Humans

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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. 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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  2. Life

    Unraveling synesthesia

    Tangled senses may have genetic or chemical roots, or both.

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  3. Humans

    Matt Crenson, Reconstructions

    Tools tell a more complicated tale of the origin of the human genus.

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  4. Health & Medicine

    Coffee delivers jolt deep in the brain

    Caffeine strengthens electrical signals in a portion of the hippocampus, a study in rats finds.

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  5. Humans

    Two feet or four, software is the same

    All walking animals use the same basic nerve patterns to put one leg in front of the other(s).

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  6. Psychology

    Babies may benefit from moms’ lasting melancholy

    Fetuses pick up on maternal depression and thrive after birth if mothers don’t get better, a new study suggests.

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  7. Health & Medicine

    Highlights from the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting

    Stress and motherhood, tandem MRIs, the memory benefits of resveratrol and more from the organization's meeting November 12-16 in Washington, D.C.

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  8. Health & Medicine

    Busting blood clots with a nanoparticle

    An experimental technology that delivers medication directly to a dangerous blockage might augment heart attack treatment, a new study finds.

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  9. Health & Medicine

    Highlights from the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions

    Vitamin D and heart disease, the effectiveness of external defibrillators, a shot to lower cholesterol, and more from the Orlando, Fla., meeting.

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  10. Health & Medicine

    Magic trick reveals unconscious knowledge

    People know more than they think when it comes to visual information, study shows.

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  11. Health & Medicine

    Exceptional memory linked to bulked-up parts of brain

    People with total recall of their life’s events have enlargement in a region also associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

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  12. Health & Medicine

    Childhood sex abuse tied to heart risk

    Women victimized as children or in adolescence have increased cardiac disease in adulthood, a study shows.

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