Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Life
Gut bacteria may affect cardiovascular risk
An abundance of antioxidant-producing microbes seems to keep plaques from breaking free and causing heart attacks and stroke.
- Humans
Help Wanted: Must play well with high-powered coworkers
Leisure activities make or break job applicants at major banking, legal and consulting outfits.
- Health & Medicine
Simulated brain mimics human quirks
Model representing 2.5 million neurons performs calculations, issues instructions for a behavior, and then expands its decision into action.
- Humans
Genetic diversity exploded in recent millennia
Among hundreds of thousands of DNA variants identified in a study, a large majority arose in the past 5,000 years.
- Health & Medicine
Auditory test predicts coma awakening
While all patients in a new study could discriminate between sounds early on, those whose ability improved during the first 48 hours wound up recovering.
- Earth
Mexican silver made it into English coins
Chemical tests of currency help reveal where New World riches flowed.
- Psychology
Highlights from the Psychonomic Society annual meeting
Summaries from the conference held November 15-18 in Minneapolis.
- Psychology
Word-detecting baboons are a tough read
New models offer contrasting views of monkeys’ ability to identify frequently seen letter pairs.
- Health & Medicine
Protein’s destructive journey in brain may cause Parkinson’s
Clumps of alpha-synuclein move through dopamine-producing cells, mouse study finds.
- Humans
Oldest examples of hunting weapon uncovered in South Africa
A common ancestor of people and Neandertals may have flung stone-tipped shafts at animal prey.
- Life
Ebola may go airborne
Infected pigs can transmit virus to primates without contact, a new study finds.
- Anthropology
Highlights from the American Society of Human Genetics annual meeting
Iceman’s origins, DNA fingerprinting, microRNAs and cancer risk, and growth genes and obesity risk.
