Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Anthropology
Pieces of a Disputed Past: Fossil finds enter row over humanity’s roots
Two new fossil discoveries have fueled scientific debates about the evolutionary status of a pair of species traditionally considered to have been our direct ancestors, Homo habilis and Homo erectus.
- Health & Medicine
HIV in breast milk can be drug resistant
HIV-positive women who receive the drug nevirapine during pregnancy often have HIV that is resistant to the drug in their breast milk after they give birth.
- Health & Medicine
Designer RNA stalls hepatitis in mice
Using strips of synthetic RNA that interfere with normal gene action, scientists working with mice have stopped the progression of hepatitis.
- Health & Medicine
Stress and sleepless nights
Insomnia is associated with increases in stress hormones, boosts that persist all day and night.
- Health & Medicine
Gene causes body-fat disorder
A gene linked to a form of muscular dystrophy also causes a disease that deposits fat unevenly after puberty.
- Health & Medicine
Hormone treats autoimmune disease
A medication combining the drug prasterone and hormone dehydroepiandrosterone, or DHEA, stabilizes or improves symptoms of lupus.
- Humans
From the February 25, 1933, issue
ADAM AND EVE IN THE OLDEST CITY In the oldest city that archaeologists have ever explored they have dug up “Adam and Eve” and the serpent. There they are, the figures of a man and a woman, which have been stamped on clay with a seal. They are a dejected human pair, bent, and stumbling […]
- Health & Medicine
Full Pipeline: Success of experimental AIDS drugs offers promise of future therapies
Three experimental drugs—a monoclonal antibody, a protease inhibitor, and a fusion inhibitor—performed well in early tests on AIDS patients.
- Anthropology
Evolution’s DNA Fusion: Hybrid gene forms clue to human, ape origins
A gene of mixed evolutionary pedigree may have transformed mammalian reproduction, leading to the evolution of apes and humans.
- Health & Medicine
Hold the Phone? Radiation from cell phones hurts rats’ brains
A single 2-hour exposure to the microwaves emitted by some cell phones kills brain cells in rats.
- Health & Medicine
Tipsy Times
Literally hundreds of studies over the past decade have reported evidence that regular, moderate drinking–downing one to three drinks a day–can offer people significant health benefits by cutting their risks of heart disease and probably diabetes. What such studies usually fail to emphasize is that benefits from a little alcohol show up almost exclusively in […]
- Health & Medicine
Cultured cells reverse some eye damage
Transplants using bioengineered corneal stem cells grown on an amniotic membrane can vastly improve vision in people who are nearly blind because of damaged corneas.
