An 80,000-year-old arrow tip and a genetic map that finally sees everyone

What makes them remarkable isn't just their age. Their size, shape, and the damage patterns from impact closely match weapons made by Homo sapiens 25,000 years later during an incursion into Neanderthal territory in France's Rhône Valley. For a century and a half, the story of how modern humans reached Europe was written mostly from Western European sites, but Homo sapiens reached Australia some 65,000 years ago, well before the earliest confirmed European settlements, and the route through Western Eurasia has never quite added up. These points suggest Central Asia may have served as a corridor, or even a source, for the projectile technology that shows up later in France, pushing the story of sophisticated weapon-making back further and further from the continent that long claimed to have invented it 4.

Researchers at UC San Francisco, led by Meri Okorie and Shea J. Andrews, pulled genetic data from hundreds of thousands of people of European, African, Admixed American, East Asian, and Caribbean Hispanic descent and built three versions of a risk score: one from European data alone, one that simply pooled every group together, and a more sophisticated multi-ancestry blend 41. The cross-ancestry approach didn't just predict who gets diagnosed with Alzheimer's more accurately across every group tested, it also tracked the underlying physical brain damage the disease causes, in a genuinely diverse group of older adults 41.

A team at Japan's Shinshu University, led by Takakazu Mitani, screened food-derived compounds looking for something that could help, and landed on pterostilbene, a polyphenol naturally found in blueberries and grapes 5. In cultured mouse muscle cells, it stabilized a protein called PPARδ, the master switch that tells muscle to burn fat rather than store it, and measurably reduced the abnormal fat buildup. "We currently lack approved treatments specifically targeting myosteatosis," Mitani said, which is exactly the gap his team went looking to fill 5.

A separate robot from X-Humanoid cleared 2.88 meters in a standing high jump, over a meter better than the best robot mark from just last year's inaugural games. These were robot-specific conditions, not a replacement for human records, and the games also included warehouse logistics, factory assembly, and charging tasks precisely because raw speed on a track is the easy part 9.

Both groups improved, but the belt group improved more: about 6 in 10 belt-wearers reported at least a 30 percent reduction in how much pain limited their daily life, compared with roughly 4 in 10 in the comparison group. Around half of belt users needed pain medication during the 12-week trial, versus roughly two-thirds of the other group. "A belt may help some patients stay active by reducing discomfort during movement and providing a subjective feeling of support or reassurance," rheumatologist Laurent Grange told ScienceAlert 33.

They named her Wendy. A newspaper delivery boy texted photos to rescuer Barbara Perrin and left food and water. When Perrin posted about Wendy online, Wildlife Care of Southern California and Southern California Pitbull Rescue joined in, setting up cameras to track her movements across weeks of effort 107. This week, Wendy was finally caught and is now on antibiotics and medicine, with a comfortable place to rest while the cause of her swelling, possibly a car strike, possibly infection, gets sorted out. Neighbors have since donated thousands of dollars toward her care.

Asmita Prabhune spent five years working through formulation trials to build Sophab, a produce-wash made from natural salts and herbal oils that the team says removes up to 99 percent of pesticide residue in about two minutes of soaking 108. A 100 ml bottle costs 85 rupees, roughly a dollar. "I didn't want to make a profit. I wanted to help people," Prabhune said. She's now developing a wipe version for food eaten on the go.