Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
50 years ago, air pollution was linked to more reports of animal bites
Scientists spent decades tying air pollution to health and behavior problems. Now, there’s more evidence that dirty air influences aggression in animals.
- Anthropology
A surprising food may have been a staple of the real Paleo diet: rotten meat
The realization that people have long eaten putrid foods has archaeologists rethinking what Neandertals and other ancient hominids ate.
- Health & Medicine
Microplastics are in our bodies. Here’s why we don’t know the health risks
Researchers are racing to try to understand how much humans are exposed and what levels are toxic.
- Health & Medicine
How raccoon dog DNA fits into the COVID-19 origins debate
Did the virus that causes COVID-19 come from animals or a lab? Evidence hints at animals. Either way, we should be prepping for the next pandemic.
- Genetics
DNA from Beethoven’s hair hints at what killed the composer
Many historians suspect Beethoven died from liver failure. A new analysis shows he had a heightened genetic risk for liver disease, researchers say.
- Health & Medicine
A hormone shot helped drunk mice sober up quickly
Drunk mice injected with the hormone FGF21 woke up and regained their balance faster than inebriated mice that did not receive the shot.
- Health & Medicine
Sleeping sickness is nearing elimination. An experimental drug could help
Clinical trials of acoziborole are under way in sub-Saharan Africa, where sleeping sickness is endemic.
- Health & Medicine
U.S. cases of a deadly fungus nearly doubled in recent years
Though numbers are still small, clinical cases of Candida auris in the jumped 95 percent from 2020 to 2021, a CDC survey finds.
- Health & Medicine
Maternal deaths in the U.S. keep climbing
New U.S. data show that as maternal deaths rise, a large gap between the maternal mortality rate of Black women compared with white women persists.
- Genetics
Why experts recommend ditching racial labels in genetic studies
Racial labels don’t explain biological and genetic diversity but do cause stigma. They belong “in the dustbin of history,” a panel of experts says.
- Neuroscience
In mice, anxiety isn’t all in the head. It can start in the heart
Scientists used optogenetics to raise the heartbeat of a mouse, making it anxious. The finding could offer a new angle for studying anxiety disorders.
- Anthropology
Two scientists’ trek showed how people of Chaco Canyon may have hauled logs
By carrying a log with the aid of head straps called tumplines, the duo demoed how people may have hauled timbers to Chaco about 1,000 years ago.
