The scariest sound in the savanna: human voices

Hello Nature readers,
Today, we meet the winner of the economics Nobel Prize, discover that animals find human voices scarier than lion snarls and hear from the researchers who try to find the human body’s heat limit.

Economics Nobel for pay-gap research

Economic historian Claudia Goldin has won the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences for dismantling simple ideas about how gender inequalities in labour markets have changed over time. Women have been under-represented in the workplace for at least the past two centuries and continue to earn, on average, 13% less than men — an injustice as well as a puzzling ‘market inefficiency’. Goldin mined 200 years of data to show that greater economic growth did not lead to wage parity or to employment of more women. “Goldin has been saying for many years that the way work is organized in many professions is especially female-unfriendly,” says economist Barbara Petrongolo.

US on track to hit 25-year funding low

Last year, the US government promised to boost funding for some major science agencies by US$26.8 billion in 2024. But the legislation seems likely to fall short of this goal by around 28%, and funding for those agencies will continue to hover at a 25-year low. Science advocates worry about such funding cuts because they tend to disproportionately affect basic research.

Animals find humans scarier than lions

Human voices evoke more fear among animals living in the South African savanna than do snarls from lions. Researchers set up speakers near 21 water holes, which played one of several sounds when triggered by animal movement. When they heard humans, giraffes, leopards, elephants and 16 other species were twice as likely to run as when they heard growling lions, barking dogs or guns. The researchers suggest that recordings of human voices could be used to keep animals away from areas where a lot of poaching happens.

The human body’s heat limit

As the world’s warming trend will lead to more heatwaves, researchers are seeking to understand what the human body can tolerate. Heat strains the heart and kidneys, causes headaches, disrupts sleep and slows cognition. Heat stroke can lead to multi-organ failure. A critical wet-bulb temperature (a measure that takes humidity into account) is 35 °C. At this temperature, even the healthiest people would succumb after about six hours. Strategies to lower the body’s temperature include using air conditioning or electric fans, or simply immersing the feet in cold water.

Finally, a vaccine against RSV

After decades of research and some disastrous clinical trials, there’s light at the end of the tunnel in the fight against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV): both conventional vaccines and antiviral antibodies that act like short-term vaccines should be available at hospitals this year. “RSV has been a major cause of morbidity and mortality around the world, and I think this is going to change dramatically,” says infectious-disease paediatrician Louis Bont. What remains unclear is how soon these products will arrive in low- and middle-income countries, where the toll of RSV is greatest.

“I felt that I needed to ‘prove’ myself”

For this year’s Ada Lovelace Day, which celebrates the achievements of women in science, six women share the highs and lows in computer science. “It is a creative and empowering field, as well as a challenging one,” says Sana Odeh. But it continues to be permeated by gendered biases: half of young women who go into technology fields drop out by the age of 35 — largely owing to workplace culture. “During my studies and my first job I felt that I needed to ‘prove’ myself to be capable, more than the men did,” recalls Soraia Raupp Musse.