ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Biologist Colleen Handel saw her first black-capped chickadee with the heartrending disorder in 1998. The tiny birds showed up at birdfeeders in Alaska’s largest city with freakishly long beaks. Some beaks looked like sprung scissors, unable to come together at the tips. Others curved up or down like crossed sickles. Handel, … Continue reading
LONDON (AP) — Researchers are trying to infect mosquitoes in Brazil and Colombia with a type of bacteria that could prevent them from spreading the Zika virus and other dangerous diseases. British and American governments are teaming up with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the U.K.-based Wellcome Trust to expand field tests in … Continue reading
More than 15 years ago, 17 babies were born after an experimental infertility treatment that gave them DNA from three people: Mom, Dad and an egg donor. Now researchers have checked up on how the babies are doing as teenagers. The preliminary verdict: The kids are all right. With no sign of unusual health problems … Continue reading
NEW YORK (AP) — Like a busy city, a cell works better if it can dispose of and recycle its garbage. Now a Japanese scientist has won the Nobel Prize in medicine for showing how that happens. The research may pay off in treatments for diseases such as cancer, Parkinson’s and Type 2 diabetes. Yoshinori … Continue reading
LONDON (AP) — Wearing a fitness tracker may help you keep tabs on how many steps you take, but the devices themselves — even with the lure of a cash reward — probably won’t improve your health, according to the biggest study yet done on the trendy technology. Scientists say that although the activity trackers … Continue reading
RECIFE, Brazil (AP) — Two weeks shy of his first birthday, doctors began feeding Jose Wesley Campos through a nose tube because swallowing problems had left him dangerously underweight. Learning how to feed is the baby’s latest struggle as medical problems mount for him and many other infants born with small heads to mothers infected … Continue reading
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Just how long can people live? New research suggests there may be a limit to our life span — one that’s hard to extend without some sort of breakthrough that fixes all age-related problems. The record for the world’s oldest person is 122 years and the odds of shattering that record … Continue reading
BERGSHAMRA, Sweden (AP) — Emelie Eriksson has a bond with her son that hardly seems possible: She and her son were born from the same womb. Eriksson was the first woman to have a baby after receiving a uterus from her mother, in a revolutionary operation that links three generations of their family. “It’s like … Continue reading
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama sought Tuesday to reinvigorate his six-year-old call for the U.S. to send humans to Mars by the 2030s, a mission NASA has been slowly and quietly trudging away at. The White House was calling attention to government contracts awarded to six companies to build prototypes for “habitats” that could … Continue reading
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s Kennedy Space Center reopened for business Tuesday, relying on industrial air conditioners rushed in from around the country in the wake of Hurricane Matthew. Director Robert Cabana said the damage — mostly ripped-off roofs — is still being tallied, but is in the millions of dollars. He said it … Continue reading
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — On a personal quest to settle Mars, SpaceX founder Elon Musk envisions 1,000 passenger ships flying en masse to the red planet well within the next century, “Battlestar Galactica” style. Musk outlined his zealous plan Tuesday to establish a self-sustaining city on Mars, complete with iron foundries and even pizzerias. … Continue reading
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — SpaceX said Friday that evidence points to a large breach in the rocket’s helium system during a routine prelaunch test that turned into a devastating fireball three weeks ago. The Falcon rocket and a satellite were destroyed in the Sept. 1 explosion, which occurred on the pad two days before … Continue reading
BEIJING (AP) — The world’s largest radio telescope began searching for signals from stars and galaxies and, perhaps, extraterrestrial life Sunday in a project demonstrating China’s rising ambitions in space and its pursuit of international scientific prestige. Beijing has poured billions into such ambitious scientific projects as well as its military-backed space program, which saw … Continue reading
GEOLOGIST SEAMOUNTS, Hawaii (AP) — The turquoise waters became darker and darker, and squiggly glow-in-dark marine creatures began to glide past in the inky depths like ghosts. The three-man submarine went down, down, down into the abyss and drew within sight of something no human had ever laid eyes on: Cook seamount, a 13,000-foot extinct … Continue reading
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The lone American in orbit will end up voting for president from the International Space Station, if her homecoming is delayed. NASA astronaut Kate Rubins said Thursday that she doesn’t know yet whether she’ll return to Earth in late October as planned. The Russians have delayed the next crew launch … Continue reading
Spartan Echo 