Humans

Health & Medicine

Boosting the TB vaccine

A new vaccine for tuberculosis outperforms the current one in tests on animals.

Health & Medicine

Fecal glow could improve meat safety

Workers who process animal carcasses into meat might soon use a novel type of laser scanner to identify products that have been contaminated with feces.

Humans

From the May 13, 1933, issue

RISING SILENTLY TO PROTECT NATIONS TIME Almost as silently as you view the new domed building in the cover picture, this all-steel structure is rising at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington. There is no hammering of rivets to fray the nerves of humans and upset the accuracy of the delicate Naval Observatory clocks that […]

Health & Medicine

Preeclampsia Progress: Blood test for predicting pregnancy problems

A natural compound called asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) may play a role in preeclampsia, a pregnancy complication.

Anthropology

Ancestral split in Africa, China

Environmental conditions may have encouraged Homo erectus to develop a level of social and tool-making complexity in Africa that the same species did not achieve in China.

Anthropology

Wari skulls create trophy-head mystery

A 1,000-year-old Peruvian site has yielded the remains of decapitated human heads that were used as ritual trophies but, to the researchers surprise, did not come from enemy warriors.

Anthropology

Jaw-dropping find emerges from Stone Age cave

A nearly complete lower jaw discovered in a Romanian cave last year and dating to around 35,000 years ago may represent the oldest known example of anatomically modern Homo sapiens in Europe.

Health & Medicine

Unproven Elixir

For aging men with low testosterone, hormone replacement may stall or counteract some common declines that come with age, but it'll take years to determine whether the treatment is doing most men more good than harm.

Humans

From the May 6, 1933, issue

AMERICAS FALCON POSES AGAINST PERFECT BACKGROUND Rarely is a perfect bird photographed against so perfect a background as the duck hawk, or American falcon, shown on the front cover of this issue of the Science News Letter. The photograph is by Dr. A.A. Allen of Cornell University, and the magnificent cataract plunging in the background […]

Health & Medicine

Upsetting a Delicate Balance: One gene may underlie various immune diseases

One form of an immune-system gene shows up more frequently in people with diabetes or certain thyroid diseases than in people free of those illnesses.

Anthropology

Ancestral Bushwhack: Hominid tree gets trimmed twice

In separate presentations at scientific meetings, two anthropologists challenged the influential view that the human evolutionary family has contained as many as 20 different fossil species.

Health & Medicine

Do more infections mean less asthma?

Young infants kept out of day care and having no more than one older sibling are significantly more likely to develop asthma than are babies who have greater exposure to other children.