Author: lauraspinney
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What are COVID archivists keeping for tomorrow’s historians?
IF only somebody had counted the orphans. That was one wish I had while trawling archives on the 1918 influenza pandemic to research my book Pale Rider. Another yearning? If only someone had saved biological samples of the unidentified respiratory disease that ravaged China in late 1917. Historians a century hence will, I think, have…
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What science can learn from religion
OVER the first half of the 20th century, the Catholic priest and prehistorian Henri Breuil transformed our understanding of early humans. Armed with a pared-down travel kit and a folding umbrella, this diminutive figure in a worn cassock criss-crossed France, then Europe, then the world, in search of painted caves. Having wriggled his way into…
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Coronaviruses on the wing
BATS in the frontier regions of south and south-west China harbour other coronaviruses that already have the capacity to cross over to humans, a prominent Chinese scientist has said… This article was first published in The Guardian on 4 December 2020. To continue reading, click here.
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On the under-explored promise of the immune response in your nose
WHILE everyone celebrated this month’s news that not one but two experimental vaccines against Covid-19 have proved at least 90% effective at preventing disease in late-stage clinical trials, research into understanding how the Sars-CoV-2 virus, which causes Covid-19, interacts with the human immune system never paused… This story first appeared in The Observer on 22 October…
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Arms and the virus
LETTING the virus that causes Covid-19 circulate more-or-less freely is dangerous not only because it risks overwhelming hospitals and so endangering lives unnecessarily, but also because it could delay the evolution of the virus to a more benign form and potentially even make it more lethal… This article first appeared in The Guardian on 19 November…
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On pathogen evolution
A DEEPLY entrenched idea, that newly emerged agents of disease inevitably evolve to become more benign over time, is scientifically unfounded, according to new research… This story was first published in The Guardian on 19 November 2020. To continue reading, click here.
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Magh mela 2021 will go ahead despite the pandemic
THE Magh Mela, the annual Hindu pilgrimage to Prayagraj, India, usually attracts around 10 million people. Officials announced last month that it will go ahead as planned this winter—despite the country’s high number of new COVID-19 cases… This article first appeared in National Geographic on 12 November 2020. To continue reading, click here.
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Why Europe is once again the epicentre of the pandemic
LAST week Europe registered 1.5m new cases of Covid-19 – a record – making it once again the centre of the pandemic. The UK is not exempt, and England will enter a new lockdown from Thursday 5 November. From the outside, it might seem the continent is in the grip of a second wave that is…
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Meet the collapsologists
MICHEL Rosell gathers up a mass of papers and divides them into two piles. On the left are bills: a single sheet. On the right is a sheaf of letters from friends and lovers. “If the pile of letters is growing faster than the pile of bills, you’re on the right track,” says Rosell. “If…
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On the rise and rise of Chinese science
IT started badly, with gag orders, cover-ups and ignored offers of help from overseas, but then the Chinese government seized the narrative. It reined in the burgeoning epidemic of Covid-19 at home, and started exporting its rapidly accumulating scientific knowledge of the disease to the rest of the world. Chinese science has often been marginalised…