Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Humans
Where’s the Fire?
The National Interagency Fire Center tracks big wildfires blazing around the United States and identifies—via its InciWeb—which ones are contained, along with running totals for acres scorched so far this year. The site offers tables of multi-year fire records, interesting stats, as well as maps of current outbreaks. Go to: http://www.nifc.gov/fire_info.html
- Health & Medicine
Nongene DNA boosts AIDS risk
People with a newly discovered genetic variation are more vulnerable to HIV infection.
- Humans
Burdens of knowledge
Greater understanding of the role of genetics in human diseases presents scientists with ethical dilemmas.
- Health & Medicine
Salmonella seeks sweets
A sugarlike substance in the roots of lettuce may attract food-poisoning bacteria.
- Health & Medicine
Earache microbe shows resistance
A strain of bacterium that causes middle ear infection is resistant to all antibiotics currently approved for the ailment.
- Health & Medicine
Mother Knows All
Fragments of a fetus' genetic material that leak into a pregnant woman's bloodstream reveal details of early fetal development.
- Humans
Letters from the November 10, 2007, issue of Science News
Thinking it through Bjorn Merker says that “the tacit consensus concerning the cerebral cortex as the ‘organ of consciousness’ … may in fact be seriously in error” (“Consciousness in the Raw,” SN: 9/15/07, p. 170). But the real tacit consensus is that the cerebral cortex is the organ of conceptual consciousness, of thinking and reasoning, […]
- Humans
From the October 30, 1937, issue
A photographer captures the coming of winter, motion pictures show how cancer spreads through the blood, and engineers get new oil from old Pennsylvania wells.
- Health & Medicine
Plugging Leaks: Manipulating receptors may impede sepsis
Manipulation of signaling proteins on blood vessels may help combat sepsis, an often fatal condition.
- Health & Medicine
Early Arrival: HIV came from Haiti to United States
New analysis of 25-year-old blood samples indicates that HIV reached the United States in about 1969, 12 years before AIDS was first formally described.
- Anthropology
DNA to Neandertals: Lighten up
DNA analysis indicates that some Neandertals may have had a gene for pale skin and red hair.
- Anthropology
Fossil Sparks
Two new fossil discoveries and an analysis of ancient teeth challenge traditional assumptions about ape and human evolution.
