Humans

Health & Medicine

Zika vaccines look promising

As a Zika epidemic surges through Brazil and northward, scientists are looking for drugs to keep more people from becoming infected. Several vaccines show promise in early tests — but none has yet been tried in people.

Animals

This mammal has the world’s slowest metabolism

A sloth species manages to exist with a super-slow metabolism by moving little and using its environment for heating and cooling its body.

Humans

Cave holds earliest signs of fire-making in Europe

Ancient burned bone and heated stones in a Spanish cave are the oldest evidence of ancient fire-making in Europe.

Animals

Catching ‘Dory’ fish can poison entire coral reef ecosystems

More than half of saltwater-aquarium fish sold in the United States may have been caught in the wild using cyanide, new data show.

Health & Medicine

Adult diseases may be linked to childhood weight

Danish scientists find that very overweight kids grow up with a heightened risk of colon cancer and stroke.

Brain

Teen drinking may damage ability to cope with stress

Teens are often tempted to drink alcohol. Drinking too much — and repeatedly — can hurt their ability to manage stress, a study in rats indicates.

Archaeology

Neandertals: Ancient Stone Age builders had tech skills

Neandertals built stalagmite circles in a French cave 176,500 years ago. These structures show that these ancient human cousins had social and technical skills.

Tech

Helping MS patients get a grip on things

An Irish teen has invented a device that helps people with multiple sclerosis address the “clenched fist” symptom that afflicts most such patients.

Environment

Uh oh! Baby fish prefer plastic to real food

Given a choice, baby fish will eat plastic microbeads instead of real food. That plastic stunts their growth and makes them easier prey for predators.

Health & Medicine

Heat sickness

Scientists worry that increasing temperatures could combine with air pollution to up rates of illness and premature death — perhaps dramatically.

Animals

Eating toxic algae makes plankton speedy swimmers

After slurping up harmful algae, copepods swim fast and straight — making them easy prey for hungry predators.

Archaeology

Hunter-gatherers roamed Florida 14,500 years ago

Tools and bones from a submerged site in Florida show that Stone Age people lived in North America earlier than was once thought.