Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
H1N1 virus lacks Spanish flu’s killer protein
Researchers uncover a deadly secret of Spanish flu.
- Health & Medicine
Different berries, similar cancer-fighting effects
Animal tests suggest that esophageal and breast cancer might make good targets for several types of berries as dietary supplements.
- Humans
Crude pick-ups
To date, 400 skimmers have retrieved some 18 million gallons of oiled water from the BP Gulf spill, according to Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen during a June 11 press briefing. After removing the entrained water, this translates to between 1.8 million and 2.7 million gallons of crude oil. Another 3.8 million gallons of oil have been burned at sea. Four million gallons more have been collected through a near-mile-long riser tube and a containment cap fitted over the broken Deepwater Horizon wellhead.
- Humans
First Mexican-American and African-American genomes completed
Studies hint that genetic diversity among Native Americans may rival that seen in some African populations.
- Psychology
Travelers have southern bias
Southern routes to a destination often get picked over same-distance northern routes, possibly because people equate north with “up.”
- Humans
BP spill: Gulf is primed to heal, but . . .
Every day, Mother Nature burps another 1,000 barrels of crude into the Gulf of Mexico, along with additional quantities of natural gas. Normally, these hydrocarbons don’t stick around long because local bacteria have evolved to eat them about as fast as they appear. Which is potentially good news, she explained in testimony during a pair of June 9 House subcommittee events on Capitol Hill, because those bugs are now in place to begin chowing down on the oil and gas entering the Gulf from BP's damaged Deepwater Horizon well.
- Earth
Feds up estimates of BP-spill rate
At a news briefing on June 10, Marcia McNutt, who chairs the National Incident Command’s brain trust of experts calculating the likely release rate of the ongoing Gulf of Mexico oil spill, pegged the best available estimates at between 20,000 and more than 40,000 barrels per day.
- Humans
Ancient shoe steps out of cave and into limelight
Excavations in an Armenian cave have uncovered the oldest known leather footwear, a 5,500-year-old shoe.
- Health & Medicine
What’s missing may be key to understanding genetics of autism
A large study of people with the developmental disorder reveals the importance of extremely rare variations in genes, making each case a bit different.
- Earth
Gulf gusher is far and away the biggest U.S. spill
As cleanup efforts progress, scientists try to track missing oil roaming below the surface.
- Earth
BP oil isn’t the only source of Gulf’s deep roaming plumes
During a June 8 briefing for reporters, a NOAA science officer described deep strata of water tainted with oil identified during a recent cruise in the Gulf of Mexico. The presumption was that anything they found would be plumes of oil spewed by the jet of hydrocarbons emanating from the BP well head. But the chemical fingerprinting of diffuse undersea clouds of oil at one sampling site was “not consistent with BP oil,” he pointed out.
- Health & Medicine
In youth hockey, more contact means more injuries
Concussions are three times more common among 11- to 12-year-olds in leagues that permit checking, a Canadian study finds.
