New Scientist Australian Edition 2-May-20

LIFE at the moment seems full of questions where everyone has an opinion, but few can supply a convincing answer. By way of diversion, let us instead consider a question that invites few coherent opinions, but screams what seems to be a correct answer. Ask “is the universe conscious?”, as we do on this week’s cover, and the brain-jerk answer is “no”. Consciousness is a case of the haves and have nots. Humans clearly have it; a rock, a star or other agglomeration of physical matter, such as the wider cosmos, doesn’t. The venerable philosophical idea of universal sentience, or “panpsychism”, says otherwise when it comes to inanimate things, but it seems to have no more place in modern science than a belief in fairies at the end of the garden. However,…

LIFE at the moment seems full of questions where everyone has an opinion, but few can supply a convincing answer. By way of diversion, let us instead consider a question that invites few coherent opinions, but screams what seems to be a correct answer. Ask “is the universe conscious?”, as we do on this week’s cover, and the brain-jerk answer is “no”. Consciousness is a case of the haves and have nots. Humans clearly have it; a rock, a star or other agglomeration of physical matter, such as the wider cosmos, doesn’t. The venerable philosophical idea of universal sentience, or “panpsychism”, says otherwise when it comes to inanimate things, but it seems to have no more place in modern science than a belief in fairies at the end of the…

A LIST of people who have been giving scientific advice to the UK government during the coronavirus pandemic is set to be published imminently, following concerns over transparency. The membership of the UK’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) and the minutes of its meetings are normally only published after a crisis has passed, but this approach has been criticised. Last week, The New York Times described SAGE as a “virtual black box”, while The Guardian revealed that meetings had been attended by prime minister Boris Johnson’s divisive top political adviser, Dominic Cummings. UK chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance has now said details of the group’s workings will be published sooner. “I think we should publish names soon, and we will do so shortly,” he told journalists on Monday. Names were kept secret…

MANY UK newspapers recently celebrated the first volunteer to receive an injection as part of a safety trial of an experimental coronavirus vaccine. But while there are claims that it could be possible for a vaccine to be ready within a year, the chances of this happening remain slim. The UK trial, led by the University of Oxford, will ultimately involve 1100 adults, half of whom will receive the experimental vaccine. The other half will get a meningitis vaccine as a control. The team behind the trial hopes to move on to tests to gauge how effective the vaccine is against the coronavirus as early as August, raising hopes that a vaccine could be ready before the end of the year, and that this could be the answer to the difficult…

A LIST of people who have been giving scientific advice to the UK government during the coronavirus pandemic is set to be published imminently, following concerns over transparency. The membership of the UK’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) and the minutes of its meetings are normally only published after a crisis has passed, but this approach has been criticised. Last week, The New York Times described SAGE as a “virtual black box”, while The Guardian revealed that meetings had been attended by prime minister Boris Johnson’s divisive top political adviser, Dominic Cummings. UK chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance has now said details of the group’s workings will be published sooner. “I think we should publish names soon, and we will do so shortly,” he told journalists on Monday. Names…

WITH few countries doing enough testing to identify anywhere near all the deaths caused by the coronavirus, looking at how many more people are dying than usual is a better way of assessing the pandemic’s effect. Why are the covid-19 death counts underestimates? Reported coronavirus deaths are typically severely ill people who have tested positive for the coronavirus in a hospital. However, many people who have died may not have been tested – especially those who died at home or in a care home. Looking at the number of excess deaths suggests the true death toll has been higher than the number reported in many places, including Italy, Spain, Sweden, and England and Wales. What are “excess deaths”? It is how many more people are dying than would be expected. For instance, at this…