Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Humans
Letters from the December 2, 2006, issue of Science News
Concerns vented “Venting Concerns: Exploring and protecting deep-sea communities” (SN: 10/7/06, p. 232) barely scratches the surface of the problem. What is stopping someone from gene splicing the disease of choice onto heat-loving bacterium? Something that can live near the 600°F of melting lead will certainly survive the standard hospital-sterilization process. D.J. KavaBeaumont, Texas The […]
- Humans
From the November 21, 1936, issue
Wild turkeys, a life-extending diet, and seeing through fog.
- Health & Medicine
Ticking toward Trouble: Long-term rise in heart rate portends death
Men whose hearts beat faster over time are likely to die earlier than those whose hearts keep an unchanging cadence year after year, according to a 20-year study.
- Health & Medicine
Kidney Progress: Drug slows cyst growth
The trial drug roscovitine has been shown to reverse polycystic kidney disease in mice.
- Health & Medicine
Birds Don’t Have to Be So Hot
The U.S. Department of Agriculture revised downward, by 15°F, the internal temperature that a cooked turkey must reach in order to be safe to eat. Whether consumers find the meat palatable or rubbery at 165°F is another issue.
- Health & Medicine
Bug be gone
An experimental device that combines a special comb with a forceful air blower kills head lice and their nits.
- Humans
Letters from the November 25, 2006, issue of Science News
Wasted youth The experiments with mice infected with the 1918 influenza virus are important but not surprising (“The Bad Fight: Immune systems harmed 1918 flu patients,” SN: 9/30/06, p. 211). John Barry’s The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History (2004, Viking) explains that many, perhaps most, of the victims were […]
- Health & Medicine
Bone Health
The Web site of the International Osteoporosis Foundation offers information for health professionals and the public about osteoporosis, a disease that reduces the density and quality of a person’s bones. It includes a 1-minute osteoporosis risk test, patient stories, facts and statistics on the disease, articles, and more. Go to: http://www.iofbonehealth.org/
- Humans
From the November 14, 1936, issue
Counting dust particles, fighting viral diseases, and aging whiskey.
- Health & Medicine
More Evidence of Protection: Circumcision reduces STD risk in men
Circumcised men are less likely to get sexually transmitted diseases than uncircumcised men are.
- Anthropology
Ancient Gene Yield: New methods retrieve Neandertals’ DNA
Researchers have retrieved and analyzed a huge chunk of Neandertal DNA.
- Anthropology
Evolution’s Mystery Woman
A heated debate has broken out among anthropologists over whether a highly publicized partial skeleton initially attributed to a new, tiny species of human cousins actually comes from a pygmy Homo sapiens with a developmental disorder.
