Tag Archives: science

The Wall Street Journal reports: In a handful of fossilized teeth and bones, scientists say they’ve found evidence of a previously unknown human species that lived in what is now the Philippines about 50,000 years ago. The discovery deepens the mystery of an era when the world was a melting pot of many different human kinds on the move. Small-jawed …

The Independent reports: An international scientific team on Wednesday announced a milestone in astrophysics – the first-ever photo of a black hole – using a global network of telescopes to gain insight into celestial objects with gravitational fields so strong no matter or light can escape. The research was conducted by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project, an international collaboration …

The New York Daily News reports: Mayor de Blasio declared a public health emergency over the measles outbreak in Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish community, mandating vaccinations for people living in Williamsburg zip codes to stem the crisis. People found not to be vaccinated could result in fines up to $1000. “There’s no question that vaccines are safe, effective and life-saving,” said …

NBC News reports: Japan’s space agency said an explosive dropped Friday from its Hayabusa 2 spacecraft successfully blasted the surface of an asteroid for the first time to form a crater and pave the way for the collection of underground samples for possible clues to the origin of the solar system. Friday’s mission was the riskiest for Hayabusa 2 because …

The Daily Beast reports: Anti-vaxxers have long used GoFundMe to raise money to spread their dangerous message—but now the site is cutting them off, The Daily Beast has learned. “Campaigns raising money to promote misinformation about vaccines violate GoFundMe’s terms of service and will be removed from the platform,” spokesman Bobby Whithorne told The Daily Beast. Last week, the American …

NBC News Philadelphia reports: As a mumps outbreak continues to grow at Temple University, school health officials said Thursday they will offer free vaccinations to students and staff. At least 86 people are tied to the mumps outbreak at the North Philadelphia university which has some 40,000 students and 4,500 staff members. The Philadelphia health department said Thursday that 16 …

The Louisville Courier-Journal reports: In a move experts say is medically unsound — and can be dangerous — Gov. Matt Bevin said in a radio interview Tuesday that he deliberately exposed all nine of his children to chickenpox so they would catch the disease and become immune. “Every single one of my kids had the chickenpox,” Bevin said in an …

Time Magazine reports: An Italian politician who opposed mandatory childhood vaccinations has been hospitalized with chickenpox. Massimiliano Fedriga, who is part of the far-right League party, was under observation for four days earlier this month after getting chickenpox, according to local news reports. It’s an ironic twist in fate for Fedriga, who opposed the introduction of the so-called Lorenzin law …

The Guardian reports: Sharp and potentially devastating temperature rises of 3C to 5C in the Arctic are now inevitable even if the world succeeds in cutting greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris agreement, research has found. Winter temperatures at the north pole are likely to rise by at least 3C above pre-industrial levels by mid-century, and there could …

USA Today reports: A federal judge today denied issuing a temporary injunction that would have allowed 44 unvaccinated children to go back to class at the Green Meadow Waldorf School, citing Rockland County’s “unprecedented measles outbreak.” “The plaintiffs have not demonstrated that public interest weighs in favor of granting an injunction,” U.S. District Court Judge Vincent Briccetti said in federal …

Yahoo News reports: Anti-vaccination activists, some with their (presumably unvaccinated) children, packed the Dirksen Senate Office Building Tuesday morning for a hearing that they hoped would vindicate, or at least recognize as legitimate, their fear that protecting their families from measles runs the risk of something worse, including autism and other disorders. As the doors closed on the room where …

The New York Times reports: For just the second time since the global epidemic began, a patient appears to have been cured of infection with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. The news comes nearly 12 years to the day after the first patient known to be cured, a feat that researchers have long tried, and failed, to duplicate. The …

The Texas Observer reports: Texas state Representative Bill Zedler doesn’t understand the fuss over the resurgence of infectious diseases. “When I grew up, I had a lot of these illnesses,” he said, listing measles, mumps and chickenpox. “They wanted me to stay at home. But as far as being sick in bed, it wasn’t anything like that,” said Zedler, an …

The Guardian reports: Scepticism about the use of vaccines for children has risen across Europe in line with votes for populists, according to a study, which proposes that public health officials should track populist parties in opinion polls as a proxy signal for vaccine hesitancy. Big surges in the number of measles cases and deaths map to countries where populist …

The Independent reports: NASA’s Opportunity rover is officially dead, the space agency has said, after it disappeared in a dust storm on Mars. Clearly emotional NASA staff, standing in front of a life-sized replica of the rover, said they had not heard back from the rover and that the mission would come to an end. “I am standing here with …

Raw Story reports: Darla Shine, the wife of White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications Bill Shine, went off on an unhinged Twitter rant against vaccinating children on Wednesday. Shine was apparently set off on her Twitter rant by watching a CNN report on a major measles outbreak that has hit the state of Washington, where vaccination rates for …

CNBC reports: The Food and Drug Administration said Monday it sent warning letters to more than a dozen companies the agency said are “illegally selling” products that claim to prevent or cure Alzheimer’s disease. Many of these products, which are often sold on websites and social media platforms, “have not been reviewed by the FDA and are not proven safe …

The Guardian reports: The world’s insects are hurtling down the path to extinction, threatening a “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems,” according to the first global scientific review. More than 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered, the analysis found. The rate of extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles. The total …

Science Daily reports: In a study with significant implications for human organ transplantation, researchers have successfully grown functional mouse kidneys inside rats from just a few donor stem cells. The results of the study, led by researchers from the National Institute for Physiological Sciences in Japan, will be published in an upcoming issue of Nature Communications. For patients with end-stage …

Nature Magazine reports: Something strange is going on at the top of the world. Earth’s north magnetic pole has been skittering away from Canada and towards Siberia, driven by liquid iron sloshing within the planet’s core. The magnetic pole is moving so quickly that it has forced the world’s geomagnetism experts into a rare move. On 15 January, they are …