Humans
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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
As If You Needed Another Reason to Eat Strawberries (with recipe)
Whether draped atop shortcake, cooked with rhubarb and slathered over vanilla ice cream, or downed in the garden just after picking, strawberries are one of summer’s delights. Now, scientists at Cornell University find that this fragile fruit not only tastes great and contains vitamins but also may offer surprisingly potent benefits in the body’s fight […]
By Janet Raloff - Health & Medicine
Centenarian Advantage: Some old folks make cholesterol in big way
People who live to be nearly 100 and their offspring are more likely to have large cholesterol particles in their blood, a condition conducive to good health.
By Nathan Seppa - Health & Medicine
Magnets, my foot!
Shoe inserts with magnets have no more effect against foot pain than insoles without them.
By Nathan Seppa - Health & Medicine
Danger, danger, cry injured cells
Damaged cells may release uric acid to rouse the immune system.
By John Travis - Health & Medicine
Do Arctic diets protect prostates?
Marine diets appear to explain why the incidence of prostate cancer among Inuit men is lower than that of males anywhere else in the world.
By Janet Raloff - Anthropology
Erectus Ahoy
A researcher who explores the nautical abilities of Stone Age people by building rafts and having crews row them across stretches of ocean contends that language and other cognitive advances emerged 900,000 years ago with Homo erectus, not considerably later among modern humans, as is usually assumed.
By Bruce Bower - Humans
From the October 7, 1933, issue
ANCIENT MAP SHOWS HOW WORLD LOOKED TO COLUMBUS Startled to find the name Columbus mentioned on an old Turkish map of the Atlantic Ocean, Paul Kahle has subjected the map to closest study, finding on it important new clues to the discovery of America. In a report on his investigations, to appear in the forthcoming […]
By Science News - Humans
Nobel prizes go to scientists harnessing odd phenomena
The 2003 Nobel prizes in the sciences were announced early this week.
- Health & Medicine
Was President Taft cognitively impaired?
President William Howard Taft apparently had sleep apnea, a breathing disorder that could explain his propensity to nod off.
By Nathan Seppa - Health & Medicine
Making the heart burn
Burning chest pain during a heart attack may stem from a protein that also responds to chili peppers.
By John Travis - Health & Medicine
Coronary Fix: Coated inserts keep vessels unclogged
Mesh cylinders called stents, which doctors use to prop open coronary arteries, work better when they are coated with sirolimus, a drug that inhibits the accumulation of cells along the device.
By Nathan Seppa - Health & Medicine
Timing That First Spoonful: Diabetes risk reflects when cereals enter infant diet
The timing of cereals' introduction into children's diets may affect their risk of developing type 1 diabetes, two studies suggest.
By Ben Harder