Science

The New York Times reports: The Chinese city of Qingdao is testing all of its 9.5 million residents after it recorded the country’s first locally transmitted cases of the virus in almost two months. The authorities said that a dozen people in Qingdao, a seaside city in Shandong Province, had tested positive for the virus as of Sunday. Officials said …

CBS News reports: Americans Harvey J. Alter and Charles M. Rice, and British scientist Michael Houghton were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology on Monday for the discovery of the Hepatitis C virus. The head of the Nobel Committee, Thomas Perlmann, announced the winners in Stockholm. The medicine prize carried particular significance this year due to the coronavirus …

The Associated Press reports: Timothy Ray Brown, who made history as “the Berlin patient,” the first person known to be cured of HIV infection, has died. He was 54. Brown died Tuesday at his home in Palm Springs, California, according to a social media post by his partner, Tim Hoeffgen. The cause was a return of the cancer that originally …

CNBC reports: A majority of the U.S. remains susceptible to a coronavirus infection, Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told lawmakers Wednesday. Covid-19 has spread across America at varying rates, infecting as much as 15% to 20% of the population in some states and less than 1% in others, he said. He said the …

“Decisions to authorize and approve any such vaccine or therapeutic will be made by the dedicated career staff at FDA through our thorough review processes and science will guide our decisions. “FDA will not permit any pressure from anyone to change that. I will fight for science, Mr. Chairman. I will fight for the integrity of the agency, and I …

CBS News reports: If there is life on Venus, it might want to start learning Russian. The boss of Russia’s government space agency has claimed it as a “Russian planet.” The bold territorial claim comes on the heels of scientific research suggesting life could exist on Earth’s celestial neighbor, the second planet from the sun. Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin, who’s …

From the editors of Scientific American: Scientific American has never endorsed a presidential candidate in its 175-year history. This year we are compelled to do so. We do not do this lightly. The evidence and the science show that Donald Trump has badly damaged the U.S. and its people—because he rejects evidence and science. The most devastating example is his …

Reuters reports: Scientists said on Monday they have detected in the harshly acidic clouds of Venus a gas called phosphine that indicates microbes may inhabit Earth’s inhospitable neighbor, a tantalizing sign of potential life beyond Earth. The researchers did not discover actual life forms, but noted that on Earth phosphine is produced by bacteria thriving in oxygen-starved environments. The international …

CNBC reports: Phase three trials for AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine have resumed in the U.K. after they were halted earlier this week over safety concerns, the company announced Saturday. AstraZeneca said it received confirmation from the United Kingdom’s Medicines Health Regulatory Authority that it was safe to resume clinical trials. The company declined to disclose medical information about the pause of …

STAT News reports: A large, Phase 3 study testing a Covid-19 vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford at dozens of sites across the U.S. has been put on hold due to a suspected serious adverse reaction in a participant in the United Kingdom. A spokesperson for AstraZeneca, a frontrunner in the race for a Covid-19 vaccine, …

Courthouse News reports: Researchers in Sweden have identified a small neutralizing antibody that has the capacity to block the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes Covid-19, from entering human cells. In a paper published Friday in Nature Communications, the researchers propose that the nanobody has the potential to be developed as an antiviral treatment. Single-domain antibodies, also known as nanobodies, are fragments …

Reuters reports: The World Health Organization does not expect widespread vaccinations against COVID-19 until the middle of next year, a spokeswoman said on Friday, stressing the importance of rigorous checks on their effectiveness and safety. None of the candidate vaccines in advanced clinical trials so far has demonstrated a “clear signal” of efficacy at the level of at least 50% …

Reuters reports: Moderna said on Wednesday its experimental COVID-19 vaccine induced immune responses in older adults similar to those in younger participants, offering hope that it will be effective in people considered to be at high risk for severe complications from the coronavirus. The analysis looked at subjects given the 100-microgram dose being tested in the much larger Phase III …

The New York Times reports: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated their guidance recently to suggest that people who have recovered from the virus can safely mingle with others for three months. It was a remarkable addition to the body of guidance from the agency, and its first indication that immunity to the virus may persist for at …

CBS News reports: Crew Dragon astronauts Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken enjoyed wakeup messages from their young sons early Sunday before readying their ship for a fiery plunge back to Earth and splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico near Pensacola to close out a 64-day test flight. Hurley and Behnken, launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on May 30, …

The New York Times reports: The final launch of the summer of Mars missions is nearly underway. On Thursday, NASA hopes to send a robotic rover and a small experimental helicopter on a journey of six and a half months to the red planet. It follows two earlier launches by the United Arab Emirates and China. NASA was originally scheduled …

Barron’s Daily reports: A small biotech called Sorrento Therapeutics announced Wednesday that it had licensed a Covid-19 test from Columbia University that, according to a small study, can provide highly accurate results in thirty minutes using only a person’s saliva. In an interview Monday, Sorrento CEO Dr. Henry Ji said that the test could eventually be used to test people …

CNN reports: The first Phase 3 clinical trial of a coronavirus vaccine in the United States began Monday. The investigational vaccine was developed by the biotechnology company Moderna and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health. The trial is to be conducted at nearly 100 US research sites, according to Moderna. The …

Deutsche Welle reports: Researchers in Germany have found that army sniffer dogs can discern between samples from coronavirus-infected and healthy patients. So high is the level of accuracy, they hope this can be used in real-life scenarios. Scientists at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hanover have found that trained sniffer dogs could be used to detect COVID-19 in human samples …

Yahoo Sports reports: The most famous person on the field before Thursday opening night game between the New York Yankees and Washington Nationals wasn’t Aaron Judge, Max Scherzer or Gerrit Cole. It was Dr. Anthony Fauci, the infectious disease expert who has been so prominent in America’s response to the coronavirus. During his time in the public eye, Fauci has …