Happy Monday, listeners.

It may technically still be spring, but with Memorial Day firmly in the rearview mirror and June upon us, let's be real.

It's spiritually summer in the Northern Hemisphere, and we hope you're enjoying it.

For Scientific American Science quickly, I'm Rachel

Feldman. Let's kick off the month with a quick roundup of some recent science news you may have

missed. First, a measles update. The good news is that the massive outbreak we've been following

for the last few months in Texas seems to be slowing down, though it certainly isn't over. While cases in the West Texas

centered outbreak appeared to be leveling off last week, there have been other concerning

incidents of recent measles exposure around the U.S. In mid-May, someone attended a Shakira

concert at MetLife Stadium while contagious. Also in mid-May, a traveler with measles flew through the Denver airport.

Meanwhile, Canada and Mexico are both dealing with measles outbreaks of their own. A public health

doctor told the CBC that Ontario is now reporting more measles cases every week than it previously

saw in a decade. Health officials told ABC News and other outlets that they think an increase in

vaccination rates contributed to the slowdown of the Texas outbreak. That leads me to a big caveat

in the good news about measles case counts. Last week, Texas lawmakers approved a bill

that would make it easier for parents to get exemptions for standard vaccinations against illnesses,

such as measles, polio, and whooping cough when enrolling their kids in school.

There's already a legal process in place that allows parents to skip vaccinating their children

based on religious and personal beliefs, which requires them to contact state officials

to request a physical form by mail.

During the 2023-2024 fiscal year, parents filed almost 153,000 exemption requests,

which was almost double the number of requests seen in 2019.

...