March 25, 2025: Today we're covering measles outbreaks in the U.S., a greener way to make nuclear fusion fuel and supersymmetry's long fall from grace. —Robin Lloyd, Contributing Editor | | | ROV SuBastian/Schmidt Ocean Institute | | | • A riotous photography collection from a recent mission off the coast of Chile shows "sea pigs," "disco worms" and other new and fascinating deep-sea creatures. | 4 min read | | | As of Thursday, a total of 378 confirmed cases of measles have been reported by 17 states and New York City to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Two individuals have died (one adult and one child); both were unvaccinated. Most cases are concentrated in just one Texas county. The rate of measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination in one school district there fell well below the recommended 95 percent threshold that stops the spread of the disease, reports Scientific American graphics intern Ripley Cleghorn.
How this happened: In 2000, due to widespread vaccination, measles was considered to have been eliminated from the U.S. However, most U.S. states' MMR vaccine coverage among kindergartners decreased over the past six years, partly as a result of increases in public-health distrust; rates in a few states started to recover in 2022 and 2023. Texas is one of 45 states that allows for personal and/or religious exemptions to childhood immunizations mandated by public and some private schools.
| | | Some of the states with the lowest MMR vaccination rates underwent dramatic reductions in coverage coinciding with the pandemic. | | | Forgotten impact: Measles was commonplace in the U.S. until a vaccine against the highly contagious viral respiratory illness became available in the 1960s. The fatality rate of measles in children is around one in 1,000 cases. And one in 1,000 measles cases results in encephalitis. This brain inflammation, which sometimes crops up well after an initial infection, can cause permanent brain damage and is fatal in one in five people, reports Scientific American senior news writer Meghan Bartels.
What the experts say: "When we're seeing measles, we need to think that we may also see resurgence of other vaccine-preventable diseases," says epidemiologist Walter Orenstein.
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| | | • Deadly consequences can follow when scientists, as well as editors of scientific journals, fail to correct mistakes in published research, write public health researchers Olivia C. Robertson, Luis-Enrique Becerra-Garcia, Colby J. Vorland and David B. Allison. One egregious case, which involved falsification of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease research, went uncorrected for decades. Failures to acknowledge errors erode public trust in science, the team writes. | 5 min read | | | It is heartening to read that the city of Burlington, outside Toronto, Canada, has been temporarily closing a portion of a busy roadway for the past 13 years to make conditions safer for Jefferson salamanders during their annual migration. Regionally related: for a few years, Toronto residents have been served by The Green Line, a publication tackling food prices, housing shortages and other local news through a community-driven approach. Anita Li, the publication's founder and CEO, hopes that her hyperlocal media model is extended to other communities. (FWIW, I wasn't able to find salamander coverage in The Green Line.) | Thanks for reading. We always like to hear from you. Please send your thoughts and feedback to: newsletters@sciam.com. See you tomorrow. | —Robin Lloyd, Contributing Editor | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
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