Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Earth
This pictogram is one of the oldest known accounts of earthquakes in the Americas
The Telleriano-Remensis, a famous codex written by a pre-Hispanic civilization, describes 12 quakes that rocked the Americas from 1460 to 1542.
- Health & Medicine
How personalized brain organoids could help us demystify disorders
Personalized clusters of brain cells made from people with Rett syndrome had abnormal activity, showing potential for studying how human brains go awry.
- Anthropology
Stone Age humans or their relatives occasionally trekked through a green Arabia
Hominids periodically inhabited ancient Arabia starting around 400,000 years ago when lakes temporarily formed as a result of monsoons, a study finds.
- Psychology
Perspective-changing experiences, good or bad, can lead to richer lives
Happiness or meaning have long been seen as keys to the “good life.” Psychologists have now defined a third good life for people leading rich psychological lives.
- Health & Medicine
These charts show that COVID-19 vaccines are doing their job
COVID-19 shots may not always prevent infections, but for now, they are keeping the vast majority of vaccinated people out of the hospital.
- Science & Society
Gender-affirming care improves mental health for transgender youth
Several state legislatures have taken steps to restrict access to gender-affirming health care for transgender adolescents. That goes against medical guidelines.
- Anthropology
Ancient DNA shows the peopling of Southeast Asian islands was surprisingly complex
Ancient DNA from a hunter-gatherer skeleton points to earlier-than-expected human arrivals on Southeast Asian islands known as Wallacea.
- Psychology
Everyone maps numbers in space. But why don’t we all use the same directions?
The debate over whether number lines are innate or learned obscures a more fundamental question: Why do we map numbers to space in the first place?
- Psychology
‘Ghost games’ spotlight the psychological effect fans have on referees
Soccer teams won fewer games and received more fouls when playing at home during the 2019–2020 season, when many fans were absent, than before the pandemic.
- Health & Medicine
How coronavirus vaccines still help people who already had COVID-19
Coronavirus vaccines give the immune system of previously infected people a boost, probably giving those people better protection against new variants.
- Science & Society
How extreme heat from climate change distorts human behavior
As temperatures rise, violence and aggression go up while focus and productivity decline. The well off can escape to cool spaces; the poor cannot.
- Health & Medicine
New studies hint that the coronavirus may be evolving to become more airborne
More coronavirus RNA is in fine aerosols than in larger droplets, but masks can reduce the amount of virus in the air.
