Tag Archives: science

NASA Launches Tracker For Saturday’s Solar Eclipse

Space.com reports: A spectacular annular solar eclipse will grace the Americas on Oct. 14 and you can track it down to the exact second with NASA’s 2023 Eclipse Explorer. The Eclipse Explorer’s interactive map details when and where the eclipse will be visible, including the path and duration of annularity (the areas from which the ‘ring of fire’ can be …

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Newsom Vetoes Bill To Decriminalize Magic Mushrooms

The Associated Press reports: California Gov. Gavin Newsom has vetoed a bill aimed at decriminalizing the possession and personal use of several hallucinogens, including psychedelic mushrooms. The legislation vetoed Saturday would have allowed those 21 and older to possess psilocybin, the hallucinogenic component in what’s known as psychedelic mushrooms. “California should immediately begin work to set up regulated treatment guidelines …

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COVID Vaccine Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize

The New York Times reports: Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, who together identified a chemical tweak to messenger RNA that laid the foundation for vaccines against Covid-19 that have since been administered billions of times globally, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday. Together, Dr. Karikó and Dr. Weissman, who met over a copy machine at …

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POLL: 46% Of Adults Plan To Get New COVID Booster

ABC News reports: Nearly half of all adults in the United States plan to get the newly recommended COVID-19 vaccine, according to results from a survey released Wednesday. The latest poll conducted by the KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor found that 23% of U.S. adults say they will “definitely” get the updated booster, 23% say they will “probably” get it, while …

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Diagnostic Testing For Long COVID May Come Soon

NBC News reports: More than three years into the pandemic, the millions of people who have suffered from long Covid finally have scientific proof that their condition is real. Scientists have found clear differences in the blood of people with long Covid — a key first step in the development of a test to diagnose the illness. The findings, published …

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NASA Mission Returns With Asteroid Sample [VIDEO]

The New York Times reports: A brown-and-white capsule that spent the last seven years swooping through the solar system — and sojourning at an asteroid — has finally come home. And it has brought a cosmic souvenir: a cache of space rock that scientists are hungry to get their hands on. On Sunday morning, those scientists waited eagerly as the …

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Musk’s Neuralink Seeks Volunteers For Brain Implants

Ars Technica reports: After years of delays, regulatory rejections, and allegations of animal abuse, Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface company, Neuralink, is now recruiting its first human volunteers to have an experimental robot implant an experimental device directly into their brains. In a blog post Tuesday, the company announced that an independent institutional review board and an unnamed hospital site granted …

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Sunday: NASA Asteroid Lander To Return With Samples

ABC News reports: An asteroid NASA’s been tracking for nearly 25 years could impact Earth in the future, a new report reveals. First discovered in 1999, Bennu, the near-Earth asteroid, could possibly drift into the planet’s orbit and could hit the planet by September 2182, according to the OSIRIS-REx science team. Bennu passes near Earth every six years and has …

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COVID Infections Surpass 2020’s First Pandemic Peak

Fortune reports: U.S. COVID infections are hovering near levels of the pandemic’s first peak in 2020, and approaching the Delta peak of late 2021, according to wastewater surveillance and modeling by forecasters. Viral wastewater levels are not far behind all of the pandemic’s 2020 peaks except for one—the initial peak of March 2020, which they’ve already surpassed. And they lag …

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FDA Advisors: Popular Oral Decongestants Don’t Work

The Associated Press reports: The leading decongestant used by millions of Americans looking for relief from a stuffy nose is likely no better than a dummy pill, according to government experts who reviewed the latest research on the long-questioned drug ingredient. Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration voted unanimously on Tuesday against the effectiveness of the ingredient found in …

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Anti-Vaxxers Claim Vaccines Cause “Canine Autism”

IFL Science reports: A new study has found that dog owners in the US have become increasingly skeptical of vaccinating their canine companions. Researchers found that 30 percent of the 2,200 dog owners surveyed believed that canine vaccines were medically unnecessary and more than 20 percent believed that they were ineffective. Nearly 40 percent believed dog vaccinations to be unsafe, …

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Study: Single Mushroom Dose Greatly Eases Depression

Bloomberg News reports: A single dose of psilocybin can lead to a “rapid, robust, and sustained reduction” in symptoms of severe depression when taken in conjunction with psychotherapy, according to a new study. Patients across the US were given either a 25mg dose of the drug, found in magic mushrooms, or a B vitamin, before spending between seven and 10 …

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CDC Warns Of Spike In COVID-Related Hospitalizations

CBS News reports: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now forecasting an acceleration in new COVID-19 hospitalizations over the coming month, the agency said this week, replacing a previous projection that admissions would “remain stable or have an uncertain trend.” It comes as health officials are racing to study a new highly mutated COVID variant called BA.2.86, nicknamed …

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India Becomes Fourth Nation To Land On The Moon

NBC News reports: India made history on Wednesday by becoming the first country to reach the lunar south pole. NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the moon, intends to land its Artemis III mission in the south polar region in 2025. An uncrewed robotic moon lander, operated by India’s space agency and known as the Chandrayaan-3, touched …

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STUDY: Long COVID Symptoms Can Linger For Years

The Washington Post reports: People who endured even mild cases of covid-19 are at heightened risk two years later for lung problems, fatigue, diabetes and certain other health problems typical of long covid, according to a new study that casts fresh light on the virus’s true toll. The analysis, published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine, is believed to be …

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CDC Warns Of New “Highly-Mutated” COVID Variant

CBS News reports: The CDC announced Thursday it is tracking a recently discovered COVID-19 strain, BA.2.86, after a case of the highly-mutated variant was discovered in Michigan. “Today we are more prepared than ever to detect and respond to changes in the COVID-19 virus. Scientists are working now to understand more about the newly identified lineage in these cases and …

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Updated COVID Vaccine To Be Available Next Month

Reuters reports: A new COVID vaccine is due out next month, but health experts and analysts say it is likely to be coolly received even as hospitalizations from “Eris”, a variant of the Omicron form of the coronavirus, rise around the country. Some public health experts hope that Americans will welcome the new shot as they would a flu jab. …

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Red Cross Lifts Ban On Blood Donations By Gay Men

Axios reports: More gay and bisexual men will be able to donate blood beginning Monday as the Red Cross starts implementing a historic rule change approved by federal authorities earlier this year. It helps close the chapter on the Food and Drug Administration’s blood donor restrictions for men who have sex with men, which had been denounced as discriminatory by …

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CDC Issues Warning On Rise In Florida Leprosy Cases

The Hill reports: Health officials say that cases of leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease, are surging in Central Florida. In a news release Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that Central Florida has accounted for 81 percent of reported cases in the state and almost one-fifth of reported cases nationwide. Authorities said that several cases …

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CDC To Issue Guidance On Preventive Med For STDs

The Washington Post reports: Public health officials are deploying a powerful new weapon in the war against rising sexually transmitted infections: a common antibiotic that works as a morning-after pill. It is the latest advancement as the sexual health field shifts to preventive medicine — not just condoms, abstinence and tests — as the best hope for quashing the pathogens …

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