Pretty much all biotech stuff this month as if so often the case.

• The most important article is also the most boring one. As part of a massive study that included 10.17 million people who were vaccinated against COVID-19 and 10.39 million unvaccinated people from the UK, Spain and Estonia, the researchers conclude that vaccination reduced the risk of post-COVID-19 cardiac and thromboembolic outcomes. They recorded results up to one year after vaccination and looked only for cases after SARS-CoV-2 infection. It makes for strong evidence that vaccination reduces the risk of cardiovascular complications rather than increases them as per widespread popular belief.
• Most people agree that babies smell nice, yet children seem to not smell as nice after they grow up. A new study provides evidence that there is a biological basis to this, attributing the change to the onset of puberty. By collecting samples of body odors from infants, toddlers and teenagers, the researchers found naturally occurring steroids with musklike odors in the teens’ sweat. They stem from bacteria and bodily substances that break down the sebum that helps protect the skin. The glands that produce the sebum are active at birth and then go dormant. They reactivate again around puberty. The first time around, the sebum isn’t broken down because infants haven’t accumulated the bacteria yet and don’t sweat much. The situation is different when they become teenagers.
• Most people will already know about the Flynn effect, the phenomenon whereby IQ seems to increase from one generation to the next. Most people also believe that our average attention span has gone down, coinciding with changing media consumption patterns. This paper argues that it may be possible to decompose the Flynn effect into different domains and uses a meta-analysis of previous studies to investigate the possibility that one such subcomponent is attention. They found that there has been indeed a generational improvement in concentration performance in adults but not in children. Since this is a meta-analysis I wouldn’t put too much stock in its results but I like how counter-intuitive their findings are.
• Many people will have seen online videos of parrots interacting with touchscreen tablets. You may think these are isolated incidents yet there is plenty of evidence that parrots really do love tablets and games on them in particular. This article talks about how parrots of many difference species and sizes have learned to use tablets and seem to enjoy them. It also talks about how they primarily use their tongues to manipulate the touchscreens and are capable of generating a touch much faster than human fingers can. They conclude that these devices enrich the lives of parrots enough that it may be worth developing new, more robust types of devices specifically for their use.