
Merck and Moderna's personalized melanoma vaccine passes Phase 3 trial
A personalized cancer vaccine just cleared a major hurdle, but the companies won't reveal how decisively until they choose when to tell us.
Human performance under pressure
Human Element covers the psychology of discovery. How astronauts hold up under pressure, why people believe what they believe, and what research on the human mind can and cannot tell us.

A personalized cancer vaccine just cleared a major hurdle, but the companies won't reveal how decisively until they choose when to tell us.
Aug 25, 2026

NASA's best-documented recent selection cycle combined six hours of psychological tests with a long behavioural interview and high-load team simulations, while keeping the exercises themselves confidential.
Aug 23, 2026

Low-maintenance can describe an easygoing preference, but it can also keep a couple from discussing what each person actually needs. The label is a starting point for conversation, not a diagnosis.
Aug 19, 2026

The loneliness of adults in their sixties often lives not in empty rooms but in full ones, inside brief, well-meaning family calls that never quite have room for a real answer.
Aug 18, 2026

Viktor Frankl's most quoted line has been flattened into self-help decoration, but its actual meaning is harder and more useful than the pastel version suggests.
Aug 16, 2026

What if the difference between devastation and resilience is simply a matter of perspective—seeing an ending not as subtraction, but as transformation?
Aug 14, 2026

A Mars crew would leave Earth's magnetic and atmospheric protection for years, turning invisible particle radiation into a mission-wide design problem.
Aug 14, 2026

Wearable sensors at Concordia Station found that more close-range contact tracked more conflict and mistrust, but the one-crew study measured proximity rather than interaction quality.
Aug 13, 2026

Being liked rewards fluency and self-editing. Being known requires staying legible even when the version of you that shows up is inconvenient. The trade explains a specific kind of mid-life loneliness that surprises the people who feel it.
Aug 13, 2026

The pre-emptive laugh at one's own hard story looks like resilience but usually functions as traffic control — a decades-old strategy for keeping sympathy at a distance. Here's why the strategy started, what it costs, and how it quietly ends.
Aug 13, 2026

A phantom sound that tormented Bristol residents in the seventies has resurfaced worldwide, suggesting something science still cannot explain.
Aug 12, 2026

The algorithm knows your symptom is probably nothing—but it's going to convince you otherwise anyway.
Aug 12, 2026

The brain never forgets gravity—it's the body's predictions that need recalibrating after months in orbit.
Aug 11, 2026

Some independent friends find asking for support difficult, but no single childhood story explains everyone. The more useful approach is to notice behaviour without assigning a diagnosis.
Aug 11, 2026

Adults who cry more easily in midlife are not becoming fragile. Their nervous systems are finally in an environment safe enough to feel what younger versions had to push through.
Aug 11, 2026

Loneliness and social isolation are not the same thing. Research suggests that the quality of relationships can matter alongside the number of people in someone's life.
Aug 9, 2026