Humans

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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. 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.

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  2. 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.

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  3. 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.

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  4. Health & Medicine

    Calcium’s possible role in Alzheimer’s

    A new study in mice finds that plaques associated with Alzheimer’s wreak havoc on calcium’s role in cell signaling.

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  5. Earth

    EPA Gagged

    Federal officials have been told not to talk freely to the press or others who might ask questions EPA doesn't want to answer.

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  6. Health & Medicine

    To catch a cheat

    Drug test cheaters find quick fixes on the Web, but toxicologists aren’t so easily fooled.

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  7. Health & Medicine

    This trans fat is vindicated

    Featured blog: FDA accords some trans fats a "generally regarded as safe" designation.

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  8. Health & Medicine

    Statins versus dementia

    Statins, developed to fight cholesterol, may also prevent some dementia, a study of older Hispanics finds.

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  9. Health & Medicine

    A chink in flu’s armor

    Finding the shape of a protein that enables the flu virus to replicate points to ways to combat the disease.

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  10. Psychology

    Core calculations

    Number words may serve as mental tools for expanding on basic, nonverbal numerical knowledge rather than as determinants of such knowledge.

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  11. Chemistry

    Oil magnets

    Featured blog: Nanomagnets and wires point to a potentially better mousetrap — or crude trap — for dealing with oil spills.

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  12. Humans

    Toddlers triumphant

    In new studies, toddlers display dramatic advances in object recognition that may underlie verbal and symbolic achievements.

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