The Trump administration has canceled funding for dozens of studies seeking new vaccines and treatments for Covid-19 and other pathogens that may cause future pandemics.

The government’s rationale is that the Covid pandemic has ended, which “provides cause to terminate Covid-related grant funds,” according to an internal N.I.H. document viewed by The New York Times.

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Humans, unlike most other species, have a knack for making tools.

Six million years ago, our apelike ancestors probably smashed nuts with rocks or caught termites with sticks. Around 3.3 million years ago, hominins began using flakes of stone, perhaps to cut flesh from carcasses or chop plants.

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For generations, scientists looked to the East African savanna as the birthplace of our species. But recently some researchers have put forward a different history: Homo sapiens evolved across the entire continent over the past several hundred thousand years.

If this Africa-wide theory were true, then early humans must have figured out how to live in many environments beyond grasslands. A study published Wednesday shows that as early as 150,000 years ago, some of them lived deep in a West African rainforest.

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The viruses we know best are the ones that make us sick — the influenza viruses that send us to bed and the smallpox viruses that may send us to the grave.

But healthy people are rife with viruses that don’t make us ill. Scientists estimate that tens of trillions of viruses live inside of us, though they’ve identified just a fraction of them. A vast majority are benign, and some may even be beneficial. We don’t know for sure, because most of the so-called human virome remains a mystery.

Continue reading “Trillions of Viruses Live in Your Body. A.I. Is Trying to Find Them.” →

Scientists have long struggled to understand how human language evolved. Words and sentences don’t leave fossils behind for paleontologists to dig up.

A genetic study published on Tuesday offers an important new clue. Researchers found that, between 250,000 and 500,000 years ago, a gene known as NOVA1 underwent a profound evolutionary change in our ancestors. When the scientists put the human version of NOVA1 into mice, the animals made more complex sounds.

Continue reading “The Gene That Made Mice Squeak Strangely” →