HEALTH AND SCIENCE HIGHLIGHTS

November 17, 2023 (San Diego's East County) -- Our Health and Science Highlights provide cutting edge news that could impact your health and our future.

HEALTH

• Supreme Court deals blow to vaccine skeptics (Newsweek)
• The World’s First Whole-Eye Transplant Is Helping an Arkansas Man Recover From a Catastrophic Injury (Tme)
• CRISPR for high cholesterol shows promise in first study (NPR)

SCIENCE AND TECH

• Elon Musk faces growing backlash over his endorsement of antisemitic X post (CBS)
• A new type of climate-friendly energy is coming online in the U.S. Southwest   (NPR)
• U.S. regulators will review car-tire chemical that kills salmon, upon request from West Coast tribes (AP)

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

HEALTH

Supreme Court deals blow to vaccine skeptics (Newsweek)

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected to hear an appeal relating to COVID-19 vaccine requirements in the workplace, dealing a blow to vaccine skeptics across the nation. ...the decision allows a ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit to stand. The lower court ruled that the vaccine mandate challenged by the nurses did not violate their Constitutional freedoms and allowed an executive order from New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy to stay in place.

The World’s First Whole-Eye Transplant Is Helping an Arkansas Man Recover From a Catastrophic Injury (Tme)

Surgeons at NYU Langone Health have performed what they say is the world’s first whole-eye transplant, combined with a partial face transplant, in an important step forward for the fields of both transplantation and vision restoration.

CRISPR for high cholesterol shows promise in first study (NPR)

For the first time, researchers have produced evidence that gene-editing can cut high cholesterol, a major risk factor for the nation's leading killer.

SCIENCE AND TECH

Elon Musk faces growing backlash over his endorsement of antisemitic X post (CBS)

Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, faces a mounting backlash after he called an antisemitic post on the social platform this week "the actual truth," dismaying investors and prompting some companies to halt advertising on the platform. Two advertisers, IBM and the European Commission, said they are pulling spending on X (formerly known as Twitter), citing reports of rising hate speech, including a report that some ads are appearing next to Nazi-related content. The White House also issued a statement, calling Musk's comment "unacceptable."

A new type of climate-friendly energy is coming online in the U.S. Southwest   (NPR)

Geothermal energy has been limited to places with subtera reservoirs of hot water. A new technology being proven in Utah is expanding it to exploit dry hot rock underground.

U.S. regulators will review car-tire chemical that kills salmon, upon request from West Coast tribes (AP)

U.S. regulators say they will review the use of a chemical found in almost every tire after a petition from West Coast Native American tribes that want it banned because it kills salmon as they return from the ocean to their natal streams to spawn…. Washington, Oregon, Vermont, Rhode Island and Connecticut also wrote the EPA, citing the chemical’s “unreasonable threat” to their waters and fisheries.