Tag Archives: science

CNN Business reports: A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule soared back from outer space Sunday morning and made a parachute landing in the Gulf of Mexico, returning four astronauts from a record-setting mission to the International Space Station. The astronauts — NASA’s Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, and Soichi Noguchi, an astronaut with Japan’s space agency — had boarded their …

Roll Call reports: The National Institutes of Health is preparing to award grants in the next three weeks to researchers studying the long-term effects of COVID-19 and patients experiencing “long COVID.” NIH Director Francis Collins told the Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee that the agency expects laboratory research and imaging studies to be underway by the summer. The agency received …

CNBC reports: SpaceX launched another group of astronauts for NASA early on Friday morning, with Elon Musk’s company now having sent 10 astronauts to space in under a year. The Crew-2 mission, the company’s second operational mission for NASA and its third to date, reached orbit successfully after launching from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 5:49 a.m. EDT. …

Axios reports: All 50 U.S. states, plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, have now made U.S. adults over the age of 16 eligible for COVID-19 vaccines, meeting President Biden’s April 19 deadline. The landmark speaks to the increased pace of the national vaccination campaign, but will increase pressure on the federal government, states and pharmaceutical companies to provide adequate vaccine …

The Washington Post reports: NASA successfully flew its four-pound helicopter from the surface of Mars early Monday, the first powered flight of an aircraft on another planet, a feat NASA officials compared to the Wright brothers first flight in 1903. At about 3:30 a.m., the twin, carbon-fiber rotor blades began spinning furiously, and the chopper, called Ingenuity, lifted off the …

Axios reports: The number of new coronavirus infections in the U.S continues to rise, making a quick, clean end to the pandemic less and less likely. Much of the U.S. is relying almost exclusively on vaccines to control the virus, abandoning social distancing and other safety measures. And that’s helping the virus to steadily gain ground even as vaccinations barrel …

The Associated Press reports: Out in front is New Hampshire, where 65% of the population age 18 and older has received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Following close behind are New Mexico, Connecticut, Maine and Massachusetts at 55% or greater. Meanwhile, at the bottom are five states where fewer …

The New York Times reports: Federal health agencies on Tuesday called for an immediate pause in use of Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose coronavirus vaccine after six recipients in the United States developed a rare disorder involving blood clots within about two weeks of vaccination. All six recipients were women between the ages of 18 and 48. One woman died and …

Bloomberg News reports: The company is working on a product that would combine an Apple TV set-top box with a HomePod speaker and include a camera for video conferencing through a connected TV and other smart-home functions, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters. The device’s other capabilities would include standard …

The Associated Press reports: In a rare admission of the weakness of Chinese coronavirus vaccines, the country’s top disease control official says their effectiveness is low and the government is considering mixing them to get a boost. Chinese vaccines “don’t have very high protection rates,” said the director of the China Centers for Disease Control, Gao Fu, at a conference …

CNBC reports: The coronavirus was the third leading cause of death in the U.S. in 2020, behind heart disease and cancer, according to a new study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 3.3 million deaths were reported in the U.S. last year, a 16% increase over 2019, according to provisional data published Wednesday compiled by …

The New York Times reports: The Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine is extremely effective in adolescents 12 to 15 years old, perhaps even more so than in adults, the companies reported on Wednesday. No infections were found among children who received the vaccine in a recent clinical trial, the drug makers said; the children produced strong antibody responses and experienced no serious …

The Associated Press reports: A joint WHO-China study on the origins of Covid-19 says that transmission of the virus from bats to humans through another animal is the most likely scenario and that a lab leak is “extremely unlikely,” according to a draft copy obtained by The Associated Press. The findings offer little new insight into how the virus began …

The New York Times reports: AstraZeneca reiterated on Wednesday that its Covid-19 vaccine was very effective at preventing the disease, based on more recent data than was included when the company announced the interim results of its U.S. clinical trial on Monday. The company said in a news release that its vaccine was 76 percent effective at preventing Covid-19. That …

The Hill reports: Roughly one in every six U.S. adults has been fully vaccinated for the coronavirus, according to new data released Saturday by the CDC. The CDC’s vaccine tracker, which was updated Saturday afternoon, shows that 16.7 percent of the adult population has been fully vaccinated. Over 40 percent of adults aged 65 years and older are also fully …

Mediaite reports: The rollout of the Covid-19 vaccines is picking up steam, as Saturday saw a record high number of 4.6 million Americans reported to have received a dose, jumping the average rate to just over 2.5 million doses a day for the last seven days. According to Bloomberg’s Covid-19 tracker, a total of 106 million doses have been administered …

The Pew Research Center reports: As COVID-19 vaccine production and administration efforts in the U.S. continue to ramp up, a new Pew Research survey finds public intent to get vaccinated is on the rise. Overall, 19% of adults say they have already received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine. Another 50% say they definitely or probably plan to …

Reuters reports: Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease official, said on Sunday he would take the newly approved Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, as he encouraged Americans to accept any of the three approved shots. “All three of them are really quite good, and people should take the one that’s most available to them. If you go to …

The Associated Press reports: February is usually the peak of flu season, with doctors’ offices and hospitals packed with suffering patients. But not this year. Flu has virtually disappeared from the U.S., with reports coming in at far lower levels than anything seen in decades. Experts say that measures put in place to fend off the coronavirus — mask wearing, …

The New York Daily News reports: People who wear glasses could be up to three times less likely to get coronavirus, according to a new study conducted in India. The preliminary study suggests that glass-wearers may have the extra protection because they tend to touch their eyes less frequently than most people. “Touching and rubbing of the eyes with contaminated …