats and rats all fall into that category. It includes some 6,000 species who live in the oceans as well as on land. TodayContinue Reading