For a quarter-century, dating back to my time as a budding space enthusiast, I've watched with a keen eye each time people have ventured into space.

That's 162 human spaceflight missions since the beginning of 2000, ranging from Space Shuttle flights to Russian Soyuz missions, Chinese astronauts' first forays into orbit, and commercial expeditions on SpaceX's Dragon capsule. Yes, I'm also counting privately funded suborbital hops launched by Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic.

Last week, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin captured headlines— though not purely positive —with the launch of six women, including pop star Katy Perry, to an altitude of 66 miles (106 kilometers). The capsule returned to the ground 10 minutes and 21 seconds later. It was the first all-female flight to space since Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova's solo mission in 1963.

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For a quarter-century, dating back to my time as a budding space enthusiast, I've watched with a keen eye each time people have ventured into space.

That's 162 human spaceflight missions since the beginning of 2000, ranging from Space Shuttle flights to Russian Soyuz missions, Chinese astronauts' first forays into orbit, and commercial expeditions on SpaceX's Dragon capsule. Yes, I'm also counting privately funded suborbital hops launched by Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic.

Last week, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin captured headlines— though not purely positive —with the launch of six women, including pop star Katy Perry, to an altitude of 66 miles (106 kilometers). The capsule returned to the ground 10 minutes and 21 seconds later. It was the first all-female flight to space since Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova's solo mission in 1963.

Read full article

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For a quarter-century, dating back to my time as a budding space enthusiast, I've watched with a keen eye each time people have ventured into space.

That's 162 human spaceflight missions since the beginning of 2000, ranging from Space Shuttle flights to Russian Soyuz missions, Chinese astronauts' first forays into orbit, and commercial expeditions on SpaceX's Dragon capsule. Yes, I'm also counting privately funded suborbital hops launched by Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic.

Last week, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin captured headlines— though not purely positive —with the launch of six women, including pop star Katy Perry, to an altitude of 66 miles (106 kilometers). The capsule returned to the ground 10 minutes and 21 seconds later. It was the first all-female flight to space since Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova's solo mission in 1963.

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A controversial doctor providing unproven measles treatments to unvaccinated children in West Texas recently contracted the highly infectious virus himself amid the mushrooming outbreak—and he continued treating patients while visibly ill with the virus.

The doctor's infection was revealed in a video posted online by Children's Health Defense (CHD), the rabid anti-vaccine advocacy organization founded and previously run by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a long-time anti-vaccine advocate who is now the US secretary of health. Kennedy headed CHD until January, when he stepped down in anticipation of his Senate confirmation.

In the video, the doctor, Ben Edwards, can be seen with mild spots on his face. Someone asks him if he caught measles himself, and he responds, "Yeah," saying he was "pretty achy yesterday." He went on to say that he had developed the rash the day before but woke up that day feeling "pretty good." The video was posted by CHD on March 31, and the Associated Press was the first to report it.

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A controversial doctor providing unproven measles treatments to unvaccinated children in West Texas recently contracted the highly infectious virus himself amid the mushrooming outbreak—and he continued treating patients while visibly ill with the virus.

The doctor's infection was revealed in a video posted online by Children's Health Defense (CHD), the rabid anti-vaccine advocacy organization founded and previously run by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a long-time anti-vaccine advocate who is now the US secretary of health. Kennedy headed CHD until January, when he stepped down in anticipation of his Senate confirmation.

In the video, the doctor, Ben Edwards, can be seen with mild spots on his face. Someone asks him if he caught measles himself, and he responds, "Yeah," saying he was "pretty achy yesterday." He went on to say that he had developed the rash the day before but woke up that day feeling "pretty good." The video was posted by CHD on March 31, and the Associated Press was the first to report it.

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A controversial doctor providing unproven measles treatments to unvaccinated children in West Texas recently contracted the highly infectious virus himself amid the mushrooming outbreak—and he continued treating patients while visibly ill with the virus.

The doctor's infection was revealed in a video posted online by Children's Health Defense (CHD), the rabid anti-vaccine advocacy organization founded and previously run by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a long-time anti-vaccine advocate who is now the US secretary of health. Kennedy headed CHD until January, when he stepped down in anticipation of his Senate confirmation.

In the video, the doctor, Ben Edwards, can be seen with mild spots on his face. Someone asks him if he caught measles himself, and he responds, "Yeah," saying he was "pretty achy yesterday." He went on to say that he had developed the rash the day before but woke up that day feeling "pretty good." The video was posted by CHD on March 31, and the Associated Press was the first to report it.

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Is there anything more human than gathering in groups to share food and partake in a fermented beverage or two (or three, or....)? Researchers have caught wild chimpanzees on camera engaging in what appears to be similar activity: sharing fermented African breadfruit with measurable alcoholic content. According to a new paper published in the journal Current Biology, the observational data is the first evidence of the sharing of alcoholic foods among nonhuman great apes in the wild.

The fruit in question is seasonal and comes from Treculia africana trees common across the home environment of the wild chimps in Cantanhez National Park in Guinea-Bissau. Once mature, the fruits drop from the tree to the ground and slowly ripen from a hard, deep green exterior to a yellow, spongier texture. Because the chimps are unhabituated, the authors deployed camera traps at three separate locations to record their feeding and sharing behavior.

They recorded ten instances of selective fruit sharing among 17 chimps, with the animals exhibiting a marked preference for riper fruit. The authors measured the alcohol content of the fruit with a handy portable breathalyzer between April and July, 2022, and found almost all of the fallen fruit (90 percent) contained some ethanol, with the ripest containing the highest levels—the equivalent of 0.61 percent ABV (alcohol by volume).

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Is there anything more human than gathering in groups to share food and partake in a fermented beverage or two (or three, or....)? Researchers have caught wild chimpanzees on camera engaging in what appears to be similar activity: sharing fermented African breadfruit with measurable alcoholic content. According to a new paper published in the journal Current Biology, the observational data is the first evidence of the sharing of alcoholic foods among nonhuman great apes in the wild.

The fruit in question is seasonal and comes from Treculia africana trees common across the home environment of the wild chimps in Cantanhez National Park in Guinea-Bissau. Once mature, the fruits drop from the tree to the ground and slowly ripen from a hard, deep green exterior to a yellow, spongier texture. Because the chimps are unhabituated, the authors deployed camera traps at three separate locations to record their feeding and sharing behavior.

They recorded ten instances of selective fruit sharing among 17 chimps, with the animals exhibiting a marked preference for riper fruit. The authors measured the alcohol content of the fruit with a handy portable breathalyzer between April and July, 2022, and found almost all of the fallen fruit (90 percent) contained some ethanol, with the ripest containing the highest levels—the equivalent of 0.61 percent ABV (alcohol by volume).

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Is there anything more human than gathering in groups to share food and partake in a fermented beverage or two (or three, or....)? Researchers have caught wild chimpanzees on camera engaging in what appears to be similar activity: sharing fermented African breadfruit with measurable alcoholic content. According to a new paper published in the journal Current Biology, the observational data is the first evidence of the sharing of alcoholic foods among nonhuman great apes in the wild.

The fruit in question is seasonal and comes from Treculia africana trees common across the home environment of the wild chimps in Cantanhez National Park in Guinea-Bissau. Once mature, the fruits drop from the tree to the ground and slowly ripen from a hard, deep green exterior to a yellow, spongier texture. Because the chimps are unhabituated, the authors deployed camera traps at three separate locations to record their feeding and sharing behavior.

They recorded ten instances of selective fruit sharing among 17 chimps, with the animals exhibiting a marked preference for riper fruit. The authors measured the alcohol content of the fruit with a handy portable breathalyzer between April and July, 2022, and found almost all of the fallen fruit (90 percent) contained some ethanol, with the ripest containing the highest levels—the equivalent of 0.61 percent ABV (alcohol by volume).

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