Science

Space.com reports: Three days after launch, the pallet holding Webb’s huge sunshield — a five-layer structure designed to keep the infrared telescope and its instruments cool — will be lowered. Each of the shield’s five sheets is about the size of a tennis court when fully extended, far too wide to fit inside the payload fairing of any currently operational …

The Washington Post reports: NASA’s revolutionary James Webb Space Telescope is finally in space. The Webb, charged with seeing deeper into the universe than any telescope ever built, blasted off right on time at 7:20 a.m. Saturday from the European Space Agency’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on South America’s northeast coast. At launch, the $10 billion telescope, NASA’s long-delayed …

National Geographic reports: After more than a quarter-century of planning, designing, building, waiting—and of obsessively testing the most complex space observatory ever assembled—the mammoth James Webb Space Telescope is scheduled to launch at 7:20 a.m. eastern time on December 25. For JWST’s mission to succeed, the telescope must execute an intricate series of carefully choreographed maneuvers during its first month …

NBC News reports: “Everyone has stopped talking about getting rid of Covid,” Dr. Elizabeth Halloran, an epidemiologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, said of her fellow researchers. “It’s not going away, and that means it’s going to be endemic.” Most scientists now expect the virus to circulate indefinitely with lower and more predictable case numbers — …

The Verge reports: Astronomers just discovered a treasure trove of “rogue planets” — free-floating planets that don’t orbit a star but exist all by their lonesome in the depths of space. With masses comparable to that of Jupiter, the 70 or more rogue planets spotted throughout the Milky Way galaxy are the largest such group of cosmic nomads ever found. …

The Verge reports: Hyundai-owned Boston Dynamics has released a holiday video featuring its dog-like Spot robot, and it’s turned out as creepy as ever. The video, posted to Twitter, starts innocuously enough — there’s a large present of the type anyone would be happy to see under their tree, sitting in a courtyard. Then, the gift stands up and walks …

Via press release from the FDA: Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Apretude (cabotegravir extended-release injectable suspension) for use in at-risk adults and adolescents weighing at least 35 kilograms (77 pounds) for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to reduce the risk of sexually acquired HIV. Apretude is given first as two initiation injections administered one month apart, and then every …

Roll Call reports: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine advisers voted unanimously Thursday to recommend that the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine take a back seat to Moderna and Pfizer shots, when possible, due to risks of adverse side effects. Serious clotting events, specifically thrombosis with thrombocytopenia, or TTS, are a rare but serious side effect of the Johnson …

New Scientist reports: A region of the Valles Marineris canyon system on Mars, one of the biggest in the solar system, appears to contain large amounts of water locked just beneath the surface, making it potentially useful for future astronauts. This is far from the first time researchers have seen water on Mars, but previous discoveries have been concentrated at …

Via press release from NASA: For the first time in history, a spacecraft has touched the Sun. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has now flown through the Sun’s upper atmosphere – the corona – and sampled particles and magnetic fields there. The new milestone marks one major step for Parker Solar Probe and one giant leap for solar science. Just as …

The New York Times reports: From the start of the pandemic, the coronavirus seemed to target people carrying extra pounds. Patients who were overweight or obese were more likely to develop severe Covid-19 and more likely to die. Though these patients often have health conditions like diabetes that compound their risk, scientists have become increasingly convinced that their vulnerability has …

Science Alert reports: Usage of the medication sildenafil – better known to most as the brand-name drug Viagra – is associated with dramatically reduced incidence of Alzheimer’s disease, new research suggests. According to a study led by researchers at the Cleveland Clinic, taking sildenafil is tied to a nearly 70 percent lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s compared to non-users. That’s …

Axios reports: SpaceX is set to launch a NASA spacecraft on a mission to learn how to change the course of an asteroid in deep space. The mission — called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) — will test the technology needed to redirect a dangerous asteroid if one is ever found on course with Earth. Once in space, DART …

Axios reports: Unvaccinated people are 20 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than fully vaccinated people, per new state research. To determine the effects of COVID-19 vaccination in Texas, researchers at the Department of State Health Services analyzed data from electronic lab reports, death certificates and the state immunization registry. The analysis included a period from Jan. 15 to …

The BBC reports: The human papillomavirus, or HPV, vaccine is cutting cases of cervical cancer by nearly 90%, the first real-world data shows. Cancer Research UK described the findings as “historic”, and said it showed the vaccine was saving lives. Nearly all cervical cancers are caused by viruses, and the hope is vaccination could almost eliminate the disease. The researchers …

USA Today reports: Long-term COVID-19 side effects could include memory loss and other cognitive dysfunctions commonly labeled as “brain fog,” according to a study released that examined 740 patients in the Mount Sinai Health System. The study, which was published Friday in the peer-reviewed medical journal JAMA Network Open, analyzed patients who contracted COVID-19, not people who only received the …

The New York Times reports: Surgeons in New York have successfully attached a kidney grown in a genetically altered pig to a human patient and found that the organ worked normally, a scientific breakthrough that one day may yield a vast new supply of organs for severely ill patients. The transplanted kidney was obtained from a pig genetically engineered to …

Via press release from NASA: NASA’s Lucy mission, the agency’s first to Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids, launched at 5:34 a.m. EDT Saturday on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Over the next 12 years, Lucy will fly by one main-belt asteroid and seven Trojan asteroids, making …

The Hill reports: Unvaccinated people have an 11 times higher risk of dying from COVID-19 than fully vaccinated people, according to new data posted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The data run through August and are from 16 health departments representing about 30 percent of the U.S. population, the CDC said. In addition, the data show that …

The Washington Post reports: The World Health Organization named 26 scientists Wednesday to a new advisory body devoted to understanding the origins of the coronavirus and other future outbreaks, marking a change in approach for the world’s top global health body to one of the most politically sensitive issues of a pandemic that has killed more than 4.8 million people. …