Although men and women are equally influenced by tobacco, males tend to smoke more than females, finds new research that investigated gender differences in tobacco use among hunter-gathering egalitarian tribes. » More …
Parents around the world have used some form of the pacifier for centuries. Depending on the time and place, they’ve been made of knotted rags dipped in water or honey, wooden beads, coral, ivory, bone, mango seeds, and plastic. Today, as The New York Times has reported, an estimated 75 percent of Western babies use pacifiers. » More …
The heavily studied yet largely unexplained disappearance of ancestral Pueblo people from southwest Colorado is “the most vexing and persistent question in Southwestern archaeology,” according to the New York Times. » More …
Over the past four decades, researchers have come up with ways to run ever-more-sensitive DNA tests. In the most extreme of these, experts can reconstruct the entire genome using DNA fragments extracted from a single cell. » More …
As scientists learn more about human nature, they’ve made some remarkable discoveries about skills and traits that we may be born with.
A new study published last month in the journal Royal Society Open Science suggests that the ability to teach—whether we’re showing a young niece how to tie her shoes or instructing an entire geometry class—is a vital and ingrained aspect of human nature. » More …