HEALTH AND SCIENCE HIGHLIGHTS

August 14, 2019 (San Diego's East County) -- Our Health and Science Highlights provide cutting edge news that could impact your health and our future.

HEALTH

• A vaccine for skin cancer? Tel Aviv researchers say they have discovered one (Jerusalem Post)
• Ebola now curable after trials of drugs in DRC, say scientists (Guardian)
• New Treatments Could Be Powerful Weapons Against Brain Tumors (U.S. News)
• Planned Parenthood to exit federal family planning program Aug. 19 over abortion ‘gag rule’ if court does not act (Washington Post)

SCIENCE & TECH

• Amazon’s facial recocgnition mistakenly ID’d 1 in 5 Calif. lawmakers as criminals (Vice)
• Russian Land of Permafrost and Mammoths Is Thawing (New York Times)
• Why solar activity and cosmic rays can’t explain global warming (Forbes)

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

HEALTH

A vaccine for skin cancer? Tel Aviv researchers say they have discovered one (Jerusalem Post)

So far, the approach has been tested and proven effective in preventing the development of melanoma in mouse models.

Ebola now curable after trials of drugs in DRC, say scientists (Guardian)

Ebola can no longer be called an incurable disease, scientists have said, after two of four drugs being trialled in the major outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were found to have significantly reduced the death rate… 

New Treatments Could Be Powerful Weapons Against Brain Tumors (U.S. News)

New therapies are showing real promise in fighting the type of brain cancer that claimed the lives of Sens. John McCain and Ted Kennedy, a pair of new clinical trials shows.

Planned Parenthood to exit federal family planning program Aug. 19 over abortion ‘gag rule’ if court does not act (Washington Post)

The women's health clinic provider has said the changes are morally wrong, and could potentially endanger the lives of its patients.

SCIENCE & TECH

Amazon’s facial recocgnition mistakenly ID’d 1 in 5 Calif. lawmakers as criminals (Vice)

The ACLU used Rekognition, Amazon’s facial recognition software, to evaluate 120 photos of lawmakers against a database of 25,000 arrest photos, ACLU attorney Matt Cagle said at a press conference on Tuesday. One in five lawmaker photographs were falsely matched to mugshots, exposing the frailties of an emerging technology widely adopted by law enforcement.

Russian Land of Permafrost and Mammoths Is Thawing (New York Times)

Global warming is shrinking the permanently frozen ground across Siberia, disrupting everyday life in one of the coldest inhabited places on earth.

Why solar activity and cosmic rays can’t explain global warming (Forbes)

As a climate scientist, I hear my share of myths about what is causing climate change or why it is a “hoax.” I call them “zombie theories” because they just will not die. They persist in blogs, certain networks, and social media like zombies long after scientists have killed them off. I debunked 20 of them in a previous article in Forbes. The “sun and its variability” is one that makes the rounds. I am pretty sure I’ve had to spray “climate science repellent” on that nagging “mosquito” numerous times. This week I heard of a variation of this myth involving cosmic rays. Here is a science-based debunking of the solar-cosmic ray myth.