Humans

Anthropology

Hand and Brain

Get a handle on primate handedness research and its bearing on brain function at a Web site run by anthropologist M.K. Holder. Participate in ongoing research and listen to various primates sound off, from a screaming chimpanzee to a belching mountain gorilla. Go to: http://www.indiana.edu/~primate/index.html

Humans

From the March 11, 1933, issue

GREAT LION OF LA BREA Bigger by a fourth than the proudest lion that walks the veldt today were the tallest of the great lions of California a hundred thousand years ago. Rivaled in size only by the short-faced bears whose bones have been found with theirs in the La Brea tar-pits, they could confidently […]

Health & Medicine

Gene mutation for color blindness found

Scientists have identified the gene that is mutated in people who have color blindness on the Pacific island of Pingelap, perhaps paving the way for genetic screening.

Health & Medicine

Enzyme needed to degrade acetaldehyde

A shortage of the enzyme ALDH-2, which is needed to break down alcohol in the body, causes a buildup of the cancer-linked chemical acetaldehyde, perhaps explaining why alcoholics lacking ALDH-2 have high rates of mouth and throat cancers.

Health & Medicine

Scarce-Banana Scare—But don’t kiss that banana good-bye yet

Headlines have been blaring that the banana will be extinct within 10 years but crop specialists say that’s not likely. The furor has called attention, however, to a problem of worldwide banana supply and to the possibility that we’ll be peeling things a little different in 2013. The fuss started with the Jan. 18 New […]

Health & Medicine

Blood sugar processing tied to brain problems

Elderly people with slightly elevated blood sugar are more likely to have short-term memory problems than those with normal blood sugar.

Health & Medicine

Ulcer Clue? Molecule could be key to stomach ailment

A protein called Ptprz binds with a bacterial toxin to produce ulcers in mice, possibly revealing a mechanism for the disorder.

Health & Medicine

Light could be therapy against blindness

Beaming red light at rats soon after they've drunk methanol partially protects their eyes against that chemical's blinding effects.

Humans

Doctoral seesaw

Throughout most of the 1990s, the number of doctoral degrees that U.S. universities awarded in science and engineering climbed steadily, to 27,300 in 1998, but by 2001, the number had dropped to 25,500, the lowest number since 1993.

Health & Medicine

Miscarriages foretell heart trouble

Women who spontaneously lose one or more fetuses during early pregnancy are about 50 percent more likely than other women to later suffer ischemic heart disease.

Health & Medicine

Pregnancy Woe Uncovered: Protein may underlie preeclampsia

New evidence links a placental protein to preeclampsia symptoms and may lead to new ways of detecting and treating the disease.

Health & Medicine

Portrait of a cancer drug at work

Newly revealed protein structures show how a breast cancer drug functions.