Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
Bone Builder: New drug could heal hard-to-mend fractures
A synthetic compound can heal broken bones that are so damaged they don't knit on their own, a study in rats and dogs shows.
- Anthropology
Stone Age Genetics: Ancient DNA enters humanity’s heritage
Genetic material extracted from the bones of European Stone Age Homo sapiens, sometimes called Cro-Magnons, bolsters the theory that people evolved independently of Neandertals.
- Humans
Sea burial for Canada’s cod fisheries
The Canadian government has declared an end to cod fishing in nearly all of the country’s Atlantic waters.
- Health & Medicine
Boosting the TB vaccine
A new vaccine for tuberculosis outperforms the current one in tests on animals.
- Health & Medicine
Fecal glow could improve meat safety
Workers who process animal carcasses into meat might soon use a novel type of laser scanner to identify products that have been contaminated with feces.
- Humans
From the May 13, 1933, issue
RISING SILENTLY TO PROTECT NATIONS TIME Almost as silently as you view the new domed building in the cover picture, this all-steel structure is rising at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington. There is no hammering of rivets to fray the nerves of humans and upset the accuracy of the delicate Naval Observatory clocks that […]
- Health & Medicine
Preeclampsia Progress: Blood test for predicting pregnancy problems
A natural compound called asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) may play a role in preeclampsia, a pregnancy complication.
- Anthropology
Ancestral split in Africa, China
Environmental conditions may have encouraged Homo erectus to develop a level of social and tool-making complexity in Africa that the same species did not achieve in China.
- Anthropology
Wari skulls create trophy-head mystery
A 1,000-year-old Peruvian site has yielded the remains of decapitated human heads that were used as ritual trophies but, to the researchers surprise, did not come from enemy warriors.
- Anthropology
Jaw-dropping find emerges from Stone Age cave
A nearly complete lower jaw discovered in a Romanian cave last year and dating to around 35,000 years ago may represent the oldest known example of anatomically modern Homo sapiens in Europe.
- Health & Medicine
Unproven Elixir
For aging men with low testosterone, hormone replacement may stall or counteract some common declines that come with age, but it'll take years to determine whether the treatment is doing most men more good than harm.
- Humans
From the May 6, 1933, issue
AMERICAS FALCON POSES AGAINST PERFECT BACKGROUND Rarely is a perfect bird photographed against so perfect a background as the duck hawk, or American falcon, shown on the front cover of this issue of the Science News Letter. The photograph is by Dr. A.A. Allen of Cornell University, and the magnificent cataract plunging in the background […]
