Following the first independent investigation in fifty years of Monte Verde – a landmark archaeological site in Chile – researchers report it may be much younger than previously believed. According to the study, Monte Verde dates from ~8000 to 4000 years old, not 14,500 years, as previously thought. The findings reshape the story of the continent’s first settlers (though they don’t rule out pre-Clovis human presence in South America, as supported by other sites); they also highlight the need for independent verification of old archeological sites. Monte Verde is one of the ...

Do humans share a sense of acoustic beauty with other animals? According to a new study, the answer may be yes. In a global citizen-science experiment, researchers show that humans tend to prefer many of the same animal sounds that animals themselves favor – findings that offer support for Charles Darwin’s longstanding idea that different species can share a “taste for the beautiful.” Across the animal kingdom, animals produce sounds to communicate and attract mates. Although mating calls and songs vary within a species, those listening for them often favor certain variations over others. These preferences can arise from inherent sensory biases, ...

The planet’s undisturbed old-growth boreal forests may be far more important in the fight against climate change than previously realized, according to a new study, which finds that primary forests in Sweden store over 70% more carbon than managed secondary forests. Boreal forests, the world’s largest forest biome, play a crucial role in absorbing roughly 30% of human-caused carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. Yet they are increasingly exploited to supply timber and bioenergy. In European ...

Plowing, or tilling, is an age-old agricultural practice that readies the soil for planting by turning over the top layer to expose fresh earth. The method — intended to improve water and nutrient circulation — remains popular today, but concerns about soil degradation have prompted some to return to regenerative methods that disturb the soil less. In a new study, a team led by University of Washington researchers examined the impact of tilling on soil moisture and water retention using methods originally designed for monitoring earthquakes. Researchers placed fiber optic cables alongside fields at an experimental farm in the United ...

The world’s northern forests act as massive carbon vaults, locking away greenhouse gases in spruce, pines, and needle-covered soils. But industrial logging is quickly eroding their ability to mitigate climate change, according to a major new study led by scientists at Lund University and Stanford University. The biggest losses are happening in soils beneath the forest floor.  Working in Sweden, researchers mapped old-growth forests across the country and then measured carbon at more than 200 forest plots over the course of three years. They then combined the field data with decades of national forest and soil carbon inventory data ...

Kyoto, Japan -- Our genes are written in long strings of three-letter units composed of four different nucleotides. These units -- or codons -- specify one of many amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. Multiple codons can encode the same amino acid, which seems to point to some redundancy in our genetic code. Yet growing evidence suggests that these synonymous codons are not interchangeable: rather, some confer stability to mRNAs and are more efficiently translated in cells, and thus more optimal than others. mRNAs enriched in non-optimal codons are inefficiently translated and subsequently degraded, but ...

Swedish old-growth forests store 83 percent more carbon than managed forests, according to a new study from Lund University. The difference is substantially larger than previous estimates and is mainly due to large carbon stocks in the soil. VIDEO STORY: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HtSXBUDSTw    The study, published in the scientific journal Science, is the most comprehensive mapping of how much carbon is stored in Swedish old-growth forests to date. The results show that old-growth forests store 78–89 per cent more carbon than managed forests in living trees, dead wood, and in the soil down to a depth of 60 centimetres. “The ...

By Kermit Pattison / Harvard Staff Writer  The history of the Earth is written on the great tablets of tectonic plates. The motions of plates shaped land masses, formed oceans, and created the varied climates and habitats that set the stage for evolution and the diversity of life. But this grand drama begins with a deep mystery: just when did the continental and oceanic plates begin to drift? Did the lithosphere begin to move soon after the formation of the Earth 4.5 billion years ago or only in the last billion years? A new study by Harvard geoscientists shows the oldest-yet direct evidence of plate movement ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Biomedical engineers from Brown University have developed a new wound dressing material that releases antibiotic drugs only when harmful bacteria are present in a wound. In a new study, the researchers show that the material could help rapidly clear wound infections to accelerate healing while reducing the unnecessary use of antibiotics — a major driver of antibiotic resistance and hard-to-treat “superbug” infections that claim tens of thousands of lives worldwide each year. The new material is a smart hydrogel loaded ...

(SACRAMENTO, CALIF.) — Researchers at UC Davis School of Medicine have uncovered how an imbalanced gut microbiome escalates the production of metabolic byproducts by certain gut bacteria. This imbalance drives a feedback loop that worsens chronic kidney disease (CKD) in mice. The scientists identified an investigational drug that might break the destructive cycle. The findings were published in Science. The team showed that kidney impairment increased nitrate levels in the colon. The nitrates turbocharged ...

Soil is often perceived simply as "dirt," but in reality, it is a dynamic, living system that acts as the Earth's natural sponge. Unfortunately, common agricultural practices—including deep plowing and the use of heavy machinery—can severely disrupt this natural system, according to a new study led by Dr. SHI Qibin from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with international partners. The study, published in Science on March 19, shows that healthy soil contains a natural internal "plumbing" network of microscopic pores and channels that allow water to infiltrate deeply into the ...

Public awareness of the link between drinking alcohol and elevated cancer risk remains unchanged since February 2025, with over half of Americans saying that regularly consuming alcohol increases your chances of later developing cancer, according to a new survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania. APPC’s February 2026 survey was conducted about a month after the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) unveiled its 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans on Jan. 7, 2026. The earlier, 2020-2025 guidelines explicitly warned that “Alcohol ...

A new analysis led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health finds that out-of-pockets caps on insulin for Medicare Part D beneficiaries have reined in insulin prices. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 mandated an out-of-pocket cap of $35 for a 30-day insulin supply for Medicare Part D beneficiaries starting January 1, 2023. This is the first time the federal government has imposed caps on insulin prices for all Medicare beneficiaries. For their study, the researchers analyzed Medicare claims data covering nearly 3.8 million patients who had at least ...

A Blood Test May Better Tailor Breast Cancer Treatment for Older Women PITTSBURGH, March, 19, 2026 –     For women age 70 and over with a common form of breast cancer, determining “the right size” of treatment can be challenging, in part because clinicians have limited tools to guide individualized treatment decisions. In a study published today in Clinical Cancer Research, scientists at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine found that a blood-based test ...

Social mobility opportunities for young people in coastal and rural areas are constrained by the lack of jobs available, a new study shows. Those who stay in the seaside towns where they grew up find their opportunities and choices limited and are more likely to work in routine and manual jobs. The occupations of young people growing up in rural areas inland are more varied. Moving away breaks this pattern, but those who do seek a life elsewhere tend to be from families with more advantaged backgrounds. This is further evidence of how opportunities for social mobility are spatially uneven in England. Initiatives to enhance ...

Rendering a drug effective or ineffective in a flash at the appropriate location – this is the focus of research in photopharmacology. The goal is to develop drugs that can be switched on and off with light of a specific wavelength. Orally administered medications could then be selectively activated by irradiating only a specific part of the body with light; the medication would remain ineffective in the rest of the body – thus reducing side-effects. For example, a drug intended to lower blood pressure in the heart could then be activated only there; other ...

Experiencing a sense of loss and sadness after dozens of hours spent on a video game? Researchers from SWPS University and the Stefan Batory Academy of Applied Sciences examined the feeling of emptiness that accompanies completing an engaging computer game. They created the world's first scale for measuring post-game depression, and published their research results in the international journal Current Psychology. Video games are the third most popular form of leisure activity (only television and social media are more popular). As many as 53% of people aged 6 to 64 regularly play video games. Despite this popularity, the science of video game research ...

New treatments for neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and motor neurone disease (MND) could be unlocked thanks to microscopic medicines developed by researchers at the University of Essex.  Using artificial intelligence, an international team of scientists has created tiny antibody fragments that can be made directly inside human cells, where they bind to proteins linked to disease.  Normally, antibodies can only function outside cells.   But these redesigned fragments, known as intrabodies, are engineered to ...

The World Institute of Kimchi (President: Hae Choon Chang), a government-funded research institute under the Ministry of Science and ICT, announced that a lactic acid bacterium isolated from kimchi can help promote the removal of nanoplastics from the body by binding to them in the intestine. Nanoplastics are ultrafine plastic particles measuring less than 1 micrometer (μm; one-thousandth of a millimeter) that are generated during the degradation of larger plastic materials. These particles can enter the human body through food ...

Lawrence Toll, Ph.D., a professor of biomedical science in Florida Atlantic University’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine and a member of the FAU Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute, has been named a senior member of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). Toll joins an elite group of innovators whose work has demonstrated a profound impact on science, technology and human health. The 2026 class of NAI senior members, the largest to date, includes 230 emerging inventors from 82 member institutions worldwide, collectively ...

Research Highlights: In a study including nearly 500 pregnant women in three U.S. cities from 2020-2025, sedentary behavior, sleep and physical activity across a 7-day, 24-hour timeframe during each trimester were measured. The amount of time spent sitting and doing light physical activity were found to be the main predictors of developing blood pressure-related conditions (hypertensive disorders) of pregnancy, such as gestational hypertension and preeclampsia. Women who limited their sedentary time to about eight hours a day and engaged in at least seven hours of light physical activity, and on average, 22 minutes ...

Why don’t some people practice what they preach? Researchers reveal that a brain region called the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is involved. Publishing March 19 in the Cell Press journal Cell Reports, the researchers used fMRI imaging to identify brain activity patterns associated with moral behavior and judgement. People who behaved dishonestly despite judging the same behavior as immoral in others had less activity in the vmPFC, and when ...

Cognitive symptoms can result in patients relying on family for lifelong support or even suicide Current drugs treat hallucinations, delusions but not disorganized thinking, executive dysfunction Synthetic protein added to schizophrenia mouse models corrected overexcited brain circuits CHICAGO --- Current schizophrenia medications treat symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions, but do little for cognitive symptoms like disorganized thinking or executive dysfunction. As a result, many patients are unable to work, rely on family for lifelong support, become homeless or, in some cases, experience suicidal thoughts and ...

Older people with a genetic risk of Alzheimer's disease did not experience the expected increase in cognitive decline and dementia risk if they consumed relatively large amounts of meat. This is shown in a new study from Karolinska Institutet published in JAMA Network Open. The results may contribute to the development of more individually tailored dietary advice. APOE is a gene that affects the risk of Alzheimer's disease. In Sweden, approximately 30 per cent of the population are carriers of the gene combinations APOE 3/4 or APOE 4/4. Among people with Alzheimer's disease, those with these genotypes account for nearly 70 per cent. When the Swedish Food ...