Most large apes kiss, and Neanderthals probably did too. Plus, what a surge of measles in North America means for the world and what Canada’s bold talent-attraction program means for scientists.
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People with measles are barred from entering a hospital in Canada, which has seen a surge in cases of the highly infectious disease in 2025.Credit: Nicole Osborne/The Canadian Press via ZUMA Press
Measles outbreaks in the United States and Canada could be a worrying sign of things to come, say public-health experts. “We tend to see measles outbreaks first, just because it’s so contagious,” says epidemiologist William Moss. The surge in North America follows one in Africa in 2019, and another in Europe in 2024. Vaccination rates in some places are declining, due in part to changing attitudes. This year has also seen cuts to foreign aid for vaccination programmes and a change in vaccination policies, particularly in the US — meaning that a resurgence of other diseases might be next.
Nature | 5 min read
Source: UNICEF
Most large apes kiss — defined as “a non-agonistic interaction involving directed, intraspecific, oral-oral contact with some movement of the lips/mouthparts and no food transfer” — and Neanderthals probably did too, according to a new analysis. Researchers combed the literature and YouTube — they admit these data are just “a starting point” — for observations of kissing in various species and used it to reconstruct the evolution of the act. “We think kissing probably evolved around 21.5 million years ago in the large apes,” says evolutionary biologist and study co-author Matilda Brindle. The question is, why? “We should be studying this behaviour, not just dismissing it as silly because it has romantic connotations in humans,” says Brindle.
BBC | 4 min read
Reference: Evolution and Human Behavior paper
Scientists in Canada gave a sigh of relief as the country’s federal budget mostly spared the country’s three main research-funding councils amid continuing economic fallout from tariffs instituted by the administration of US President Donald Trump. The nation also poured further investment into attracting international scientists from abroad: Can$1.7 billion (US$1.2 billion) over the next 13 years to attract more than 1,000 high-level international researchers to Canada.
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