Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- 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.
- 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 […]
- Humans
From the March 10, 1934, issue
High-speed photography, artificial radioactivity, and earthquake prediction.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Health & Medicine
Born to Heal
The controversial strategy of screening embryos to produce donors for siblings raises hopes and presents new ethical dilemmas.
- Humans
Letters from the March 6, 2004, issue of Science News
All we have to fear In “9/11’s Fatal Road Toll: Terror attacks presaged rise in U.S. car deaths” (SN: 1/17/04, p. 37: 9/11’s Fatal Road Toll: Terror attacks presaged rise in U.S. car deaths), it was assumed that people who switched from planes to cars after the terrorist attacks did so because of fear. However, […]
- Anthropology
Early Ancestors Come Together: Humanity’s roots may lie in single, diverse genus
Newly discovered fossil teeth in eastern Africa that are more than 5 million years old suggest that the earliest members of the human family evolved as a single, anatomically diverse genus.
- Health & Medicine
Quantum sentinels
Quantum physics may soon help physicians track whether a cancer has spread.
