There was a time when researchers doubted that Neanderthals liked the beach. There was no trace of them in marine environments. It was suggested then that these were more complex ecosystems, requiring skills that only Homo sapiens, modern humans, possessed. Several studies have dismantled this ethnocentrism: Homo neanderthalensis had been feeding from the sea for many millennia before Homo sapiens arrived in Europe. Now, a new study published in PNAS shows that, around 115,000 years ago, in a Mediterranean cave, they used strategies that Homo sapiens would employ much later, such as gathering mollusks in the colder months, when the risk of contamination was minimal and their flavor at its peak.

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When Giulia Immaculata was 13, her parents — members of the Coluccio clan — forced her to break up with her boyfriend so she could marry Cosimo Commisso, nephew of Vincenzo Macrì, who in 2014 was the leader of one of the most prominent clans of the ’Ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia. The case, extreme as it is, illustrates how, within this organization, marriages go far beyond love; they are a family affair. Now, an analysis of hundreds of marital ties within the group shows that the most powerful families occupy the center of the network. The study, published in the scientific journal PLOS One, also reveals that these marriages strengthen this criminal syndicate and make it more resilient.

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For centuries, along the entire northern border of the Roman Empire, local inhabitants coexisted with Roman citizens and their slaves, as well as the legionaries who guarded the Roman Limes, the imperial frontier. But there is no evidence that they mixed extensively. However, everything changed with the fall of Rome: a study of bodies buried in some 20 cemeteries in Germania shows that, without the rule of lex romana, local inhabitants, citizens, slaves, and legionaries began to intermingle. The study, published in Nature, also describes the families of these groups, their life expectancy, and the prevalence of orphanhood among young children at the beginning of the Middle Ages.

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In nature, the Barbary macaque has a nearly vegetarian diet based on fruits, tender leaves, roots and an insect here and there. But on the Rock of Gibraltar, they also eat chocolate cookies, ice cream cones, M&M’s and potato chips. The result? A study published in Nature shows that the monkeys are eating dirt to purge the sugars, fats, and dairy products from this junk food tourists give them.

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Cats, along with dogs, are the animals that spend the most time with humans. They share spaces, routines, and even illnesses. They are exposed to almost all the same environmental stressors that induce tumors in people. However, unlike what happens with dogs, cancer research in felines is very limited. Now, a huge study published in Science, using hundreds of tumor samples, has obtained the most complete oncogenome of the domestic cat. Among its findings, two are closely related: cats and humans suffer from almost the same types of cancer, and this opens the door for the possibility that advances in the fight against cancer in one species could be applied to the other.

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