A hit of dopamine sends mice into dreamland
A quick surge of dopamine shifts mice into a dreamy stage of sleep. In the rodents’ brains, the chemical messenger triggers rapid-eye-movement sleep, or REM,…
Category: Humans
How to interpret the CDC’s new mask guidelines
One moment, Campbell County in Wyoming’s northeastern corner was an area of high levels of transmission of the coronavirus, a scenario in which the U.S.…
Fecal transplant pills helped some peanut allergy sufferers in a small trial
PHOENIX — Pills loaded with bacteria from other people’s poop might help adults who are highly allergic to peanuts safely eat the nuts in small…
How omicron’s mutations make it the most infectious coronavirus variant yet
In November, a new coronavirus variant took the world by storm. Omicron has since caused an unprecedented wave of infections, striking about 90 million people…
One forensic scientist is scraping bones for clues to time of death
In a quiet laboratory beyond the decomposing remains on a body farm in Huntsville, Texas, Noemi Procopio works carefully with her drill. With each cut…
50 years ago, freezing sperm faced scientific skepticism
The uncertainty of banking sperm – Science News, February 26, 1972 Many men contemplating vasectomies have been depositing a quantity of their semen with sperm…
A chain mail–like armor may shield C. difficile from some antibiotics
Chain mail–like armor may help keep one superbug safe from bacteria-killing medicines. Clostridioides difficile bacteria are notorious for taking over the guts of people who…
More than 5 million children have lost a parent or caregiver to COVID-19
An estimated 5.2 million children worldwide have lost a parent or caregiver to COVID-19. The tally covers the beginning of the pandemic through October 2021,…
The COVID-19 pandemic is not an on-off switch
During the winter surge of COVID-19, it felt like the coronavirus was everywhere. Colder weather pushed people inside where the virus can linger in the…
Africa’s oldest human DNA helps unveil an ancient population shift
Ancient Africans in search of mates traded long-distance travels for regional connections starting about 20,000 years ago, an analysis of ancient and modern DNA suggests.…
The world’s oldest pants stitched together cultures from across Asia
What little rain that falls on a gravelly desert located in western China’s Tarim Basin evaporates as it hits the blistering turf. Here, in this…
Gene therapies for sickle cell disease come with hope and challenges
Today, it’s clear that our genes not only cause many diseases, but also hold potential cures. But that wasn’t always the case. It wasn’t until…
Omicron crushed delta in the U.S. These numbers show just how fast it happened
If it felt like omicron exploded with mind-boggling speed, a new look at the numbers backs that up. The highly contagious coronavirus variant achieved dominance…
Homo sapiens may have reached Europe 10,000 years earlier than previously thought
Stone Age Homo sapiens began migrating into Europe much longer ago than has typically been assumed. Discoveries at a rock-shelter in southern France put H.…
How one scientist aims to boost Black people’s representation in genetic datasets
Nearly two decades after researchers assembled the first genetic blueprint for human life, our understanding of our instruction manual has a dramatic and problematic bias:…
Why being pregnant and unvaccinated against COVID-19 is a risky combo
Snow covered the storied field of Fenway Park in Boston when Kate Yohay, in the second trimester of her pregnancy, arrived. The ballpark had become…
Medical crowdfunding rarely helps those who need it most
Online crowdfunding for medical expenses raises less money than social media posts suggest and deepens health care inequities, a new study reports. The first large-scale…
A deadly bacteria has been infecting children for more than 1,400 years
The tragic death of a 6-year-old boy in early medieval England has given scientists the earliest direct clue to the history of the pathogen Haemophilus…
Genetically engineered immune cells have kept two people cancer-free for a decade
In 2010, two blood cancer patients received an experimental immunotherapy, and their cancers went into remission. Ten years later, the cancer-fighting immune cells used in…
A taste for wild cereal sowed farming’s spread in ancient Europe
People living along southeastern Europe’s Danube River around 11,500 years ago never planted a crop but still laid the foundation for the rise of farming…
Will animal-to-human organ transplants overcome their complicated history?
A 57-year-old Maryland man has now survived just over three weeks with the transplanted heart of a genetically engineered pig. His doctor has hailed the…
50 years ago, researchers thought Americans outgrew marijuana
Marijuana commission finds usage high — Science News, January 29, 1972 Approximately 24 million Americans have used marijuana at least one time. A national survey…
How mindfulness-based training can give elite athletes a mental edge
On yellow poster board, blue letters spell BELIEVE, a nod to the Emmy-winning TV show Ted Lasso. The sign hangs above psychologist Tommy Minkler’s office…
Antimicrobial resistance is a leading cause of death globally
Bacterial infections that don’t respond to treatment are a leading cause of death around the world. In 2019, antimicrobial resistance caused an estimated 1.27 million…
Babies may use saliva sharing to figure out relationships
Young children are always watching. That includes when people swap spit through actions like sharing food — helping the tots work out who is in…
Gold and silver tubes in a Russian museum are the oldest known drinking straws
Eight silver and gold tubes held in a Russian museum have long been thought to have been either ceremonial staffs or canopy supports. In reality,…
Omicron forces us to rethink COVID-19 testing and treatments
New year, new variant. As 2022 gets under way, omicron, a fast-moving version of the virus that causes COVID-19, is well into its march across…
Clovis hunters’ reputation as mammoth killers takes a hit
An amateur archaeologist exploring a dried-out, ancient stream channel called Blackwater Draw near Clovis, New Mexico, made a startling discovery in 1929. He came across…
Arctic hunter-gatherers were advanced ironworkers more than 2,000 years ago
Hunter-gatherers who lived more than 2,000 years ago near the top of the world appear to have run ironworking operations as advanced as those of…
These discoveries from 2021, if true, could shake up science
Discoveries in 2021 dared the world to consider grand possibilities in physics, space and the origins of life. Will these bold claims hold up to…
The omicron variant is surging. Here’s what we’ve learned so far
With omicron spreading globally at a dizzying pace, scientists are scrambling to learn as much as they can about the latest worrisome variant of the…
Vikings may have fled Greenland to escape rising seas
In 1721, a Norwegian missionary set sail for Greenland in the hopes of converting the Viking descendants living there to Protestantism. When he arrived, the…
COVID-19 testing is complicated right now. Here are answers to 6 big questions
A friend texted me recently because her daughter’s class had a coronavirus outbreak and my friend had some questions about COVID-19 testing. Testing has been…
A CDC panel recommends mRNA COVID-19 vaccines over J&J’s, citing fewer risks
An advisory committee for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted unanimously December 16 to recommend mRNA COVID-19 vaccines over Johnson & Johnson’s…
Why the coronavirus’s delta variant dominated 2021
2021 was a year of coronavirus variants. Alpha and beta kicked off the year, and several worrisome variants later, omicron is closing it out. How…
Neandertals were the first hominids to turn forest into grassland 125,000 years ago
Neandertals took Stone Age landscaping to a previously unrecognized level. Around 125,000 years ago, these close human relatives transformed a largely forested area bordering two…
How sleep may boost creativity
The twilight time between fully awake and sound asleep may be packed with creative potential. People who recently drifted off into a light sleep later…
A bacteria-virus arms race could lead to a new way to treat shigellosis
When some bacteria manage to escape being killed by a virus, the microbes end up hamstringing themselves. And that could be useful in the fight…
2021 research reinforced that mating across groups drove human evolution
Evidence that cross-continental Stone Age networking events powered human evolution ramped up in 2021. A long-standing argument that Homo sapiens originated in East Africa before…
For 50 years, CT scans have saved lives, revealed beauty and more
One grainy, gray-scale image of a brain changed science and medicine forever. Half a century ago, the first CT image of a patient lifted the…
Tiny living machines called xenobots can create copies of themselves
Tiny “living machines” made of frog cells can replicate themselves, making copies that can then go on to do the same. This newly described form…
Merck’s COVID-19 pill may soon be here. How well will it work?
Hopes for an easy pill that could combat COVID-19 before people land in the hospital have dimmed a bit. New data about an antiviral pill…
What we know and don’t know about the omicron coronavirus variant
Another coronavirus variant has emerged, and with it comes a new wave of uncertainty and unanswered questions. Days after the news broke, we remain in…
Ancient footprints suggest a mysterious hominid lived alongside Lucy’s kind
An individual from an enigmatic hominid species strode across a field of wet, volcanic ash in what is now East Africa around 3.66 million years…
Ancient giant orangutans evolved smaller bodies surprisingly slowly
Giant orangutans that once dwelled in mainland Southeast Asian forests belonged to a single species that gradually shrank in size over nearly 2 million years,…
A sailor’s story captures the impact of rising serious fungal infections
Tyson Bottenus once captained an 80-foot schooner called the Aquidneck. He sailed tourists off the coast of Newport, R.I., discussing the area’s history and sites.…
A child’s partial skull adds to the mystery of how Homo naledi treated the dead
A child’s partial skull found in a remote section of a South African cave system has fueled suspicion that an ancient hominid known as Homo…
Are viruses alive, not alive or something in between? And why does it matter?
Villain. Killer. Menace. Since 2020, scientists and public officials have used these words to describe SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. News articles, research papers…
What parents need to know about Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for kids ages 5 to 11
Five to 11-year-olds are a step closer to being eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine in the United States. Federal health officials are expected to sign…
The antidepressant fluvoxamine can keep COVID-19 patients out of the hospital
An inexpensive, easy-to-take pill could be the next weapon in the arsenal against COVID-19. Taking the antidepressant fluvoxamine within days of showing symptoms of an…