Last month, the UK Supreme Court ruled that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex. Snippets are not the place for discussing legal rulings and their ramifications, but I want to focus on one quote from the decision: “the concept of sex is binary, a person is either a woman or a man”. Such simplicity might be convenient in terms of legal clarity but is at odds with the reality of human biology. Biological sex is…

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mRNA vaccines have been administered billions of times worldwide and their importance was underscored by the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, awarded to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman “for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19”. Nonetheless, mRNA vaccines have been the subject of controversy, some of it rooted in misinformation. For example, false claims and conspiracy theories about mRNA vaccines altering DNA gained traction, spreading fear of long-term…

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My experience of human pregnancy, while vicarious, has long associated pregnancy with uncomfortable body heat. This is both interesting and worrying to me, and so I was curious to read this new paper in Cell Reports: “Prolactin modulation of thermoregulatory circuits provides resilience to thermal challenge of pregnancy.” The title grabbed me (as a good title should), especially the phrase “resilience to thermal challenge of pregnancy.” I know that body temperature increases in early pregnancy, and I assumed it stays…

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When we talk about music, we are almost automatically talking about variation: diverse kinds of music and different levels of musical ability come to mind. But what about love of music? Sure, some people enjoy music more than others, but I didn’t know that this variation is vast and that it seems to have heritable components until I read a new paper in Nature Communications. The authors used twin studies and cool objective measures of music enjoyment to explore the…

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Have you ever read a paper with a title that told you what the scientists did, but not what they found? Sure, some great articles are actually about what the scientists did, and we mentioned this in a previous Snippet. But now consider an important new paper in Nature this week. I’ll spoil the ending: the authors report compelling evidence, in older humans, that vaccination against shingles can provide significant protection against dementia. That’s big and exciting news! Why, then,…

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For many, the idea of living forever is unappealing. Even if good health is thrown into the bargain, interest in immortality remains ambivalent. But what if we could stay healthy right up until a timely death? Recent work from the Houseley lab suggests that, at least in budding yeast, healthspan can be extended without also extending lifespan. In a 2023 paper, they showed that a galactose diet suppresses senescence (i.e., loss of fitness) in aging yeast without extending their lifespan. In…

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Some scientific articles are must-reads because of what the scientists accomplished or developed. Some scientific articles are must-reads because of what the scientists discovered. And then some scientific articles are must-reads for both reasons. Here’s an example from a few weeks ago. A group of scientific teams in China worked for years to develop a vehicle that could carry researchers to Hell and back, so they could bring back dirt and animals from Hell. Then they went to Hell, brought…

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Can you name a neglected tropical disease (NTD)? I would guess that most biologists can, or can at least make some accurate guesses. But by definition, these are maladies that don’t get adequate attention and resources, and so it is likely that many scientists are unaware of the current roster of NTDs. A new and exciting paper at Nature taught me that snakebite (envenoming, to be precise) is in fact a devastating NTD, with a heartbreaking death toll due in…

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Viruses and other parasites are famously adept at trickery and manipulation. Think of your favorite creepy example of that, then consider a new paper about a virus so devious that it might become your new favorite (if you’re into that sort of thing). The article in Science Advances reveals the strategic brilliance of the tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV), which infects tomato plants with the help of its vector, a whitefly. Step 1 of the evil plan: the virus…

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Have you heard about the Iberian ribbed newt? This creature could be a vision from the Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir. It’s goth, it’s metal, it’s… well look, if you are foolish enough to piss this animal off, it will stab you with its own ribs, which it brandishes through its skin and which gather poison on the way out. You will learn your lesson, and the newt will go on with her/his day, because it is also famous…

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