Michael Price

I am an editor and reporter for Science magazine based in San Diego, CA. I like to write about animals, anthropology, genetics, technology, the history of science, conservation, psychology, earth science, science policy, and anything funky.



mprice@aaas.org

Booming trade in mammoth ivory may be bad news for elephants

TORONTO—In 2015, Andy Huynh was accompanying wildlife guards in Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve to help ward off poachers. Fresh off a decade of service in the Middle East with U.S. Special Operations Forces, he thought there was little that could faze him. But when he saw his first poached rhinoceros, with half of its face sawed away for the horn, he turned and threw up. “I knew then and there I wanted to dedicate my life to stopping wildlife crime,” Huynh said. He began to work with vari

Modern humans and Neanderthals may have overlapped, shared culture in Western Europe

Modern humans and Neanderthals met—and made love, or at least babies—at some point in prehistory. But how long and exactly where the two species intermingled has been a mystery. Now, a reevaluation of radiocarbon dating at archaeological sites in France and northern Spain indicates that some 40,000 years ago, our ancestors overlapped with Neanderthals in the region for up to 2800 years, sharing not just genes with each other, but potentially culture as well. “The time span is insignificant on a

World’s oldest amputation: Foot removed 31,000 years ago—without modern antibiotics or painkillers

Some 31,000 years ago in the misty rainforests of the island of Borneo, stone tool met bone and a limb was severed—but a young life was saved. Researchers have found evidence for the earliest known surgical amputation, tens of thousands of years before the advent of modern surgical tools, antibiotics, or painkillers. The findings illuminate both the medical expertise and compassion of the pioneering hunter-gatherers who populated Southeast Asia at this time, says Charlotte Roberts, a bioarchaeo

Genes reveal how our pelvis evolved for upright walking

The wide, basin-shaped human pelvis is a defining physical feature of our species. Without it, we couldn’t walk upright or give birth to big-brained babies. Now, a new study of human embryos has pinpointed the window in embryonic development during which the pelvis begins to look humanlike and identified hundreds of genes and regulatory RNA regions that drive this transformation. Many bear the hallmarks of strong natural selection for bipedalism, the authors conclude. “It is a really impressive

Your simple throat is the reason you don’t sound like a chimp

When it comes to the plumbing required to produce human speech, less is more. A new study suggests our larynx evolved to have much simpler vocal anatomy than that of our ancestors. These simplifications may have allowed our species to produce stable, even-toned, and comprehensible speech instead of the rough, warbling vocalizations of other primates. “It’s a fair conclusion,” says Bart de Boer, a linguist who studies the evolution of speech at the Free University of Brussels who wasn’t involved

Ancient wolves give clues to origins of dogs

Where and when dogs arose is one of the biggest mysteries of domestication. To solve it, researchers have tried everything from analyzing ancient dog bones to sequencing modern dog DNA—all with inconclusive results. Now, researchers have tried a new tack: figuring out where the ancient wolves that gave rise to dogs lived. The new study doesn’t close the case, but it does point to a broad geographic region—eastern Eurasia—while also suggesting our canine pals may have been domesticated more than

Does warfare make societies more complex? Controversial study says yes

War is hell. It breaks apart families, destroys natural resources, and drives humans to commit unspeakable acts of violence. Yet according to a new analysis of human history, war may also prod the evolution of certain kinds of complex societies. The twin developments of agriculture and military technology—especially cavalries and iron weapons—have predicted the rise of empires. “I think they make a convincing case,” says Robert Drennan, an archaeologist at the University of Pittsburgh who wasn’

Artificial intelligence may have unearthed one of the world’s oldest campfires

It’s not always easy to find clues to ancient campfires. Bits of charcoal, cracked bones, and discolored rocks often give a prehistoric blaze away. But not every blaze leaves such obvious traces, especially after hundreds of thousands of years. Now, using artificial intelligence (AI) to detect the subtle ways in which extreme heat warps a material’s atomic structure, scientists have discovered the potential presence of a nearly 1-million-year-old fire featuring dozens of purportedly burnt objec

First genome of Pompeii victim holds surprises

In 79 C.E., torrents of blazing rock, ash, and gas descended on Pompeii, instantly turning the small but lively Italian village into a soot-covered mausoleum. Now, researchers have sequenced the whole genome of a man who perished in the eruption, providing new genetic insights into Pompeii’s doomed populace. Scientists examined the skeletons of a man and a woman who were first discovered during excavations in the 1910s. The pair was found leaning against a low couch inside a dwelling known as t

This unusual tooth is the first fossil evidence of Denisovans in Southeast Asia

In 2018, a child living in the village of Long Gua Pa in northeastern Laos approached a team of archaeologists, eager to show them a cave full of bones. The team began to chisel into the cave’s cementlike walls, exposing the remains of ancient rhinoceroses, tapirs, pigs, rodents—and a single, humanlike molar. Now, the researchers have identified the tooth as that of a Denisovan, mysterious cousins of Neanderthals and modern humans who likely died out about 30,000 years ago. The new find is the f

Oldest human DNA from Africa reveals complex migrations

Africa is the birthplace of our species, but ancient DNA from the continent has so far provided relatively few clues to our history there, partly because researchers have struggled to recover genetic samples that survived the hot, humid climate. Now, an analysis of ancient DNA from six individuals from southeastern Africa offers a glimpse of the lives, movements, and relations of people who occupied the continent between 18,000 and 5000 years ago; it also hints at the complex commingling of Afri

Jamestown colonists may have kept, eaten indigenous American dogs

DENVER—Dogs first came to the Americas about 16,000 years ago, likely on the heels of ice age hunters crossing a bygone land bridge from Siberia. These indigenous canines remained on the continent for thousands of years as furry friends and hunting companions—until, suddenly, they were gone, replaced genetically by European breeds. Now, a pair of jawbones pried from the earth beneath Virginia’s colonial Jamestown settlement may illuminate when these dogs vanished and the roles they may have play

‘Lost’ medieval literature uncovered by techniques used to track wildlife

Ask any Dutch schoolchild about Reynard the fox, and they’ll tell you all about the adventures of the dashing, anthropomorphic folk hero, whose exploits were laid down in the 13th century by Willem die Madoc maecte, or “William who made the Madoc.” Madoc is likely the name of another once-popular poem about a legendary Welsh knight and explorer. Despite being the well-known medieval author’s calling card, nobody knows the content of that poem, which has been lost to time. “People have been fran

Did Neanderthals and modern humans take turns living in a French cave?

A single, broken molar found buried within a windswept rock shelter in southeastern France could push back the first evidence of modern humans in Europe by nearly 10,000 years. According to an international team, the tooth and dozens of stone tools from the same sedimentary layer belonged to a member of Homo sapiens who lived some 54,000 years ago, a time when Neanderthals were thought to have been the sole occupants of Europe. The findings also paint a remarkable picture of the intimacy of mod

Reconstructed human spines may honor Peru’s defiled dead

In 2012, archaeologists were excavating a series of large stone tombs in Peru’s Chincha Valley when they found something none of them had ever seen before: human vertebrae threaded onto a reed, almost like a spinal abacus. Over the next 10 years, researchers found nearly 200 such remains in the same valley. At first, they wondered whether local children had skewered the backbones as a joke. But farmers working in the region told the researchers, no, this wasn’t the work of pranksters. These bone

Did a taste for blood help humans grow big brains? Story isn’t so simple, study argues

When it comes to killing and eating other creatures, chimpanzees—our closest relatives—have nothing on us. Animal flesh makes up much more of the average human’s diet than a chimp’s. Many scientists have long suggested our blood lust ramped up about 2 million years ago, based on the number of butchery marks found at ancient archaeological sites. The spike in calories from meat, the story goes, allowed one of our early ancestors, Homo erectus, to grow bigger bodies and brains. But a new study a

How one society rebounded from ‘the worst year to be alive’

It was the worst time to be alive, according to some scientists. From 536 C.E. to 541 C.E., a series of volcanic eruptions in North and Central America sent tons of ash into the atmosphere, blocking sunlight, chilling the globe, and destroying crops worldwide. Societies everywhere struggled to survive. But for the Ancestral Pueblo people living in what today is the U.S. Southwest, this climate catastrophe planted the seeds for a more cohesive, technologically sophisticated society, a new study s

How agriculture gave rise to one of the world’s most mysterious language families

A tiny grain of millet may have given birth to one of the most mysterious—and widespread—language families on Earth, according to the largest study yet of linguistic, archaeological, and genetic evidence from about a dozen countries across Asia. The Transeurasian languages, sometimes known as Altaic, include the languages of Siberia, Mongolia, Central Asia, and possibly Japan and the Korean Peninsula. The new study suggests the language family arose in northeastern China 9000 years ago, expandin

Dinosaurs thrived until the moment asteroid hit, excavators of controversial site claim

When a massive asteroid struck Earth some 66 million years ago, were dinosaurs around to experience the cataclysm? Two years ago, a paleontologist claimed to have found evidence at a fossil-rich North Dakotan site called Tanis that dinosaurs were alive until moments after the impact, when floodwaters surged over them. But many paleontologists were skeptical, especially because the dinosaur data were first discussed in a magazine story rather than a peer-reviewed journal. Last week, at the annual

First Viking settlement in North America dated to exactly 1000 years ago

The first permanent settlement of Vikings in North America—a seaside outpost in Newfoundland known as L’Anse aux Meadows—has tantalized archaeologists for more than 60 years. Now, scientists at last have a precise date for the site: Tree rings show a Viking ax felled trees on the North American continent exactly 1000 years ago, in 1021 C.E. The result is a star example of a relatively new dating method using a spike in solar radiation that left its mark in tree rings around the world. “The prec
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