Humans

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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Health & Medicine

    Tracking obesity

    New data suggest that childhood obesity in the United States may have leveled off between 1999 and 2006.

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  2. Life

    Fly fountain of youth

    Hanging out with young, healthy flies helps fruit flies with a mutation that causes neurodegeneration live longer.

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  3. Humans

    Impoverished Science

    Most people believe science and engineering would be better off – richer – if blacks, Hispanics, and native Americans weren’t such bit players in the research world. The question is why these groups have traditionally been so underrepresented. A new analysis points to low family income as a hefty contributor. Kathryn Kailikole, director of the […]

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  4. Humans

    From Science News Letter, June 7, 1958

    Carbon dioxide changes undifferentiated cells

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  5. Anthropology

    They’re fake, Indy!

    Scientists find that two rock crystal skulls often attributed to pre-Columbian societies are really modern phonies.

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  6. Humans

    BOOK REVIEW | Naked in the Woods: Joseph Knowles and the Legacy of Frontier Fakery

    Review by Davide Castelvecchi.

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  7. Humans

    BOOK LIST | Human Origins: What Bones and Genomes Tell Us about Ourselves

    A guided tour of our pre-history and how we understand it. Texas A&M Univ. Press, 2008, 216 p., $29.95. HUMAN ORIGINS: WHAT BONES AND GENOMES TELL US ABOUT OURSELVES

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  8. Health & Medicine

    BOOK LIST | Guilty Robots, Happy Dogs: The Question of Alien Minds

    The alien minds are of animals. The question: Can robots mimic them? Oxford Univ. Press, 2008, 252 p., $34.95. GUILTY ROBOTS, HAPPY DOGS: THE QUESTION OF ALIEN MINDS

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  9. Earth

    Audubon’s insect cafeteria

    Sidebar: Insects.

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  10. Health & Medicine

    Insects (the original white meat)

    Dining on insects, usually more by choice than necessity, occurs in at least 100 countries — and may be better than chicken for both people and the environment.

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  11. Animals

    Pandamonium over a Tiny Pest

    A parasite threatens efforts to protect China's endangered icon.

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  12. Health & Medicine

    The Colorful World of Synesthesia

    Science News for Kids explores the sensory explosion that defines the experience of people with this unusual, but not that uncommon nor unwelcome, condition.

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