Breastfeeding women who have COVID-19 transfer milk-borne antibodies to their babies without passing along the SARS-CoV-2 virus, according to a new study.

“The results indicate that it is safe for moms to continue to breastfeed during a COVID-19 infection with proper precautions,” said Courtney Meehan, a WSU anthropology professor and co-author on the study. published Feb. 9 in the journal mBio.

Meehan and WSU graduate student Beatrice Caffé were part of the multi-institutional research team led by University of Idaho nutrition researcher on the project.

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We all know that dogs are one of the best things to happen to humanity. They’re adorable, helpful and sometimes, smart as humans.

Although the saying might say that dogs are ‘man’s best friend’, a new study has found how it’s actually women who have helped in creating this strong bond and helping dogs evolve to be our loyal pets.

This is according to a cross-cultural study by researchers at the Washington State University, which has revealed that there could have been numerous factors that helped strengthen the bond between humans and dogs including, temperature, hunting and even gender.

Jaime Chambers, a WSU anthropology Ph.D. student and first author on the paper published in the Journal of Ethnobiology, explained, “Our modern society is like a blip in the timeline of human history. The truth is that human-dog relationships have not looked like they do in Western industrialized societies for most of human history, and looking at traditional societies can offer a wider vision.”

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Scientists have identified the presence of a non-tobacco plant in ancient Maya drug containers for the first time.

Originally buried more than 1,000 years ago on Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula, the vessels also contain chemical traces present in two types of dried and cured tobacco, Nicotiana tabacum and N. rustica. The research team, led by anthropology postdoc Mario Zimmermann, thinks the Mexican marigold was mixed with the tobacco to make smoking more enjoyable.

“While it has been established that tobacco was commonly used throughout the Americas before and after contact, evidence of other plants used for medicinal or religious purposes has remained largely unexplored,” Zimmermann said. “The analysis methods developed in collaboration between the Department of Anthropology and the Institute of Biological Chemistry give us the ability to investigate drug use in the ancient world like never before.”

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Want to know whether an ancient Sogdian smoked cannabis or a Viking got high on henbane? A new method, which analyzes drug residue in the tartar of teeth, may soon be able to tell. The method, which found drug traces on 19th century skeletons—and more substances than standard blood tests in 10 recently deceased individuals—could trace humanity’s drug habits back hundreds of thousands of years.

It’s a “new frontier,” says archaeologist Shannon Tushingham of Washington State University, Pullman, who investigates ancient tobacco use in North America, but was not involved in the new work.

To study the history of medicines and drugs, most scientists scour smoking pipes and drinking vessels for lingering psychoactive molecules. But analysis of drug-coated artifacts often misses substances like hallucinogenic mushrooms that didn’t need containers. And the artifacts don’t reveal who got buzzed.

Because tartar seems to keep a long-term record of drug intake, it could be used in place of hair samples when criminal investigators need to test for substance use after drugs leave the bloodstream. And it could help rewrite the history of drug use, Tushingham says.

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