Held meteroite recovered from Winchcombe CREDIT Trustees of the Natural History Museum
One small piece of rock, but a giant discovery for scientists. This is one of the first pieces of meteorite to be discovered in the UK for three decades.
"This is a once in a lifetime experience really for us," says Ashley King from the Natural History Museum.
"So, it's incredibly rare for meteorites to actually be witnessed coming down, landing on the earth, and being recovered."
The rocks that have been found are so rare, they're a type of meteorite never before seen in the UK.
"This is what we call a carbonaceous chondrite meteorite, and so that means it comes from the birth of our solar system," explains King.
"So, this rock is 4.6 billion years old, and it contains all the ingredients that were there when our solar system was forming, that went into making asteroids, went into making comets, and ultimately. Went into making planets like the Earth."
When a fireball meteor was seen shooting through the night sky, scientists dared to dream that small pieces of it may have landed.
They asked people to search in an area just north of the English town of Cheltenham and began getting calls from the town of Winchcombe.
Sure enough, the rocks people were finding here were meteorites.
Scientists began searching the local area, that search led them here, to Lachland Bond's parents' farm.
"So, we actually found out via the scientists coming to our door, knocking and saying that there had been a potential meteorite falling on our land and if they could have a little look," explains Bond.
Within an hour, they found something.
"If it gives us a little bit of a glimpse into history, then that will be a wonderful thing to be able to say that it happened on our land," says Bond.
The last time a meteorite was discovered in the UK was back in 1991.
People in Winchcombe sense history has been made here.
"From our point of view, it's exciting, people have actually had a purpose to go out and walk at the moment, not they didn't have a purpose already, but they certainly now have a purpose to go out and walk," says one resident.
"This is exciting news. Yeah, it is, yes. Puts Winchcombe on the map for yet another reason," says another.
For the first time microplastics have been found deep in the lungs of living humans. The trace materials potentially came from everyday items such as plastic bottles and bags. Dr. Jessica Shepherd, the chief medical officer at Verywell Health, joined Cheddar News to talk about the report's findings and to discuss the possible risks people might face. "The study’s most important part is we need to decrease our pollution, and we need to think about different ways to consume outside of plastic," she said.
An estimated five billion people lack access to affordable and safe surgical care around the world. For World Health Day, Cheddar News spoke with Kristie Magee Porcaro of Operation Smile, a nonprofit organization assisting with cleft lip and palate surgeries, about how they work to better it around the globe.
There has been notable disagreement in the medical community about a fourth COVID-19 vaccine dose. The FDA last week authorized a second booster dose for older and immunocompromised individuals, as some agency officials did not support the idea. The FDA made the decision without meeting with its advisory committee, as it had ahead of its recommendations on the previous COVID-19 vaccine doses.
The CDC followed in the footsteps of the FDA and authorized a fourth dose as well. Reports say the agency also did not discuss the move with its own advisory team of vaccine experts. Now, a growing number of doctors are speaking out against the decisions - leaving people confused about whether they should get another vaccine dose. Dr. Julie Morita, a member of the CDC's advisory committee to the director, and the executive vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Talmon Marco, CEO of H2Pro, joins Cheddar Innovates to discuss how to bring environmentally friendly hydrogen to scale, and what this means for hydrogen's many use cases.
Catching you up on what you need to know on April 7, 2022, with updates on Ukraine urging NATO for military aid for their war with Russia, the SEC investigating Amazon, microplastics being found deep inside human lungs for the first time, and more.
Patients who have grown frustrated with lingering COVID-19 symptoms and unanswered questions are now not only the subjects of "long covid" research, but also partners in pushing this research forward. Harlan Krumholz, professor of medicine at Yale University, joins Cheddar News to discuss.
A record number of tornadoes were observed in March, topping the previous record set last year. Cheddar News speaks with NOAA’s Harold Brooks about what the implications are of an early tornado season.
Catching you up on what you need to know on April 6, 2022, with updates on the FDA’s meeting to discuss a second COVID booster shot, more on the war in Ukraine, tornadoes on the Gulf coast, a third suspect arrested in connection to the mass shooting in California, Darwin’s lost notebooks mysteriously returned, and more.
Two of naturalist Charles Darwin’s notebooks that were reported stolen from Cambridge University have been returned, two decades after they disappeared.
