Here’s where jazz gets its swing
It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing — all you’ve got to do is stagger your timing. For decades, fans of…
Category: Humans
Losing amphibians may be tied to spikes in human malaria cases
In the 1990s and 2000s, Costa Rica and Panama experienced spikes in malaria cases. The massive loss of amphibians in the region from a deadly…
Genetics of human evolution wins 2022 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine
Establishing a new field of science to answer the question of what makes humans unique from our extinct relatives has earned Svante Pääbo the Nobel…
How to get a crying baby to sleep, according to science
It’s a frustration many parents know all too well: You’ve finally lulled your crying baby to sleep, so you put them down in their crib…
Emily Jacobs wants to know how sex hormones sculpt the brain
When Emily Jacobs embarked on a career studying the brain in the early 2000s, a technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, was having…
The pandemic may be stunting young adults’ personality development
The psychological development of young adults may have taken a hit, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. In typical times, people tend to become more conscientious…
False teeth could double as hearing aids
Prosthetic teeth could make great hearing aids. Vibrations applied to replacements for lost teeth travel well through jawbones to the inner ear, researchers report in…
In Maya society, cacao use was for everyone, not just royals
In ancient Maya civilization, cacao wasn’t just for the elites. Traces of the sacred plant show up in ceramics from all types of neighborhoods and…
This face mask can sense the presence of an airborne virus
Face masks — the unofficial symbol of the COVID-19 pandemic — are leveling up. A mask outfitted with special electronics can detect SARS-CoV-2, the virus…
Fossil finds put gibbons in Asia as early as 8 million years ago
Small-bodied, long-armed apes called gibbons swing rapidly through the trees, far outpacing scientists’ attempts to decipher these creatures’ evolutionary story. Now, a partial upper jaw…
5 people with lupus are in remission after CAR-T cell treatment
After receiving an experimental treatment to stop the body from attacking itself, five people no longer have any symptoms of lupus. That treatment, called CAR-T…
Poliovirus is spreading in New York. Here’s what you need to know
A particular kind of poliovirus is spreading in the United States. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed that the country now…
Humans may have started tending animals almost 13,000 years ago
Hunter-gatherer groups living in southwest Asia may have started keeping and caring for animals nearly 13,000 years ago — roughly 2,000 years earlier than previously…
How living in a pandemic distorts our sense of time
Time hasn’t made much sense since spring 2020 for many people, myself included. In February 2020, during the Before Times, my family traveled to Barcelona,…
Can’t comb your kid’s hair? This gene may be to blame
The flurry of frizzy-hair e-mails began in 2016. Human geneticist Regina Betz of University Hospital Bonn in Germany and her team had just linked three…
How the COVID-19 pandemic may leave a long-term imprint on our health
At the start of another school year, I’ve been thinking about the differences between 2021 and 2022. Last year, many schools had mask mandates, testing…
Here are experts’ answers to questions about COVID-19 vaccines for little kids
Four weeks ago, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention signed off on COVID-19 vaccines for young children. Days later, doctors’ offices and clinics…
Two pig hearts were successfully transplanted into brain-dead people
Pig hearts beat for three days inside the chests of two brain-dead patients who were kept alive using ventilators. The feat helps researchers prepare for…
The flowery scent of a Zika or dengue infection lures mosquitoes
Some mosquito-borne viruses turn mice into alluring mosquito bait. Mice infected with dengue or Zika viruses — and people infected with dengue — emit a…
How scientists are shifting their search for links between diet and dementia
The internet is rife with advice for keeping the brain sharp as we age, and much of it is focused on the foods we eat.…
Six months in space leads to a decade’s worth of long-term bone loss
You might want to bring your dumbbells on that next spaceflight. During space missions lasting six months or longer, astronauts can experience bone loss equivalent…
New COVID-19 boosters could contain bits of the omicron variant
For all the coronavirus variants that have thrown pandemic curve balls — including alpha, beta, gamma and delta — COVID-19 vaccines have stayed the same.…
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,…
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…