Science

The Associated Press reports: Ivanka Trump has received her first COVID-19 shot and is encouraging others to get vaccinated as quickly as they can. She received the Pfizer vaccine in Florida, where individuals age 16 and older are eligible to be vaccinated. She was eligible to get vaccinated along with other White House staff when she worked as a senior …

The Associated Press reports: In a rare admission of the weakness of Chinese coronavirus vaccines, the country’s top disease control official says their effectiveness is low and the government is considering mixing them to get a boost. Chinese vaccines “don’t have very high protection rates,” said the director of the China Centers for Disease Control, Gao Fu, at a conference …

CNN reports: The ongoing Phase 3 clinical trial of Pfizer/BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine confirms its protection remains high for at least six months after the second dose, the companies said Thursday. Protection likely lasts even longer than that, vaccine experts say, but they say having data showing good protection six months after people were vaccinated is good news. The vaccine remains …

The New York Times reports: The Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine is extremely effective in adolescents 12 to 15 years old, perhaps even more so than in adults, the companies reported on Wednesday. No infections were found among children who received the vaccine in a recent clinical trial, the drug makers said; the children produced strong antibody responses and experienced no serious …

STAT News reports: A new study suggests the messenger RNA vaccines produced by Moderna and the Pfizer-BioNTech partnership appeared to be 90% effective in preventing Covid-19 infection in a real-world setting. The study was released Monday in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, an online journal published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The vaccine effectiveness following two doses …

The Associated Press reports: A joint WHO-China study on the origins of Covid-19 says that transmission of the virus from bats to humans through another animal is the most likely scenario and that a lab leak is “extremely unlikely,” according to a draft copy obtained by The Associated Press. The findings offer little new insight into how the virus began …

Politico reports: The U.S. death rate increased by 15 percent last year as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, making it the deadliest year in recorded U.S. history, the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention will announce, according to two senior administration officials with direct knowledge of the matter. The agency will summarize its findings in an upcoming issue of …

CNBC reports: Hawaii took the top spot for the state with the highest average life expectancy at 81 years. The Aloha state was followed by California, New York, Minnesota, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Washington, Colorado, New Jersey and Rhode Island to round out the top ten states where you’ll live the longest. West Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, South …

The Associated Press reports: The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History has acquired the vial that contained the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine administered in the United States as part of its plans to document the global pandemic and “this extraordinary period we were going through.” The acquisition, along with other materials related to that first vaccine dose, was announced …

The Independent reports: The coronavirus vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech was able to combat a new variant that was rapidly circulating in Brazil, a new study has found. The research published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that the engineered version of the virus, containing the same mutation carried on the spike protein as the highly contagious …

Reuters reports: NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance has taken its first, short drive on the surface of the red planet, two weeks after the robot science lab’s picture-perfect touchdown on the floor of a massive crater, mission managers said on Friday. The six-wheeled, car-sized astrobiology probe put a total of 6.5 meters (21.3 feet) on its odometer on Thursday during a …

Changing America reports: A prototype of SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft that the private rocket company is hoping to one day send to the moon and Mars successfully landed for the first time following a high-altitude flight test on Wednesday. Several minutes later, the stainless steel rocket ship was destroyed in a fiery explosion on the landing pad. Despite the explosion, the …

Reuters reports: Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease official, said on Sunday he would take the newly approved Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, as he encouraged Americans to accept any of the three approved shots. “All three of them are really quite good, and people should take the one that’s most available to them. If you go to …

The Associated Press reports: February is usually the peak of flu season, with doctors’ offices and hospitals packed with suffering patients. But not this year. Flu has virtually disappeared from the U.S., with reports coming in at far lower levels than anything seen in decades. Experts say that measures put in place to fend off the coronavirus — mask wearing, …

The New York Daily News reports: People who wear glasses could be up to three times less likely to get coronavirus, according to a new study conducted in India. The preliminary study suggests that glass-wearers may have the extra protection because they tend to touch their eyes less frequently than most people. “Touching and rubbing of the eyes with contaminated …

CNN reports: The Ingenuity helicopter, sidekick and traveling companion of NASA’s Perseverance rover, has checked in with a good report and is “operating as expected,” according to the agency. If successful, Ingenuity will be the first helicopter to fly on another planet, leading to an “extraterrestrial Wright Brothers moment,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. The …

NBC News reports: Scientists have cloned the first U.S. endangered species, a black-footed ferret duplicated from the genes of an animal that died over 30 years ago. The slinky predator named Elizabeth Ann, born Dec. 10 and announced Thursday, is cute as a button. Cloning eventually could bring back extinct species such as the passenger pigeon. For now, the technique …

NBC News reports: The car-size rover, which launched in July 2020, is aiming to touch down on Mars on Thursday. If successful, Perseverance will become NASA’s fifth rover to land on the red planet and will kick off the agency’s most ambitious mission yet to examine whether life ever existed on Mars. Like its predecessor, Curiosity, the Perseverance rover’s descent …

The Associated Press reports: Life expectancy in the United States dropped a staggering one year during the first half of 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic caused its first wave of deaths, health officials are reporting. Minorities suffered the biggest impact, with Black Americans losing nearly three years and Hispanics, nearly two years, according to preliminary estimates Thursday from the Centers …

The Observer reports: Astroscale is a space sustainability company headquartered in Tokyo that is committed to creating solutions for removing potentially dangerous space junk. As space tourism missions to the ISS (International Space Station) become more prevalent, even more attention will have to be paid to orbital highways to ensure their maintenance and cleanliness. It’s more than a courtesy, it’s …