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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Psychology

    ‘Fires in the Dark’ illuminates how great healers ease mental suffering

    Kay Redfield Jamison’s new book examines approaches used throughout history to restore troubled minds and broken spirits.

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  2. Life

    In Australia, mosquitoes and possums may spread a flesh-eating disease

    Field surveys show that genetically identical bacteria responsible for a skin disease called Buruli ulcer appear in mosquitos, possums and people.

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  3. Archaeology

    How Asia’s first nomadic empire broke the rules of imperial expansion

    New studies reveal clues to how mobile rulers assembled a multiethnic empire of herders known as the Xiongnu more than 2,000 years ago.

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  4. Health & Medicine

    Four things to know about malaria cases in the United States

    Five people have picked up malaria in the United States without traveling abroad. The risk of contracting the disease remains extremely low.

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  5. Archaeology

    Indigenous input revealed early hints of fiber making in the tropics

    To decipher marks on nearly 40,000-year-old stone tools and figure out what they were used for, researchers turned to the Philippines’ Pala’wan people.

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  6. Psychology

    Boys experience depression differently than girls. Here’s why that matters

    Boys’ depression often manifests as anger or irritability, but teen mental health surveys tend to ask about hopelessness.

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  7. Anthropology

    Fossil marks suggest hominids butchered one another around 1.45 million years ago

    Researchers disagree whether new evidence of stone tool marks on a hominid leg bone reflects ancient cannibalism or perhaps some other, undetected behavior.

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  8. Astronomy

    50 years ago, a search for proof that the Maya tracked comets came up short

    The mystery of whether the ancient civilization tracked comets endures, but recent evidence hints the Maya tracked related meteor showers.

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  9. Genetics

    The first gene therapy for muscular dystrophy has been approved for some kids

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared a shortened version of a gene for a muscle protein to be used in 4- and 5-year-olds with muscular dystrophy.

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  10. Tech

    How understanding horses could inspire more trustworthy robots

    Computer scientist Eakta Jain pioneered the study of how human-horse interactions could help improve robot design and shape human-robot interactions.

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  11. Health & Medicine

    ‘In the Blood’ traces how a lifesaving product almost didn’t make it

    There’s plenty of drama in Charles Barber’s new book, which explores why a blood-clotting invention was initially dismissed.

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  12. Archaeology

    An old perfume bottle reveals what some ancient Romans smelled like

    Chemical analyses reveal that an unopened flask of perfume from 2,000 years ago contained patchouli, a common ingredient in modern perfumes.

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