Science

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 …

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 …

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 …

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) …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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. …

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 …

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?” …

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 …

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 …

For your nightmares. Extreme Tech reports: As the Cold War ramped up, the US detonated hundreds of nuclear weapons in the South Pacific and American Southwest as it built ever more powerful bombs. Every single test was filmed, often from many different angles. The government contracted AT&T to film the tests and analyze the images. However, the accuracy of measurements …

From the Consumer Reports company blog: In our recent CR Consumer Voices survey, 65 percent of Americans told us they are either slightly or not at all confident that their personal data is private and not distributed without their knowledge. We think it’s unfair and unrealistic to expect consumers to constantly play defense when the products and services they use …

The Washington Post reports: The Trump administration is seeking to slash the budget of one of the government’s premier climate science agencies by 17 percent, delivering steep cuts to research funding and satellite programs, according to a four-page budget memo obtained by The Washington Post. The proposed cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would also eliminate funding for …

CBS News reports: How much chicken is actually in your chicken sandwich? A study by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s consumer affairs show “Marketplace” says researchers conducted DNA tests on several chicken sandwiches from fast-food restaurants and found that Subway’s chicken breast contained only about half chicken. The rest was mostly soy. Subway said Tuesday the report was “absolutely false and …

Gizmodo reports: Well, here’s a bit of space news we weren’t expecting: Today, future Martian overlord and SpaceX founder Elon Musk announced that in 2018, the company will fly two private citizens around the Moon in its Dragon 2 spacecraft, carried by its extremely powerful Falcon Heavy rocket. While the voyagers’ names have not been disclosed, according to SpaceX, a …

NBC reports: Astronomers from NASA and the European Southern Observatory announced Wednesday that four new Earth-sized exoplanets have been discovered orbiting a star about 40 light-years away, and that three may contain liquid water and be able to sustain life. This star’s small grouping of planets now boasts the most Earth-sized worlds of any system astronomers have discovered, and the …

ABC News reports: We’re taught in elementary school that there are seven continents on Earth — Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America. But geography textbooks across the world might have to add one more to that list — Zealandia. Zealandia is a continent that is 94 percent submerged underwater, which is why it took so long …

Buzzfeed reports: The US Department of Agriculture has banned scientists and other employees in its main research division from publicly sharing everything from the summaries of scientific papers to USDA-branded tweets as it starts to adjust to life under the Trump administration, BuzzFeed News has learned. According to an email sent Monday morning and obtained by BuzzFeed News, the department …