As a fight to the death reached its end around 1,800 years ago, a victorious lion sank its teeth into a young man’s thigh bone. Those feline bite marks, preserved on a skeleton interred in northeast England, provide the first physical evidence of a Roman-era battle between a gladiator and a nonhuman animal anywhere in…
The rapid pace of change under the current presidential administration has been amping up people’s feelings of uncertainty. That collective unease can take a toll on societal well-being, researchers say. “Given that unfamiliarity permeates our current ether … uncertainty can be considered a widespread public health problem,” Emily Hauenstein argued earlier this year in…
Warming temperatures may cause methane emissions from wetlands to rise — by helping methane-producing bacteria thrive. Higher temperatures favor the activity of wetland soil microbes that produce the potent greenhouse gas, at the expense of other microbes that can consume it, researchers report April 23 in Science Advances. The scientists, led by microbiologist Jaehyun Lee…
Food poisoning isn’t an experience you’re likely to forget — and now, scientists know why. A study published April 2 in Nature has unraveled neural circuitry in mice that makes food poisoning so memorable. “We’ve all experienced food poisoning at some point … And not only is it terrible in the moment, but it leads us…
A puppy’s thinking ability may indicate how responsive the dog will be to training and whether it’ll grow up to be well-behaved. Traits such as impulsivity, ability to follow gestures and reaction to unsolvable tasks in 3- to 7-month-old puppies were linked with desirable behaviors in those dogs in adulthood, researchers report in the May…
Across the world, loneliness tends to increase after midlife. But for reasons that aren’t altogether clear, the United States is an outlier, with loneliness steadily decreasing from the middle to later years of life, researchers report April 22 in Aging and Mental Health. Most attention and policies addressing loneliness in the United States target the…