Humans

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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Tech

    Obama selects Steven Chu as Energy Secretary

    Featured blog: Chu is an energy researcher who also shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in physics.

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  2. Chemistry

    ENV Tidbits: Corals, nano concerns, and more

    News nuggets on climate-imperiled corals, nanotech worries, and soft drinks bearing pesticides.

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  3. Health & Medicine

    In the brain, justice is served from many parts

    Imaging study reveals variation in brain activity depending on the severity of punishment a person decides.

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  4. Health & Medicine

    Pollutants in the womb can trigger adult cancers

    Mouse study shows fetal exposure to carcinogens may pose long-term risks.

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  5. Health & Medicine

    Antioxidants fail to prevent prostate cancer

    Selenium, vitamins C, E don’t lower incidence of prostate cancer in two large trials.

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  6. Chemistry

    Engineered bacteria create high-energy biofuel

    Scientists alter E. coli microbes to make a high-energy alcohol not produced naturally

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  7. Humans

    When giving gifts, the price is wrong

    Gift givers expect that expensive presents will be appreciated by gift receivers more than inexpensive presents, but three new investigations suggest that that’s not the case.

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  8. Health & Medicine

    Malaria vaccine closer to reality

    The success of two trials sets the stage for a final, large-scale trial that could mean approval of what would be the first vaccine against Malaria.

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  9. Humans

    Obama Could Learn from ‘Junk Bros.’

    Think what TV brothers who recycle trash could do with the outmoded structure of federal agencies.

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  10. Earth

    Biological Cadre Turns Political

    Conservation scientists lobby the presidential-transition team to select an Interior Secretary who respects and defends science.

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  11. Health & Medicine

    Lack of sleep has genetic link with type 2 diabetes

    Large genomic studies show body rhythms, melatonin may influence sugar levels in the blood.

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  12. Health & Medicine

    Honeybee CSI: Why dead bodies can’t be found

    Virus could explain one symptom of colony collapse.

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