Science

CNBC reports: Pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson is set to test an experimental HIV vaccine in the U.S. and Europe sometime this year, the company confirmed with CNBC. The experimental J&J vaccine is a mosaic-based preventative immunization that targets various strains of the HIV virus. The company is also conducting a phase 2 clinical trial for the vaccine in Africa, …

Common Dreams reports: On the heels of the EPA’s June approval of a bee-killing pesticide, the White House said it would stop collecting data on declining honey bee populations—potentially making it impossible to analyze the effects of the chemical and the administration’s other anti-science policies on the pollinators. The USDA cited budget cuts when it said Saturday that it would …

ABC News reports: Researchers at Temple University’s School of Medicine and a team at the University of Nebraska Medical Center say they have, for the first time, eliminated the DNA of HIV-1, the virus responsible for AIDS, from the genomes of living animals. The technique involves 2 new technologies: gene editing known as CRISPR and a therapy known as LASER …

The Verge reports: A new mission involving a drone-like lander will explore the surface of Saturn’s moon Titan. The mission — called Dragonfly — received a coveted funding slot from NASA’s New Frontiers program, which funds ambitious missions to explore objects in our Solar System. The Dragonfly mission will send a dual-quadcopter the surface of Titan. It will look like …

The Washington Post reports: Mobile technology has transformed the way we live — how we read, work, communicate, shop and date. But we already know this. What we have not yet grasped is the way the tiny machines in front of us are remolding our skeletons, possibly altering not just the behaviors we exhibit but the bodies we inhabit. New …

The Washington Post reports: A wealthy Manhattan couple has emerged as significant financiers of the anti-vaccine movement, contributing more than $3 million in recent years to groups that stoke fears about immunizations online and at live events — including two forums this year at the epicenter of measles outbreaks in New York’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. Hedge fund manager and philanthropist …

The Guardian reports: Personal interest from Donald Trump appears to have put a controversial antidepressant on a fast track at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) that shoved aside usual protocols, even though experts inside and outside the government have serious concerns the drug is effective and say it may be dangerous. Sources inside the Department of Veterans Affairs say …

CBS New York reports: In response to one of the worst outbreaks of measles in a generation, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has signed off on legislation that now ends religious exemptions for vaccinations in New York. New York state senators passed the bill Thursday evening and the governor quickly signed off on the measure. Since the beginning of June, there have …

The Daily Beast reports: Tuesday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental activist whose recent work has focused increasingly on baseless allegations that vaccines are unsafe and can injure a statistically minuscule population of “medically fragile” children, appeared at the California State Assembly beside an unlikely scene partner: actress Jessica Biel. In a series of Instagram posts, first reported in Jezebel …

Newsweek reports: Scientists have discovered a huge, mysterious mass of material beneath a large crater on the Moon. The mass is five times bigger than Hawaii’s Big Island and is located hundreds of miles beneath the lunar surface. Researchers led by Peter James from Baylor University, Texas, were studying the structure of the South Pole-Aitken Basin. This is an impact …

CBS News reports: University of New Mexico researchers are working on a vaccine they hope could prevent Alzheimer’s disease, UNM’s Health and Sciences Department Associate Professor Kiran Bhaskar, who’s been passionate about studying the disease for the last decade, says the work started with an idea in 2013. Bhaskar and his team started to test the vaccine on mice. It …

ABC News reports: The Trump administration said Wednesday it is ending medical research by government scientists using human fetal tissue, overriding the advice of scientists that there’s no other way to tackle some health problems and handing abortion opponents a major victory. Fetal tissue is used in research on HIV and childhood cancers, treatments that enlist the body’s immune system …

The Hill reports: Republican members of Congress defended Gilead, the leading manufacturer of HIV drugs in the U.S., during a testy hearing Thursday focused on the prices of its products. “I just cannot understand why we are spending time sitting here listening to people lecturing companies about making money. I hope you make a lot of money,” Rep. Chip Roy …

The Associated Press reports: San Francisco is on track to become the first U.S. city to ban the use of facial recognition by police and other city agencies, reflecting a growing backlash against a technology that’s creeping into airports, motor vehicle departments, stores, stadiums and home security cameras. Government agencies around the U.S. have used the technology for more than …

USA Today reports: Authorities in Curacao say 318 people aboard a Church of Scientology ship docked in the Dutch Caribbean island will remain quarantined until they determine how many might be infected with measles. Dr. Izzy Gerstenbluth said that a team of health officials took 277 blood samples and sent them to the Netherlands. He said he expects results on …

The Guardian reports: An end to the AIDS epidemic could be in sight after a landmark study found men whose HIV infection was fully suppressed by anti-retroviral drugs had no chance of infecting their partner. The success of the medicine means that if everyone with HIV were fully treated, there would be no further infections. Among nearly 1,000 male couples …

The Sacramento Bee reports: Hundreds of vaccine-skeptical families crammed into the Capitol on Wednesday afternoon where they battled a bill that would give the state authority over whether children receive medical exemptions for mandatory vaccines. The massive crowd lined up for nearly four hours to oppose Senate Bill 276, authored by state Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, at a hearing in …

The Associated Press reports: U.S. measles cases have climbed to their highest level in 25 years, largely because misinformation is turning parents against vaccines. New York City health officials on Wednesday reported 61 new cases since late last week. According to an Associated Press count, that pushes this year’s national tally past the 667 cases reported for all of 2014. …

Space.com reports: Scientists just felt the Red Planet move under their feet — robotically from millions of miles away, on the stark surface of Mars. On April 6, NASA’s InSight lander sensed its first confirmed marsquake, a phenomenon scientists suspected, but couldn’t confirm, occurred on the neighboring planet. Measuring the Martian equivalent of earthquakes, seismic waves traveling through the interior …

STAT News reports: President Trump’s absence in the national conversation about the measles outbreaks has prompted some debate in the public health community about whether he should be playing a more active role. For some observers, though, the question is not whether public officials should be supporting vaccinations, but rather whether a president who has previously spread false information linking …