Animals are back at Gorongosa National Park after civil war, but the savanna community doesn’t look quite look like how it used to — ScienceDaily
When civil war broke out in Mozambique more than 40 years ago, it largely spelled doom for animals in Gorongosa National Park, a 1,500-square-mile reserve on the floor of the southern end of the Great African Rift Valley, in the heart of the country. As the decades-long fighting spilled over into the reserve, many of […]
Sharing doesn’t make you a sucker. This scientist has the numbers to prove it.
Athena Aktipis calls Arizona her home base, but her teams projects spans multiple communities, countries, and continents. (Caitlin O’Hara/) When British-American anthropologist Colin Turnbull published The Mountain People in 1972, he dubbed his subjects—a Ugandan group called the Ik—”the loveless people.” After two years of observations, he decided that they reflected humanity’s basest instincts: adultery, […]
Ecologically friendly agriculture doesn’t compromise crop yields — ScienceDaily
Increasing diversity in crop production benefits biodiversity without compromising crop yields, according to an international study comparing 42,000 examples of diversified and simplified agricultural practices. Diversification includes practices such as growing multiple crops in rotation, planting flower strips, reducing tillage, adding organic amendments that enrich soil life, and establishing or restoring species-rich habitat in the […]
Naked mole rats kidnap other mole rat babies. And the creepiness doesn’t stop there.
Naked mole rats are beloved for having some of the strangest mammalian superpowers. They can resist cancers, defy the usual mammalian aging process, survive almost 20 minutes without oxygen, and tolerate surprisingly high levels of pain. But it turns out these highly social freaks of nature have a nasty little secret that makes them more supervillain than superhero. Naked […]
The arthritis drug tocilizumab doesn’t appear to help fight COVID-19
An initial crop of clinical trials testing an anti-inflammatory drug against COVID-19 do not look promising. The best available evidence among these trials “doesn’t show that this drug is beneficial,” says Adarsh Bhimraj, an infectious diseases physician at the Cleveland Clinic, who was not involved in the research. The drug, tocilizumab, is a treatment for […]
Remdesivir doesn’t reduce COVID-19 deaths, a large WHO trial finds
Remdesivir, an antiviral drug that was the first found to combat COVID-19, doesn’t reduce deaths from the disease, a large international study found. The World Health Organization’s Solidarity trial, which combined data from 405 hospitals in 30 countries, randomly assigned more than 11,000 people hospitalized with COVID-19 to receive one of four drugs or standard […]
Egg yolk color doesn’t mean what you think it does
Incredible and edible, but what does it all mean? (Unsplash/) What’s the weirdest thing you learned this week? Well, whatever it is, we promise you’ll have an even weirder answer if you listen to PopSci’s hit podcast. The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week hits Apple, Anchor, and everywhere else you listen to podcasts every-other […]
Your dog’s brain doesn’t care about your face
Lots of dog owners love to gaze at their pups’ faces. But that fascination may be a one-way street, at least in the brain. Dogs’ brains aren’t especially impressed by faces, either those of other dogs, or of people, a new study suggests. People’s brains are exquisitely tuned into faces, and the wealth of information […]
COVID-19 doesn’t have to jump from mother to newborn
During one of the worst periods in New York City’s COVID-19 wave when precautions were observed, babies were unlikely to catch the virus from their birth parent. (Pexels/) When the COVID-19 pandemic began earlier this year, the American Association of Pediatrics and several other organizations recommended that hospitals separate birth parents who were positive for […]
