Science

NBC News reports: Jeff Bezos announced on Monday that he and his brother will join the first crewed spaceflight from his private rocket company on July 20 — just 15 days after he is set to step down as chief executive of Amazon. “Ever since I was five years old, I’ve dreamed of traveling to space,” he wrote in an …

The New York Times reports: The Food and Drug Administration is on the verge of announcing one of its most contentious decisions in years: the fate of an Alzheimer’s drug that could be the first treatment approved after nearly two decades of failed efforts to find ways to curb the debilitating disease. On Monday, the agency will rule on the …

STAT News reports: Each variant will be given a name from the Greek alphabet, in a bid to both simplify the public discussion and to strip some of the stigma from the emergence of new variants. A country may be more willing to report it has found a new variant if it knows the new version of the virus will …

NBC News reports: The U.S. has reported the lowest number of Covid-19 cases in more than a year, as the nation’s airports over Memorial Day weekend experienced the largest number of travelers since the pandemic began. The 11,976 new cases reported on May 29 were the lowest since March 23, 2020, when 11,238 new cases were reported, according to data …

The New York Times reports: Immunity to the coronavirus lasts at least a year, possibly a lifetime, improving over time especially after vaccination, according to two new studies. The findings may help put to rest lingering fears that protection against the virus will be short-lived. Together, the studies suggest that most people who have recovered from Covid-19 and who were …

The New York Times reports: The United States now has company on Mars. A Chinese spacecraft descended through the thin Martian atmosphere and landed safely on a large plain on Saturday morning, state media reported, accomplishing a feat that only two other nations had before. The landing follows China’s launch last month of the core module of a new orbiting …

The Hill reports: Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, told OZY’s Carlos Watson that the work done on COVID-19 vaccines could help develop a vaccine for HIV. “I think the success that we’ve had with developing spectacularly successful COVID-19 vaccines might help us with the breakthrough of developing an HIV vaccine,” Fauci told Watson in response to a …

NBC News reports: Debris from a rocket launched by China crashed back to Earth on Sunday, landing in the Indian Ocean, according to China’s space agency, after days of speculation over when or where it could end up. Parts of the Long March 5B rocket re-entered the atmosphere at 10:24 a.m. Beijing time (10:24 p.m. ET), the China Manned Space …

The Washington Post reports: The fight against the coronavirus pandemic has scientists tapping an unlikely resource: the finely tuned olfactory sense of bees. Dutch researchers on Monday said they have trained honeybees to stick out their tongues when presented with the virus’s unique scent, acting as a kind of rapid test. Although it’s a less conventional method than lab tests, …

The Guardian reports: The White House has called for “responsible space behaviours” as a debris from a Chinese rocket, thought to be out of control, is expected to crash back to Earth on Saturday, US time. The US Space Command is tracking debris from the Long March 5B, which last week launched the main module of China’s first permanent space …

NPR reports: A new study estimates that the number of people who have died of COVID-19 in the U.S. is more than 900,000, a number 57% higher than official figures. Worldwide, the study’s authors say, the COVID-19 death count is nearing 7 million, more than double the reported number of 3.24 million. The analysis comes from researchers at the University …

The New York Times reports: In an important step toward medical approval, MDMA, the illegal drug popularly known as Ecstasy or Molly, was shown to bring relief to those suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder when paired with talk therapy. Of the 90 people who took part in the new study, which is expected to be published later this month …

CNN Business reports: A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule soared back from outer space Sunday morning and made a parachute landing in the Gulf of Mexico, returning four astronauts from a record-setting mission to the International Space Station. The astronauts — NASA’s Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, and Soichi Noguchi, an astronaut with Japan’s space agency — had boarded their …

Reuters reports: U.S. space agency NASA has told Elon Musk’s SpaceX to halt work under a contract it won to develop a lunar spacecraft, pending the outcome of challenges by rival bidders at the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the agency said on Friday. NASA’s decision means SpaceX has to stop any work specifically related to the moon program contract until …

Roll Call reports: The National Institutes of Health is preparing to award grants in the next three weeks to researchers studying the long-term effects of COVID-19 and patients experiencing “long COVID.” NIH Director Francis Collins told the Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee that the agency expects laboratory research and imaging studies to be underway by the summer. The agency received …

CBS News reports: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is expected to announce updated guidelines for fully vaccinated Americans as early as Tuesday, according to several administration officials. A federal official tells CBS News that the Biden administration will release new “interim public health recommendations” that will provide guidelines for activities that vaccinated people may resume, including recommendations …

CNBC reports: The second operational SpaceX crew mission arrived at the International Space Station early on Saturday morning, carrying four astronauts for a six month stay in space. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft ‘Endeavour,’ which launched on a Falcon 9 rocket the day before, docked with the ISS at 5:22 a.m. EDT. The capsule carries an international cadre of astronauts: NASA’s …

CNBC reports: SpaceX launched another group of astronauts for NASA early on Friday morning, with Elon Musk’s company now having sent 10 astronauts to space in under a year. The Crew-2 mission, the company’s second operational mission for NASA and its third to date, reached orbit successfully after launching from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 5:49 a.m. EDT. …

The Associated Press reports: A contentious bill that would end Connecticut’s long-standing religious exemption from immunization requirements for schools, beginning with the 2022-23 school year, now awaits action in the state Senate. The legislation passed on a 90-53 vote in the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives just before 3 a.m. on Tuesday, following more than 16 hours of sometimes combative debate. …

The Washington Post reports: NASA successfully flew its four-pound helicopter from the surface of Mars early Monday, the first powered flight of an aircraft on another planet, a feat NASA officials compared to the Wright brothers first flight in 1903. At about 3:30 a.m., the twin, carbon-fiber rotor blades began spinning furiously, and the chopper, called Ingenuity, lifted off the …