Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Planetary Science
Award named for late Science News writer
Jonathan Eberhart's name lives on in a new planetary-sciences award.
- Life
Circadian clockwork takes unexpected turns
Some neurons in the brain’s master clock fall silent in the afternoon. The unexpected finding prompts scientists to rethink how the clock works.
- Health & Medicine
Retrovirus might be culprit in chronic fatigue syndrome
An obscure pathogen shows up often in people diagnosed with the condition, scientists find.
- Health & Medicine
Pigs use mirrors
After some time to play around with a mirror, pigs figure out what to do when they glimpse a reflection of food.
- Chemistry
Concerned about BPA: Check your receipts
Some cash register receipts offer the potential for relatively large exposures to an estrogen mimic.
- Chemistry
Nobel Prize in chemistry awarded for ribosome research
Ada Yonath, Thomas Steitz and Venkatraman Ramakrishnan will share the prize for unmasking the structure of the ribosome.
- Earth
BPA in the womb shows link to kids’ behavior
Subtle gender-linked effects seen in youngsters mirror impacts witnessed earlier in rodents.
- Health & Medicine
Measuring citations: Calculations can vary widely
Depending on how citation tallies will be used, it may pay to cherry pick the appropriate counting house.
- Psychology
Joint attention provides clues to autism and cooperation
Psychologists and philosophers convene to discuss the roots of shared knowledge at a meeting in Waltham, Mass.
- Health & Medicine
Nobel in medicine honors discoveries of telomeres and telomerase
Three scientists share the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of telomeres, which protect the ends of chromosomes, and the enzyme telomerase, which adds the structures to the ends of chromosomes.
- Humans
Flu: Grim stats
Though risk of death from conventional flu strains escalates dramatically, beginning around age 45, a new study finds that masks do a fair job of slowing the infection's transmission.
- Life
Mitochondria behind life span extension
Study in flies suggests low-protein diet works through power-producing organelles.
