Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
Remdesivir may work even better against COVID-19 than we thought
Gilead Sciences says remdesivir cuts the chances of dying from the coronavirus, and data show the drug can curb the virus’s growth in cells and mice.
- Archaeology
This 1.4-million-year-old hand ax adds to Homo erectus’ known toolkit
A newly described East African find, among the oldest bone tools found, shows the ancient hominids crafted a range of simple and more complex tools.
- Health & Medicine
These cells slow an immune response. Derailing them could help fight tumors
Immune therapies don’t work for a lot of cancer patients. Some researchers are enhancing these treatments with drugs that stymie suppressor cells.
- Health & Medicine
A COVID-19 vaccine may come soon. Will the blistering pace backfire?
Speed is essential, but not at the expense of safety and efficacy, experts warn. Sacrificing either could damage public trust.
- Neuroscience
Boosting a liver protein may mimic the brain benefits of exercise
Finding that liver-made proteins influence the brain may advance the quest for an “exercise pill” that can deliver the benefits of physical activity.
- Science & Society
There’s little evidence showing which police reforms work
When stories of police violence against civilians capture public attention, reforms follow despite a dearth of hard data quantifying their impact.
- Genetics
South Americans may have traveled to Polynesia 800 years ago
DNA analyses suggest that Indigenous people from South America had a role in the early peopling of Polynesia.
- Health & Medicine
What you need to know about the airborne transmission of COVID-19
More than 200 experts have implored the World Health Organization to acknowledge that the coronavirus can spread through the air.
- Science & Society
All kinds of outbreaks, from COVID-19 to violence, share the same principles
Adam Kucharski talks about his new book ‘The Rules of Contagion,’ a timely read during the coronavirus pandemic.
- Health & Medicine
How making a COVID-19 vaccine confronts thorny ethical issues
COVID-19 vaccines will face plenty of ethical questions. Concerns arise long before anything is loaded into a syringe.
- Humans
Underwater caves once hosted the Americas’ oldest known ochre mines
Now-submerged chambers in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula contain ancient evidence of extensive red ochre removal as early as 12,000 years ago.
- Health & Medicine
4 reasons not to worry about that ‘new’ swine flu in the news
Researchers identified a pig influenza virus that shares features with one that sparked the 2009 pandemic — that doesn’t mean another one is imminent.
