Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Tech
Squirty gels bring the taste of cake and coffee to virtual reality
By squirting chemicals onto a person’s tongue to taste, a new device aims to replicate food flavors for fuller virtual experiences.
- Archaeology
Mount Vesuvius turned this ancient brain into glass. Here’s how
Transforming the brain tissue to glass would have required an extremely hot and fast-moving ash cloud, lab experiments suggest.
- Archaeology
Humans moved into African rainforests at least 150,000 years ago
This oldest known evidence of people living in tropical forests supports an idea that human evolution occurred across Africa.
- Health & Medicine
Can probiotics actually curb sugar cravings?
Some companies claim that taking beneficial bacteria can reduce the desire for sugar. But the evidence comes from mice, not people.
- Life
A new book chronicles the science of life in the air
Carl Zimmer’s Air-Borne recounts centuries of aerobiology’s greatest moments and mistakes.
- Health & Medicine
Hear patients with brain implants describe what it feels like
In the third episode of The Deep End, Jon shares how DBS surgery went and how he and other volunteers felt in the days and weeks afterward.
- Science & Society
Why some chaos-seekers just want to watch the world burn
A political scientist explains how a confluence of personality traits and perceived status loss can encourage some people to generate chaos as a solution to their woes.
- Humans
Biological sex is not as simple as male or female
A recent Trump executive order defines sex based on gamete size. But the order oversimplifies genetics, hormones and reproductive biology.
- Health & Medicine
‘It felt like dread.’ Hear what severe depression can do to people
In the second episode of The Deep End, listeners hear what it’s like to live with severe depression and the backstory of an experimental treatment.
- Health & Medicine
NIH research grant cuts could deal a biting blow to crucial support staff
The funding agency aims to cap “indirect costs” in biomedical research grants. But this behind-the-scenes work is crucial to making research happen.
- Health & Medicine
Why a norovirus vaccine isn’t available — yet
Norovirus is highly infectious and causing a lot of illness this winter. Several vaccine candidates are making their way through clinical trials.
- Health & Medicine
A pancreatic cancer blood test called PAC-MANN could spot the disease early
The test relies on a magnetic nanoparticle linked to fluorescent molecules to detect pancreatic cancer proteins.
