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Humans

Culture helps shape when babies learn to walk

The culture in which a baby is raised can accelerate or slow down the development of early motor skills. Does it matter?

Tech

A new prosthetic leg that senses touch reduces phantom pain

A prosthetic leg that can sense foot pressure and knee angle helped two men walk faster and reduced phantom leg pain.

Humans

Supercooling tripled the shelf life of donor livers

Cooling organs to subzero temperatures could help them last longer, making lifesaving transplants available to more people.

Earth

Ancient crystal growths in caves reveal seas rose 16 meters in a warmer world

The Pliocene era cave formations on the Spanish coast of Mallorca offer hints about how oceans could respond to human-driven climate change.

Humans

Vaping is suspected in a fifth death and hundreds of injuries

U.S. health officials can’t yet point to a substance or device that’s behind a rising number of severe lung injuries and deaths tied to e-cigarettes.

Space

India lost contact with its first lunar lander just before touchdown

Chandrayaan 2 mission officials are trying to figure out why its rover-carrying lander went silent moments before it was to reach the moon’s surface.

Humans

The longest Dead Sea Scroll sports a salt finish that the others lack

A newly discovered salty lamination on the Temple Scroll could help explain why the ancient manuscript’s parchment is remarkably bright.

Earth

How Kilauea’s lava fed a massive phytoplankton bloom

Kilauea’s heavy flow of lava into the ocean in 2018 added both food and heat to fuel a sudden bloom of ocean algae.

Physics

A new magnetic swirl, or skyrmion, could upgrade data storage

Magnetic whorls in a new type of material could be easier to control than their predecessors.

Humans

DNA indicates how ancient migrations shaped South Asian languages and farming

Farming in the region may have sprung up locally, while herders from afar sparked language changes.