Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Psychology
Barcelona soccer team’s 2009 wins led to slight baby boom
In Bages, birth rates rose 16 percent, but in Barcelona they only increased 1.2 percent.
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- Life
Neandertal genes point to interbreeding, inbreeding
DNA from 50,000 years ago underscores modest levels of mating across hominid populations.
- Microbes
A newfound respect for the microbial world
Despite what many people think about humans’ place in the scheme of things, scientists are finding more evidence that we live in a world of microbes.
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- Animals
China trumps Near East for signs of most ancient farm cats
Earliest evidence found for grain as a force in feline domestication.
- Health & Medicine
Dog dust may benefit infant immune systems
Microbes from pet-owning houses protected mice against allergy, infection.
- Archaeology
Easter Island’s farmers cultivated social resilience, not collapse
A Polynesian society often presumed to have self-destructed shows signs of having carried on instead.
- Genetics
You are what your dad ate, perhaps
Your development is affected by what your mother ate while she was pregnant with you. Is it also affected by what your father ate? A new study suggests that folate deficiency in dads can affect their offspring through epigenetic changes.
- Neuroscience
Concussion-free head blows may still affect brain
Some college athletes who played contact sports had more changes in their brain’s white matter than varsity competitors in less violent games.
- Health & Medicine
For babies, walking opens a whole new world
Walking and talking are linked as babies develop, anecdote and data show.
- Health & Medicine
Staph bacteria linger deep in our noses
The nasal cavity has hidden crevices where the disease-causing bacteria like to hang out.
