Science

The Guardian reports: Nearly 300 academics have applied to a French university’s offer to take in US-based researchers rattled by the American government’s crackdown on academia, as a former French president called for the creation of a “scientific refugee” status for academics in peril. Earlier this year, France’s Aix-Marseille University was among the first in Europe to respond to the …

The New York Times reports: The search for life beyond Earth has led scientists to explore many suggestive mysteries, from plumes of methane on Mars to clouds of phosphine gas on Venus. But as far as we can tell, Earth’s inhabitants remain alone in the cosmos. Now a team of researchers is offering what it contends is the strongest indication …

NBC News reports: Dr. David Sugerman, a senior scientist leading the CDC’s measles response, said Tuesday at a meeting of the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee that more than 90% of the cases are “related to the Southwest outbreak, driven by transmission in close-knit, undervaccinated communities.” “We do believe that there’s quite a large amount of cases that are not reported …

STAT News reports: With bare-bones procurement departments to rely on and administrative staff axed, lab leaders at the National Institutes of Health are scrambling to buy food for the animals kept in their facilities. Some scientists have been hoarding and rationing the reagents that they have stockpiled. Because of imposed restrictions, for months they haven’t been able to purchase supplies …

Ars Technica reports: European tourists who toted home bottles of water from a holy well in Ethiopia were likely hoping for blessings and spiritual cleansing—but instead carried an infectious curse and got an intestinal power cleanse. Three people in Germany and four in the UK fell ill with cholera after directly drinking or splashing their faces with the holy water. …

ABC News reports: Six women, including pop star Katy Perry, are scheduled to be launched into space for about 11 minutes on Monday on a Blue Origin rocket, a lift-off that would mark the first all-female spaceflight since 1963, according to the company. The window for the latest New Shepard rocket launch is expected to open on Monday morning at …

Politico reports: The federal teams that count public health problems are disappearing — putting efforts to solve those problems in jeopardy. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s purge of tens of thousands of federal workers has halted efforts to collect data on everything from cancer rates in firefighters to mother-to-baby transmission of HIV and syphilis to outbreaks of drug-resistant gonorrhea …

The Associated Press reports: NASA’s science budget could be cut nearly in half under an early version of President Donald Trump’s budget proposal to Congress, a move that would terminate billions of dollars’ worth of ongoing and future missions. The budget plan, sent to NASA by the Office of Management and Budget, would give NASA’s Science Mission Directorate $3.9 billion, …

USA Today reports: Four-legged creatures known as dire wolves who were prominent in HBO’s “Game of Thrones” series no longer belong solely to the realm of fantasy. Colossal Biosciences, the genetic engineering company working to bring back a few different extinct animals, announced this week the successful resurrection of the Ice Age-era species. The recent birth of three dire wolf …

The Associated Press reports: Shortly before he was forced to resign, the nation’s top vaccine regulator says he refused to grant Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s team unrestricted access to a tightly held vaccine safety database, fearing that the information might be manipulated or even deleted. In an interview with The Associated Press, former Food and Drug Administration vaccine …

The New York Times reports: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s health secretary, attended the funeral on Sunday of an 8-year-old girl who died of measles amid an outbreak that has burned through the region and called into question his ability to handle a public-health crisis. The child’s death, in a hospital in Lubbock, Texas, early Thursday morning, is the …

NBC News reports: Another child with measles in Texas has died, the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed late Saturday night, though the exact cause of death is under investigation. This would be the second pediatric death amid a fast-growing outbreak that’s infected nearly 500 people in Texas alone since January. An adult in New Mexico is also suspected …

NBC News reports: Six young children at a Lubbock, Texas, day care center have tested positive for measles — a dreaded scenario with the potential to accelerate an already out-of-control outbreak that has spread to at least two other states. More than a dozen other states and Washington, D.C. are dealing with cases of measles unrelated to Texas. On Friday, …

Reuters reports: The Trump administration’s mass firings at the FDA have removed employees critical to reviewing new medicines, setting back years of effort to bring promising treatments to patients more quickly, former and current FDA sources told Reuters. The FDA is slated to lose 3,500 employees under HHS Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s massive restructuring of U.S. health agencies that is …

NPR reports: Teams that fulfilled requests for government documents lost their jobs on Tuesday as part of the Trump administration’s 10,000-person staff cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services. Their work, mandated by Congress since the 1960s under the Freedom of Information Act or FOIA, gives the public a view of the inner workings of federal health agencies. …

The Associated Press reports: A vaccine to fight dementia? It turns out there may already be one – shots that prevent painful shingles also appear to protect aging brains. A new study found shingles vaccination cut older adults’ risk of developing dementia over the next seven years by 20%. The research, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, is part of …

The Associated Press reports: Employees across the massive U.S. Health and Human Services Department began receiving notices of dismissal on Tuesday in an overhaul ultimately expected to lay off up to 10,000 people. The notices come just days after President Donald Trump moved to strip workers of their collective bargaining rights at HHS and other agencies throughout the government. Health …

The Texas Tribune reports: The number of measles cases has risen to 400, a spike of 73 cases over the last three days, as the historical outbreak continues to rage on in West Texas, according to state officials on Friday. Of those, 41 patients have been hospitalized. State officials have been releasing updated measles numbers every Tuesday and Friday. The …

CBS News reports: The entire staff of the federal government’s Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy is expected to be laid off, multiple federal health officials told CBS News Friday. The moves are part of a broader restructuring plan ordered by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that involves cutting 20,000 HHS positions. Much of the …

Nature reports: The massive changes in US research brought about by the new administration of President Donald Trump are causing many scientists in the country to rethink their lives and careers. More than 1,200 scientists who responded to a Nature poll — three-quarters of the total respondents — are considering leaving the United States following the disruptions prompted by Trump. …