New Scientist International Edition 15-Jan-22

Discovery tour Wildlife of Sri Lanka Join us on an unforgettable 12-day holiday to Sri Lanka, a paradise for wildlife. Your guide will be entomologist and presenter George McGavin, who will take you to the wild corners of this extraordinary island in search of leopards, elephants, whales and plenty of more unusual species too, including pangolins, sloth bears and lorises. The tour departs on 5 March. Find out more and view the full itinerary online. newscientist.com/tours Online Covid-19 daily briefing Stay on top of all the most crucial developments in the pandemic – from variants to vaccines – with our essential briefing, updated each weekday. There are also links to exclusive interviews and features. newscientist.com/coronavirus-latest Podcast Weekly In this special episode, New Scientist staff give their expert picks of the scientific and cultural events to look forward to this year.…

WHY are fundamental physicists so keen to undermine the very theories that are the bedrock of their success? It is a reasonable question to ask confronted with the excitement bubbling around anomalies that seem to be firming up at CERN’s LHCb experiment (see page 38). At stake is a particle that might – the “might” bears emphasising – break open the standard model of particle physics, the framework that successfully explains three of the four forces of nature. The answer lies in what the standard model doesn’t explain: the fourth force, gravity; the dark matter and dark energy that seem to dominate the cosmos; and the fact that our matter-dominated universe exists at all. In indicating – perhaps – the existence of a fifth force that could unite previously disparate aspects of…

FOR the first time, a human has been given a transplant of a pig’s heart. David Bennett, 57, had the operation in Baltimore, Maryland, on 7 January using a heart that had been genetically modified to boost the chances of acceptance in a human body. The donated heart came from a pig developed by US firm Revivicor. In total, the animal had 10 genes modified. Four of those were inactivated, including one that causes an aggressive immune response and one that would otherwise cause the pig’s heart to continue growing after transplant into a human body. To further increase the chances of acceptance, the donor pig had six human genes inserted into its genome and Bennett is taking immune-suppressing medications. As New Scientist went to press, Bennett was coping well with the…

THE global number of confirmed covid-19 cases is currently hitting record levels as omicron spreads. But while this variant – which has around 50 mutations compared with the original SARS-CoV-2 virus – is much more infectious than previous ones, there is growing evidence that it is less likely to cause severe disease in those it infects. Preliminary studies are now providing insights into why this might be the case. Data from South Africa, the first nation to have an omicron wave, gives an indication of the variant’s lower severity. Reported cases there peaked at 117 per cent of the level of the country’s delta wave, whereas hospitalisations peaked at 63 per cent and deaths at 24 per cent. One factor in why omicron seems to be sending a lower proportion of cases…

How have covid-19 testing rules changed? Many countries have lessened their restrictions for people with covid-19 since the start of the surge caused by the omicron variant. In the UK, the isolation period for people with an infection has been cut from 10 days to seven, as long as you get a negative result on two lateral flow tests (LFTs), also known as rapid antigen tests. These must be done on days six and seven, and carried out at least 24 hours apart. People should remain cautious around others and avoid those who are vulnerable, though. “There’s huge variation in the length of infection and huge variations in viral load” Could the isolation period be shortened further? In the US, the isolation period has been cut to five days for people with no symptoms…

A SATELLITE engineer with no background in oceanography has won an international competition to predict where a “message in a bottle” will drift in the ocean. Chris Wasson, who is based in southern California, beat 31 teams to scoop the $25,000 top prize in the Forecasting Floats in Turbulence Challenge, organised by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). “I don’t have any real background in oceanography or weather system forecasting, but the problem was stated as more data- and algorithms-oriented,” says Wasson. “So I registered thinking I’d just see how things went.” Competitors had to forecast the locations over 10 days of 90 devices set adrift in the Atlantic. They were given the previous 20 days of movement data and information on currents, wind and waves. Wasson won against teams of experienced…