Amid the historic quarter’s busy streets, a thousand workshops maintain centuries-old craftmaking traditions. These workers’ ancient skills are celebrated in a new exhibition at London’s Royal Geographical Society

“Whatever manufactured items there are in the world,” wrote the Ottoman traveller Evliya Çelebi in 1671, “the poor of Cairo get hold of them, set them out and trade in them.” Nearly 350 years later, this tradition lives on in al-Darb al-Ahmar. This neighbourhood of 100,000 people, south-east of central Cairo, is said to be home to a thousand workshops. The place teems with artisans crafting everything from tents, books, boxes and brass lanterns to glass bowls and silk carpets.

From samba to jazz and house, the DJ and founder of radio station Worldwide FM picks 10 tracks to transport you to Brazil

Originally released in 1980, this funky track from solo artist Cristina Camargo is pure “80s vibes”, Peterson says. “I’ve been loving this boogie tune, produced by Lincoln Olivetti and Robson Jorge, of late. It lifts the mood every time.” Olivetti and Jorge crafted Rio’s early-80s boogie sound, and produced classic albums by Brazilian disco legends in the mid-70s. “It reminds me of line dancing in Rio, particularly on a Sunday afternoon in Lapa, where sound systems play a mixture of this and classic British 80s cuts by the likes of Lisa Stansfield and Soul II Soul – very obscure!”

How the ancient techniques of the world's indigenous people could help to combat climate change.

The veteran telescope celebrates three decades in orbit with a colourful image of star formation.

Bill Gates has been big on vaccines since before the start of the coronavirus pandemic, but in a new blog posting, the Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist says the only way to end the pandemic for good is to offer a vaccine to almost all of the planet's 7 billion inhabitants. That's big. "We've never delivered something to every corner of the world before," Gates notes. It's especially big considering that a vaccine hasn't yet been approved for widespread use, and that it may take as long as a year to 18 months to win approval and start distribution. Some… Read More

The following is a brief roundup of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. A new antibody test is highly accurate at determining whether people have been infected with the novel coronavirus, according to a study published on Friday in The Journal of Clinical Microbiology. Researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine found the test, manufactured by Abbott Laboratories, had a specificity rate of 99.9% and a sensitivity rate of 100%, suggesting little chance of incorrectly diagnosing a healthy person as having been infected and virtually no chance of a false negative readout.

Australian photographer Christian Bowman from Queensland was among Australians waking up before the sun rose to capture images of the Eta Aquarids meteor shower

• Australians told to look to the skies early Wednesday for best views

Two gems from the wizard of recreational maths

UPDATE: Puzzle solutions can be read here.

Today’s column is a celebration of John Horton Conway, the legendary British mathematician, who died of coronavirus earlier this month, aged 82.

Conway was an inspirational, iconoclastic genius who invented and studied countless puzzles and games, in addition to his more highbrow work in group theory, number theory, geometry, topology and many other fields.

The answers to today’s puzzles

Earlier today I set you two puzzles that the late John Horton Conway suggested for this column:

1) The Miracle Builders

Friends and colleagues pay tribute to gifted polymath whose achievements spanned biology, physics and public policy

• Lord May of Oxford obituary

Pioneering Australian scientist Robert May, whose work in biology led to the development of chaos theory, has died at age 84.

Known as one of Australia’s most accomplished scientists, he served as the chief scientific adviser to the United Kingdom, was president of the Royal Society, and was made a lord in 2001.

After a string of studies that highlight the possible link between air pollution and Covid-19 deaths, Ian Sample hears from Prof Anna Hansell about the complicated relationship between pollution, health and infection with Sars-CoV-2

Lawyers say failure to provide adequate PPE may amount to corporate manslaughter

• Coronavirus – latest updates
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The deaths of more than 50 hospital and care home workers have been reported to Britain’s health and safety regulator, which is considering launching criminal investigations, the Guardian has learned.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which investigates the breaking of safety at work laws, has received 54 formal reports of deaths in health and care settings “where the source of infection is recorded as Covid-19”. These are via the official reporting process, called Riddor: Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences.

Alberta's police watchdog have released new details about an armed confrontation that left one person dead and a police officer seriously injured.

Living on a 10-acre plot of land 100 kilometres outside Toronto, David Stevens thought he and his family were well prepared to ride out the COVID-19 quarantine. But after a call from his mother, he learned that even the best laid plans can go wrong.

The mother of a newborn wants to see her own mother cuddle the baby, while adult children must rely on virtual connections with their elderly mother. COVID-19 proves challenging physically and emotionally for many this Mother's Day.

There is now an outbreak of COVID-19 linked to Canada Post's main plant in Calgary, according to Alberta Health Services.

In a tale of two cities, Moscow keeps its distance while in Minsk, thousands turn out for the traditional military spectacular

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In any other year, hundreds of thousands of Russians would have marched with portraits of relatives who fought in the second world war in a memorial called the Immortal Regiment.

But on Saturday, the images of Soviet veterans and their families floated past on Russian television, a public vigil adapted for the era of social isolation.

The US believes Russia is working with Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, to send militia fighters and equipment to Libya, according to senior officials. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, US special envoy for Syria, Jim Jeffrey, said Libya’s increasingly shadowy battlefield could get even more complicated. “We know that, certainly, the Russians are working with Assad to transfer militia fighters, possibly third country, possibly Syrian, to Libya, as well as equipment,” he said. His comments came a day after a leaked UN report confirmed the presence of Russian and Syrian mercenaries operating in Libya in support of renegade military commander, Khalifa Haftar. The report revealed that Russian private military contractor, Wagner Group, has up to 1,200 mercenaries operating in Libya in support of General Haftar’s forces, which are already backed by the UAE, Russia and Egypt. The report, seen by Reuters, is one of the first indications of the scale of Wagner’s military operation in Libya’s messy battlefield, as well as the first time the UN has confirmed the presence of the shadowy Russian mercenaries. Since 2014, the oil-rich North African country has been split between areas controlled by the internationally recognised Government of National Accord in Tripoli and the northwest, and territory held by Gen Haftar’s eastern-based forces in Benghazi. For almost six years Gen Haftar’s forces have been at war with a coalition of militias from the west of the country who support the government in Tripoli. Turkey is the only military backer of the Tripoli government that is currently trying to stave off Haftar’s year-long offensive on the capital. The UAE and Egypt have long strengthened Haftar’s forces with military equipment, including aircraft and helicopters, while Moscow provided private contractor forces. As the conflict has drawn on and involvement has increasingly become the stage for a struggle for power in the region, diplomats say both Turkey and the UAE have deployed drones and the use of mercenaries has increased, now seemingly including forces from Russia and Syria. Libya has been mired in chaos since a 2011 NATO intervention helped topple Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, and its battlefields increasingly populated with foreign fighters in a shadow-war. Russian mercenaries were first reported fighting alongside General Haftar’s forces in Libya in 2018. Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, however, insisted that those mercenaries do not represent the Russian government. Yet when General Haftar visited Moscow in 2018, Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman with long-standing ties to Mr Putin and suspected owner of Wagner, was seen in the footage of the meeting, sitting near the Russian defence minister. Russia, which also backs Assad’s government in Syria, has maintained a delicate balancing act in Libya, forging ties with both the UN-recognised government and with the rebel commander. But Moscow’s patience with General Haftar began to run out earlier this year when he and his entourage in January abruptly left the much-anticipated cease-fire talks in Moscow mediated by Russia and Turkey without signing the deal. Henry Wooster, deputy assistant secretary at State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs also expressed increasing concern over the ties between the Libyan commander and Syria’s president, who are both bitter enemies of Turkey and fighting Turkish-backed militant groups on their soil. “Haftar’s establishment of so-called diplomatic relations with the Assad regime...is very much a part of the piece of the question of Syrian mercenaries, at least on his side of the equation,” he said. While the leaked report also confirmed the presence of Syrian mercenaries in Libya fighting alongside Haftar’s forces, Pro-Turkish Syrians are also known to be fighting with the Tripoli government, against General Haftar.

The United Nations said a "smart strategy" is to contain coronavirus in the world's most vulnerable countries to stem a "further phase of the pandemic."

The family of a 5-year-old boy who drove the family car onto a Utah highway won't face criminal charges, authorities said Friday. Adrian Zamarripa was pulled over Monday by a Utah Highway Patrol trooper who spotted the SUV swerving on Interstate 15 in Ogden at 32 mph. He thought the driver might need medical attention.

A hard Brexit is more likely due to the coronavirus crisis because Britain and the European Union have made so little progress in talks, Germany's foreign minister has said. Heiko Maas said that negotiations between Britain and the EU so far on the future trade relationship had yielded few gains with the UK disregarding the political declaration, which he said was "simply not on". Britain left the EU in January, and talks with the bloc are now focused on setting new trading terms from 2021, when London's status-quo transition period ends. However, the talks quickly hit an impasse when negotiations resumed last month, according to diplomats and officials. "It's worrying that Britain is moving further away from our jointly agreed political declaration on key issues in the negotiations," Mr Maas told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper. "It's simply not on, because the negotiations are a complete package as it's laid out in the political declaration." Mr Maas said there was currently neither common ground on how to shape a comprehensive trade deal or on whether to extend the negotiation period beyond the end of the year. "The British government is still refusing to extend the deadline," Mr Maas said. "If it stays that way, we will have to deal with Brexit in addition to the coronavirus at the turn of the year." Simon Coveney, Ireland's foreign minister, said on Friday that the coronavirus pandemic had made an already difficult timeline for a British-European Union trade deal "virtually impossible" and that it would make sense to seek more time.

Russian President Vladimir Putin marked Victory Day, the anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, in a ceremony shorn of its usual military parade and pomp by the coronavirus pandemic. In neighboring Belarus, however, the ceremonies went ahead in full, with tens of thousands of people in the sort of proximity that has been almost unseen in the world for months. Victory Day is Russia’s most important secular holiday and this year’s observance had been expected to be especially large because it is the 75th anniversary, but the Red Square military parade and a mass procession called The Immortal Regiment were postponed as part of measures to stifle the spread of the virus.

President Vladimir Putin told Russians they are "invincible" when they stand together as the country on Saturday marked the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II in lockdown from the coronavirus. With cases surging and authorities urging Russians to stay in their homes, celebrations of this year's Victory Day were muted after the Kremlin grudgingly postponed plans for a grand parade with world leaders. Instead of columns of military hardware and thousands of troops marching through Red Square as planned, Putin walked alone to lay flowers at the Eternal Flame outside the red brick walls of the Kremlin.

Cancellation of the ceremony was the second blow to Putin, who was forced to call off a referendum extending his time in power.

Cancellation of the ceremony was the second blow to Putin, who was forced to call off a referendum extending his time in power.

Yep, in-the-wild SQL injection exploits in 2020 are still a thing.

Advanced hacker group seeded market with at least 8 apps likely since 2016.

Firings highlight “toxicity running through the company culture,” Bray said.

Data can be retrieved even after owners perform a factory reset, researcher says.

Devices will stop working for users who don't want to pay the new monthly fee.

"I just always want to reiterate the spiders are our friends, and this isn't a dangerous spider," said Royal B.C. Museum entomologist Claudia Copley.

Canada's chief public health officer Theresa Tam was quick to shut down the approach during the daily ministerial update on Monday.

In some cases, the tests may detect old particles of the virus, which may no longer pose a significant threat to the patient or others, scientists say.

In one of my latest reports (Key Criteria for Evaluating Unstructured Data Management), one of the key criteria was the availability of…

From lost jobs to empty buses to a craving for pets, statistics show how the pandemic has transformed our lives. 

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Australian scientists also working to evaluate extent of immunity to virus among public

Experiment in mice indicates exercise provides high level of protection from cancer, even among those with diabetes and obesity

Other researchers have rejected the findings and say dog owners do not need to be concerned

Scientists have made a major breakthrough that could help us understand the origin of our universe, they say.

As people retreat to their homes, a group of analysts have seen a significant decrease in fuel consumption in the UK's largest sectors as transport reduces and offices and businesses close

Widespread and quick use would be key to battling spread of virus, study says

US say they fear long-range ballistic technology used to put satellites into orbit could also be used to launch nuclear warheads

Covid-19 could be 'antidote to complacency' among those on the fence about vaccines, scientists say

A set of asteroids that came from outside our solar system have been hiding in plain sight, according to scientists.

Iranian football subjects taught to focus on present moment, accept their thoughts and feelings, and commit to goals

Infowars founder Alex Jones among conspiracy theorists sowing doubts about pandemic

'Nothing like waking up to a fake article on your death,' tweets Elisa Granato

'This type of natural manipulation in ecosystems ... has barely been researched to date, but holds tremendous potential,' says researcher