Humans

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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Health & Medicine

    Making scents of Alzheimer’s

    Among people with mild symptoms of memory loss, a limited ability to recognize smells—along with an inability to detect the disability—has been linked to the future development of Alzheimer's.

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  2. Health & Medicine

    Know Your Enemy

    Scientists mine the tuberculosis genome.

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  3. Archaeology

    Stone Age statuettes don disputed apparel

    A report describing woven caps, skirts, belts, and other apparel on Venus figurines from the Stone Age draws some critical responses.

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  4. Health & Medicine

    AIDS Vaccine Tests Well in Monkeys

    An experimental AIDS vaccine bolstered with two immune proteins protects rhesus monkeys from the disease even when they are exposed to a combination of simian and human immunodeficiency virus.

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  5. Health & Medicine

    Formula for Failure

    A bacterium that has been known to cause rare, yet fatal infections in infants appears to be more widespread than scientists have realized.

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  6. Humans

    Letters from the March 13, 2004, issue of Science News

    Dry hole? “Tapping sun’s light and heat to make hydrogen” (SN: 1/17/04, p. 46: Tapping sun’s light and heat to make hydrogen) seems to be delivering good news for the environment: “Clean” hydrogen can be produced from water using solar energy. This seems to me, however, to be even more horrifying than the burning of […]

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  7. Humans

    From the March 10, 1934, issue

    High-speed photography, artificial radioactivity, and earthquake prediction.

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  8. Health & Medicine

    Meat of the Matter: Fish, flesh feed gout, but milk counters it

    Nutrition research supports the ancient notion that a diet rich in meat contributes to the development of gout, a form of arthritis common in men.

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  9. Health & Medicine

    Shutting Off an On Switch: Novel drugs slow two cancers in mice

    By shutting down a signaling molecule on cancerous cells, scientists have found a way to slow multiple myeloma and fibrosarcoma, tests in animals show.

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  10. Anthropology

    Brain Size Surprise: All primates may share expanded frontal cortex

    A new analysis of brains from a variety of mammal species indicates that frontal-cortex expansion has occurred in all primates, not just in people, as scientists have traditionally assumed.

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  11. Health & Medicine

    Two arthritis drugs work best in tandem

    Two anti-inflammatory drugs for rheumatoid arthritis—methotrexate and etanercept—work better together than either does individually.

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  12. Anthropology

    Extinct ancestor wasn’t so finicky

    Contrary to much anthropological thought, the genus Paranthropus showed as much dietary and behavioral flexibility as ancient Homo species did between 3 million and 1 million years ago.

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