Science

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. …

Nature reports: The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have begun cancelling billions of dollars in funding on research related to the COVID-19 pandemic. SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has killed more than 7 million people globally, including more than 1.2 million people in the United States, and continues to infect …

The Washington Post reports: A vaccine skeptic who has long promoted false claims about the connection between immunizations and autism has been tapped by the federal government to conduct a critical study of possible links between the two, according to current and former federal health officials. The Department of Health and Human Services has hired David Geier to conduct the …

CBS News reports: President Trump has decided to pick Dr. Susan Monarez to be the new nominee to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, sources familiar with the decision tell CBS News, making permanent the acting role she has served at the public health agency in recent months. Monarez would be named in place of Dr. David Weldon, …

The Texas Tribune reports: The number of measles cases has risen to 309 as the historical outbreak continues to rage on in West Texas and three new counties report infections, according to state officials on Friday. Of those, 40 patients are hospitalized. As of Friday, most of the measles cases –– 211 –– were centered in Gaines County, about 90 …

Space.com reports: SpaceX is poised to land its Crew Dragon Freedom from the International Space Station with the two crewmates who launched on it and two astronauts who arrived at the space station last June on Boeing’s Starliner, which landed uncrewed without them. SpaceX’s Crew-9 is scheduled to splash down on Tuesday (March 18) at about 5:57 p.m. EDT (2157 …

Health News reports: National Institutes of Health officials have urged scientists to remove all references to mRNA vaccine technology from their grant applications, two researchers said, in a move that signaled the agency might abandon a promising field of medical research. The mRNA technology is under study at the NIH for prevention and treatment of infectious diseases, including flu and …

NPR reports: Four astronauts are scheduled to make a trip to the International Space Station later this evening. NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers will launch to the station aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule. Also on board is Takuya Onishi, an astronaut with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov. This is the second attempt to …

MedPage reports: Measles outbreaks in West Texas and New Mexico are now up to nearly 300 cases, and two unvaccinated people have died from measles-related causes. Texas state health officials said Friday there were 36 new cases of measles since Tuesday, bringing Texas’ total to 259. Five more people were hospitalized, for a total of 34. The outbreak has spread …