Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- 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.
- Archaeology
A 1,000-year-old grave may have held a powerful nonbinary person
A medieval grave in Finland, once thought to maybe hold a respected woman warrior, may belong to someone who didn’t have a strictly male or female identity.
- Health & Medicine
How different COVID-19 testing plans can help keep kids safe in school
As children head back to school in the United States, here’s a look at various testing strategies that could keep kids safe during in-person learning.
- Psychology
How the strange idea of ‘statistical significance’ was born
A mathematical ritual known as null hypothesis significance testing has led researchers astray since the 1950s.
- Genetics
An Indigenous people in the Philippines have the most Denisovan DNA
Genetic comparisons crown the Indigenous Ayta Magbukon people as having the most DNA, 5 percent, from the mysterious ancient hominids.
- Health & Medicine
Colds and other common respiratory diseases might surge as kids return to school
Recent historically low levels of some respiratory illnesses may lead to outbreaks this fall and winter, creating disruptions as kids return to school.
- Health & Medicine
Ripples in rats’ brains tied to memory may also reduce sugar levels
Brain signals called sharp-wave ripples have an unexpected job: influencing the body’s sugar levels, a study in rats suggests.
- Psychology
Psychology has struggled for a century to make sense of the mind
Research into what makes us tick has been messy and contentious, but has led to intriguing insights.
- Health & Medicine
6 answers to parents’ COVID-19 questions as kids return to school
Universal masking in schools could prevent a bumpy 2021–22 schoolyear and keep kids, many of whom are too young to be vaccinated, safe, experts say.
- Health & Medicine
What kids lost when COVID-19 upended school
Researchers are starting to tally how a year and a half of pandemic has left many children struggling academically and emotionally.
- Health & Medicine
Schools are reopening. COVID-19 is still here. What does that mean for kids?
Children do get COVID-19, and some become very sick and even die. But the disease’s long-term effects on kids remain uncertain.
