This week, we learned that across the animal kingdom, sperm cells have a short shelf life. A study implicated autoantibodies in the development of long COVID. And among its other drawbacks, the weedkiller glyphosate may foster the spread of multidrug-resistant bacteria.
_PARABREAKHERE_But let's talk about the placebo effect on aging adults, how kids evaluate fun experiences, and the world-first detailed documentation of a sperm whale birth including the discovery of cooperative birthing among cetaceans:_PARABREAKHERE_[H3]Fake supplement works better with 'fake' written on the label[/H3]The placebo effect is a well-known medical phenomenon whereby an inert treatment produces measurably positive results in subjects. Intuitively, it seems like you'd need to conceal the inauthenticity of a placebo, but it turns out that it really doesn't matter whether or not you tell your study's volunteers they're taking a fake drug—and in a recent study involving 90 healthy aging adults, informing volunteers that the supplement they were testing was fake produced better results than concealing it._PARABREAKHERE_The study, published in the International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology, sought to determine whether a placebo could induce improvements in functions that normally decline with age. The 90 volunteers were divided into three groups: a control group that received no intervention; a deceptive placebo group who were told they were receiving a supplement that was effective in raising cognitive and physical measures of health; and an open-label placebo group who were informed they were taking a placebo._PARABREAKHERE_After three weeks, the open-label placebo group showed more improvement than the other groups in perceived stress, improved short-term memory, higher psychological well-being, more optimism and higher measures of physical performance._PARABREAKHERE_[H3]Fun evaluated[/H3]Child psychologists have long understood that play reinforces emotional, cognitive and psychological development in children. But few studies have ever sought children's perspectives on play, instead approaching the subject from a completely adult perspective. To close this knowledge gap, a group of researchers at Aarhus University interviewed 104 children about play in order to identify recurring elements that make play "bad" or "good" from the children's perspective, producing a list of 83 statements representing these recurring elements. Then they asked 504 children to recall a good or bad play experience and rate it by saying whether or not they agreed with the list of statements._PARABREAKHERE_From these interviews, they identified two sets of important elements for play: Seven factors that were generally applicable to many play experiences, and 22 elements applicable to a wider variety of experiences, but which were too numerous to comprise an effective scale. The seven factors—social inclusion, imagination, transgression, accessibility, wild and exciting play, having something to do, and a more nebulous concept called "play feeling"—formed the study's "play qualities inventory." And "play feeling" was key to identifying good and bad play experiences._PARABREAKHERE_Lead author Andreas Lieberoth of Aarhus University said, "If you have ever felt it, you know what it means. You know it when you see it, like love, evil or fun. In the words of kids, it's an experience where you feel that's 'just totally perfect,' and maybe you 'just laugh' or 'get a smile on your mouth.' When the feeling is not there, play is 'annoying,' 'boring,' or maybe you 'think the rules should be different.'"_PARABREAKHERE_[H3]Cetacean doulas documented[/H3]Cooperative birth assistance is a feature of a few primate species that have complex births, including humans. In two new studies, researchers with Project CETI have documented the first quantitative evidence of cooperative birthing among sperm whales, along with the most comprehensive documentation of a sperm whale birth ever recorded._PARABREAKHERE_The researchers observed female sperm whales from two unrelated matrilines coming together to support and assist the laboring mother, and both kin and non-kin whales took turns assisting the newborn. One of the two studies reports shifts in coda vocal styles during key moments of the birth, including the presence of vowel-like vocalizations._PARABREAKHERE_Direct observations of wild cetacean births are extremely rare, and the details documented in the study are invaluable. The researchers gathered six hours of underwater audio and aerial drone footage of the birthing event in 2023 in the waters off Dominica, documenting the birth and the coordinated lifting and physical support of the newborn calf. Newborn sperm whale calves sink immediately and require adult whales to lift them above the surface of the water so they won't drown. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that collective lifting of newborns is ancient, possibly predating the emergence of the most recent common ancestor of toothed whales 36 million years ago._PARABREAKHERE_© 2026 Science X Network