Humans
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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Life
Eat less, weigh more
Separate neurons in the nematode brain control eating and fat-building. The discovery may help explain some mysteries of obesity.
- Health & Medicine
Nanomagnets tackle cancer
Under the influence of an external magnetic field, tiny magnets act as highly localized space heaters, warming to temperatures that kill adjacent cancer cells.
By Janet Raloff - Earth
TV Take-Backs
Here's one solution for all of the conventional TVs that will be cast off during the imminent digital-TV transition.
By Janet Raloff - Climate
A Fairy Tale: Cheap Gas
Lawmakers are looking for an answer on how to lower the price of gasoline: That's the wrong question.
By Janet Raloff -
- Health & Medicine
Neuron Killers
Misfolded, clumping proteins evade conviction, but they remain prime suspects in neurodegenerative diseases.
- Humans
Wake-up call for sleep apnea
A large, long-term study of sleep apnea links the breathing disorder to increased risk of death.
By Nathan Seppa - Climate
Trade affects China’s carbon footprint
Featured blog: Goods exported from China to the United States and elsewhere account for a huge share of the Asian behemoth's emissions of greenhouse gases.
By Janet Raloff - Health & Medicine
Dopamine could help the sleep-deprived still learn
Sleep loss impairs fruit flies’ ability to learn, just as it does in people. But boosting dopamine in the flies can erase these learning deficits.
- Health & Medicine
Promising HIV gel fails in latest trial
Halted in trials, an anti-HIV gel is ineffective, but may not add to risk of infection, as previously thought.
- Archaeology
Greeks followed a celestial Olympics
A Greek gadget discovered more than a century ago in a 2,100-year-old shipwreck not only tracked the motion of heavenly bodies and predicted eclipses, but also functioned as a sophisticated calendar and mapped the four-year cycle of the ancient Greek Olympics.
By Ron Cowen - Health & Medicine
Costly Health Care Mistakes
Medical malpractice that many of us won’t recognize as such — or be able to prove — remains too high.
By Janet Raloff