Humans

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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Health & Medicine

    Severe sweating treated with Botox

    A new treatment has been approved for excessive sweating, or hyperhidrosis, which is surprisingly common.

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  2. Humans

    Letters from the August 14, 2004, issue of Science News

    It’s a groove thing I don’t want to downplay genuine discovery, but your story about optically reading old records left me a little underwhelmed (“Groovy Pictures: Extracting sound from images of old audio recordings,” SN: 5/29/04, p. 339: Groovy Pictures: Extracting sound from images of old audio recordings). The optical playing of records has been […]

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  3. Health & Medicine

    What’s the Beef?

    Beef certified as Angus may not always be as tender as consumers expect.

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  4. Health & Medicine

    HIV drugs may stop cervical disease

    A drug combination given to people with HIV, the AIDS virus, helps knock out precancerous cervical lesions in some women.

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  5. Humans

    Letters from the August 7, 2004, issue of Science News

    Pot shots Regarding “Pot on the Spot: Marijuana’s risks become blurrier” (SN: 5/22/04, p. 323: Pot on the Spot: Marijuana’s risks become blurrier), it seems to me that the stronger the social pressure against using marijuana in a culture, the more likely it will be that those who use it will be troubled, antisocial, or […]

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  6. Health & Medicine

    Got Diabetes? Try Ditching Caffeine

    New studies indicate that caffeine impairs the body's ability to use insulin and regulate blood sugar—potentially serious problems for people with diabetes.

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  7. Health & Medicine

    Swallowed a Fly: Insects may spread foodborne microbe to chickens

    Flies sucked through the ventilation ports of industrial chicken coops may spread the pathogen Campylobacter jejuni, which can ultimately sicken people who eat undercooked chicken.

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  8. Health & Medicine

    Gene Delivery: Mouse study shows new therapy may reverse muscular dystrophy

    A single defective gene causes muscular dystrophy, and researchers have now found a way to deliver a working copy of that gene to the entire muscular system in mice.

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  9. Health & Medicine

    Stopping Alzheimer’s: Antibody thwarts disease in mice

    Antibodies against amyloid protein, which gums up the brains of Alzheimer's patients, reverse a form of the disease in mice.

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  10. Humans

    Where Ph.D.s pay off

    Salaries for full-time scientists and engineers in the United States have generally outpaced inflation, but academic researchers tend to earn substantially less than their counterparts in industry and government.

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  11. Humans

    Title IX: Women are catching up, but . . .

    Though a federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in academic settings has fostered women's participation in science, they still lag behind men in salaries and research opportunities.

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  12. Health & Medicine

    Computers read mammograms to detect breast cancer

    Mammogram–scanning computers can help radiologists detect breast cancers that would otherwise escape diagnosis.

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