Quiet Dismantling of Childhood Vaccine Policy via “Shared Decision-Making”

CIDRAP’s op-ed argues the federal government is quietly weakening US childhood vaccine policy by shifting key shots from “routine” recommendation to “shared clinical decision-making.” Acting CDC Director Jim O’Neill signed an HHS memo moving hepatitis A, hepatitis B (for infants of mothers who test negative), rotavirus, meningococcal vaccines, and influenza into that category—outside the usual ACIP public, evidence-review process. The author says this keeps vaccines technically “on the schedule” while removing the defaults that drive uptake: EHR prompts, standing orders, and the presumptive “shots are due” approach. Requiring a clinician-by-clinician deliberation creates bottlenecks and turns “discuss with your doctor” into a barrier, especially for families without reliable primary care. It also undercuts newborn safety nets. (CIDRAP)

Webb Spots “Anomalous” Dust Forming in a Metal-Poor Galaxy

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope report a surprising amount of dust in Sextans A, a small, metal-poor galaxy often treated as an analog for early-universe conditions. Because dust grains are usually built from heavier elements forged in stars, low-metal environments are expected to be dust-poor. Webb’s mid-infrared view instead shows dust associated with young stars and star-forming regions, raising questions about how efficiently dust can form (and survive) when the raw ingredients are scarce. The result matters beyond one dwarf galaxy: dust shapes how galaxies cool, how stars form, and how we interpret distant galaxies whose light is filtered through dusty interstellar material. The team frames Sextans A as a new testbed for dust physics in extreme conditions. (NASA Science)

Astronomy’s “Platypus”: Webb Finds Tiny Galaxies with Mixed-Up Identities

A new Webb-led analysis spotlights an odd population of very small, early galaxies whose properties don’t fit neat categories—hence the “platypus” nickname. Using Webb’s sensitivity to faint infrared light, researchers identify objects that look like lightweight dwarf systems in some ways, yet show features more typical of larger, more evolved galaxies in others (for example, unexpectedly complex structures or star-formation signatures). The work argues these hybrids may represent transitional building blocks: systems caught in the act of assembling, enriching, and reorganizing as the universe matures. Beyond the catchy metaphor, the point is methodological: Webb is revealing diversity where older surveys suggested uniformity, and that diversity can shift models of how the first generations of galaxies grew into today’s cosmic ecosystem. (Space Telescope Science Institute)

Hubble’s “Cloud-9”: A Starless, Gas-Rich Object Linked to Dark Matter

ESA/Hubble highlights a peculiar object dubbed “Cloud-9”: a large cloud of gas that appears to contain few (if any) stars, yet is massive enough to be held together—implicating a substantial dark-matter component. Star formation is usually the telltale sign that gas has collapsed into a gravitationally bound system, so a starless, stable cloud is a rare find. The release frames Cloud-9 as a potential “dark galaxy” candidate, the kind of object theorists have long expected but observers struggle to confirm. If the interpretation holds, it offers a new laboratory for separating what dark matter does from what stars do, and for testing how galaxies ignite (or fail to) when gas and gravity meet. (ESA Hubble)

Scientists Find Evidence Dark Matter and Neutrinos May Interact

Researchers at the University of Sheffield report evidence consistent with dark matter interacting with neutrinos—an idea that would nudge cosmology beyond the simplest “dark matter only gravitates” picture. The team links the claim to patterns in large-scale structure: how matter clumps and how that clumping evolves can carry fingerprints of faint, non-gravitational interactions. If neutrinos scatter with dark matter, even rarely, it can subtly alter the growth of cosmic structure across time and scale. The release positions the finding as a challenge to the standard model of cosmology and a prompt for follow-up tests with upcoming surveys and improved simulations. It’s not presented as a final verdict, but as a concrete, testable pathway: look for interaction signatures where neutrinos and dark matter would have mattered most. (University of Sheffield)

Study Casts Doubt on Europa’s Seafloor as a Long-Lived Habitat

A new modeling study argues that Europa’s rocky seafloor may be mechanically too strong for sustained tectonics or volcanism today—weakening a popular habitability narrative built around hydrothermal vents. On Earth, seafloor cracking and water–rock reactions help generate chemical energy and nutrients that can support microbial ecosystems. The Reuters report says the researchers modeled stresses from multiple drivers (including tidal forcing) and concluded that present-day fracturing and associated fluid flow are likely limited, restricting how much “fresh chemistry” Europa can make at the ocean floor. The study doesn’t erase Europa’s appeal—there’s still liquid water, organics on the surface, and tidal heating—but it reframes what kinds of energy sources might realistically be available now, versus early in Europa’s history. (Reuters)

A Gravitational-Wave Background Mystery, Explained by “Growth Spurts”

CU Boulder researchers propose a solution to a puzzle raised after collaborations (including NANOGrav) reported evidence for a nanohertz gravitational-wave background: the signal looked larger than many estimates predicted. Their study argues that during galaxy mergers, the smaller supermassive black hole in a pair may grow disproportionately by feeding on surrounding gas (“preferential accretion”). That extra mass makes the resulting black-hole mergers louder gravitational-wave sources, boosting the background to match observations. The article emphasizes this changes which mergers matter most—small-to-large pairings may contribute more than expected—and ties the idea to broader questions about how early, gas-rich galaxies built the massive black holes we see today. The team notes the hypothesis is testable, and points to observing real mergers as a next step. (University of Colorado Boulder)

A Saturn-Mass Rogue Planet Gets a Direct Weigh-In

EarthSky reports on a free-floating (rogue) planet candidate whose mass has been directly measured—about Saturn’s—using a microlensing event observed from both Earth-based surveys and space-based data. The key advance is geometry: seeing the same brightening from different vantage points allows a parallax measurement that breaks degeneracies and turns “candidate” into a better-characterized object with a firm mass estimate. The article places the find toward the Milky Way’s central regions and notes why rogue planets are hard to study: no host star, little light, and fleeting lensing signals. The report also points to the next wave—future space missions designed for microlensing—arguing that this is a preview of a coming census of worlds that wander the galaxy alone. (EarthSky)

Chandra’s 25-Year Time-Lapse Tracks Kepler’s Supernova Remnant in Motion

A Chandra-led release assembles more than two decades of X-ray observations into a time-lapse of Kepler’s Supernova Remnant, revealing uneven expansion and shock interactions as debris plows into surrounding material. The remnant traces a Type Ia supernova—thermonuclear destruction of a white dwarf—events that astronomers use as distance markers for measuring cosmic expansion. By comparing epochs (spanning 2000 to 2025), the video makes the remnant’s dynamics visible: fast filaments race outward while other regions lag where the blast meets denser gas. That contrast helps map the structure of the local interstellar medium and tests models of how Type Ia explosions evolve after detonation. The project also underscores a quieter technology story: only a long-lived, high-resolution X-ray observatory can capture motion on these timescales. (chandra.harvard.edu)

Betelgeuse’s Hidden Partner May Be Carving a Wake Through the Giant’s Atmosphere

Science News covers new work pointing to a close companion star around Betelgeuse, the famous red supergiant in Orion, and suggests the partner may be disturbing Betelgeuse’s extended atmosphere—potentially leaving a detectable “wake.” The reporting links the case to re-analyses of high-resolution observations (including Hubble-era data) and notes why this matters: Betelgeuse’s recent dimming episodes and its mass-loss behavior are central to how massive stars evolve toward supernova. A companion changes the story by adding gravity, tides, and orbital motion to what might otherwise be attributed solely to convection, dust, or pulsation. If confirmed, the companion could help explain asymmetries in the star’s surrounding material and sharpen predictions about how Betelgeuse will shed mass before it eventually explodes. (Science News)

“Hoop-Skirt” Galaxies May Be More Common Than Astronomers Thought

Polar-ring galaxies—systems with a band of stars and gas orbiting over a galaxy’s poles, like a cosmic hoop skirt—are rare enough that every new sample can shift theories about how they form. Science News reports on research that expands the census of these structures, arguing they may be more prevalent than prior catalogs suggested. The interest is causal: polar rings are widely interpreted as evidence of dramatic interactions—gas accretion from companions, mergers, or capture events that torque material into a perpendicular orbit. A larger population strengthens the statistical base for testing those scenarios and for probing the shapes of dark-matter halos (because stable rings trace the underlying gravitational potential). The coverage emphasizes that better surveys and smarter search methods are turning “oddities” into a measurable class—useful for studying galaxy assembly in action. (Science News)