Gory Details
The bizarre side of science
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Humans
Could the menstrual cycle have shaped the evolution of music?
A new study suggesting that women select better musicians shows how women’s role in evolution is being redefined.
- Chemistry
How urine will get us to Mars
A new recycling system turns pee into drinking water and energy, a small step toward really long-term space travel.
- Chemistry
This is what happens when you pee in the pool
Swimming pools are basically chemical toilets, but here’s why I’ll keep swimming.
- Health & Medicine
This rare skull-thickening disease led to a 3-D-printed replacement
A skull implant made with a 3-D printer replaced the 2-inch-thick skull of a Dutch woman with the rare van Buchem disease.
- Psychology
Your fear is written all over your face, in heat
Thermal images of bank clerks who’ve been robbed reveal a cold nose can be a sign of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.
- Science & Society
Stone throwers might toss fingerprints into police hands
An Israeli police lab is studying methods to develop fingerprints on rock to identify stone throwers.
- Psychology
Attractiveness studies are hot, or not
Studies that link attractiveness to other traits are often misinterpreted, including recent studies of nose bacteria and of cycling ability.
- Genetics
What your earwax says about your ancestry
Both armpit and ear wax secretions are smellier in Caucasians than in Asians, thanks to a tiny genetic change that differs across ethnic groups.
- Science & Society
Alternatives needed to do-it-yourself feces swaps
Three researchers are calling for the FDA to regulate feces as a human tissue rather than a drug to make it easier for doctors to perform fecal transplants.
- Animals
Why was Marius, the euthanized giraffe, ever born?
The problem of ‘surplus’ zoo animals reveals a divide on animal contraceptives.
- Health & Medicine
Introducing the first bank of feces
A new nonprofit called OpenBiome is hoping to do for fecal transplants what blood banks have done for transfusions. It’s a kind of Brown Cross.
- Life
Some animals eat their moms, and other cannibalism facts
A new book surveys those who eat their own kind, revealing some surprises about who’s eating whom.
