Humans

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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Health & Medicine

    Soy compounds thwart estrogen

    Soy-stress compound interferes with estrogen activity, possibly pointing the way to a new breast-cancer drug.

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  2. Health & Medicine

    Chopsticks and Pain

    Chopsticks. In North America, they’re the emblem of an increasingly popular cuisine. However, few of the Westerners patronizing East Asian restaurants have mastered the art of scooping rice or tweezing meat, veggies, and noodles with a pair of bamboo rods. As a result, many people eat Chinese and other Asian entrees using cutlery. If there’s […]

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  3. Humans

    From the October 28, 1933, issue

    WEATHERMEN UNWITTINGLY POSE HALLOWEEN PICTURE Not ancient warlocks making weather but modern scientists just making a record of it, unintentionally posed a good Halloween picture on the top of Mount Washington, with the aid of a cat that doesn’t like the wind. The photograph has nothing of the mellowness of autumn about it–quite naturally, since […]

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  4. Anthropology

    Stone Age Code Red: Scarlet symbols emerge in Israeli cave

    Lumps of red ocher excavated near human graves in an Israeli cave indicate that symbolic thinking occurred at least 90,000 years ago, much earlier than archaeologists have traditionally assumed.

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  5. Health & Medicine

    Antiviral Advance: Drug disables enzyme from hepatitis C virus

    A new drug prevents the replication of the hepatitis C virus.

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  6. Health & Medicine

    Hormones in Your Milk

    Four dairies got their proverbial hands slapped by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for marketing what it charges is “misbranded” milk. The regulatory agency recently issued warning letters to the companies–which sell whole milk, reduced-fat milk, and ice cream–saying that their product labels contain false statements about the food’s hormone status. USDA FDA’s Sept. […]

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  7. Humans

    Letters

    Letters from the Nov. 1, 2003, issue of Science News.

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  8. Health & Medicine

    Cancer drug might fight Alzheimer’s

    Tests in animals show that the cancer drug imatinib mesylate, also called Gleevec, slows formation of the kinds of plaques found in the brains of Alzheimer's patients.

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  9. Humans

    Letters

    Letters from the Oct. 25, 2003, issue of Science News.

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  10. Health & Medicine

    First Viruses, Now Tumors: AIDS drug shows promise against brain cancers

    A potential AIDS drug may also slow the growth of deadly brain tumors.

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  11. Health & Medicine

    Treatment helps newborns avoid HIV

    Giving healthy newborns whose mothers are infected with HIV a combination of anti-HIV drugs shortly after birth makes the infants less likely to contract the virus through breastfeeding.

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  12. Health & Medicine

    Balance benefits from noisy insoles

    Sending subliminal vibrations to nerves on the bottoms of feet helps people, especially the elderly, keep their balance.

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