UNNECESSARY SUFFERING Despite the availability of a potent vaccine, measles continues to cause outbreaks around the world due to its high transmissibility, spotty vaccine coverage in some poor countries and vaccine avoidance in wealthy ones. The infection has no effective treatment, so researchers are working to develop antivirals.
©ISTOCK.COM/s-dmit
WALK IT BACK A new analysis of 3.6-million-year-old footprints excavated in 1978 at Laetoli, Tanzania, challenges the argument that early hominids strode in much the same manner as people today do. Shown is a cast of two of the 70 footprints.
Tim Evanson
LAND LINK Paleobiologist Neil Shubin hosts the new PBS series Your Inner Fish, exploring humans’ connections to animal ancestors. He holds an example of his most famous fossil find: Tiktaalik roseae, an evolutionary link between fish and land animals.
Tangled Bank Studios, PBS
ANTIBACTERIAL BACKFIRE Soaps that contain triclosan, a commonly used antimicrobial compound, could actually help disease-causing bacteria colonize the human nose.
©iStock.com/EMPPhotography
GETTING BIGGER, MAYBE Scientists disagree about whether a Homo erectus boy from 1.5 million years ago, represented here by a cast of the child’s skull, had a modern, humanlike teenage growth spurt.
Philippe Plailly/Science Source
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