The ancient relative to modern humans Australopithecus sediba walked like a human, but climbed like an ape, filling in a gap in the fossil record long posited by biologists, finds a new analysis.

The recovery of new lumbar vertebrae from the lower back of a single individual of the human relative, Australopithecus sediba, and portions of other vertebrae of the same female from Malapa, South Africa, together with previously discovered vertebrae, form one of the most complete lower backs ever discovered in the early hominid record and give insight into how this ancient human relative walked and climbed.

In a new epidemiology paper, men taking cholesterol-lowering statin drugs had different  prostate cancer screening results than non-users - in statin users, screening did not increase the incidence of prostate cancer as it did in other men.

The data came from the Finnish Prostate Cancer Screening Trial which started in 1996–1999. A total of about 80,000 men were included in the study, of whom just under 32,000 were screened with the PSA test every four years. 

A survey of 1,111 Americans who own houseplants wanted to find out which varieties are most popular and how much people spend on the hobby, but they also found out how much they anthropomorphize their leafy little friends.

During the pandemic, 68 percent of Millennials took up a new hobby and nearly as many grew their houseplant collection.

Perhaps that's become part of the new cultural dynamic. 57 said having a houseplant supported their mental health while 81 percent say houseplants are a reasonable substitute if they are far from nature. 

A demographically representative sample of 5,000 single adults between the ages of 18 and 98 finds a big switch in a post-pandemic world; only 78 percent believe being physically attractive is most important, compared to 90 percent in 2020.

And marriage is back. The number of singles who want a partner desiring marriage jumped from 58 percent  two years ago to 76  percent this year, with men and younger adults leading in the change.  Now, 42 percent of men are ready to find a long-term romantic relationship while women are just at 29 percent.


Not this year, men are leading the charge in heart's desire.

Do cats adjust their behavior to what works to get what they want or do they nag humans until people begin to respond in more agreeable ways?

Some cat owners, and probably most dog owners, might argue that cats engage in the latter and when it seems like the former it is just a lucky meeting of personalities. A new study in Animal Cognition finds they 'read the room' better than expected.

Cats were presented with a solvable task (an easily accessible treat in a container with a loose lid) and an unsolvable task (a treat in a closed container) in the presence of either an attentive or inattentive caregiver.

For the last 10,000 years the earth has been in a warming cycle. The latest ice age ended around that time, a recurring phenomenon in nature where 90,000 of every 100,000 years were ice ages.

How warm has it gotten compared to other warming bursts since the last ice age ended? A lot. Maps of global temperature changes for every 200-year interval going back 24,000 years finds that the magnitude and rate warming over the last 150 years far surpasses the magnitude and rate of changes over the rest of the period - including when we were leaving an ice age.