Scientists have uncovered the brain circuits that may underlie binge eating disorder and related conditions. The neural wiring is the same as that tied to psychiatric conditions such as drug addiction and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The work could lead to new ways to understand and treat eating disorders, says Rebecca Boswell, a clinical psychologist at Princeton University...

For years, scientists and conservationists have urged China’s government to crack down on a thriving trade in wild animals that they say both threatens the nation’s rich biodiversity and increases the risk that a dangerous disease will jump from wildlife to humans. Now, some of those pleas are being answered: On 1 May, officials will begin to enforce a strengthened Wildlife...

The Swahili coast, stretching more than 3000 kilometers from southern Ethiopia to Tanzania, was a hub of medieval trade, exporting ivory and other resources from the African interior to South Asia, the Arab world, and Persia. Its cultural legacy remains potent: Swahili is now spoken across large parts of Africa, and the ruins of ancient towns, many with mosques and other buildings cut...