Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
This robotic pill clears mucus from the gut to deliver meds
A whirling robotic pill wicks mucus from the gut, allowing intravenous drugs such as insulin to be given orally, experiments in pigs suggest.
- Health & Medicine
False teeth could double as hearing aids
Dental implants can conduct sound through jawbone, making them candidates for discreet, high-quality hearing aids, researchers say.
- Anthropology
In Maya society, cacao use was for everyone, not just royals
Previously considered a preserve of Maya elites, cacao was consumed across all social strata, a new study finds.
- Health & Medicine
This face mask can sense the presence of an airborne virus
Within minutes of exposure, a sensor in a mask prototype can detect proteins from viruses that cause COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses.
- Anthropology
Fossil finds put gibbons in Asia as early as 8 million years ago
Specimens from China raise questions about the evolutionary ID of an even older ape tooth from India.
- Health & Medicine
5 people with lupus are in remission after CAR-T cell treatment
More than six months after CAR-T cell treatment, five patients are in remission and have functional immune systems.
- Health & Medicine
Poliovirus is spreading in New York. Here’s what you need to know
With signs of poliovirus spreading in a handful of counties in New York, unvaccinated people could be at risk of paralytic polio.
- Anthropology
Humans may have started tending animals almost 13,000 years ago
Remnants from an ancient fire pit in Syria suggest that hunter-gatherers were burning dung as fuel by the end of the Old Stone Age.
- Health & Medicine
How living in a pandemic distorts our sense of time
The pandemic has distorted people’s perception of time. That could have implications for collective well-being.
- Genetics
Can’t comb your kid’s hair? This gene may be to blame
Scientists linked variants of one hair shaft gene to most of the uncombable hair syndrome cases they tested.
- Health & Medicine
How the COVID-19 pandemic may leave a long-term imprint on our health
As much as we want to put the pandemic in the rearview mirror, the coronavirus’s impact will remain a feature of many tomorrows.
- Anthropology
The oldest known surgical amputation occurred 31,000 years ago
A young adult on the island of Borneo survived a lower left leg removal thanks to medically savvy rainforest surgeons.
