Starry night skies are near impossible to admire if you're living in a city heavily polluted by light. 

The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting the quantity and quality of weather observations and forecasts, according to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).

In recent days a new slickly produced video has been circulating on social media, proposing scientifically impossible claims about the coronavirus and how to treat it.

Canadian Music Week has abandoned plans for a 2020 festival after initially postponing the spring event due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nanaimo, B.C., teen Lauren Spencer-Smith may not have had the hometown advantage on American Idol, but she feels she had a fair shot on the show.

Some of the top creative minds at Mexican broadcaster Televisa are puzzling over an unexpected challenge: crafting their signature soap operas without a single love scene or even a tender kiss.

Roy Horn of Siegfried & Roy, the duo whose extraordinary magic tricks astonished millions until Horn was critically injured in 2003 by one of the act's famed white tigers, has died. He was 75.

Around the world, street artists, including world-renowned ones such as Banksy and Kobra, are creating pandemic-inspired street art.

As most film and television production grind to a halt, broadcasters are turning to animation studios for fresh content.

The group has been set up to look at ways to enhance the TV product for fans when football returns.

Man Utd looked at signing Salomon Rondon in the January transfer window but Dalian Professional did not want to sell him.

Cars can be seen driving on pavements and going the wrong way around roundabouts

The fire started in the kitchen of a second floor flat on Wendon Road, in Baguley

Around 15 people protesters gathered at a petrol forecourt in Stretford where the incident took place

As the world economy is falling into one of the biggest contractions of the last decades, a new study of economic recession patterns finds that the likelihood of a downturn was high even before the onset of the Coronavirus crisis.

A new method for reliably identifying the presence of beer or other malted foodstuffs in archaeological finds is described in a study published May 6, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Andreas G. Heiss from the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW), Austria and colleagues.

Rice University researchers find evidence of piezoelectricity in lab-grown, two-dimensional flakes of molybdenum dioxide.

The first ever set of specific recommendations to support transgender autistic young people was co-created by these youth and their families working hand-in-hand with clinical experts. The resulting model offers clinicians a set of concrete ways to provide this unique population the support they need.

The first study to report use of the rheumatoid arthritis drug anakinra to treat COVID-19 patients found that high-dose anakinra was safe and was associated with respiratory improvements and reduced signs of cytokine storm [1] in 72% (21/29) of patients, according to results from patients studied for 21 days (enrolled from 17 to 27 March 2020) in a Milan hospital, published in The Lancet Rheumatology journal.

Broad modifications to current standards for treating acute stroke patients during the COVID-19 pandemic may be needed to preserve health care resources, limit disease spread and ensure optimal care, according to a Loyola Medicine neurologist.

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed major deficiencies and inequities in the US healthcare system, shining a spotlight on improvements that must be made to steel the country for future disasters, argues Maia.

Skoltech scientists in collaboration with researchers from the University of Stuttgart, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and the Russian Quantum Center achieved the first systematic experimental measurements of the electrical conductivity of pure interfacial water, hence producing new results significantly extending our knowledge of interfacial water.

Olanzapine, a generic drug used to treat nervous, emotional and mental conditions, also may help patients with advanced cancer successfully manage nausea and vomiting unrelated to chemotherapy. These are the findings of a study published Thursday, May 7, 2020 in JAMA Oncology.

In physics, thermalization, or the trend of sub-systems within a whole to gain a common temperature, is typically the norm. There are situations, however, where thermalization is slowed down or virtually suppressed; examples are when considering the dynamics of electron and nuclear spins in solids. Understanding why this happens and how it can be controlled is presently at the center of a broad effort, particularly for applications in the emerging field of quantum information technologies.

'We have seen this before.' Global health scholars have issued a clarion call about the needless loss of life expected because of a foreseeable prospect of 'slow and inadequate access to supplies' to control COVID-19 in sub-Saharan Africa. They say what is unfolding now is similar to when lifesaving diagnostics and treatments came to the region long after they were available elsewhere.

A research team has discovered a molecular mechanism that helps Herpes simplex virus (HSV1) evade the innate immune system and infect the brain causing a rare disease with high mortality. The study from Aarhus University, University of Oxford, and University of Gothenburg, led by first author Chiranjeevi Bodda in Søren Paludan's lab, will be published May 8 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine (JEM).

Millions of people around the world use acid suppressants called proton pump inhibitors for conditions like heartburn, gastritis and stomach ulcers. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden now report that how the long-term use of these drugs could increase the risk of developing dementia. Their results are published in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia.

Temperature and latitude do not appear to be associated with the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), according to a study of many countries published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal), but school closures and other public health measures are having a positive effect.

MERS, which struck South Korea in a 2015 outbreak, was caused by a coronavirus--the same family of viruses that is responsible for COVID-19. Recently, a Korean research team announced that it had developed a new vaccine platform using RNA-based adjuvants for the MERS coronavirus. The research team successfully conducted an experiment on nonhuman primates. It is expected that the new vaccine platform will soon be applicable to the development of a COVID-19 vaccine, an urgent global health priority.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is a United Nations Organization agency commissioned to regulate international telecommunications between different operating administrations and businesses. Pursuant to specific recommendations by this organization, on 1 July, standard Y.3172, an architecture for machine learning in future networks (5G and beyond), was approved for telecommunications networks.

Its name is Foxg1, it is a gene, and its unprecedented role is the protagonist of the discovery just published on the journal Cerebral Cortex. Foxg1 was already known for being a "master gene" able to coordinate the action of hundreds of other genes. As this new study reports, the "excitability" of neurons, namely their ability to respond to stimuli, communicating between each other and carrying out all their tasks, also depends on this gene.

An international team has discovered an effective method for controlling the frequency of confined light at the nanoscale in the form of phonon polaritons (light coupled to vibrations in the crystal). The results have now been published in Nature Materials.

Computerized tomography (CT) is one of the most effective medical tests for analysing the effects of many illnesses, including COVID-19. An international team has developed a new method that improves the quality of the images obtained from CT scans. The algorithm, tested on simulated data, enables them to distinguish different body's tissue types better and opens the door to lowering the doses of radiation to which patients are exposed during this type of test.

In many fish species body size plays an important role in sexual selection. Large individuals are preferred mating partners because they can enhance offspring survival by providing better quality resources than small individuals. While large females and males are often favored by sexual selection, fishing targets and removes these reproductively superior individuals. Academy Research Fellow Silva Uusi-Heikkilä discusses in her recent literature review the implications fisheries selection might have on sexual selection, individual reproductive success and population viability.

A new global simulation model offers the first long-term look at how urbanization -- the growth of cities and towns--will unfold in the coming decades. The research team projects the total amount of urban areas on Earth can grow anywhere from 1.8 to 5.9-fold by 2100, building approximately 618,000 square miles.

The number of callers to the charity SANE’s telephone helpline has increased by 200 percent since the lockdown began.

One hospice ITV News spoke to is three days away from running out of protective gowns needed to treat patients with coronavirus.

A fine end to the day with late sunshine & clear skies

A former Scotland rugby captain, who suffered life changing injuries in a car crash, is walking to raise money for the NHS.

Mila Sneddon hasn't seen her father in seven weeks in order to keep her safe during coronavirus lockdown.

A North East based care provider, Wellburn Care Homes, has launched their own We Care badge aiming to show support for care workers.

Cold enough for a slight frost in places

Data which identified a massive in Covid-19 was sent to ministers a month before the government's Care Home Action Plan was published.

Arrows fired from longbows could penetrate right through the human skull creating small entry and large exit wounds.

The Duchess of Cambridge has teamed up with the National Portrait Gallery to launch the Hold Still project.

The Bank of England said the economy could contract by as much as 3% in the first quarter.

The incident led to panic among locals within a three-kilometre radius.

The care home where she worked says they no longer needed the help of the UK’s youngest parliamentarian.

Notting Hill Carnival has been cancelled for the first time ever because of the ongoing coronavirus crisis.

Warm with sunshine away from hit & miss showers in western counties