Humans

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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Health & Medicine

    Neighborhood linked to obesity

    Children living in areas that lack walking-distance parks and supermarkets are more prone to put on weight, new studies find.

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  2. Health & Medicine

    Attention tunes the mind’s ear

    Brain activity shows how one voice pattern stands out from the crowd.

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  3. Life

    Daytime anesthesia gives bees jet lag

    Honeybees, as stand-ins for surgery patients, show drug’s aftereffects as biorhythms get out sync.

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  4. Humans

    Highlights from the American Association of Physical Anthropologists annual meeting, Portland, Ore., April 11-14

    Shorts on Stone Age finds in Southeast Asia, chatting among Neandertal ancestors and early cannibalism.

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  5. Humans

    Ancient walking gets weirder

    Fossil footprints and bones suggest variations among human ancestors in upright gait and stance.

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  6. Life

    Baboons show their word skills

    Monkeys learn to distinguish words from nonwords, suggesting ancient evolutionary roots for reading.

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  7. Health & Medicine

    Movie clips help ease drug craving

    Images of heroin may prove useful in treating addiction.

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  8. Health & Medicine

    Why emotions are attention-getters

    Strong, direct connections between two key brain centers help explain how feelings can usurp focus.

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  9. Humans

    Warming Marches in

    People may argue about why Earth is warming, how long its fever will last and whether any of this warrants immediate corrective action. But whether Earth is warming is no longer open to debate. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has just published domestic examples to reinforce what Americans witnessed last month — either on TV or in their own backyards.

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  10. Humans

    Bat killer is still spreading

    Since 2006, some 6 million to 7 million North American bats have succumbed to white-nose syndrome, a virulent fungal disease. That figure, issued in January by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, at least sextupled the former estimate that biologists had been touting. But the sharp jump in the cumulative death toll isn’t the only disturbing new development. On April 2, scientists confirmed that white-nose fungus has apparently struck bats hibernating in two small Missouri caves. The first signs of clinical disease have also just emerged in Europe.

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  11. Health & Medicine

    Autism linked to obesity in pregnancy

    Association may spark research into a possible biological mechanism.

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  12. Humans

    Chemists distinguish between gunshot residue from various firearms

    Analytical technique could lead to better crime scene investigation.

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