Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Humans
Babies may use saliva sharing to figure out relationships
Actions like sharing bites of food or kissing may cue young children into close bonds, a new study suggests.
- Archaeology
Gold and silver tubes in a Russian museum are the oldest known drinking straws
Long metal tubes enabled communal beer drinking more than 5,000 years ago, scientists say.
- Genetics
A genetic analysis hints at why COVID-19 can mess with smell
People with some genetic variants close to smell-related genes had an 11 percent higher risk of losing their sense of taste or smell.
- Animals
Part donkey, part wild ass, the kunga is the oldest known hybrid bred by humans
Syria’s 4,500-year-old kungas were donkey-wild ass hybrids, genetic analysis reveals, so the earliest known example of humans crossing animal species.
- Anthropology
Homo sapiens bones in East Africa are at least 36,000 years older than once thought
Analyses of remnants of a volcanic blast push the age of East Africa’s oldest known H. sapiens fossils at Ethiopia’s Omo site to 233,000 years or more.
- Health & Medicine
Omicron forces us to rethink COVID-19 testing and treatments
At-home rapid tests may miss the speedy variant early on, and some treatments, such as some monoclonal antibodies, no longer work.
- Archaeology
Clovis hunters’ reputation as mammoth killers takes a hit
Early Americans’ stone points were best suited to butchering the huge beasts’ carcasses, scientists contend.
- Health & Medicine
‘Blastoids’ made of stem cells offer a new way to study fertility
Newly created “blastoids” could help with research on nonhormonal contraceptives and fertility treatments.
- Health & Medicine
The coronavirus may cause fat cells to miscommunicate, leading to diabetes
Researchers are homing in on a surprising cause of high blood sugar in COVID-19 patients and possibly what to do about it.
- Archaeology
Arctic hunter-gatherers were advanced ironworkers more than 2,000 years ago
Swedish excavations uncover furnaces and fire pits from a big metal operation run by a small-scale society, a new study finds.
- Life
Here are our favorite cool, funny and bizarre science stories of 2021
These are some of the fun science stories from this year that we couldn’t wait to talk about with friends.
- Space
These discoveries from 2021, if true, could shake up science
Discoveries in 2021, from hidden subatomic particles to the oldest animal fossils, could shake up science. But more evidence is needed to confirm them.
