Humans
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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Chemistry
Yeast bred to bear artificial vanilla
Researchers have co-opted fungi to produce the flavor more efficiently.
- Animals
Ants do real estate the simple way
Tracking ants with anti-shoplifter RFID tags has inspired a new, simplified view of how a colony finds a home
By Susan Milius - Health & Medicine
Mom’s exercise helps fetal lungs mature
Cardiovascular exercise appears to benefit both mom and the baby she's carrying.
By Janet Raloff - Agriculture
News from Experimental Biology
Senior editor Janet Raloff blogs from the 2009 meeting gathering dozens of societies together in New Orleans
By Janet Raloff - Health & Medicine
Childhood leukemia worsened by genetic mutations
Mutations in JAK genes make childhood leukemia more dangerous and may offer a target for drug manufacturers.
By Nathan Seppa - Life
New neurons don’t heal
New neurons produced in the brain after a stroke don’t grow into all the cell types needed to heal the wound.
- Health & Medicine
Coming: Ersatz calorie restriction
Avocados may hold a key to longer, better health.
By Janet Raloff - Humans
Apple a day may keep cardiologists away
Nutrition scientists think apples might replace some drugs as a way of limiting heart disease.
By Janet Raloff - Health & Medicine
Gene could matter in bladder cancer
Among people with a common form of bladder cancer, those with a variant of a certain gene survive twice as long as people with the common version of the gene.
By Nathan Seppa - Humans
Rapid emotional swings could precede violence
A tool from physics helps link the patterns of psychiatric patients’ symptoms and the likelihood they will commit violent acts.
By Bruce Bower - Health & Medicine
To limit sweet indulgences, chew, chew, chew
A new study suggests chewing gum might serve as a potential diet aid.
By Janet Raloff - Health & Medicine
Counterintuitive nutrition findings
Sometimes data don't confirm what we expected.
By Janet Raloff