Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Animals
Bad moods could be contagious among ravens
Ravens may pick up and share their compatriots’ negativity, a study on the social intelligence of these animals suggests.
- Health & Medicine
How allergens in pollen help plants do more than make you sneeze
A plant’s view of what humans call allergens in pollen grains involves a lot of crucial biology. And sex.
- Animals
Vaccines may help bats fight white nose syndrome
Researchers are developing an oral vaccine that helps little brown bats survive the fungal disease white nose syndrome.
- Health & Medicine
Does eating ultraprocessed food affect weight gain? It’s complicated
Laying off ultraprocessed foods and switching to whole foods may help some people manage their weight, a small study finds.
- Anthropology
Fossil teeth push the human-Neandertal split back to about 1 million years ago
A study of fossilized teeth shifts the age of the last common ancestor between Neandertals and humans.
- Ecosystems
Readers were curious about green icebergs, aliens and more
Readers had questions and comments about icebergs and climate change, CBD and NASA’s search for E.T.
- Archaeology
Ancient South American populations dipped due to an erratic climate
Scientists link bouts of intense rainfall and drought around 8,600 to 6,000 years ago to declining numbers of South American hunter-gatherers.
- Health & Medicine
50 years ago, scientists tried to transplant part of a human eye
In 1969, a doctor tried and failed to restore a 54-year-old man’s vision. Fifty years later, scientists are still struggling to make eye transplants work.
- Life
A gut bacteria transplant may not help you lose weight
A small study finds that transplanting gut microbes from a lean person into obese people didn’t lead to weight loss, as hoped.
- Archaeology
An ancient pouch reveals the hallucinogen stash of an Andes shaman
South American shamans in the Andes Mountains carried mind-altering ingredients 1,000 years ago, a study finds.
- Anthropology
A jawbone shows Denisovans lived on the Tibetan Plateau long before humans
A Denisovan jaw is the earliest evidence of hominids on the Tibetan Plateau, and the first fossil outside of Siberia from the mysterious human lineage.
- Health & Medicine
A mysterious dementia that mimics Alzheimer’s gets named LATE
An underappreciated form of dementia that causes memory trouble in older people gets a name: LATE.
