HEALTH AND SCIENCE HIGHLIGHTS

October 4, 2018 (San Diego's East County) -- Our Health and Science Highlights provide cutting edge news that could impact your health and our future.

HEALTH

• Man diagnosed with world's first human case of rat disease hepatitis E (CBS)
• Only these 8 states require sex education classes to mention consent (CNN)
• How Trump may actually succeed at lowering drug prices (Jewish World Review)

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

• The Facebook hack affecting 50 million people also let the attackers access users' Tinder, Spotify, and Instagram accounts (Business Insider)
• NASA captures polluted Carolina rivers spilling into ocean after Florence (Time)
• Physics Nobel for laser pioneers includes first woman in 55 years  (Reuters)
• A Nonprofit Plans to Store Human Knowledge in DNA and Store It on the Moon (Apple News)

For excerpts and full stories, click “read more” and scroll down.

HEALTH

Man diagnosed with world's first human case of rat disease hepatitis E (CBS)

A 56-year-old man from Hong Kong has developed the world's first human case of rat hepatitis E, Chinese scientists announced Friday. Researchers from the University of Hong Kong discovered the case after testing showed abnormal liver function following a liver transplant.

Only these 8 states require sex education classes to mention consent (CNN)

… A study conducted by the Center for American Progress, a nonpartisan policy institute, found that the majority of America's public school students don't know how to identify healthy and unhealthy relationship behaviors. As it is, only 24 states and the District of Columbia mandate sex education in public schools, the study found.  Of those, only eight states require mention of consent or sexual assault…

How Trump may actually succeed at lowering drug prices (Jewish World Review)

Surprise! The Trump administration is actually making progress to reduce drug prices, and not just by "browbeating" pharmaceutical executives.  The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently announced new options to increase competition for physician- administered drugs and lower the cost of some innovative medications, and the Food and Drug Administration is exploring importation to create more competition in the generics market.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

The Facebook hack affecting 50 million people also let the attackers access users' Tinder, Spotify, and Instagram accounts (Business Insider)

 Not only did the hackers obtain the ability to access the Facebook accounts of the affected users, they also had access to any other service in which a person used their Facebook account to register — including apps like Tinder, Spotify, and Airbnb.

NASA captures polluted Carolina rivers spilling into ocean after Florence (Time)

Time - The images revealed rivers discolored by debris and other contaminants

Physics Nobel for laser pioneers includes first woman in 55 years  (Reuters)

Reuters - The County of San Diego will pay millions of dollars to settle a pair of lawsuits filed by two former foster children who accused officials of failing to protect them from abuse by their foster parent, then invaded the privacy of one boy during resulting litigation, county officials said…. / Canada’s Donna Strickland, of the University of Waterloo, becomes only the third woman to win a Nobel for physics, after Marie Curie in 1903 and Maria Goeppert-Mayer in 1963.

A Nonprofit Plans to Store Human Knowledge in DNA and Store It on the Moon (Apple News)

Futurism - Imagine, for a second, that human life has been snuffed out like the flame of a candle. Wouldn’t it be nice if we’d archived the sum of our knowledge for whoever might come along next?  That’s the idea behind the Arch Mission Foundation, a nonprofit exploring ways to store vast amounts of information. in formats that will last for “thousands to millions” of years. And after all, spreading caches of information around the solar system is the ultimate backup.