Humans

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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Health & Medicine

    When the stomach gets low on acid

    A study in mice shows that a shortage of stomach acid can lead to cancer, apparently as a result of bacterial overgrowth and inflammation.

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  2. Health & Medicine

    Licorice ingredient ferrets out herpes

    A compound in licorice homes in on lab-grown cells infected with a herpes virus and induces them to self-destruct.

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  3. Health & Medicine

    Season Affects Cancer-Surgery Survival

    Ample vitamin D at the time of lung-cancer surgery dramatically increases the odds that a patient will be alive and cancerfree 5 years later.

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  4. Humans

    Letters from the April 23, 2005, issue of Science News

    The shark as red herring I’m sure you published “A Fishy Therapy,” (SN: 3/5/05, p. 154) in good faith, but I believe that claims for shark cartilage are not made seriously by anyone who studies the role of natural substances in cancer prevention. It was proved ineffective long ago. I think your article does a […]

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  5. Humans

    From the April 20, 1935, issue

    Workings of human body portrayed in new exhibit, tapping brain waves to study epilepsy, and the discovery of a new amino acid.

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  6. Health & Medicine

    Fast Start: Sex readily spreads HIV in infection’s first weeks

    People with HIV are many times more infectious to their sexual partners in the weeks or months just after they acquire the virus than they are later on, a study in Uganda demonstrates conclusively.

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  7. Anthropology

    These spines were made for walking

    A new analysis of fossil backbones indicates that human ancestors living around 3 million years ago were able to walk much as people today do.

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  8. Anthropology

    Noses didn’t need cold to evolve

    Neandertals evolved big, broad noses not in response to a cold climate, as has often been argued, but in conjunction with the expansion of their upper jaws.

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  9. Health & Medicine

    Step up to denser bones

    Step aerobics proved better than resistance exercises for building bone density.

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  10. Health & Medicine

    Company pulls pain drug from market

    The Food and Drug Administration has asked Pfizer to stop selling its prescription pain medication valdecoxib (Bextra).

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  11. Health & Medicine

    Is Chromium in Your Mineral Supplement?

    As a new study on chromium illustrates, the value of a mineral supplement can depend greatly on which chemical form of the mineral a manufacturer uses.

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  12. Humans

    From the April 13, 1935, issue

    A giant meteorite discovered in Kansas, gasoline made from coal in Germany, and elastic rock layers deep in the earth.

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