Humans

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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Health & Medicine

    Scooters save lives of snakebite victims

    Nepal project achieves dramatic drop in deaths by using motorbike helpers to rush the stricken to hospital.

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  2. Health & Medicine

    E. coli evade detection by going dormant

    When stressed, bacteria can temporarily turn comatose and dodge germ-screening tests.

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  3. Humans

    DNA highlights Native American die-off

    A genetic analysis points to widespread New World deaths after Europeans arrived.

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  4. Humans

    Saving the Last Supper

    Tourists and cosmetics seem to be threatening da Vinci’s masterpiece.

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  5. Humans

    Neandertals’ mammoth building project

    Stone Age people’s evolutionary cousins may have constructed earliest bone structures.

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  6. Humans

    Missing Lincs

    Lesser-known genetic material helps explain why humans are human.

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  7. Health & Medicine

    Immune booster also works in reverse

    Injections of the protein interleukin-2 can calm runaway defenses that damage tissues in the body, two studies show.

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  8. Health & Medicine

    Weaker brain links found in psychopaths

    Decreased communication between emotional and executive centers may contribute to the mental disorder.

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  9. Humans

    Germs’ persistence: Nothing to sneeze at

    Years ago, I read (probably in Science News) that viruses can’t survive long outside their hosts. That implied any surface onto which a sneezed-out germ found itself — such as the arm of a chair, kitchen counter or car-door handle — would effectively decontaminate itself within hours to a day. A pair of new flu papers now indicates that although many germs will die within hours, none of us should count on it. Given the right environment, viruses can remain infectious — potentially for many weeks, one of the studies finds.

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  10. Humans

    Cooking can be surprisingly forgiving

    Network analysis confirms deviations from the recipe are quite feasible.

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  11. Chemistry

    Radiation sickness treatment shows promise

    The regimen could be used to protect large numbers of people in the aftermath of major accidents such as Chernobyl or Fukushima.

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  12. Health & Medicine

    Getting the picture of how someone died

    CT scans can often reveal a clear cause of death, possibly making some autopsies unnecessary, British researchers find.

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