Tag Archives: science

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 …

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 …

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 …

The New York Times reports: In a study that raises profound questions about the line between life and death, researchers have restored some cellular activity to brains removed from slaughtered pigs. The brains did not regain anything resembling consciousness: There were no signs indicating coordinated electrical signaling, necessary for higher functions like awareness and intelligence. But in an experimental treatment, …