Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
Experts recommend the FDA approve Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use
Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine is one step closer to emergency use authorization in the United States.
- Health & Medicine
How some ticks protect themselves from deadly bacteria on human skin
A gene that ticks acquired from bacteria 40 million years ago may help the arachnids keep potential pathogens at bay while feeding on blood.
- Health & Medicine
As 2020 comes to an end, here’s what we still don’t know about COVID-19
After making fast progress understanding COVID-19, researchers are still in search of answers.
- Archaeology
Ancient people may have survived desert droughts by melting ice in lava tubes
Bands of charcoal from fires lit long ago, found in an ice core from a New Mexico cave, correspond to five periods of drought over 800 years.
- Health & Medicine
Here’s what you need to know about the COVID-19 vaccines
There are still important unknowns about how Pfizer’s vaccine and others will work once they get injected in people around the world.
- Archaeology
Two stones fuel debate over when America’s first settlers arrived
Stones possibly used to break mastodon bones 130,000 years ago in what is now California get fresh scrutiny.
- Humans
Ancient humans may have deliberately voyaged to Japan’s Ryukyu Islands
Satellite-tracked buoys suggest that long ago, a remote Japanese archipelago was reached by explorers on purpose, not accidentally.
- Health & Medicine
The ‘last mile’ for COVID-19 vaccines could be the biggest challenge yet
The need for cold storage and booster shots could create problems for distributing coronavirus vaccines to nearly everyone in the world.
- Health & Medicine
The U.K. is the first country to authorize a fully tested COVID-19 vaccine
Pfizer will deliver the first of 40 million doses of its coronavirus vaccine promised to the United Kingdom in the coming days.
- Health & Medicine
Health care workers and long-term care residents should get COVID-19 vaccines first
With an initial 40 million doses of the vaccines, enough for 20 million people, anticipated by year-end, health officials are setting priorities.
- Health & Medicine
Long-lasting shots work better than daily pills to prevent HIV in at-risk women
A more discreet HIV prevention method — a shot once every eight weeks —could help to boost use in women at risk.
- Health & Medicine
Coronavirus shutdowns don’t need to be all or nothing
Governments are implementing more targeted restrictions like limiting restaurant capacity to slow a fall surge. Research suggests they could work.
