Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Humans
Letters from the December 22 & 29, 2007, issue of Science News
Amylase with your veggies Your article (“Advantage: Starch,” SN: 9/15/07, p. 173) notes how groups of people may have different numbers of copies of the amylase gene. Is it correct then that individuals have varying numbers of the gene as well? If so, would this explain why some people don’t like meat and become vegetarians […]
- Health & Medicine
Vitamin D: Blacks need much more
To achieve healthy concentrations of vitamin D, many African-Americans may need hefty daily supplementation.
- Humans
Fishing curbs can lead to profit
New economic models suggest that fishing crews that cut back long enough to let stocks rebound will find compensation in higher profits later.
- Humans
From the December 11, 1937, issue
A sturdy new building for a mountaintop weather station, proving the authenticity of a treasure, and tracking cosmic rays underground.
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- Anthropology
Ancient Ailment? Early human may have carried tuberculosis
A 500,000-year-old Homo erectus skull from Turkey may show telltale signs of tuberculosis, by far the earliest such evidence of the disease.
- Health & Medicine
Big kids at risk for heart disease
Overweight children grow up to have an elevated risk for blocked coronary arteries as adults, a long-term Danish study finds.
- Health & Medicine
The Long Road to Beta Cells
In their quest to cure type 1 diabetes, scientists are finding that turning stem cells into insulin-producing beta cells is a lot harder than it first appeared.
- Health & Medicine
No Peanuts for Your Peanut
Youngsters are developing peanut allergies earlier because of exposures in babyhood.
- Humans
Letters from the December 15, 2007, issue of Science News
Fuzzy logic Astronomer Masanori Iye of the National Observatory of Japan blames the blurry appearance of meteor trails at about 100 kilometers altitude on the fact that they were photographed with telescopes focused at infinity (“Out-of-focus find,” SN: 9/29/07, p. 205). But optics teaches that any object much farther away than the focal length of […]
- Humans
From the December 4, 1937, issue
The perfect beauty of frost rime, the sun's surprising influence on earth, and digging up evidence of ancient domestic cats.
- Health & Medicine
Angiogenesis Factors: Tracking down the suspects in blood vessel growth near tumors
Tumors enlist certain bone marrow cells in efforts to grow new blood vessels for self-nourishment.
