Humans

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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Health & Medicine

    Counting Carbs

    Although low-carbohydrate diets can be powerful weight-loss tools, many physicians now conclude they aren't for anyone who isn't under a doctor's watchful eye.

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  2. Humans

    From the July 7, 1934, issue

    Fireworks in Fairyland, controlling the sex of warm-blooded animals, and deadly atmospheres on Jupiter and Saturn.

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  3. Health & Medicine

    Don’t Expect Too Much of Soy

    Two new studies find soy isn't an effective hormone-replacement alternative for postmenopausal women.

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  4. Anthropology

    Living Long in the Tooth: Grandparents may have rocked late Stone Age

    A new analysis of fossil teeth indicates that the number of people surviving long enough to become grandparents dramatically increased about 30,000 years ago.

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  5. Archaeology

    Mexican murals store magnetic data

    Tiny magnetic particles in the pigments of some Mexican murals recorded the direction of Earth's magnetic field when the paint dried.

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  6. Health & Medicine

    Protective enzyme has a downside: Asthma

    The abnormal production of a parasite-fighting enzyme contributes to asthma.

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  7. Archaeology

    Rat DNA points to Pacific migrations

    An analysis of mitochondrial DNA from Pacific rats supports a theory that ancestors of today's Polynesians migrated from Southeast Asia to a string of South Pacific islands in at least two separate dispersals.

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  8. Health & Medicine

    Caloric threats from sugarfree drinks?

    Regularly downing sweet drinks or sugar substitutes may foster overeating by reprogramming an individual's ability to judge a snack's caloric impact.

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  9. Health & Medicine

    Medical Advice

    Looking for medical advice? Medicine On-Line is one place to go. The site covers topics ranging from vaccines to snake bites to white-coat hypertension (the tendency for a patient’s blood pressure to rise in the presence of a doctor). Affiliated with the International Journal of Medicine, Medicine On-Line taps the knowledge and experience of physicians […]

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  10. Humans

    Letters from the July 10, 2004, issue of Science News

    Language of music The study by Hyde and Peretz about people inept at all things musical (“Brain roots of music depreciation,” SN: 5/8/04, p. 302: Brain roots of music depreciation) made me think of my spouse of 20 years. In addition to a lifetime of utter tone deafness, he also nearly didn’t receive his graduate […]

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  11. Humans

    From the June 30, 1934, issue

    A beetle's eye view of George Washington, cosmic rays, and visualizing air currents around airplanes.

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  12. Anthropology

    Erectus Experiment: Fossil find expands Stone Age anatomy

    A 930,000-year-old fossil cranium found in Africa widens the anatomical spectrum of Stone Age human ancestors and expands debate over how they evolved.

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