Most people who meet a new acquaintance, or merely pass someone on the street, need only a glance to categorize that person as a particular race. But, sociologist Asia Friedman wondered, what can we learn about that automatic visual processing from people who are unable to see? “The visual process of assigning race is instantaneous, and it’s an example of…
Tracking mobile phone data is often associated with privacy issues, but these vast datasets could be the key to understanding how infectious diseases are spread seasonally, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Princeton University and Harvard University researchers used anonymous mobile phone records for more than 15 million people to track the…
We are creatures of habit, nearly mindlessly executing routine after routine. Some habits we feel good about; others, less so. Habits are, after all, thought to be driven by reward-seeking mechanisms that are built into the brain. It turns out, however, that the brain’s habit-forming circuits may also be wired for efficiency. New research from MIT shows that habit formation,…
The evolutionary loss of the ‘altruistic’ worker caste in ants is not accompanied by a loss of genes, an international team of researchers has found. The results reported in this new research add to a growing body of literature suggesting that many traits may evolve by tweaks in the regulation of pre-existing genes and networks. Phenotype gain and loss may…
An analysis of data on stomach acidity and diet in birds and mammals suggests that high levels of stomach acidity developed not to help animals break down food, but to defend animals against food poisoning. The work raises interesting questions about the evolution of stomach acidity in humans, and how modern life may be affecting both our stomach acidity and…
Cuba on 30 June became the first country in the world to receive validation from the World Health Organization (WHO) that it has eliminated mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV and syphilis. Low-level transmission still occurs there: in 2013, three babies were born with congenital syphilis and two with HIV. But the country has met the official WHO criteria for elimination: …