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Science / Human Behavior

It may not be pretty, but meat eating has been a critical factor in creating the fossil record.

Why Paleontologists Should Love Meat-Eaters

… Particularly the ones that feasted on human flesh. Thanks, guys!

Being stuck in a crowd can be an overwhelming experience. Physicists and computer scientists bring some order to the chaos.

How Fluid Dynamics Can Help You Navigate Crowds

If you plan to be in a seething mass of humans at some point—whether it’s an inauguration or protest thereof—here’s how to keep yourself safe

A smartphone could help people fight depression.

How Mobile Technology Can Help Universities Combat Depression

Using sensors on smartphones and smartwatches can shed light on patients’ symptoms, even identifying ones they didn’t notice or share with counselors

Caption: Six pairs of hand and footprints were discovered in 1998, including two that are small enough to have belonged to children.

New Research

Footprints Found at Ancient Hot Springs Could Represent Earliest Settlement of Tibetan Plateau

New age measurements of the footprints help pinpoint when humans first settled the highest region on Earth

A tickled rat.

New Research

What Tickling Giggly Rats Can Tell Us About the Brain

Their laughter manifests in a surprising region of the cerebral cortex

Is this supposed to be a democracy or what? (Shown here: North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un visiting Mangyongdae Revolutionary School in 2014.)

Metaphorically Speaking, Your Nervous System is a Dictatorship

Except when it’s an oligarchy. Or a democracy. Or all three.

Neil Puckett, a Texas A&M University graduate student, surfaces with the limb bone of a juvenile mastodon.

Underwater Finds Reveal Humans’ Long Presence in North America

Stone tools and mastodon remains help show that the Americas were peopled more than 14,000 years ago

The long, trailing skirts of the Victorian period eventually fell out of favor when they were thought to harbor tuberculosis microbes.

How Tuberculosis Shaped Victorian Fashion

The deadly disease—and later efforts to control it—influenced trends for decades

10 Things Science Says About Being a Mom in 2016

For one, a nurturing mother can help her child’s brain grow

Playtime with baby can help expand a child’s attention span, a new study shows.

Infants Learn to Pay Attention (or Not) From Watching Mom and Dad

Parents who focus on play may help babies develop critical skills that predict future success

Groggy after a night in a strange place? A night watchman in your brain may be to blame.

You Can’t Sleep While Traveling Because Your Brain Acts Like a Dolphin’s

On the first night in a new place, half your brain stays awake to watch out for danger

Friends or strangers? Listeners may be able to tell just from the sound of the pair’s laughter.

Who’s Laughing Now? Listeners Can Tell if Laughers are Friends or Not

We laugh differently with friends, and the reasons may lie deep in our social evolution

Ancient Mayan skull and bones remain in a Mexican sinkhole, remnants of a long-ago human sacrifice. The victims of sacrifice in Mayan rituals were varied, ranging from slaves to captive rulers of other lands.

New Research

Human Sacrifices May Lie Behind the Rise of Ancient Social Status

Dark practices may have helped the elite keep the lower classes in line, a new study hints

The Right Body Language Can Boost Odds of Online Dating Success

Potential partners size you up in seconds, and the way you sit or stand matters

Houses on the New Jersey shore sit in ruins in July 2013, roughly eight months after Hurricane Sandy made landfall in the area.

New Research

Twitter May Be Faster Than FEMA Models for Tracking Disaster Damage

Real-time online activity could provide speedier assessments as disaster unfolds than tools currently used by the government agency

The fossil skull of the human ancestor Australopithecus africanus, which had more robust teeth and jaws than modern humans.

New Research

A Taste for Raw Meat May Have Helped Shape Human Evolution

Stone tools might have let our ancestors more easily chew and digest meat, which in turn may have changed our teeth and jaws

Ain't no rest for the wicked … or the innocent.

New Research

Sleepy Suspects Are Way More Likely to Falsely Confess to a Crime

In a study, almost 70 percent of sleep-deprived people admitted to something they didn’t do

This ancient skull has a terrible tale to tell.

New Research

An Ancient, Brutal Massacre May Be the Earliest Evidence of War

Even nomadic hunter-gatherers engaged in deliberate mass killings 10,000 years ago

Zodiac woodcut

How Are Horoscopes Still a Thing?

No, there’s no science behind an astrologer’s prediction for 2016, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be accurate

American Ingenuity Awards

Smile, Frown, Grimace and Grin — Your Facial Expression Is the Next Frontier in Big Data

Engineer Rana el Kaliouby is set to change the way we interact with our devices—and each other

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