Humans

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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Psychology

    The pandemic shows us how crises derail young adults’ lives for decades

    Age matters for when we experience calamities, such as pandemics. Young adults are especially vulnerable to getting thrown off their life course.

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  2. Health & Medicine

    A swarm of sneaky omicron variants could cause a COVID-19 surge this fall

    Scientists are tracking similar mutations showing up in many variants that help the coronavirus evade some of our immune defenses and treatments.

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  3. Archaeology

    Drone photos reveal an early Mesopotamian city made of marsh islands

    Urban growth around 4,600 years ago, near what is now southern Iraq, occurred on marshy outposts that lacked a city center.

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  4. Health & Medicine

    Cooperative sperm outrun loners in the mating race

    Sperm that swim in clusters travel more directly toward the uterus, while overcoming fluid currents in the reproductive tract.

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  5. Humans

    Here’s where jazz gets its swing

    Swing, the feeling of a rhythm in jazz music that compels feet to tap, may arise from near-imperceptible delays in musicians’ timing, a study shows.

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  6. Health & Medicine

    Losing amphibians may be tied to spikes in human malaria cases

    Missing frogs, toads and salamanders may have led to more mosquitoes and potentially more malaria transmission, a study in Panama and Costa Rica finds.

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  7. Health & Medicine

    ‘Breathless’ explores COVID-19’s origins and other pandemic science

    In his new book, David Quammen examines what we’ve learned about SARS-CoV-2 and puts the pandemic in the context of previous coronavirus scares.

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  8. Health & Medicine

    Genetics of human evolution wins 2022 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine

    By figuring out how to extract DNA from ancient bones, Svante Pääbo was able to decipher the genomes of our hominid relatives.

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  9. Humans

    How to get a crying baby to sleep, according to science

    Science has come up with a recipe for lulling a crying baby to sleep: Carry them for five minutes, sit for at least five more and then lay them down.

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  10. Health & Medicine

    Christopher Barnes is on a quest for a universal coronavirus vaccine

    Christopher Barnes wants to stop the viruses that cause COVID-19, the common cold and more.

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  11. Neuroscience

    Emily Jacobs wants to know how sex hormones sculpt the brain

    Emily Jacobs studies how the brain changes throughout women’s reproductive years, plus what it all means for health.

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  12. Science & Society

    Big questions inspire the scientists on this year’s SN 10 list

    These scientists to watch study climate change, alien worlds, human evolution, the coronavirus and more.

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