Humans

Sign up for our newsletter

We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Health & Medicine

    Annual Meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the HIV Medicine Association

    The mystery of HIV elite controllers, a vaccine against C. difficile, blood transfusion and infection, and contaminated public surfaces.

    By
  2. Health & Medicine

    Measles cases up in U.S. and Canada

    Both countries report 2011 to be the worst year since the mid-1990s.

    By
  3. Humans

    Sarah’s tale of Arctic warming

    Over a half-century or so, Sarah James' town of some 150 Athabascan Indians has watched as the formerly extreme but fairly predictable climate in this amazingly remote region of inland Alaska has become warmer and more erratic. Overall, that’s definitely not been a change for the better, she says. James ventured to South Florida this week — and the Society of Environmental Journalists’ annual meeting — to describe what it’s like to weather life on the frontlines of climate change.

    By
  4. Psychology

    Learning to walk on err

    Flub-inducing treadmill tasks aid motor learning, with rehab implications.

    By
  5. Health & Medicine

    Malaria vaccine yields protection

    In its first large-scale test, the experimental immunization cuts risk of disease in about half of the children getting it and limits severe infections, researchers report.

    By
  6. Health & Medicine

    Teen brains’ growing pains

    Testing captures substantial changes in some youths’ IQs and gray matter.

    By
  7. Life

    Stopping a real-life ‘Contagion’

    An antibody treatment fends off the lethal Hendra virus in monkeys and may also work against the equally dangerous Nipah virus.

    By
  8. Humans

    Plague bug not so fierce after all

    DNA analysis shows bacterium was fairly ordinary but thrived in pestilent conditions of medieval Europe.

    By
  9. Health & Medicine

    A mind for optimism

    When predicting the risk of unfortunate events, people heed positive news better than ill tidings.

    By
  10. Humans

    Stone Age paint shop unearthed

    The discovery of tools for making a substance possibly used in body decoration suggests humans could invent and plan by 100,000 years ago.

    By
  11. Humans

    Columbus’ arrival linked to carbon dioxide drop

    The depopulation of the Americas due to introduced European diseases may have spurred Europe's Little Ice Age.

    By
  12. Health & Medicine

    Vaccine makes headway against trachoma

    An experimental immunization might someday aid public health efforts to counter a blinding disease.

    By