Worldcrunch
A recent study has shown that Tina, a Neanderthal child with Down’s syndrome, lived to the age of six because her group took care of her, placing the documented origin of altruism in the Homo genus between 270,000 and 146,000 years ago. Altruism is not a right, it is a human condition, something every human heart has to conquer.
Argentina’s Antarctic bases are staffed by isolated and often young scientists confined in close quarters.
A better understanding of the placenta may help curb maternal and fetal mortality rates, but progress is slow.
Egyptologists and religious scholars alike blasted the new Netflix docudrama series that chronicles the story of Moses, raising both current political issues and the deeper questions around the religion-science dialectic.
Social networks are full of false gurus who claim to be experts in mental health and well-being. Do we need new laws against these kinds of charlatans to restore credibility to professional psychology?
No single, unified list exists of all species cataloged by humans. Some scientists want that to change.
David Thomas, Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford, has been studying dunes for the past 40 years. And no, they’re not “just sand” — far from it.
For the scientist who performs medicial research on the recently deceased, there are few regulatory or ethical guardrails.
An endeavor to retrieve samples from the red planet is in the works. Some scientists wonder if it’s a wise investment.
Something is awry with daylight savings time. Can research and policy changes help us reset the clocks?
French researchers have recovered a pair of viruses that were long frozen below the Siberian tundra. In this case, the microorganisms are harmless, but others may not be.
Injuries are on the rise in the United States’ NBA, but also in sports in general. Now a growing body of scientific research is studying new approaches to improve player safety.
Updated Jan. 9, 2024 at 1:10 p.m. The daguerreotype photo process, which gave the first photograph of a person, is announced at the French Academy of Science on this date in 1839. What is a daguerreotype? Invented by Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, the daguerreotype was the first commercially successful photographic process (1839-1860) in the history […]
The pandemic brought a massive effort to limit the spread of bad health information. Did it do more harm than good?
Whether portrayed as heroes or villains, fight attendants increasingly find themselves the unwilling stars of viral videos. And sudden TikTok notoriety can take a considerable toll on the cabin crew’s wellbeing.
From setting up attainable goals to enlisting the support of others, there are some scientific and behavioral strategies that can help you keep your New Year’s resolutions.
Updated Dec. 22, 2023 at 11:45 a.m. In 1895, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen took the first X-ray ever. What was the first X-ray taken of? Röntgen’s experiments revealed that this new type of ray was capable of passing through most substances, including the soft tissues of the body, but left bones and metals visible. How did […]
Thanatology or the study of death has entered Italian academia, led by the University of Padua, which is taking an interdisciplinary approach to our fascination with mortality.
If computing power becomes a major tool for superpowers like China and the U.S., then what does the latest U.S. technology blockade mean for the race to a more powerful AI? Honk Kong-based daily The Initium looks at the nuclear race of our time, with chips as the modern-day equivalent of enriched uranium.
Our Naples-based psychiatrist talks one of her patients through the possible source of his wife’s discontent.
For years, mindfulness has been promoted as a near panacea. But just how much does the brain affect the body?
Inspired by a new book on vampires, Italian writer Chiara Valerio analyzes how the figure of the vampire has come to represent life and death over centuries of science, art and culture. When understood through a modern lens, what can the vampire tell us about our own Gothic concerns?
The pandemic brought attention to an overlooked condition. But researchers are still fighting to show smell matters.
The World Health Organization has long walked the uneasy tightrope between evidence-based and traditional medicine. It is time to dismantle this unrealistic balance.
A closer look at the science shows there are many factors that contribute to weather-related emergencies. It is important to raise climate change awareness, but there’s a risk in overstating its role in every natural disaster.
A niche research community plays out what existence might be like on, or en route to, another planet.
The inner workings of Artificial Intelligence are impenetrable, unexplainable and unpredictable. That build in some fundamental limits to its capacity and utility.
The search for clean energy is essential in an age of alarming climate change. Lithium extraction represents a great opportunity, but the maltreatment of communities affected by this extraction must be considered if we want to interrupt the vicious cycle of wealthy countries exploiting resource-rich countries.
Human-made shelters don’t always keep creatures out of harm’s way. Can technology help design a better protect birds and possums?
The movie ‘Oppenheimer’ makes no mention of Lise Meitner, the co-discoverer of nuclear fission. But she would have wanted it that way.
August 26-27 OUR WEEKLY NEWS QUIZ What do you remember from the news this week? 1. Which world leader was conspicuously absent from the first day of the BRICS summit in South Africa, instead sending his commerce minister to deliver a highly-anticipated speech? 2. The plane crash that presumably killed Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny […]
Threatened with extinction, these little creatures, often feared, nonetheless provide us with significant ecological services.
Like many creatures, hummingbirds consume alcohol, which they’re able to metabolize quickly. A new study explains how they do it — and how it might just helps us understand why humans are so attracted to alcohol.
August 5-6 OUR WEEKLY NEWS QUIZ What do you remember from the news this week? 1. After Turkey, which country is now emerging as a potential peacebroker in the Russia-Ukraine war? 2. Donald Trump has sparked global outrage by comparing his third indictment to what? 3. Which city has UNESCO suggested adding to its […]
The U.S. Congress recently held a public hearing about “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” (previously known as UFOs), partly because of intense public interest on the matter. But what is it that makes Americans so prone to believe in aliens and conspiracy theories?
Traders in Bangladesh use lead chromate to enhance the appearance of turmeric roots. But the use of the chemical compound has now been linked to potential kidney and brain damage, and could cause developmental delays in children.
July 29-30 OUR WEEKLY NEWS QUIZ What do you remember from the news this week? 1. From what position was China’s Qin Gang officially removed, after weeks of going missing? 2. Which European country is facing tricky coalition talks following inconclusive election results? 3. Which Olympic star saw their long-standing world record broken? 4. […]
In 2020, Salt Lake City abruptly terminated its K9 unit for pursuing and apprehending suspects. Not much changed. In fact, a lot of the evidence around using police dogs is sketchy, and the practice has worrying connections with racial terror.
July 22-23 OUR WEEKLY NEWS QUIZ What do you remember from the news this week? 1. Moscow has seized control of the Russian subsidiaries of Danish beer company Carlsberg and which other food giant 2. The current heatwave across Europe is partly due to an anticyclone named after which Greek mythological figure? 3. An […]
A year after scientific academies called for rebuilding the country’s intellectual infrastructure, not much has changed, as many researchers fled the country and still aren’t planning on coming back to a landscape of destroyed equipment and underfunded programs.