Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
The COVID-19 pandemic is now a year old. What have scientists learned?
As we enter the pandemic’s second year, researchers share what they’ve learned and what they look forward to.
- Anthropology
Riches in a Bronze Age grave suggest it holds a queen
Researchers have long assumed mostly men ran ancient Bronze Age societies, but the find points to a female ruler in Spain 3,700 years ago.
- Health & Medicine
A year ago, we asked 6 questions about COVID-19. Here’s how the answers evolved
A year after launching our Coronavirus Update newsletter, we revisit the first topics we wrote about.
- Health & Medicine
An experimental toothpaste aims to treat peanut allergy
By rolling an immune therapy into a toothbrushing routine, a company hopes to show its product can help build and maintain tolerance to allergens.
- Anthropology
Finds in a Spanish cave inspire an artistic take on warm-weather Neandertals
Iberia’s mild climate fostered a host of resources for hominids often pegged as mammoth hunters.
- Health & Medicine
People fully vaccinated against COVID-19 can socialize without masks, CDC says
Two weeks after their final COVID-19 shot, people can visit other vaccinated people indoors without masks or physical distancing.
- Health & Medicine
COVID-19 has exacerbated a troubling U.S. health trend: premature deaths
The pandemic played into already rising death rates from obesity, drugs, alcohol and suicide.
- Health & Medicine
Most pro athletes who got COVID-19 didn’t develop heart inflammation
Few professional athletes developed heart inflammation after a bout of COVID-19, but how the findings relate to the general public isn’t clear.
- Genetics
DNA databases are too white, so genetics doesn’t help everyone. How do we fix that?
A lack of diversity in genetic databases is making precision medicine ineffective for many people. One historian proposes a solution: construct reference genomes for individual populations.
- Health & Medicine
People who have had COVID-19 might need only one shot of a coronavirus vaccine
Antibody levels in health care workers who had COVID-19 and got vaccinated were more than 500 times higher than those vaccinated but never infected.
- Environment
‘Green’ burials are slowly gaining ground among environmentalists
Researchers asked older environmental activists what they planned to do with their bodies after death. Many were unaware of “green” burial options.
- Health & Medicine
A music therapist seeks to tap into long-lost memories
Alaine Reschke-Hernández is partnering with neuroscientists to figure out how music improves Alzheimer’s patients’ lives.
