Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Anthropology
Advantage: Starch
An enhanced ability to digest starch may have given early humans an evolutionary advantage over their ape relatives.
- Health & Medicine
How platelets help cancer spread
A tumor cell protein influences blood platelets in a way that helps a cancer spread through the body.
- Health & Medicine
Curry Power
A component of the spice turmeric, the color-giving ingredient in yellow curries, may help prevent and possibly treat Alzheimer's disease.
- Humans
Letters from the September 15, 2007, issue of Science News
Talk talk talk “Hidden Smarts: Abstract thought trumps IQ scores in autism” (SN: 7/7/07, p. 4) didn’t mention that traditional IQ tests are in one sense “language” tests. The Ravens test doesn’t involve language processing in a typical manner. A person with a language disorder, as an autistic person is assumed to be, would do […]
- Humans
From the September 4, 1937, issue
Growling grizzlies star at Yellowstone, radioactive dating puts Earth's age at less than 3 billion years, and a suggestion that overanxious parents can turn their children into stutterers.
- Health & Medicine
Aura origins show the way in epilepsy surgery
Epilepsy patients who experience multiple auras before a seizure, usually considered poor candidates for corrective brain surgery, might benefit from by a new brain scan procedure.
- Anthropology
Men’s fertile role in evolving long lives
The ability of men 55 and older to father children may have had evolutionary effects that caused both sexes to develop longer lifespans.
- Health & Medicine
HIV is double trouble for brain
The virus that causes AIDS can also cause dementia, by both killing mature brain cells and blocking the creation of new ones.
- Humans
Letters from the September 8, 2007, issue of Science News
Patent pending If Drs. Glass and Venter succeed in assembling a viable synthetic bacterial genome (“Life Swap: Switching genomes converts bacteria,” SN: 6/30/07, p. 403), will the genome or the new life form itself be patentable? Virgil H. SouleFrederick, Md. The team that performed this work stirred controversy when it applied for a patent on […]
- Humans
From the August 28, 1937, issue
Trying to revive an ancient Australian tree called Great-Grandfather Peter, first report of the eerie light known as Cerenkov radiation, and the discovery of a new vitamin.
- Health & Medicine
Bad Bug: Microbe raises stomach cancer risk
A gene in some strains of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori may greatly increase the risk of stomach cancer.
- Humans
Letters from the September 1, 2007, issue of Science News
Risk reversal? “Diabetes drug might hike heart risk” (SN: 6/23/07, p. 397) reports 86 heart attacks among 15,560 rosiglitazone (Avandia) users, versus 72 others in a control group of 12,283. A study coauthor then says that “after statistical adjustment, that yields a 43 percent higher risk of heart attacks among rosiglitazone users.” Simple arithmetic would […]
