Humans

More Stories in Humans

  1. a culture dish showing Klebsiella pneumoniae bacteria
    Health & Medicine

    Antimicrobial resistance is a leading cause of death globally

    In more than 70 percent of the 1.27 million deaths caused by antimicrobial resistance, infections didn’t respond to two classes of first-line antibiotics.

    By Aimee Cunningham
  2. image of parents laying on either side of an infant and kissing the infant
    Humans

    Babies may use saliva sharing to figure out relationships

    Actions like sharing bites of food or kissing may cue young children into close bonds, a new study suggests.

    By Erin Garcia de Jesús
  3. an illustration of ancient people gathered around a pot drinking from long straws
    Archaeology

    Gold and silver tubes in a Russian museum are the oldest known drinking straws

    Long metal tubes enabled communal beer drinking more than 5,000 years ago, scientists say.

    By Bruce Bower
  4. image of a woman smelling an orange
    Genetics

    A genetic analysis hints at why COVID-19 can mess with smell

    People with some genetic variants close to smell-related genes had an 11 percent higher risk of losing their sense of taste or smell.

    By Erin Garcia de Jesús
  5. fossilized skeletons of four kungas lying side by side
    Animals

    Part donkey, part wild ass, the kunga is the oldest known hybrid bred by humans

    Syria’s 4,500-year-old kungas were donkey-wild ass hybrids, genetic analysis reveals, so the earliest known example of humans crossing animal species.

    By Jake Buehler
  6. image of a reconstructed skull from the Omo site
    Anthropology

    Homo sapiens bones in East Africa are at least 36,000 years older than once thought

    Analyses of remnants of a volcanic blast push the age of East Africa’s oldest known H. sapiens fossils at Ethiopia’s Omo site to 233,000 years or more.

    By Bruce Bower
  7. photo of a free covid testing sign and people standing in line to be tested
    Health & Medicine

    Omicron forces us to rethink COVID-19 testing and treatments

    At-home rapid tests may miss the speedy variant early on, and some treatments, such as some monoclonal antibodies, no longer work.

    By Tina Hesman Saey
  8. illustration of a clovis hunter aiming a spear at a mammoth
    Archaeology

    Clovis hunters’ reputation as mammoth killers takes a hit

    Early Americans’ stone points were best suited to butchering the huge beasts’ carcasses, scientists contend.

    By Bruce Bower
  9. image of a blastoid sphere with blue and pink hues
    Health & Medicine

    ‘Blastoids’ made of stem cells offer a new way to study fertility

    Newly created “blastoids” could help with research on nonhormonal contraceptives and fertility treatments.

    By Jake Buehler