Science

Vaccine Shows Promise Against Gonorrhea

The BBC reports: A vaccine has for the first time been shown to protect against the sexually transmitted infection gonorrhoea, scientists in New Zealand say. There are fears gonorrhoea is becoming untreatable as antibiotics fail. The World Health Organization sees developing a vaccine as vital in stopping the global spread of “super-gonorrhoea”. The study of 15,000 young people, published in …

Read More »

TONIGHT: NASA Craft Flies Over Jupiter’s Red Spot

NPR reports: Scientists are about to get an up-close and personal look at the planet Jupiter’s most famous landmark, the Great Red Spot. NASA’s Juno spacecraft will be directly over the spot shortly after 10 p.m. ET Monday, July 10, about 5,600 miles above the gas giant’s cloud tops. That’s closer than any spacecraft has been before. The spot is …

Read More »

World Trade Center Goes Green In Defiance Of Trump

Trump is being trolled worldwide: Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered two New York City landmarks – the World Trade Center and the Kosciuszko Bridge – to be lit in green Thursday night to express the state’s support for the Paris accord. “The White House’s reckless decision to withdraw from the Paris Accord has devastating repercussions not only for the United States, …

Read More »

Study Ranks Mushrooms As Safest Recreational Drug

The Guardian reports: Mushrooms are the safest of all the drugs people take recreationally, according to this year’s Global Drug Survey. Of the more than 12,000 people who reported taking psilocybin hallucinogenic mushrooms in 2016, just 0.2% of them said they needed emergency medical treatment – a rate at least five times lower than that for MDMA, LSD and cocaine. …

Read More »

Creationist Seeks To Prove Grand Canyon Formed By Noah’s Flood, Sues Park For Religious Discrimination

The Atlantic reports: “How did the Grand Canyon form?” is a question so commonly pondered that YouTube is rife with explanations. Go down into the long tail of Grand Canyon videos, and you’ll eventually find at a two-part, 35-minute lecture by Andrew Snelling. The first sign this isn’t a typical geology lecture comes comes about a minute in, when Snelling …

Read More »

STUDY: Life Expectancy Now Near Normal For Young HIV Patients On The Latest Antiretroviral Therapies

CNN reports: The latest treatments for HIV mean that young people living with the virus could live up to a decade longer, a new study says. The paper, published Wednesday, found that 20-year-olds who started with antiretroviral therapy in 2010 are predicted to live up to 10 years longer than those who first underwent similar treatment in 1996 — when …

Read More »

LETTER: Dozens Of Right Wing Groups Pressure Trump To Abandon The Paris Climate Change Agreement

The Washington Examiner reports: More than three dozen conservative and free-market groups pressed President Trump on Monday to exit from the Paris climate change agreement and not renege on the promise he made during his campaign. “The undersigned organizations believe that withdrawing completely from Paris is a key part of your plan to protect U.S. energy producers and manufacturers from …

Read More »

Scientists Claim Baldness Cure Breakthrough

The Telegraph reports: A cream or ointment may soon cure baldness or stop hair turning grey, a new study suggests. The cells that makes hairs and turns it grey was accidentally discovered by US scientists as they explored how certain cancer tumors form. The breakthrough could one day identify possible treatments for balding and hair greying and also explain why …

Read More »

REPORT: Trump Wants A “Vaccine Safety Commission”

Politico reports: President Donald Trump remains committed to investigating a link between vaccines and autism, and his staff are still in contact with environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about leading a “vaccine safety commission” to investigate the issue, Kennedy told reporters Wednesday. Kennedy, in his first comments on the proposed commission since meeting with Trump on Jan. 10, said he …

Read More »

Researchers Advance Gene-Editing Attack On HIV

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports: Temple University researchers on Monday said they had used a gene-editing technique to snip out HIV DNA from the genetic code of mice, bolstering the hope that the infection can be cured. The work, done with University of Pittsburgh scientists and published in the journal Molecular Therapy, builds on several years of Temple experiments that initially …

Read More »

China And European Space Agency Hold Talks On Collaborating To Establish Inhabited “Moon Village”

The Associated Press reports: Representatives of China and the European Space Agency are discussing potential collaboration on a human outpost on the moon and other possible joint endeavors, according to a spokesman for the European agency and Chinese media reports. The secretary general for China’s space agency, Tian Yulong, first disclosed the talks about the envisioned lunar base in Chinese …

Read More »

NASA’s Cassini Dives Between Saturn’s Rings [VIDEO]

Scientific American reports: Running low on fuel, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has begun the final — and most daring — phase of its epic mission to Saturn. After using a final flyby of the moon Titan on Friday to boost its speed, Cassini was flung by the moon’s gravity to a trajectory that sent it diving through the 1,200-mile (1,930 kilometers) …

Read More »

Scientists Grow Premature Lambs In Artificial Wombs That May Save Premature Human Babies [VIDEO]

The Associated Press reports: Researchers are creating an artificial womb to improve care for extremely premature babies — and remarkable animal testing suggests the first-of-its-kind watery incubation so closely mimics mom that it just might work. Today, premature infants weighing as little as a pound are hooked to ventilators and other machines inside incubators. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia is aiming …

Read More »

March Of The Penguins…For Science [VIDEO]

You’ll enjoy this: In honor of Earth Day and the March for Science, the Monterey Bay Aquarium held it’s own mini Science March with several of its African penguins. The aquarium dubbed its livestream the “March of the Penguins for Science,” and it included their African penguins taking an “enrichment walk” through the Kelp Forest gallery. Onlookers held signs for …

Read More »

Trump Fires Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Known For Labeling Gun Violence As Threat To Public Health

The New York Daily News reports: Continuing its federal shakeups, the Trump administration dismissed Obama-appointed U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on Friday. Murthy was relieved of his duties effective immediately, and his position will be temporarily filled by Deputy Surgeon General Sylvia Trent-Adams as the White House looks for a replacement, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said …

Read More »

LIVE VIDEO: The DC March For Science

The Washington Post reports: Earth Day has arrived, and so has the March for Science — a global event on six continents (and cheered on by scientists on a seventh, Antarctica). Tens of thousands of people are expected to gather this morning on the grounds of the Washington Monument. The first wave came through the security checkpoints at 8 a.m. …

Read More »

Breakthrough Sieve Removes Salt From Seawater

The BBC reports: A UK-based team of researchers has created a graphene-based sieve capable of removing salt from seawater. The sought-after development could aid the millions of people without ready access to clean drinking water. The promising graphene oxide sieve could be highly efficient at filtering salts, and will now be tested against existing desalination membranes. It has previously been …

Read More »

EPA Chief Continues Climate Change Denials, Claims States Will Pick Up Slack From Gutted Budget [VIDEO]

Raw Story reports: EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt faced a grilling from Fox News host Chris Wallace on Sunday over his climate change denials and plans to do away with scores of environmental regulations. “You think that rewriting and, in fact, doing away with the clean power plan is going to improve air quality, which you say is a major goal?” …

Read More »

US House Votes To Curtail EPA’s Use Of Science

The Hill reports: The House voted Wednesday to restrict the kind of scientific studies and data that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can use to justify new regulations. The Honest and Open New EPA Science Treatment Act, or HONEST Act, passed 228-194. It would prohibit the EPA from writing any regulation that uses science that is not publicly available. It’s …

Read More »

White House Floats Massive Cuts To HIV/AIDS Programs

Bloomberg reports: President Donald Trump’s administration has proposed cutting $1.23 billion this fiscal year from research funded by the National Institutes of Health, according to a White House document sent to congressional appropriators. The reduction is part of $18 billion in cuts that the administration wants in fiscal 2017, which ends in October. Most of the proposed reductions at NIH …

Read More »