https://lemmadaily.org/ Plain-English summaries of new science papers, with honest credibility grades. Updated every morning. en https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-23/malaria-in-somalia-shows-early-signs-of-dodging-tests-and-a-.html https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-23/malaria-in-somalia-shows-early-signs-of-dodging-tests-and-a-.html Malaria parasites in Somalia carry gene changes that can hide them from the finger-prick tests used to spot the disease. Testing 159 confirmed infections, scientists found one parasite with a change linked to resistance against artemisinin, the main malaria medicine. Medicine & Biology Thu, 23 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-23/everyday-food-may-be-a-major-hidden-source-of-lead-poisoning.html https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-23/everyday-food-may-be-a-major-hidden-source-of-lead-poisoning.html Researchers estimate that the food people eat could account for roughly 40 to 50 percent of the lead in their bodies globally. Vegetables and grains carried the most, and children in poorer countries took in about three times more lead than children in richer ones. Medicine & Biology Thu, 23 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-23/a-flood-of-ai-written-novels-is-quietly-shrinking-what-human.html https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-23/a-flood-of-ai-written-novels-is-quietly-shrinking-what-human.html Cheap AI-written novels now fill 1 in 5 self-published genre e-books on Amazon. As the catalog grew 38 times bigger while sales grew only about 9 times, the money each book earns fell — even for books with no AI text at all. AI & Computer Science Thu, 23 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-23/a-big-england-study-finds-the-shingles-vaccine-did-not-lower.html https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-23/a-big-england-study-finds-the-shingles-vaccine-did-not-lower.html Researchers checked millions of English hospital records after a 2013 shingles vaccine rollout. People eligible for the vaccine got shingles less often, but showed no drop in dementia diagnoses. Medicine & Biology Thu, 23 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-23/top-ai-models-fail-a-simple-looking-test-that-people-solve-e.html https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-23/top-ai-models-fail-a-simple-looking-test-that-people-solve-e.html Researchers built puzzles that need careful, repeated looking: counting scattered fields, tracing a tangled rope, matching shapes. The best AI model solved only 10.6% of them, while three human testers averaged 96.1%. AI & Computer Science Thu, 23 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-23/some-faces-and-places-stick-in-memory-and-they-fade-away-mor.html https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-23/some-faces-and-places-stick-in-memory-and-they-fade-away-mor.html Researchers found that images people usually remember well are learned faster and then forgotten more slowly than easily-forgotten images. Across three experiments with faces and scenes, the same pattern appeared every time. Psychology & Neuroscience Thu, 23 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-22/health-chatbots-sounded-just-as-kind-when-their-advice-was-d.html https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-22/health-chatbots-sounded-just-as-kind-when-their-advice-was-d.html AI chatbots answered health questions warmly in every language, but the medical advice was much weaker in some. Doctors rated 1,008 answers; dangerous replies were 3.6% in English and 15.5% in Thai and Hebrew. Medicine & Biology Wed, 22 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-22/a-new-daily-pill-cut-harmful-cholesterol-far-more-than-today.html https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-22/a-new-daily-pill-cut-harmful-cholesterol-far-more-than-today.html A new daily pill lowered harmful cholesterol by about 65%, well beyond the other pill options doctors use now. In a 301-person trial over eight weeks, the best rival treatment reached 37%. Medicine & Biology Wed, 22 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-22/sheep-bred-without-kidneys-grew-them-from-another-sheep-s-ce.html https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-22/sheep-bred-without-kidneys-grew-them-from-another-sheep-s-ce.html Scientists switched off a gene that sheep need to build kidneys, so their fetuses grew none. Adding a few cells from another sheep into the very early embryo restored normal-looking kidneys by day 48 of pregnancy. Medicine & Biology Wed, 22 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-22/children-s-books-about-scientists-may-tell-kids-that-talent-.html https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-22/children-s-books-about-scientists-may-tell-kids-that-talent-.html Children's books about famous scientists often suggest scientific ability and curiosity are inborn, not built over time. Researchers read and coded 422 best-selling books covering 1,355 scientist characters. Psychology & Neuroscience Wed, 22 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-22/an-hiv-drug-may-stop-a-harmful-protein-from-creeping-between.html https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-22/an-hiv-drug-may-stop-a-harmful-protein-from-creeping-between.html A protein inside brain cells can build a shell like a virus and carry a damaging protein into neighbouring cells. In fruit flies, blocking that shell improved movement and helped the flies live longer. Psychology & Neuroscience Wed, 22 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-22/night-flying-moths-pollinate-papaya-as-much-as-daytime-bees-.html https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-22/night-flying-moths-pollinate-papaya-as-much-as-daytime-bees-.html On small papaya farms in Kenya, moths that fly at night help the trees make fruit just as much as bees do by day. Researchers covered flowers only by day, or only by night, and the two groups' work added together. Medicine & Biology Wed, 22 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-22/monkeys-that-grab-the-quick-treat-may-be-forgetting-not-impa.html https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-22/monkeys-that-grab-the-quick-treat-may-be-forgetting-not-impa.html Monkeys who take a small quick treat instead of a bigger later one may simply forget what they chose. When researchers showed the monkeys their choice again just before the reward arrived, the monkeys waited far more often. Psychology & Neuroscience Wed, 22 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-22/when-coral-overheats-each-kind-of-cell-fails-in-its-own-way.html https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-22/when-coral-overheats-each-kind-of-cell-fails-in-its-own-way.html When coral gets too hot, its different cell types break down in different ways, and only some recover. Researchers read the activity inside 20,000 single coral cells over seven hot days and 45 days of recovery. Medicine & Biology Wed, 22 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-21/when-the-rules-of-making-money-change-people-quickly-change-.html https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-21/when-the-rules-of-making-money-change-people-quickly-change-.html People's taste for risk is not fixed. In a paid experiment where money grew in two different ways, participants shifted their risk-taking to nearly the level that grows wealth fastest over time. Psychology & Neuroscience Tue, 21 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-21/an-ai-fed-raw-collider-data-reproduced-famous-particle-masse.html https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-21/an-ai-fed-raw-collider-data-reproduced-famous-particle-masse.html A computer model was fed about a billion real particle collisions and told almost no physics. The fake collisions it then produced show the correct masses of several known particles, matching values physicists had already measured. AI & Computer Science Tue, 21 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-21/growing-up-around-threat-may-reshape-one-particular-brain-ne.html https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-21/growing-up-around-threat-may-reshape-one-particular-brain-ne.html Young people who faced more threat, like violence at home, had a larger brain network that links thinking to body movement. Scans of 4,525 people aged 9 to 18 showed the network grew as threat rose. Psychology & Neuroscience Tue, 21 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-21/very-small-doses-of-the-magic-mushroom-drug-caused-no-halluc.html https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-21/very-small-doses-of-the-magic-mushroom-drug-caused-no-halluc.html Psilocybin, the active chemical in magic mushrooms, produced no hallucinations at very low doses. In 56 healthy adults, doses of 0.5 to 4 milligrams were noticeable but caused no visions and no drop in attention or memory. Medicine & Biology Tue, 21 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-21/today-s-best-ai-models-often-fail-at-simply-copying-text-bac.html https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-21/today-s-best-ai-models-often-fail-at-simply-copying-text-bac.html Leading AI chat models make mistakes when asked to repeat a piece of text word for word. On long, repetitive text, five top models copied it correctly less than half the time. AI & Computer Science Tue, 21 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-20/a-tiny-robot-that-folds-from-a-hand-into-a-walking-humanoid.html https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-20/a-tiny-robot-that-folds-from-a-hand-into-a-walking-humanoid.html Researchers built one small 27-joint robot whose parts rearrange to become either a five-fingered hand or a mini walking humanoid. The same hand fingers slide down to become the robot's legs and arms. AI & Computer Science Mon, 20 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-20/could-dark-matter-slowly-change-its-weight-a-new-idea-explai.html https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-20/could-dark-matter-slowly-change-its-weight-a-new-idea-explai.html Physicists built a model where dark matter, the invisible stuff that outweighs stars, slowly changes its mass over billions of years. When tested against maps of the sky, this idea fit the real data a little better than today's standard picture of the universe. Physics & Space Mon, 20 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-20/a-blood-thinning-drug-helped-more-stroke-patients-recover-af.html https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-20/a-blood-thinning-drug-helped-more-stroke-patients-recover-af.html After doctors pulled a blood clot from a stroke patient's brain, adding a drug called tirofiban helped more people return to living independently. In a trial of 1,380 people, 49% on the drug were independent after three months, versus 43% on a dummy treatment. Medicine & Biology Mon, 20 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-20/a-telescope-the-size-of-earth-sees-a-black-hole-s-jet-twisti.html https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-20/a-telescope-the-size-of-earth-sees-a-black-hole-s-jet-twisti.html Astronomers made the sharpest-ever picture of the gas beam shooting from a giant black hole in the galaxy 3C 279. The innermost part of the beam is bent almost sideways from the rest and points nearly straight at Earth, and this twist keeps showing up over ten years. Physics & Space Mon, 20 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-20/a-specific-carbon-molecule-may-explain-a-faint-glow-james-we.html https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-20/a-specific-carbon-molecule-may-explain-a-faint-glow-james-we.html Scientists think a molecule called hexahydropyrene creates part of a faint infrared glow seen in a star-forming cloud. They measured its light fingerprint in the lab and matched it to what the James Webb Space Telescope sees. Physics & Space Mon, 20 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-20/people-with-low-or-unstable-incomes-may-face-higher-odds-of-.html https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-20/people-with-low-or-unstable-incomes-may-face-higher-odds-of-.html In South Korea, adults with the lowest incomes were more likely to develop a rare chronic pain condition than the richest. Those in the lowest income group had about 3.7 times the risk over 10 years. Psychology & Neuroscience Mon, 20 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-20/a-protein-folding-ai-may-secretly-hold-clues-about-how-prote.html https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-20/a-protein-folding-ai-may-secretly-hold-clues-about-how-prote.html AlphaFold2 is a program that predicts a protein's folded shape. By gently blurring and shrinking the numbers inside it, a researcher pulled out a range of shapes that matched how one real protein bends and comes apart in physics simulations. AI & Computer Science Mon, 20 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-20/a-bumpy-surface-might-make-sliding-smoother-not-rougher-a-ph.html https://lemmadaily.org/edition/2026-07-20/a-bumpy-surface-might-make-sliding-smoother-not-rougher-a-ph.html Scientists found that when the squeezing force between two crystal surfaces is strongest in the middle and fades to zero at the edges, the surfaces can slide with even less friction. They showed this with mathematics and computer simulations of tiny sliding chains. Physics & Space Mon, 20 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0000