Humans

Health & Medicine

Daily low-dose aspirin is not a panacea for the elderly

Healthy elderly adults don’t benefit from a daily dose of aspirin, according to results from a large-scale clinical trial.

Science & Society

Readers focus on fake news, neutrinos, and more

Readers pondered how to effectively combat fake news, questioned the result of a clinical trial, and wanted to know more about neutrinos.

Tech

A sensor inspired by an African thumb piano could root out bogus medicines

An inexpensive, user-friendly device that’s based on an mbira could help identify counterfeit and contaminated medications.

Health & Medicine

Here’s how many U.S. kids are vaping marijuana

A new study suggests that nearly 1 in 11 middle and high school students in the United States has vaped marijuana, raising concerns about addiction.

Neuroscience

Brain features may reveal if placebo pills could treat chronic pain

Researchers narrow in on how to identify people who find placebos effective for treating persistent pain.

Anthropology

Butchered bird bones put humans in Madagascar 10,500 years ago

Humans reached the island near Africa 6,000 years earlier than thought, raising questions about how its megafauna went extinct.

Archaeology

This South African cave stone may bear the world’s oldest drawing

The Stone Age line design could have held special meaning for its makers, a new study finds.

Chemistry

A new antibiotic uses sneaky tactics to kill drug-resistant superbugs

Scientists have developed a molecule that kills off bacteria that are resistant to existing antibiotics.

Health & Medicine

Marijuana use among pregnant women is rising, and so are concerns

Pediatricians are urging caution as data show more pregnant women are using marijuana. More research is urgently needed on the drug’s effects during pregnancy.

Health & Medicine

50 years ago, a pessimistic view for heart transplants

Surgeon Christiaan Barnard performed the first successful human-to-human heart transplant in 1967. In 1968, he predicted that patients would survive five years at best. Fortunately, he was wrong.

Genetics

German skeletons hint that medieval warrior groups recruited from afar

Graveyard finds may come from an ancient European warrior household with political pull.

Health & Medicine

Teens born from assisted pregnancies may have higher blood pressure

Kids born from reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization are susceptible to high blood pressure as adolescents, a small study finds.