A new review of evidence for the peopling of the Americas suggests both coastal and interior routes, such as through this Alaskan landscape, were possible. (Credit: Ben A. Potter) Exactly how and when the peopling of the Americas took place has long been one of the hottest debates in science. For every new paper that emerges with evidence of an interior or coastal route, it seems another team publishes contradictory conclusions. Authors of a new review of archaeolo ...read more

Human land use changes are bringing trees to regions where they’ve long been absent, even as other areas are rapidly deforested. (Credit: SeaWiFS Project, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and ORBIMAGE) Scientists like simplicity as much as anyone. Elegant equations take up less room, well-designed experiments reduce clutter and Occam’s razor generally advises to keep things simple (within reason). But how far can you take it? Say you want to know the exact amount of tree loss Eart ...read more

Asian elephants are commonly used in the timber industry. (Credit: Muellek Josef/shutterstock) New research into captive elephant lifespans reveals that wild-caught animals live shorter lives. Elephants are critical to the logging industry across Southeast Asia, even though the animals are endangered. And in Myanmar, a country long largely cutoff from the world, the animals are an especially integral part of the workforce. For centuries, Myanmar kings employed the beasts in their armies. And s ...read more

The immortal jellyfish, Turritopsis. (Credit: A. E. Migotto/CEBIMar-USP) Once we turn 30, our odds of dying doubles every eight years. The formula that churns out that grim statistic is known as the Gompertz–Makeham law, named after the pair of nineteenth-century actuaries who worked it out, and those odds have remained about the same even as modern medicine has advanced Humans aren’t the only ones whose mortality can be summed up by the equation. Although that key age will di ...read more

(Credit: pathdoc/shutterstock) The microbiome, it’s so hot right now. A newly published paper in Cell Host & Microbe is adding to the hotness, looking at how people’s idiosyncratic collection of gut flora can influence the way our bodies respond to vaccines. A team of researchers in the Netherlands, led by Vanessa C. Harris, found that certain antibiotics seem to shift our microbiome in such a way that makes the vaccination for the rotavirus (RV), or the stomach flu, more effec ...read more