Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
Simple-sugar effects aren’t necessarily simple, animal study suggests
New mouse data suggest that even among seemingly identical sugars, how they are delivered can exert subtle metabolic differences with long-term impacts on vitality -- and lifespan.
- Humans
Obesity compromises ability to fend off H1N1 flu
Think you’ll easily survive a bout of H1N1 swine flu? Fat chance – if you’re really fat. New research points to a likely explanation for this weighty vulnerability: a failure of the immune system to rev up as strongly as it should.
- Tech
Fishy fat from soy is headed for U.S. dinner tables
Most people have heard about omega-3 fatty acids, the primary constituents of fish oil. Stearidonic acid, one of those omega-3s, is hardly a household term. But it should become one, researchers argued this week at the 2011 Experimental Biology meeting.
- Health & Medicine
American Association for Cancer Research
Anticancer power of strawberries, human papillomavirus linked to lung cancer and more news from the recent cancer research meeting.
- Humans
Federal shutdown would muzzle federal science
Even a brief shutdown would have on the dissemination of data. Scientific data, for instance. Such as new findings from research studies with public health implications.
- Health & Medicine
Body & Brain
Food tastes less fatty to overweight people, plus an itch protein and thirsty rats in this week’s news.
- Health & Medicine
Gut microbes may foster heart disease
In breaking down a common dietary fat, helpful bacteria initiate production of an artery-hardening compound, mouse experiments suggest.
- Humans
Genetic roots of ‘orchid’ children
Kids who inherit certain DNA variants may be most likely to wilt in bad circumstances and bloom in good ones.
- Psychology
Shocking experiment shows talk is cheap
Though most people swear they'd never hurt anybody for money, most are also quick to shock a new acquaintance for a few quid when actually given the chance, a British study finds.
- Health & Medicine
Beer, bugs, DNA linked to stomach cancer
Guzzlers who have a particular genetic variant and an unnoticed bacterial infection are at high risk, a European study finds.
- Life
Sugar fuels growth of insulin-making cells
Mouse study suggests a new strategy for treating diabetes.
- Health & Medicine
Meditators can concentrate the hurt away
Experiment participants felt less pain while practicing mindfulness.
