Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Environment
Engineers are plugging holes in drinking water treatment
Drinking water quality has come a long way in the past hundred years — but challenges remain.
- Science & Society
Do you know how your drinking water is treated?
Editor in Chief Nancy Shute discusses drinking water quality in the United States and the latest research on water treatment technology.
- Health & Medicine
Don’t spank your kids. Do time-outs and positive talk instead, pediatricians say
A pediatrician group recommends against spanking children — ever — and points instead to positive reinforcement and time-outs to cool off.
- Archaeology
An exploding meteor may have wiped out ancient Dead Sea communities
An archaeological site not far from the Dead Sea shows signs of sudden, superheated collapse 3,700 years ago.
- Archaeology
A Bronze Age tomb in Israel reveals the earliest known use of vanilla
Residue of the aromatic substance in 3 jugs dates to around 3,600 years ago.
- Health & Medicine
Small doses of peanut protein can turn allergies around
After a year of careful peanut protein exposure, most kids in a clinical trial could tolerate the equivalent of two large peanuts.
- Archaeology
A Bronze Age game called 58 holes was found chiseled into stone in Azerbaijan
A newly discovered rock pattern suggests that the game traveled fast from the Near East to Eurasia thousands of years ago.
- Health & Medicine
FDA restricts the sale of some flavored e-cigarettes as teen use soars
The number of high schoolers who vape rose 78 percent from 2017 to 2018.
- Health & Medicine
Lyme and other tickborne diseases are on the rise in the U.S. Here’s what that means.
A record number of tickborne diseases were reported in the United States in 2017. An infectious disease physician discusses that result and others.
- Genetics
Coffee or tea? Your preference may be written in your DNA
Coffee or tea is a bitter choice, a taste genetics study suggests.
- Anthropology
Skull damage suggests Neandertals led no more violent lives than humans
Neandertals’ skulls suggest they didn’t lead especially injury-prone lives.
- Health & Medicine
U.S. cases of a polio-like illness rise, but there are few clues to its cause
A total of 90 cases of acute flaccid myelitis have been confirmed so far this year, out of 252 under investigation.
