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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Health & Medicine

    A new drug may boost dwindling treatment options for gonorrhea

    An antibiotic that targets the bacteria that causes gonorrhea proved effective in treating patients in a clinical trial.

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  2. Archaeology

    Like Europe, Borneo hosted Stone Age cave artists

    Rock art may have spread from Borneo across Southeast Asia starting 40,000 years ago or more.

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  3. Health & Medicine

    Malaysia is ground zero for the next malaria menace

    With deforestation in Malaysia, monkeys and humans are getting closer — and mosquitoes are infecting humans with malaria from monkeys.

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  4. Materials Science

    Questions about toxic red tides, and more reader feedback

    Readers had inquiries about a new deicing material, harmful algal blooms and more.

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  5. Anthropology

    Neandertal teeth reveal the earliest known signs of lead exposure

    Chemical analyses of teeth from young Neandertals show that lead exposure in hominids goes back some 250,000 years.

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  6. Archaeology

    Fossils hint hominids migrated through a ‘green’ Arabia 300,000 years ago

    A once-green Arabia may have enabled Stone Age entries by Homo groups.

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  7. Tech

    Virtual reality therapy has real-life benefits for some mental disorders

    Cheap, user-friendly virtual reality hardware could help VR therapy go mainstream. Some treatments are ready for primetime, while others are still in early testing.

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  8. Health & Medicine

    The appendix is implicated in Parkinson’s disease

    Removal of the appendix reduced the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease, an analysis of nearly 1.7 million health records in Sweden suggests.

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  9. Archaeology

    People in the Pacific Northwest smoked tobacco long before Europeans showed up

    Ancient indigenous groups in the Pacific Northwest used tobacco roughly 600 years before European settlers ventured west with the plant.

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  10. Archaeology

    Ancient South Americans tasted chocolate 1,500 years before anyone else

    Artifacts with traces of cacao push back the known date for when the plant was first domesticated by 1,500 years.

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  11. Health & Medicine

    What the approval of the new flu drug Xofluza means for you

    Xofluza, the first flu antiviral to be approved in 20 years, works differently from other flu drugs.

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  12. Archaeology

    Ancient Clovis people may have taken tool cues from earlier Americans

    Ancient Americans’ spearpoints may have heralded later Clovis weapons.

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