Ancient Europeans may have evolved an ability to digest milk thanks to periodic famines and disease outbreaks. Europeans avidly tapped into milk drinking starting around 9,000 years ago, when dairying…
Category: Humans
Humans may not be able to handle as much heat as scientists thought
More than 2,000 people dead from extreme heat and wildfires raging in Portugal and Spain. High temperature records shattered from England to Japan. Overnights that fail to cool. Brutal heat…
Here’s what to do when someone at home has COVID-19
I’m one of 40 percent or fewer of Americans who have managed to avoid getting COVID-19. I have been avoiding it like a potentially life-threatening virus — I’d say the…
Ancient DNA links an East Asian Homo sapiens woman to early Americans
A previously undetected Homo sapiens population inhabited what’s now southwestern China around 14,000 years ago and contributed to the ancestry of ancient Americans. This far-ranging Asian group’s evolutionary identity has…
The world is ‘losing the window’ to contain monkeypox, experts warn
It may soon be too late to end the global monkeypox epidemic. “We are losing the window to be able to contain this outbreak,” Boghuma Titanji, an infectious diseases doctor…
Herminia Pasantes discovered how taurine helps brain cells regulate their size
When Herminia Pasantes Ordóñez was about 14 years old, in 1950, she heard her mother tell her father that she would never find a husband. Pasantes had to wear thick…
A new technology uses human teardrops to spot disease
Human tears could carry a flood of useful information. With just a few drops, a new technique can spot eye disease and even glimpse signs of diabetes, scientists report July…
Here are experts’ answers to questions about COVID-19 vaccines for little kids
Four weeks ago, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention signed off on COVID-19 vaccines for young children. Days later, doctors’ offices and clinics began rolling out shots for…
Demond Mullins climbed Everest to inspire more Black outdoor enthusiasts
Demond “Dom” Mullins’ days as a student at Lehman College in New York were interrupted in 2004 when his National Guard unit was deployed to Baghdad. A year later, he…
Two pig hearts were successfully transplanted into brain-dead people
Pig hearts beat for three days inside the chests of two brain-dead patients who were kept alive using ventilators. The feat helps researchers prepare for future clinical trials of pig-to-human…
