Studies from South Africa and the UK suggest Omicron may be a mild infection for the majority of people. Hospital admissions are down when compared with other variants. However, the virus is replicating at a much faster rate than earlier variants and is able to overcome vaccines to some extent. Cases studies so far have mainly been in young people. There is ... Show More
Jun 19
Half a universe once lost now found
The universe is thought to consist of 70% Dark Energy, 25% Dark Matter, and just 5% Baryonic matter which is the atoms that make up you and me. At least, that’s what the models suggest. But a well-kept secret between astronomers and cosmologists for all these years has been that ... Show More
41m 41s
Dec 2021
Initial Omicron Lab Data, Creative Naps, and Fishy Sounds.
T-Cells in vaccinated people may be holding the fort, or at least fighting serious illness, against the latest SARS CoV2 variant. Also, how the briefest of sleeps aids creativity.Prof Penny Moore, of South Africa’s National Centre for Infectious Disease and Witwatersrand Universi ... Show More
30m 42s
Jun 2021
Cov-Boost trial; SARS-Cov 2 infection in action; sapling guards; why tadpoles are dying
Scientists are now looking at the question of third doses of vaccines against SARS-Cov2, and this week the Cov-Boost trial was launched. It’s being run from University of Southampton and is going to be using seven different vaccines, some at half doses, in people over the age of ... Show More
30m 22s
Dec 2021
The Evidence: When will the pandemic end?
Everybody hopes that the new super-charged Omicron variant of coronavirus will be less severe, but even if it is, it’s spreading so fast and infecting so many people, health services around the world could still buckle under the strain.Two years into the pandemic, Claudia Hammond ... Show More
50m 9s
Aug 2023
The wide-ranging effects of climate change
This week China hit a record high temperature, a scorching 52.2°C, while Death Valley in California measured 53.9°C. Elsewhere, Europe has been battling searing heat and raging wildfires. In previous editions of Inside Science we’ve explored the effects of heat on our health. Thi ... Show More
32m 40s
Feb 2022
Identifying a more infectious HIV variant
We’re 40 years into the AIDS pandemic, and even with massive public health campaigns, still, 1 ½ million become infected with HIV each year; about half that number die of its ravages. And a study just out shows that this well-understood virus can still take on more worrying forms ... Show More
1h 3m