Florida health officials on Sunday announced an investigation into a cluster of measles cases at an elementary school in the Fort Lauderdale area with a low vaccination rate, a scenario health experts fear will become more and more common amid slipping vaccination rates nationwide. On Friday, Broward County Public School reported a confirmed case of … Read more
TOKYO — Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visited Sunday the country’s north-central region of Noto for the first time since the deadly Jan. 1 earthquakes to alleviate growing concern about slow relief work and the spread of diseases in evacuation centers. The magnitude 7.6 earthquake left 220 dead and 26 others still missing while injuring … Read more
Our B cells help prevent us from getting sick. Their job is to make antibodies, immune system proteins that fight off viruses and other foreign invaders. And they make a lot of antibodies—thousands of them every second. What if these antibody factories could be harnessed to make other things the body needs? That’s the idea … Read more
Casgevy uses the Nobel Prize–winning technology Crispr to modify patients’ cells so that they produce healthy hemoglobin instead. The Crispr system has two parts: a protein that cuts genetic material and a guide molecule that tells it where in the genome to make the cut. To do this, a patient’s stem cells are taken out … Read more
Scientists use harmless viruses to ferry and insert the new genetic material because of their natural ability to get inside cells. But the potential for these viruses to accidentally trigger another cancer has long been considered a theoretical risk. In its notice, the FDA said the use of these viruses may have played a role … Read more
Comment on this storyCommentAdd to your saved storiesSave The World Health Organization says it has asked the Chinese authorities to share more information regarding a spike in respiratory illnesses and clusters of pneumonia reported among children in the country. According to a statement shared late Wednesday, the WHO said it made an official request to … Read more
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. For a pathogen to make us sick, it must overcome a lot. First it has to enter the body, bypassing natural barriers such as skin, mucus, cilia, and stomach acid. Then it needs to reproduce; some bacteria and parasites can do this virtually anywhere in … Read more
The current trial was sponsored by Novo Nordisk, the maker of Wegovy and Ozempic, and tracked patients for two years at locations worldwide. Half of the participants received weekly injections of semaglutide while the other half received a placebo. Neither group knew which they were getting. More than three-quarters of the patients had previously experienced … Read more
But vampire bats represent a new threat because they feed on the blood of other animals. Their usual victims are livestock, and occasionally wild mammals and birds. Using their sharp front teeth, they make a small incision in their victim’s skin and lap up a teaspoon or two of blood with their tongues. The bites … Read more
This story originally appeared in The Guardian and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Avian flu has reached the Antarctic, raising concerns for isolated populations of penguins and seals that have never been exposed to the deadly H5N1 virus before. The full impact of the virus’s arrival is not yet known, but scientists are … Read more