Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

More than half a century after scientists first encountered a mysterious marker on human red blood cells, researchers finally traced it to its genetic source. The breakthrough established MAL as a human blood group system and gave doctors a new way to identify the exceptionally rare people whose blood lacks the AnWj antigen. The work was led by scientists at NHS Blood and Transplant in Bristol, including researchers from the International Blood Group Reference Laboratory (IBGRL), together with colleagues at the University of Bristol. Their findings solved a puzzle dating back to 1972 and could help prevent dangerous transfusion reactions…

Accusations that the young are a snowflake generation are wrong, the head of an independent review into mental health, ADHD and autism has told the BBC.In an exclusive interview, Prof Peter Fonagy says there has been a real rise in mental distress among children and young people, with anxiety, depression, self-harm and eating disorders the most common.He says it is “harder to be young” now given the economic and employment uncertainty they face coupled with the challenges presented by social media.The review was ordered nine months ago by Wes Streeting after the then-health secretary claimed in an interview that young…

I am now in my 61st year, haven’t worked for more than two years and have stopped applying for jobs (‘I feel invisible’: over-50s reveal harsh realities of trying to get a job, 17 September). The bulk of my career was as an advice worker, specialising in debt, housing and energy advice.Some years ago I worked with a client in her late 50s who had been a hospital cleaner. She had expected to retire earlier, but the changes to women’s state pension age meant that she faced several more years before retirement. She could no longer do the physical work…

A former police officer allegedly developed an “infatuation and obsession” with one of his victims, and disguised himself as an Uber Eats rider before shooting two men, a court has heard.Beau Lamarre-Condon, 31, pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and one charge of aggravated break and enter as his trial began in Sydney’s supreme court on Monday.He has been accused of fatally shooting Jesse Baird, 26, and Baird’s partner, Luke Davies, 29, with his police service weapon at Baird’s Paddington home in February 2024.Appearing in the dock at the King Street courthouse in a light grey suit, dark…

Cardano’s delegated governance voters let a 12.29 million ADA request for Pogun expire without ratification, showing that Input Output’s history as a founding builder does not guarantee access to the network’s treasury.Pogun is an Input Output-backed credit and liquidity product designed to bring Bitcoin into decentralized finance. Its proposal offered Cardano a share of the business in exchange for development funding. Charles Hoskinson says the product is still headed to Cardano. Future Input Output ventures will follow technical and commercial fit instead of an automatic Cardano-first policy.The result is a clear test of decentralized control. Cardano’s representatives withheld public capital…

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY, Officials urge civilians to stay away from site in Al-Eis near Aleppo after series of explosions.Published On 21 Sep 202621 Sep 2026Powerful explosions at a weapons depot in northern Syria have injured at least four people, according to state media, with officials urging the public to stay away from the site.The explosions occurred early on Monday at a Syrian army site in the vicinity of the town of al-Eis, south of the city of Aleppo, the state-run SANA news agency reported.The cause of the explosions was not immediately clear.Faisal Mohammad Ali, the head of civil defence operations…

North Korean hacking group WaterPlum stole at least $10.7 million by posing as recruiters for legitimate crypto and AI companies, attacking unsuspecting job seekers with malware. The group, also known as Contagious Interview, targets software developers and IT professionals worldwide, according to a joint advisory from Japan, Germany, Australia and the US. Authorities said the fake recruiters impersonated legitimate AI, cryptocurrency or non-fungible token (NFT) companies and also used recruiting services.“The primary targets were individual web designers, engineers, and specialists in cryptocurrency, blockchain, and Web3 technologies,” they added. The advisory also links WaterPlum to North Korea’s broader campaign of placing IT workers…

Perfection may not always be the best recipe for stability, especially in complex systems such as electrical grids, ecosystems, and advanced materials. For years, researchers often worked from the assumption that networks should perform more reliably when their individual parts behave as similarly as possible. Real systems, however, rarely look that tidy. Power generators operate differently from one another, neurons vary in form and behavior, species occupy different roles in ecosystems, and the components inside engineered materials are not always perfectly uniform. Physicists at Northwestern University now say those differences may sometimes be an advantage rather than a defect. Why…

With reference to your article about the merits, or not, of double cleansing (Double cleansing: should we really be cleaning ourselves twice in each shower?, 15 September), I wish to report that I shower once a week, while in between times wash daily with soap, flannel and a bowl of water (which then flushes the loo). I do this because I am deeply concerned at our misuse of the planet’s resources. We currently use fresh water at a faster rate globally than it can be replenished. Here in the UK, it is predicted that by 2055 we will have a 5bn…

Russia’s ruling United Russia party ​was on track to easily win a parliamentary election that President Vladimir Putin has cast as a test of support for the war in Ukraine, partial official results showed on Sunday, after Ukraine launched a massive drone attack on the Russian capital. In a tightly controlled political system which critics say does not tolerate genuine dissent, initial results showed United Russia comfortably ahead with 57.5% of the vote. Other parties like the Communists, the ​ultra-nationalist LDPR, the New ‌People party and the Just Russia party – who all vote the same way as United Russia…