The California Academy of Sciences hopes to restart blue butterfly population
There's good news tonight for a team in Presidio National Park, working to introduce Silvery Blue butterflies to the ecosystem to act as crucial pollinators. The butterflies are close genetic relatives to the extinct Xerces Blue. NBC News' Gadi Schwartz has more from San Francisco.May 7, 2025
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Sickle cell patient meets scientist behind technology that saved her life
Victoria Gray is the first person in the world to receive CRISPR, a gene-editing therapy for sickle cell disease created by Dr. Jennifer Doudna who won the Nobel Prize for the life saving technology. NBC News' Zinhle Essamuah sits down with Gray and Doudna as they meet for the first time. June 5, 2025
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NAACP calls for emergency shutdown of Musk's supercomputer in Memphis
Local regulators should immediately stop Elon Musk's supercomputer project from operating in South Memphis because it's out of compliance with environmental rules, the NAACP wrote in a letter sent Thursday to Shelby County officials. The civil rights group addressed the request to Dr. Michelle Taylor, director of the Shelby County Health Department and to the commissioners of Memphis Light Gas and Water. The health department is responsible for implementing federal air regulations in Shelby County, which encompasses Memphis. 'Being the world's richest man doesn't give you the right to pollute Black communities and jeopardize the health of its residents,' NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson said in a statement to NBC News. 'We urge the health department to step in immediately.' When contacted, a spokesperson for Memphis Light Gas and Water said it had not received the NAACP letter and could not comment on it. Neither the health department nor xAI immediately responded to questions about the letter, which was also signed by the presidents of the Tennessee and Memphis chapters of the NAACP. In a previous statement to NBC News, xAI said its "operations comply with all applicable laws' and that it 'works collaboratively with County and City officials, EPA personnel, and community leaders regarding all things that affect Memphis.' xAI has come under scrutiny in recent months for operating methane gas turbines at its Memphis facility to meet the electricity needs of the supercomputer Colossus. The turbines emit pollutants, including nitrogen oxides and formaldehyde, according to their manufacturer. Environmental groups and the NAACP believe the turbines required permits under the Clean Air Act; the city's health department, the mayor and the Chamber of Commerce have said permits were not required for the turbines' first year of use. xAI, which is now seeking a permit for 15 permanent turbines, said those would be equipped with pollution controls and only be used as backup once other energy options are available. Earlier this month, NBC News reported on a South Memphis neighborhood called Boxtown, about two miles from xAI's facility, where residents are concerned that Musk's project will harm the area's already poor air quality. 'They got money. And they can do what they want to do, you know, without consulting us,' said Easter Knox, who has lived in the area since 1977. Knox told NBC News she and her husband both struggle with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which can be exacerbated by pollution. Health department officials have been limited in their comments about the project. On Friday, news broke that Taylor, the department head, would be leaving Shelby County to oversee the Baltimore City Health Department. Colossus, which xAI calls the world's largest supercomputer, came online in September 2024 to train Grok, the company's chatbot. But critics say the project's potential economic benefit to the community is outweighed by environmental concerns. 'While we applaud research and innovation,' the NAACP letter states, 'there must be limits that ensure that communities are healthy and alive to enjoy the benefits of any potential innovation.' Shelby County health officials are expected to make a decision on xAI's application in the coming weeks. Memphis Mayor Paul Young previously told NBC's "Nightly News" that the city plans to work with a researcher to implement air monitoring in the months ahead.
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19 Black Americans' skulls return to New Orleans after 150 years for memorial service
More than 150 years after their heads were severed from their bodies and shipped to Germany for 'research,' the craniums of 19 Black people, which were recently returned, will be memorialized Saturday during a sacred ceremony in New Orleans. Dillard University President Monique Guillory said during a news conference Wednesday that the memorial will be 'about confronting a dark chapter in medical and scientific history while choosing a path of justice, honor and remembrance.' Those who will be honored had died in the city's Charity Hospital in 1872. Their heads were severed and shipped to Leipzig University in Germany to be studied — a common practice at the time, as researchers sought to confirm their unfounded theory that Black people's brains were smaller than those of other races, therefore making them inferior. 'They were stripped of their dignity,' Guillory said, over 'a practice rooted in racism and exploitation. They were people with names. They were people with stories and histories. Some of them had families, mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, human beings.' They were not specimens, she continued, 'not numbers.' The heads were returned to New Orleans about a week ago following a two-year journey, according to Eva Baham, a retired Dillard professor. Representatives from Leipzig contacted the city in 2023 about their existence in Germany, where the university houses a skull collection dating back to the 1800s. The school is in the process of repatriating or sending back skulls to their original locations. That initial call set in motion the creation of the Cultural Repatriation Committee, led by Baham. 'We are not talking about them as if they are skeletal remains,' Baham said at the news conference. 'We want to honor them by calling them the individuals that they are.' Dillard, one of two historically Black universities in New Orleans, along with Xavier University of Louisiana, welcomed the opportunity to be part of 'this very sensitive acknowledgment of our people, that they are here,' Guillory told NBC News. A visitation will take place Saturday at Dillard's Lawless Memorial Chapel with a service. Laid to rest will be the remains of Adam Grant, Isaak Bell, Hiram Smith, William Pierson, Henry Williams, John Brown, Hiram Malone, William Roberts, Alice Brown, Prescilla Hatchet, Marie Louise, Mahala, Samuel Prince, John Tolman, Henry Allen, Moses Willis and Henry Anderson. The remains of two other people could not be identified. The committee tried in vain for two years to contact descendants of the victims, but had no success. They did learn some information, Baham said, and found their names listed in municipal death records almost in succession. 'In those records list what they died from, how long they had been in New Orleans,' she said. 'We have people who were here in New Orleans from one hour in 1871, one day, a week, two months. And that's all very important.' Guillory told NBC News that the service will be a New Orleans expression of respect. 'We will do so in the most sacred way that we know how in our beloved city, in a true New Orleans fashion, with a jazz funeral that shows the world that these people mattered,' she said. 'We have a very different relationship with death here, and a very different relationship with what we believe is the spirit and our ancestors. And now they are home. And so, this is particularly poignant for people in New Orleans.' When the opportunity arose, there were questions from people in the academic and local community, Guillory said, about why the parties involved would welcome their return. But the city, University Medical Center New Orleans, Dillard University and other entities did not blink. 'There's certain sensitivity to the material, to the macabre, somber nature of what we're talking about,' Guillory said. 'There was also a lot of uncertainty about whether we could actually bring them here. Should we bring them here? Who should be responsible for bringing them here? Why bring them back? And I think the committee itself had been very confident and convinced that this was the right thing to do.' The remains will be stored at the Hurricane Katrina Memorial. 'We want that day to be not only of remembrance, but of reckoning and renewal,' Guillory said, 'and may we never forget them.'
