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spacex’s-workhorse-launch-pad-now-has-the-accoutrements-for-astronauts

SpaceX’s workhorse launch pad now has the accoutrements for astronauts

crs-30, dragon, falcon 9, international space station, NASA, Science, slc-40, Space, spacex / /
A Falcon 9 rocket lifts off Thursday from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Enlarge / A Falcon 9 rocket lifts off Thursday from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Upgrades at SpaceX’s most-used launch pad in Florida got a trial run Thursday with the liftoff of a Falcon 9 rocket with a Dragon cargo ship heading for the International Space Station.

SpaceX’s Cargo Dragon spacecraft launched at 4: 55 pm EDT (20: 55 UTC) Thursday from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. This mission, known as CRS-30, is SpaceX’s 30th resupply mission to the space station since 2012.

The automated Dragon supply ship took off on top of a Falcon 9 rocket, heading for a monthlong stay at the International Space Station, where it will deliver more than 6,000 pounds of hardware, fresh food, and experiments for the lab’s seven-person crew.

In the last few months, SpaceX has outfitted the launch pad with the equipment necessary to support launches of human spaceflight missions on the Crew Dragon spacecraft. The Cargo Dragon capsule is the same size and shape as SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, but it’s filled with cargo racks and storage platforms rather than seats and cockpit displays.

This week, SpaceX technicians used the newly installed launch tower and crew access arm at SLC-40 to load time-sensitive experiments and supplies into the Cargo Dragon capsule atop the Falcon 9 rocket.

“CRS-30 will be our first Dragon to launch from Pad 40 since we put that brand-new crew tower in place,” said Sarah Walker, SpaceX’s director of Dragon mission management, in a prelaunch press conference.

Building new capability

Starting last year, construction crews at Cape Canaveral erected segments of a more than 200-foot-tall metal lattice tower at SLC-40, right next to the starting blocks for SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. Before then, SLC-40 was based on a “clean pad” architecture, without any structures to service or access Falcon 9 rockets while they were vertical on the pad.

In November, contractors raised the crew access arm to an attach point near the top of the tower. This walkway will allow astronauts to crawl into the Crew Dragon spacecraft during a launch countdown. It also provides access to the hatch on the Cargo Dragon spacecraft for final cargo loading.

Earlier this year, SpaceX tested an escape chute at SLC-40 that would be used in an emergency to help astronauts and ground crews quickly get away from the pad. The chute is similar in function to slide-wire baskets in use for decades at LC-39A, but instead of riding a basket from the top of the tower, personnel escaping a pad emergency would slide down a chute to carry them several hundred feet from the rocket.

SpaceX employees tested the pad escape chute last month at SLC-40. Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president and chief operating officer, took the ride down the chute. “Astronaut and personnel safety is SpaceX’s highest priority, which is why I had to personally test the new slide,” she posted on X, alongside a wink emoji.

Teams test the new emergency chutes from the pad 40 crew tower in Florida pic.twitter.com/rWVj7zaHp0

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 19, 2024

“The team took commercially available off the shelf technology and applied it to the crew tower,” Kiko Dontchev, SpaceX’s vice president of launch, wrote on X. “You are trained on it the same way you are trained on using an emergency exit door on airplane. Only takes a couple of quick physical actions to deploy the slide and anyone can effectively do it.”

As more people travel to space, particularly on larger vehicles like SpaceX’s Starship, simplifying safety systems will be important.

“This system will help us scale to bigger towers and spaceships (think 100 people on Starship),” Dontchev wrote.

SpaceX and its contractors completed all of this work as Falcon 9s fired off SLC-40 every few days with Starlink satellites and other missions.

For the last four years, all of SpaceX’s crew and cargo launches to the space station have departed from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, a few miles up the coast from SLC-40. In 2018 and 2019, SpaceX outfitted LC-39A for Cargo Dragon and Crew Dragon missions ahead of the company’s first human spaceflight mission in 2020.

Walker said the new infrastructure added at SLC-40 is “nearly functionally identical” to the equipment for crew missions at LC-39A. The primary differences are the means of pad escape—the chute instead of slide-wire baskets—and a more robust elevator in the tower at SLC-40.

Previously, SpaceX used both SLC-40 and LC-39A for launches of its now-retired first-generation Dragon cargo capsules, which had their final supplies loaded before SpaceX raised the rocket vertical for launch. Like regular satellite launches on Falcon 9s, both pads could support the first-generation Dragon cargo missions.

“Thanks to this new state-of-the-art crew tower required for our human spaceflight missions, that late-load cargo operation got a massive upgrade, too,” Walker said. “It is much easier to load a huge complement of time-critical NASA science into our Dragon spacecraft in the flight orientation.”

SpaceX has drastically ramped up its launch cadence since building LC-39A for Dragon missions. The company plans nearly 150 Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy launches this year. When you’re flying rockets every two or three days, it’s inevitable two missions will end up vying for the same launch slots. Most recently, that happened in February, when a NASA crew mission was ready to launch from LC-39A around the same time as a narrow launch window for Intuitive Machines’ first commercial lunar lander. Both had to go off of LC-39A.

“Historically, Pad 40 has kind of become our high rate pad,” Walker said. “We’ve gotten the time between launches down to just a couple of days.”

LC-39A has seen less use, primarily for Dragon crew and cargo flights, Falcon Heavy missions, and other “uniquely complex” missions like the Intuitive Machines lander, Walker said.

SpaceX’s workhorse launch pad now has the accoutrements for astronauts Read More »

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It’s a few years late, but a prototype supersonic airplane has taken flight

boom supersonic, Science, Space / /

Flying high —

“This milestone will be invaluable to Boom’s revival of supersonic travel.”

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XB-1 takes off on its inaugural flight.

Enlarge / XB-1 takes off on its inaugural flight.

Boom Supersonic

A prototype jet independently developed by Boom Supersonic made its first flight on Friday, the company said.

The XB-1 vehicle flew from Mojave Air & Space Port in California, reaching an altitude of 7,120 feet (2.2 km) and a maximum speed of 273 mph (439 kph). In a news release, Boom Supersonic said the initial test flight of the XB-1 aircraft met all of its objectives.

“The experience we have gained in reaching this milestone will be invaluable to Boom’s revival of supersonic travel,” said Bill “Doc” Shoemaker, Chief Test Pilot for Boom Supersonic.

The XB-1 aircraft is a demonstrator intended to test materials and the aerodynamics of a larger commercial supersonic aircraft the company is calling Overture.

Boom is one of a handful of companies attempting to revive supersonic commercial air travel since the Concorde’s final flight in 2003. Its planes are intended to carry between 64 and 80 passengers at about twice the speed of conventional commercial jets in service today. Boom says it has received 130 orders and pre-orders from American Airlines, United Airlines, and Japan Airlines for the Overture vehicle, which it plans to deliver later this decade.

A lot of milestones to go

Boom Supersonic was founded a decade ago, in 2014. It rolled out the XB-1 prototype for the first time in October 2020. At the time, the company said it planned to begin a flight test campaign during the third quarter of 2021. It is not clear why Boom missed that timeline by two and a half years.

The company plans to fly the XB-1 to learn the lessons of supersonic flight with a lower-cost vehicle and incorporate these findings into Overture’s final design. There is only so much technology that can be tested on the ground, and in wind tunnels, so the company needs to fly now to mature its design.

After Friday’s flight, the company said the aircraft’s development team will continue to expand the flight envelope to confirm its performance and handling qualities through and beyond Mach 1.

One key element of the Overture aircraft that the XB-1 prototype is not testing is the engines. The XB-1 is powered by three GE J85-15 engines, a turbojet engine that has been in service for several decades. Boom Supersonic is developing a new engine, a medium-bypass turbofan engine Symphony, for the Overture aircraft.

Previously, the company showcased a one-third scale design model of Symphony, but it has not released information about developmental tests of the hardware. The additively manufactured engine is advertised as having 35,000 pounds of thrust.

It’s a few years late, but a prototype supersonic airplane has taken flight Read More »

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Report: Superconductivity researcher found to have committed misconduct

Nature, Physics, research fraud, research misconduct, Science, superconductivity / /

Definitely not super —

Details of what the University of Rochester investigation found are not available.

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Image of a large lawn, with a domed building flanked by trees and flagpoles at its far end.

Enlarge / Rush Rhees Library at the University of Rochester.

We’ve been following the saga of Ranga Dias since he first burst onto the scene with reports of a high-pressure, room-temperature superconductor, published in Nature in 2020. Even as that paper was being retracted due to concerns about the validity of some of its data, Dias published a second paper claiming a similar breakthrough: a superconductor that works at high temperatures but somewhat lower pressures. Shortly afterward, that got retracted as well.

On Wednesday, the University of Rochester, where Dias is based, announced that it had concluded an investigation into Dias and found that he had committed research misconduct. (The outcome was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.)

The outcome is likely to mean the end of Dias’ career, as well as the company he founded to commercialize the supposed breakthroughs. But it’s unlikely we’ll ever see the full details of the investigation’s conclusions.

Questionable research

Dias’ lab was focused on high-pressure superconductivity. At extreme pressures, the orbitals where electrons hang out get distorted, which can alter the chemistry and electronic properties of materials. This can mean the formation of chemical compounds that don’t exist at normal pressures, along with distinct conductivity. In a number of cases, these changes enabled superconductivity at unusually high temperatures, although still well below the freezing point of water.

Dias, however, supposedly found a combination of chemicals that would boost the transition to superconductivity to near room temperature, although only at extreme pressures. While the results were plausible, the details regarding how some of the data was processed to produce one of the paper’s key graphs were lacking, and Dias didn’t provide a clear explanation. Nature eventually pulled the paper, and the University of Rochester initiated investigations (plural!) of his work.

Those investigations cleared Dias of misconduct, and he quickly was back with a report of another high-temperature superconductor, this one forming at less extreme pressures—somewhat surprisingly, published again by Nature. This time, things fell apart much more rapidly, with potential problems quickly becoming apparent, and many of the paper’s authors, not including Dias, called for its retraction.

The University of Rochester started yet another investigation, which is the one that has now concluded that Dias engaged in research misconduct.

The extent of this misconduct, however, might never be revealed. These internal university investigations are generally not made public, even if it might be in the public’s interest to know. The only recent exception is a case where a researcher accused of misconduct sued her university for defamation over the outcome of the investigation. The university submitted its investigation report as evidence, allowing it to become part of the public record.

Behind the scenes

That said, we have learned a fair bit about what has happened inside Dias’ lab, thanks to Nature News, a sister publication of the scientific journal that published both of Dias’ papers. It conducted a tour-de-force of investigative journalism, talking to Dias’ grad students and obtaining the peer review evaluations of Dias’ two papers.

The investigation showed that, for the first paper, Dias simply told his graduate students that the key data came from before he had set up his own lab, which explains why they weren’t aware of it. The students claimed that the ensuing investigations didn’t contact any of them, suggesting they were extremely similar in scope. By contrast, the students claim to have been more aware that the results presented in the second paper didn’t match up with experiments and, in at least one case, suggested Dias clearly misrepresented his lab’s work. (The paper claimed to have synthesized a chemical that the students say was simply purchased from a supplier.)

They were the ones who organized the effort to retract the paper and said that the final investigation actually sought their input.

Meanwhile, on the peer review side, the reporting does not leave Nature looking especially good. Both papers required several rounds of revision and review before being accepted, and even after all this work, most of the reviewers were ambiguous at best about whether the paper should be published. It was an editorial decision to go ahead despite that.

While things seem to have worked out in the end, the major institutions involved here—Nature and the University of Rochester—aren’t coming out of this unscathed. Neither seems to have taken early indications of misconduct as seriously as it should have. As for Dias, the reporting in the Nature News piece should be career-ending. And it’s worth considering that, in the absence of the reporter’s work, the research community would probably remain unaware of most of the details of Dias’ misconduct.

Report: Superconductivity researcher found to have committed misconduct Read More »

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This stretchy electronic material hardens upon impact just like “oobleck”

conductive polymers, flexible electronics, kitchen science, materials science, oobleck, Physics, polymers, Science / /

a flexible alternative —

Researchers likened material’s structure to a big bowl of spaghetti and meatballs.

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This flexible and conductive material has “adaptive durability,” meaning it gets stronger when hit.

Enlarge / This flexible and conductive material has “adaptive durability,” meaning it gets stronger when hit.

Yue (Jessica) Wang

Scientists are keen to develop new materials for lightweight, flexible, and affordable wearable electronics so that, one day, dropping our smartphones won’t result in irreparable damage. One team at the University of California, Merced, has made conductive polymer films that actually toughen up in response to impact rather than breaking apart, much like mixing corn starch and water in appropriate amounts produces a slurry that is liquid when stirred slowly but hardens when you punch it (i.e., “oobleck”). They described their work in a talk at this week’s meeting of the American Chemical Society in New Orleans.

“Polymer-based electronics are very promising,” said Di Wu, a postdoc in materials science at UCM. “We want to make the polymer electronics lighter, cheaper, and smarter. [With our] system, [the polymers] can become tougher and stronger when you make a sudden movement, but… flexible when you just do your daily, routine movement. They are not constantly rigid or constantly flexible. They just respond to your body movement.”

As we’ve previously reported, oobleck is simple and easy to make. Mix one part water to two parts corn starch, add a dash of food coloring for fun, and you’ve got oobleck, which behaves as either a liquid or a solid, depending on how much stress is applied. Stir it slowly and steadily and it’s a liquid. Punch it hard and it turns more solid under your fist. It’s a classic example of a non-Newtonian fluid.

In an ideal fluid, the viscosity largely depends on temperature and pressure: Water will continue to flow regardless of other forces acting upon it, such as being stirred or mixed. In a non-Newtonian fluid, the viscosity changes in response to an applied strain or shearing force, thereby straddling the boundary between liquid and solid behavior. Stirring a cup of water produces a shearing force, and the water shears to move out of the way. The viscosity remains unchanged. But for non-Newtonian fluids like oobleck, the viscosity changes when a shearing force is applied.

Ketchup, for instance, is a shear-thickening non-Newtonian fluid, which is one reason smacking the bottom of the bottle doesn’t make the ketchup come out any faster; the application of force increases the viscosity. Yogurt, gravy, mud, and pudding are other examples. And so is oobleck. (The name derives from a 1949 Dr. Seuss children’s book, Bartholomew and the Oobleck.) By contrast, non-drip paint exhibits a “shear-thinning” effect, brushing on easily but becoming more viscous once it’s on the wall. Last year, MIT scientists confirmed that the friction between particles was critical to that liquid-to-solid transition, identifying a tipping point when the friction reached a certain level and the viscosity abruptly increased.

Wu works in the lab of materials scientist Yue (Jessica) Wang, who decided to try to mimic the shear-thickening behavior of oobleck in a polymer material. Flexible polymer electronics are usually made by linking together conjugated conductive polymers, which are long and thin, like spaghetti. But these materials will still break apart in response to particularly large and/or rapid impacts.

So Wu and Wang decided to combine the spaghetti-like polymers with shorter polyaniline molecules and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate, or PEDOT:PSS—four different polymers in all. Two of the four have a positive charge, and two have a negative charge. They used that mixture to make stretchy films and then tested the mechanical properties.

Lo and behold, the films behaved very much like oobleck, deforming and stretching in response to impact rather than breaking apart. Wang likened the structure to a big bowl of spaghetti and meatballs since the positively charged molecules don’t like water and therefore cluster into ball-like microstructures. She and Wu suggest that those microstructures absorb impact energy, flattening without breaking apart. And it doesn’t take much PEDOT:PSS to get this effect: just 10 percent was sufficient.

Further experiments identified an even more effective additive: positively charged 1,3-propanediamine nanoparticles. These particles can weaken the “meatball” polymer interactions just enough so that they can deform even more in response to impacts, while strengthening the interactions between the entangled long spaghetti-like polymers.

The next step is to apply their polymer films to wearable electronics like smartwatch bands and sensors, as well as flexible electronics for monitoring health. Wang’s lab has also experimented with a new version of the material that would be compatible with 3D printing, opening up even more opportunities. “There are a number of potential applications, and we’re excited to see where this new, unconventional property will take us,” said Wang.

This stretchy electronic material hardens upon impact just like “oobleck” Read More »

lifesaving-gene-therapy-for-kids-is-world’s-priciest-drug-at-$4.25m

Lifesaving gene therapy for kids is world’s priciest drug at $4.25M

drug pricing, fda, gene therapy, health, metachromatic leukodystrophy, Orchard, rare genetic conditions, Science / /

promising but pricey —

It’s unclear if government and private insurance plans can cover the costs.

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A mother with her twin 6-year-old boys who have metachromatic leukodystrophy, a genetic disease that leaves them unable to move. Photo taken on September 3, 2004.

Enlarge / A mother with her twin 6-year-old boys who have metachromatic leukodystrophy, a genetic disease that leaves them unable to move. Photo taken on September 3, 2004.

In a medical triumph, US Food and Drug Administration on Monday approved a gene therapy that appears to trounce a rare, tragic disease that progressively steals children’s ability to talk, move, and think, leading to a vegetative state and death. For those who begin to slip away in infancy, many die by age 5. But, with the new therapy, 37 children in an initial trial were all still alive at age 6. Most could still talk, walk on their own, and perform normally on IQ tests, which was unseen in untreated children. Some of the earliest children treated have now been followed for up to 12 years—and they continue to do well.

But, the triumph turned bittersweet today, Wednesday, as the company behind the therapy, Lenmeldy, set the price for the US market at $4.25 million, making it the most expensive drug in the world. The price is $310,000 higher than what experts calculated to be the maximum fair price for the lifesaving drug; the nonprofit Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, or ICER, gave a range last October of between $2.29 million to $3.94 million.

The price raises questions about whether state, federal, and private health insurance plans will be able to shoulder the costs. “Unless states have allocated appropriately for it, and looked at the drug pipeline, they may not be prepared for what could be significant cost spikes,” Edwin Park, a research professor at the McCourt School of Public Health at Georgetown University, told CNN.

It’s also unclear whether the drug can reach the children who need it in time. Lenmeldy must be given before symptoms develop or early on in symptom development in children. However, diagnosis of the rare genetic condition can be slow, and many children treated so far were identified because older siblings, now too old for treatment, developed the condition first.

Devastating disease

Stat, for instance, spoke with the mother of an 8-year-old with the condition, who can no longer talk or move, has frequent seizures, and requires a feeding tube and 28 different medications. Meanwhile, her 3-year-old brother, who has the same genetic mutation, is a typical toddler—he was able to get the new treatment when he was six months old. To get it, the family flew him to Milan, Italy, where Lenmeldy was first developed. It was approved for use in Europe in 2021.

The condition Lenmeldy treats is called metachromatic leukodystrophy (MLD), which occurs in about 40 children in the US each year. MLD is caused by a mutation in the gene that codes for the enzyme arylsulfatase A (ARSA). Without this enzyme, the body can’t break down sulfatides, a fatty substance that then builds up to toxic levels in the brain and peripheral nervous system. Sulfatides are essential components of myelin, the fatty insulation on nerve cells critical for quick transmission of electrical impulses. But, too much sulfatides leads to a loss of myelin, which gradually destroys myelin producing cells and leads to nervous system damage.

Lenmeldy prevents that damage by giving the body a working copy of the ARSA gene. In a one-time infusion, patients are given a dose of their own blood stem cells that have been genetically engineered to contain a functional ARSA gene. Patients undergo chemotherapy to clear out their own stem cells from bone marrow so the genetically modified cells can replace them. The engineered stem cells then produce myeloid cells that travel around the body in the blood, producing ARSA enzyme that can halt progression of MLD.

It’s unknown how long the therapy lasts, but it’s clearly buying children time and giving them hope for a full, normal life.

“MLD is a devastating disease that profoundly affects the quality of life of patients and their families,” Nicole Verdun, director of the FDA’s Office of Therapeutic Products, said in a statement. “Advancements in treatment options offer hope for improved outcomes and the potential to positively influence the trajectory of disease progression.”

It “has the potential to stop or slow the progression of this devastating childhood disease with a single treatment, particularly when administered prior to the onset of symptoms,” Bobby Gaspar, CEO of Lenmeldy’s maker, Orchard Therapeutics, said in a statement Wednesday. “We are committed to enabling broad, expedient, and sustainable access to this important therapy for eligible patients with early-onset MLD in the US.”

The company is working on expanding newborn screening to include tests for MLD, to try to find children early, Orchard reported. Still, with such a rare condition, it’s unclear if the pricey drug will be a moneymaker for the company. Stat notes that Orchard has previously abandoned four therapies for other rare genetic conditions because of the difficulty in meeting regulatory standards for essentially custom therapies and questions about whether health plans will pay the steep, multimillion-dollar prices. In April of last year, Belgium, Ireland, and the Netherlands walked away from price negotiations with the company, saying they couldn’t come to an agreement on this “extremely expensive therapy.”

Lifesaving gene therapy for kids is world’s priciest drug at $4.25M Read More »

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Health experts plead for unvaxxed Americans to get measles shot as cases rise

American Medical Association, CDC, children, health, health advisory, infectious diseases, measles, Science, travel, vaccination, vaccines / /

MMR is safe and effective —

The US hit last year’s total in under 12 weeks, suggesting we’re in for a bad time.

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A view from a hospital as children receiving medical treatment, in capital Kabul, Afghanistan on April 18, 2022. More than 130 children have died from the measles in Afghanistan since the beginning of this year.

Enlarge / A view from a hospital as children receiving medical treatment, in capital Kabul, Afghanistan on April 18, 2022. More than 130 children have died from the measles in Afghanistan since the beginning of this year.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Medical Association sent out separate but similar pleas on Monday for unvaccinated Americans to get vaccinated against the extremely contagious measles virus as vaccination rates have slipped, cases are rising globally and nationally, and the spring-break travel period is beginning.

In the first 12 weeks of 2024, US measles cases have already matched and likely exceeded the case total for all of 2023. According to the CDC, there were 58 measles cases reported from 17 states as of March 14. But media tallies indicate there have been more cases since then, with at least 60 cases now in total, according to CBS News. In 2023, there were 58 cases in 20 states.

“As evident from the confirmed measles cases reported in 17 states so far this year, when individuals are not immunized as a matter of personal preference or misinformation, they put themselves and others at risk of disease—including children too young to be vaccinated, cancer patients, and other immunocompromised people,” AMA President Jesse Ehrenfeld said in a statement urging vaccination Monday.

The latest data indicates that vaccination rates among US kindergarteners have slipped to 93 percent nationally, below the 95 percent target to prevent the spread of the disease. And vaccine exemptions for non-medical reasons have reached an all-time high.

The CDC released a health advisory on Monday also urging measles vaccination. The CDC drove home the point that unvaccinated Americans are largely responsible for importing the virus, and pockets of unvaccinated children in local communities spread it once it’s here. The 58 measles infections that have been reported to the agency so far include cases from seven outbreaks in seven states. Most of the cases are in vaccine-eligible children aged 12 months and older who are unvaccinated. Of the 58 cases, 54 (93 percent) are linked to international travel, and most measles importations are by unvaccinated US residents who travel abroad and bring measles home with them, the CDC flagged.

The situation is likely to worsen as Americans begin spring travel, the CDC suggested. “Many countries, including travel destinations such as Austria, the Philippines, Romania, and the United Kingdom, are experiencing measles outbreaks,” the CDC said. “To prevent measles infection and reduce the risk of community transmission from importation, all US residents traveling internationally, regardless of destination, should be current on their [measles-mumps-rubella (MMR)] vaccinations.” The agency added in a recommendation to parents that “even if not traveling, ensure that children receive all recommended doses of MMR vaccine. Two doses of MMR vaccine provide better protection (97 percent) against measles than one dose (93 percent). Getting MMR vaccine is much safer than getting measles, mumps, or rubella.”

For Americans who are already vaccinated and communities with high vaccination coverage, the risk is low, the CDC noted. “However, pockets of low coverage leave some communities at higher risk for outbreaks.” This, in turn, threatens wider, continuous spread that could overturn the country’s status of having eliminated measles, which was declared in 2000. The US was close to losing its elimination status in 2019 when outbreaks among unvaccinated children drove 1,247 cases across 31 states. Vaccination rates have only fallen since then.

“The reduction in measles vaccination threatens to erase many years of progress as this previously eliminated vaccine-preventable disease returns,” the AMA’s Ehrenfeld warned.

As Ars has reported previously, measles is among the most contagious viruses known and can linger in airspace for up to two hours. Up to 90 percent of unvaccinated people exposed will contract it. Symptoms can include high fever, runny nose, red and watery eyes, and a cough, as well as the hallmark rash. About 1 in 5 unvaccinated people with measles are hospitalized, while 1 in 20 infected children develop pneumonia, and up to 3 in 1,000 children die of the infection. Brain swelling (encephalitis) can occur in 1 in 1,000 children, which can lead to hearing loss and intellectual disabilities. The virus can also destroy immune responses to previous infections—a phenomenon known as “immune amnesia”—which can leave children vulnerable to various other infections for years afterward.

Health experts plead for unvaxxed Americans to get measles shot as cases rise Read More »

redwoods-are-growing-almost-as-fast-in-the-uk-as-their-californian-cousins

Redwoods are growing almost as fast in the UK as their Californian cousins

redwood trees, Science, syndication / /

growth gains —

New study finds that giant sequoias add 70 cm of height and store 160 kg of carbon per year.

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view of redwood tree canopy from below

Enlarge / Looking up at the canopy of a redwood tree in a forest near Golden Gate Live Steamers, Grizzly Peak Boulevard in Oakland.

What can live for over 3,000 years, weigh over 150 tonnes and could be sitting almost unnoticed in your local park? Giant sequoias (known as giant redwoods in the UK) are among the tallest and heaviest organisms that have ever lived on Earth, not to mention they have the potential to live longer than other species.

My team’s new study is the first to look at the growth of giant sequoias in the UK—and they seem to be doing remarkably well. Trees at two of the three sites we studied matched the average growth rates of their counterparts in the US, where they come from. These remarkable trees are being planted in an effort to help absorb carbon, but perhaps more importantly they are becoming a striking and much-admired part of the UK landscape.

To live so long, giant sequoias have evolved to be extraordinarily resilient. In their native northern California, they occupy an ecological niche in mountainous terrain 1,400–2,100 meters above sea level.

Their thick, spongy bark insulates against fire and disease, and they can survive severe winters and arid summers. Despite these challenges, these trees absorb and store CO₂ faster and in greater quantities than almost any other in the world, storing up to five times more carbon per hectare than even tropical rainforests. However, the changing climate means Californian giant sequoias are under threat from more frequent and extreme droughts and fires. More than 10 percent of the remaining population of around 80,000 wild trees were killed in a single fire in 2020 alone.

Tree giants from the US

What is much less well-known is that there are an estimated half a million sequoias (wild and planted) in England, dotted across the landscape. So how well are the UK giant sequoias doing? To try and answer this, my team used a technique called terrestrial laser scanning to measure the size and volume of giant sequoias.

The laser sends out half a million pulses a second and if a pulse hits a tree, the 3D location of each “hit” is recorded precisely. This gives us a map of tree structure in unprecedented detail, which we can use to estimate volume and mass, effectively allowing us to estimate the tree’s weight. If we know how old the trees are, we can estimate how fast they are growing and accumulating carbon.

As part of a Master’s project with former student Ross Holland, and along with colleagues at Kew Royal Botanical Gardens, we measured giant sequoias across three sites—Benmore botanical gardens in Scotland, Kew Wakehurst in Sussex, and Havering Country Park in Essex. These sites span the wettest (Benmore) and driest (Havering) climates in the UK, enabling us to assess how rainfall affects growth.

The fastest-growing trees we measured are growing almost as fast as they do in California, adding 70 cm of height and storing 160 kg of carbon per year, about twice that of a native UK oak. The trees at Benmore are already among the tallest trees in the UK at 55 meters, the current record-holder being a 66-meter Douglas Fir in Scotland. The redwoods, being faster growing, are likely to take that title in the next decade or two. And these trees are “only” around 170 years old. No native tree in the UK is taller than about 47 meters. We also found significant differences in growth rates across the UK. They grow fastest in the north, where the climate is wetter.

So, how did these trees get here? Exotic plant collecting was big business in the 18th and 19th centuries, in large part as a display of wealth and taste. Giant sequoias were first introduced in 1853 by Scottish grain merchant and keen amateur collector Patrick Matthew, who gave them to friends. Later that same year commercial nurseryman William Lobb brought many more from California, along with accounts of the giant trees from which they came.

Giant sequoias quickly became a sensation and were planted to create imposing avenues, at the entrances of grand houses and estates, in churchyards, parks and botanic gardens. The letters about these trees helps us to accurately age planted trees, enabling us to calculate their growth rates.

Normally, you need to take samples from a tree’s core to get an accurate age estimate, but that can damage the tree.

Imagine their potential

UK sequoias are unlikely to grow as tall as their Californian counterparts, which tend to grow in forests, due to lightning strikes and high winds—always a risk when you’re the tallest thing in the landscape rather than one among many. More recently, there has been a resurgence in planting giant sequoias in the UK, particularly in urban settings. This is because of their carbon storage potential and perhaps because people seem to really like them.

We urgently need to understand how UK trees will fare in the face of much hotter, drier summers, stormier winters, and with increased risks of fire. Global trade is also increasing the spread of disease among plantlife. More work is needed to consider the impact of planting non-native species like giant sequoias on native habitats and biodiversity but our work has shown that they are apparently very happy with our climate so far.

More importantly, we have to remember that trees are more than just stores of carbon. If we value trees only as carbon sticks we will end up with thousands of hectares of monoculture, which isn’t good for nature.

But these giant sequoias are here to stay and are becoming a beautiful and resilient part of our landscape.

Mathias Disney, Reader in Remote Sensing, Department of Geography, UCL. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Redwoods are growing almost as fast in the UK as their Californian cousins Read More »

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Tick-killing pill shows promising results in human trial

Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Science, syndication, ticks / /

Ticked off —

Should it pan out, the pill would be a new weapon against Lyme disease.

–

A tick on a human

If you have a dog or cat, chances are you’ve given your pet a flavored chewable tablet for tick prevention at some point. What if you could take a similar pill to protect yourself from getting Lyme disease?

Tarsus Pharmaceuticals is developing such a pill for humans—minus the tasty flavoring—that could provide protection against the tick-borne disease for several weeks at a time. In February, the Irvine, California–based biotech company announced results from a small, early-stage trial showing that 24 hours after taking the drug, it can kill ticks on people, with the effects lasting for up to 30 days.

“What we envision is something that would protect you before the tick would even bite you,” says Bobby Azamian, CEO of Tarsus.

Lyme disease is a fast-growing problem in the United States, where approximately 476,000 people are diagnosed and treated for it each year, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That number is likely an overestimate, because many patients are treated after a tick bite even if an infection isn’t confirmed, but it underscores the burden of Lyme disease on the health care system—which researchers at the CDC and Yale University put at nearly $1 billion per year.

The disease is caused by the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi, which gets passed to humans through the bite of an infected tick. In most cases, a tick has to be attached for around 36 to 48 hours before the bacteria can be transmitted. Symptoms include fever, headache, fatigue, and a characteristic skin rash that looks like a bullseye.

Without a vaccine for Lyme disease on the market, current prevention includes using insect repellents such as DEET and permethrin and wearing closed shoes, long pants, and long sleeves when in a tick-infested area.

“We’ve seen increasing rates of tick-borne diseases over the years, despite being told to do tick checks, use DEET, and impregnate your clothes with permethrin,” says Paul Auwaerter, a professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who studies Lyme disease.

A more effective treatment strategy would be welcome, Auwaerter says, especially because Lyme disease can sometimes cause serious health issues. Antibiotics are usually effective when taken early, although about 5 to 10 percent of patients can have lingering symptoms for weeks or months. If left untreated, the infection can spread to the joints and cause arthritis. It can also become established in the heart and nervous system, causing persistent fatigue, numbness, or weakness.

The experimental pill that Tarsus Pharmaceuticals is testing is a formulation of lotilaner, a drug that paralyzes and kills parasites by interfering with the way that signals are passed between their nerve cells. Lotilaner is already approved as a veterinary medicine under the brand name Credelio to control fleas and ticks in dogs and cats.

“Our animals have better options than we do for tick prevention,” says Linden Hu, a professor of immunology at Tufts Medical School who led the Tarsus trial. “There are quite a few drugs and vaccines available for dogs and cats, but there’s nothing for us.”

Tarsus first developed lotilaner for human use as an eye drop to treat blepharitis, or inflammation of the eyelid, which is caused by tiny mites. That drug, Xdemvy, was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in July 2023. It stuns and kills mites present in the eyelid. Azamian and his team had the idea to test it against ticks in people. The oral version of the drug enters the bloodstream and is passed to a tick when it bites and starts sucking blood.

“A lot of drugs are tested in animals, but very few are commercialized for animal use and then go to human use,” Azamian says.

In a Phase II trial, 31 healthy adults took either a low or high dose of the Tarsus pill, or a placebo. Researchers then placed sterile ticks on participants’ arms and, 24 hours later, measured how many died. They also observed tick death 30 days after a single dose of the pill. At day one, 97 percent of ticks in the high-dose group and 92 percent in the low-dose group had died, while only 5 percent of ticks in the placebo group had. One month out, both doses of the pill killed around 90 percent of ticks. The company reported no serious adverse events from the pill, and none of the participants dropped out due to side effects.

“The takeaway is that it killed the ticks really quickly,” Hu says. “And the effect lasted for a long time.”

The fact that the drug targets ticks, rather than the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, means that it could protect against other tick-borne diseases that are spreading in the US, including babesiosis and anaplasmosis. Thanks to climate change and exploding deer populations, ticks are expanding their ranges—and carrying diseases with them.

Tarsus has not proven that its pill can actually prevent Lyme disease. That will require testing the drug in hundreds of people who are at high risk of contracting the disease. But Hu is cautiously optimistic: “This pill is potentially a pre-exposure prophylaxis that you don’t have to think about.”

Azamian imagines it as something people would take before going hiking or on a camping trip or just going outside in any tick-infested area.

“There is that subset of people that truly have persistent symptoms after Lyme disease that can really be devastating,” Auwaerter says, “so preventing that would be an amazing opportunity.”

This story originally appeared on wired.com.

Tick-killing pill shows promising results in human trial Read More »

lawsuit-opens-research-misconduct-report-that-may-get-a-harvard-prof-fired

Lawsuit opens research misconduct report that may get a Harvard prof fired

Harvard, Human behavior, lawsuit, psychology, research misconduct, Science / /
Image of a campus of red brick buildings with copper roofs.

Enlarge / Harvard’s got a lawsuit on its hands.

Glowimages

Accusations of research misconduct often trigger extensive investigations, typically performed by the institution where the misconduct allegedly took place. These investigations are internal employment matters, and false accusations have the potential to needlessly wreck someone’s career. As a result, most of these investigations are kept completely confidential, even after their completion.

But all the details of a misconduct investigation performed by Harvard University became public this week through an unusual route. The professor who had been accused of misconduct, Francesca Gino, had filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit, targeting both Harvard and a team of external researchers who had accused her of misconduct. Harvard submitted its investigator’s report as part of its attempt to have part of the suit dismissed, and the judge overseeing the case made it public.

We covered one of the studies at issue at the time of its publication. It has since been retracted, and we’ll be updating our original coverage accordingly.

Misconduct allegations lead to lawsuit

Gino, currently on administrative leave, had been faculty at Harvard Business School, where she did research on human behavior. One of her more prominent studies (the one we covered) suggested that signing a form before completing it caused people to fill in its contents more accurately than if they filled out the form first and then signed it.

Oddly, for a paper about honesty, it had a number of issues. Some of its original authors had attempted to go back and expand on the paper but found they were unable to replicate the results. That seems to have prompted a group of behavioral researchers who write at the blog Data Colada to look more carefully at the results that didn’t replicate, at which point they found indications that the data was fabricated. That got the paper retracted.

Gino was not implicated in the fabrication of the data. But the attention of the Data Colada team (Uri Simonsohn, Leif Nelson, and Joe Simmons) had been drawn to the paper. They found additional indications of completely independent problems in other data from the paper that did come from her work, which caused them to examine additional papers from Gino, coming up with evidence for potential research fraud in four of them.

Before posting it on their blog, however, the Data Colada team had provided their evidence to Harvard, which launched its own investigation. Their posts came out after Harvard’s investigation concluded that Gino’s research had serious issues, and she was placed on administrative leave as the university looked into revoking her tenure. It also alerted the journals that had published the three yet-to-be-retracted papers about the issues.

Things might have ended there, except that Gino filed a defamation lawsuit against Harvard and the Data Colada team, claiming they “worked together to destroy my career and reputation despite admitting they have no evidence proving their allegations.” As part of the $25 million suit, she also accused Harvard of mishandling its investigation and not following proper procedures.

Lawsuit opens research misconduct report that may get a Harvard prof fired Read More »

dna-parasite-now-plays-key-role-in-making-critical-nerve-cell-protein

DNA parasite now plays key role in making critical nerve cell protein

Biology, evolution, Genetics, Genomics, myelin, neurobiology, Science, transposons / /

Domesticated viruses —

An RNA has been adopted to help the production of myelin, a key nerve protein.

–

Graphic depiction of a nerve cell with a myelin coated axon.

Human brains (and the brains of other vertebrates) are able to process information faster because of myelin, a fatty substance that forms a protective sheath over the axons of our nerve cells and speeds up their impulses. How did our neurons evolve myelin sheaths? Part of the answer—which was unknown until now—almost sounds like science fiction.

Led by scientists from Altos Labs-Cambridge Institute of Science, a team of researchers has uncovered a bit of the gnarly past of how myelin ended up covering vertebrate neurons: a molecular parasite has been messing with our genes. Sequences derived from an ancient virus help regulate a gene that encodes a component of myelin, helping explain why vertebrates have an edge when it comes to their brains.

Prehistoric infection

Myelin is a fatty material produced by oligodendrocyte cells in the central nervous system and Schwann cells in the peripheral nervous system. Its insulating properties allow neurons to zap impulses to one another at faster speeds and greater lengths. Our brains can be complex in part because myelin enables longer, narrower axons, which means more nerves can be stacked together.

The un-myelinated brain cells of many invertebrates often need to rely on wider—and therefore fewer—axons for impulse conduction. Rapid impulse conduction makes quicker reactions possible, whether that means fleeing danger or capturing prey.

So, how do we make myelin? A key player in its production appears to be a type of molecular parasite called a retrotransposon.

Like other transposons, retrotransposons can move to new locations in the genome through an RNA intermediate. However, most retrotransposons in our genome have picked up too many mutations to move about anymore.

RNLTR12-int is a retrotransposon that is thought to have originally entered our ancestors’ genome as a virus. Rat genomes now have over 100 copies of the retrotransposon.

An RNA made by RNLTR12-int helps produce myelin by binding to a transcription factor or a protein that regulates the activity of other genes. The RNA/protein combination binds to DNA near the gene for myelin basic protein, or MBP, a major component of myelin.

“MBP is essential for the membrane growth and compression of [central nervous system] myelin,” the researchers said in a study recently published in Cell.

Technical knockout

To find out whether RNLTR12-int really was behind the regulation of MBP and, therefore, myelin production, the research team had to knock its level down and see if myelination still happened. They first experimented on rat brains before moving on to zebrafish and frogs.

When they inhibited RNLTR12-int, the results were drastic. In the central nervous system, genetically edited rats produced 98 percent less MBP than those where the gene was left unedited. The absence of RNLTR12-int also caused the oligodendrocytes that produce myelin to develop much simpler structures than they would normally form. When RNLTR12-int was knocked out in the peripheral nervous system, it reduced myelin produced by Schwann cells.

The researchers used a SOX10 antibody to show that SOX10 bound to the RNLTR12-int transcript in vivo. This was an important result, since there are lots of non-coding RNAs made by cells, and it wasn’t clear whether any RNA would work or if it was specific to RNLTR12-int.

Do these results hold up in other jawed vertebrates? Using CRISPR-CAS9 to perform knockout tests with retrotransposons related to RNLTR12-int in frogs and zebrafish showed similar results.

Myelination has enriched the vertebrate brain so it can work like never before. This is why the term “brain food” is literal. Healthy fats are so important for our brains; they help form myelin since it is a fatty acid. Think about that next time you’re pulling an all-nighter while reaching for a handful of nuts.

Cell, 2024. DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2024.01.011

DNA parasite now plays key role in making critical nerve cell protein Read More »

deadly-morel-mushroom-outbreak-highlights-big-gaps-in-fungi-knowledge

Deadly morel mushroom outbreak highlights big gaps in fungi knowledge

CDC, fda, food poisoning, fungi, health, montana, morel mushrooms, outbreak, Science, sushi, toxin / /

This fungi’s not fun, guys —

Prized morels are unpredictably and puzzlingly deadly, outbreak report shows.

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Mature morel mushrooms in a greenhouse at an agriculture garden in Zhenbeibu Town of Xixia District of Yinchuan, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

Enlarge / Mature morel mushrooms in a greenhouse at an agriculture garden in Zhenbeibu Town of Xixia District of Yinchuan, northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

True morel mushrooms are widely considered a prized delicacy, often pricey and surely safe to eat. But these spongey, earthy forest gems have a mysterious dark side—one that, on occasion, can turn deadly, highlighting just how little we know about morels and fungi generally.

On Thursday, Montana health officials published an outbreak analysis of poisonings linked to the honeycombed fungi in March and April of last year. The outbreak sickened 51 people who ate at the same restaurant, sending four to the emergency department. Three were hospitalized and two died. Though the health officials didn’t name the restaurant in their report, state and local health departments at the time identified it as Dave’s Sushi in Bozeman. The report is published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

The outbreak coincided with the sushi restaurant introducing a new item: a “special sushi roll” that contained salmon and morel mushrooms. The morels were a new menu ingredient for Dave’s. They were served two ways: On April 8, the morels were served partially cooked, with a hot, boiled sauce poured over the raw mushrooms and left to marinate for 75 minutes; and on April 17, they were served uncooked and cold-marinated.

The mystery poison worked fast. Symptoms began, on average, about an hour after eating at the restaurant. And it was brutal. “Vomiting and diarrhea were reportedly profuse,” the health officials wrote, “and hospitalized patients had clinical evidence of dehydration. The two patients who died had chronic underlying medical conditions that might have affected their ability to tolerate massive fluid loss.”

Of the 51 sickened, 46 were restaurant patrons and five were employees. Among them, 45 (88 percent) recalled eating morels. While that’s a high percentage for such an outbreak investigation, certainly enough to make the morels the prime suspect, the health officials went further. With support from the CDC, they set up a matched case-control study, having people complete a detailed questionnaire with demographic information, food items they ate at the restaurant, and symptoms.

Mysterious poison

Forty-one of the poisoned people filled out the questionnaire, as did 22 control patrons who ate at the restaurant but did not report subsequent illness. The analysis indicated that the odds of recalling eating the special sushi roll were nearly 16 times higher among the poisoned patrons than among the controls. The odds of reporting any morel consumption were nearly 11 times higher than controls.

The detailed consumption data also allowed the health officials to model a dose response, which suggested that with each additional piece of the special roll a person recalled eating, their odds of sickness increased nearly threefold compared with people who reported eating none. Those who ate four or more pieces of the roll had odds nearly 22.5 times higher. A small analysis focusing on the five employees sickened, which was not included in the published study but was noted by the Food and Drug Administration, echoed the dose-response finding, indicating that sickness was linked with larger amounts of morel consumption.

When the officials broke down the analysis by people who ate at the restaurant on April 17, when the morels were served uncooked, and those who ate at the restaurant on April 8, when the mushrooms were slightly cooked, the cooking method seemed to matter. People who ate the uncooked rather than the slightly cooked mushrooms had much higher odds of sickness.

This all strongly points to the morels being responsible. At the time, the state and local health officials engaged the FDA, as well as the CDC, to help tackle the outbreak investigation. But the FDA reported that “samples of morel mushrooms collected from the restaurant were screened for pesticides, heavy metals, toxins, and pathogens. No significant findings were identified.” In addition, the state and local health officials noted that DNA sequencing identified the morels used by the restaurant as Morchella sextelata, a species of true morel. This rules out the possibility that the mushrooms were look-alike morels, called “false morels,” which are known to contain a toxin called gyromitrin.

The health officials and the FDA tracked down the distributor of the mushrooms, finding they were cultivated and imported fresh from China. Records indicated that 12 other locations in California also received batches of the mushrooms. Six of those facilities responded to inquiries from the California health department and the FDA, and all six reported no illnesses. They also all reported cooking the morels or at least thoroughly heating them.

Deadly morel mushroom outbreak highlights big gaps in fungi knowledge Read More »

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Amid paralyzing ransomware attack, feds probe UnitedHealth’s HIPAA compliance

Change Healthcare, cyberattack, health, HHS, HIPAA, Policy, ransomware, Science, unitedhealth / /

most significant and consequential incident —

UnitedHealth said it will cooperate with the probe as it works to restore services.

–

Multistory glass-and-brick building with UnitedHealthcare logo on exterior.

As health systems around the US are still grappling with an unprecedented ransomware attack on the country’s largest health care payment processor, the US Department of Health and Human Services is opening an investigation into whether that processor and its parent company, UnitedHealthcare Group, complied with federal rules to protect private patient data.

The attack targeted Change Healthcare, a unit of UnitedHealthcare Group (UHG) that provides financial services to tens of thousands of health care providers around the country, including doctors, dentists, hospitals, and pharmacies. According to an antitrust lawsuit brought against UHG by the Department of Justice in 2022, 50 percent of all medical claims in the US pass through Change Healthcare’s electronic data interchange clearinghouse. (The DOJ lost its case to prevent UHG’s acquisition of Change Healthcare and last year abandoned plans for an appeal.)

As Ars reported previously, the attack was disclosed on February 21 by UHG’s subsidiary, Optum, which now runs Change Healthcare. On February 29, UHG accused the notorious Russian-speaking ransomware gang known both as AlphV and BlackCat of being responsible. According to The Washington Post, the attack involved stealing patient data, encrypting company files, and demanding money to unlock them. The result is a paralysis of claims processing and payments, causing hospitals to run out of cash for payroll and services and preventing patients from getting care and prescriptions. Additionally, the attack is believed to have exposed the health data of millions of US patients.

Earlier this month, Rick Pollack, the president and CEO of the American Hospital Association, called the ransomware attack on Change Healthcare “the most significant and consequential incident of its kind against the US health care system in history.”

Now, three weeks into the attack, many health systems are still struggling. On Tuesday, members of the Biden administration met with UHG CEO Andrew Witty and other health industry leaders at the White House to demand they do more to stabilize the situation for health care providers and services and provide financial assistance. Some improvements may be in sight; on Wednesday, UHG posted an update saying that “all major pharmacy and payment systems are up and more than 99 percent of pre-incident claim volume is flowing.”

HIPAA compliance

Still, the data breach leaves big questions about the extent of the damage to patient privacy, and the adequacy of protections moving forward. In an additional development Wednesday, the health department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced that it is opening an investigation into UHG and Change Healthcare over the incident. It noted that such an investigation was warranted “given the unprecedented magnitude of this cyberattack, and in the best interest of patients and health care providers.”

In a “Dear Colleague” letter dated Wednesday, the OCR explained that the investigation “will focus on whether a breach of protected health information occurred and Change Healthcare’s and UHG’s compliance with the HIPAA Rules.” HIPAA is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which establishes privacy and security requirements for protected health information, as well as breach notification requirements.

In a statement to the press, UHG said it would cooperate with the investigation. “Our immediate focus is to restore our systems, protect data and support those whose data may have been impacted,” the statement read. “We are working with law enforcement to investigate the extent of impacted data.”

The Post notes that the federal government does have a history of investigating and penalizing health care organizations for failing to implement adequate safeguards to prevent data breaches. For instance, health insurance provider Anthem paid a $16 million settlement in 2020 over a 2015 data breach that exposed the private data of almost 79 million people. The exposed data included names, Social Security numbers, medical identification numbers, addresses, dates of birth, email addresses, and employment information. The OCR investigation into the breach discovered that the attack began with spear phishing emails that at least one employee of an Anthem subsidiary fell for, opening the door to further intrusions that went undetected between December 2, 2014, and January 27, 2015.

“Unfortunately, Anthem failed to implement appropriate measures for detecting hackers who had gained access to their system to harvest passwords and steal people’s private information,” OCR Director Roger Severino said at the time. “We know that large health care entities are attractive targets for hackers, which is why they are expected to have strong password policies and to monitor and respond to security incidents in a timely fashion or risk enforcement by OCR.”

Amid paralyzing ransomware attack, feds probe UnitedHealth’s HIPAA compliance Read More »