Tag Archives: science

The Guardian reports: The worldwide surge in deadly measles outbreaks is showing no sign of abating, with nearly 10 million cases and 142,000 deaths last year, according to new estimates, and three times more cases reported so far this year than at the same stage in 2018. Most of those dying are small children, and thousands more suffer harm including …

The New York Times reports: About 80,000 babies and toddlers die of AIDS each year, mostly in Africa, in part because their medicines come in hard pills or bitter syrups that are very difficult for small children to swallow or keep down. But on Friday, the Indian generic drug manufacturer Cipla announced a new, more palatable pediatric formulation. The new …

From the American Medical Association: AMA supports state and federal bans on conversion therapy The AMA will develop model state legislation and advocate for federal legislation to ban so-called reparative or conversion therapy for sexual orientation or gender identity. The support for legislative bans strengthens AMA’s long-standing opposition to this unscientific practice. The AMA heard testimony, including first-hand accounts, regarding …

USA Today reports: Drug-resistant “superbugs” infect 2.8 million people and cause more than 35,000 deaths each year, underscoring the enormous public health threat of germs in what one official describes as a “post-antibiotic era,” according to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. The report, which analyzes electronic health records and other data, shows an infection every 11 …

Courthouse News reports: Scientists around the world – 11,000 of them from 153 nations – have declared a state of climate emergency, calling on the world to make urgent and meaningful changes to avoid serious and unknown consequences. The scientists made their declaration Tuesday in the journal Bioscience, on the 40th anniversary of the first world climate conference held in …

Reuters reports: In many U.S. cities, tanning salons appear to cluster in neighborhoods where more gay and bisexual men live, according to a study that suggests this might be one reason for higher skin cancer rates among sexual minority men. The odds of living near a tanning salon were twice as high in areas where at least 10% of households …

The Washington Post reports: NASA made history Friday morning when astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir stepped outside the International Space Station to replace a faulty battery charger. The all-female spacewalk — the first of its kind “in human history,” the agency said — began at 7:38 a.m. Eastern time as the two American astronauts set their suits to battery …

Fascinating deep dive from the New York Times: Though the situation may seem improbable to some, anti-vaccine sentiment has been building for decades, a byproduct of an internet humming with rumor and misinformation; the backlash against Big Pharma; an infatuation with celebrities that gives special credence to the anti-immunization statements from actors like Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey and Alicia Silverstone, …

The New York Times reports: How do genes influence our sexuality? The question has long been fraught with controversy. An ambitious new study — the largest ever to analyze the genetics of same-sex sexual behavior — found that genetics does play a role, responsible for perhaps a third of the influence on whether someone has same-sex sex. The influence comes …

The Guardian reports: Ebola can no longer be called an incurable disease, scientists have said, after two of four drugs being trialled in the major outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were found to have significantly reduced the death rate. ZMapp, used during the massive Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, has been dropped along with …

The Washington Post reports: Alan Duffy was confused. On Thursday, the astronomer’s phone was suddenly flooded with calls from reporters wanting to know about a large asteroid that had just whizzed past Earth, and he couldn’t figure out “why everyone was so alarmed.” “I thought everyone was getting worried about something we knew was coming,” Duffy, who is lead scientist …

An important update to official CDC guidelines: For HIV-positive MSM, taking ART regularly greatly reduces the risk of HIV transmission to a negative partner. For persons who achieve and maintain viral suppression, there is effectively no risk of transmitting HIV to their HIV-negative sexual partner. This translates to an effectiveness estimate of 100% for taking ART regularly as prescribed and …

Science Magazine reports: A March news release from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) touted a new study that could be useful for infrastructure planning along the California coastline. At least that’s how President Donald Trump’s administration conveyed it. An earlier draft of the news release, written by researchers, was sanitized by Trump administration officials, who removed references to the dire …

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 Associated Press reports: As Democratic presidential hopefuls prepare for their first 2020 primary debate this week, 74 medical and public health groups aligned on Monday to push for a series of consensus commitments to combat climate change, bluntly defined by the organizations as “a health emergency.” The new climate change agenda released by the groups, including the American Medical …

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 …

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 …