2025-03-03
9 分钟Happy Monday listeners, and happy march for Scientific American Science.
Quickly.
I'm Rachel Feltman.
Let's get this month off to a good start with a quick roundup of some of the science and tech stories you might have missed last week.
First, we have an unfortunate public health update.
Last Wednesday,
health officials confirmed a death from measles in West Texas that marks the first fatality in the region's ongoing outbreak,
which has now infected more than 120 people across nine counties.
It also marks the first death from measles within the US since 2015.
According to a news release from the Texas Department of State Health Services,
the death was a school age child who was not vaccinated.
The measles virus can survive in the air for up to two hours and it's highly contagious.
The best way to protect yourself and your kids is to make sure everyone's vaccinations are up to date.
The rarity of measles related deaths in the US doesn't mean the virus isn't dangerous.
We've just done a really good job of vaccinating kids against it over the past few decades.
Now those vaccination rates are slipping and we're facing the consequences.
For more context on how falling vaccination rates have contributed to the severity of this outbreak,
check out last week's News Roundup episode.
And speaking of vaccines,
federal health officials have apparently canceled a meeting critical to the flu shot development process.