Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- 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 […]
- Health & Medicine
Upsetting a Delicate Balance: One gene may underlie various immune diseases
One form of an immune-system gene shows up more frequently in people with diabetes or certain thyroid diseases than in people free of those illnesses.
- Anthropology
Ancestral Bushwhack: Hominid tree gets trimmed twice
In separate presentations at scientific meetings, two anthropologists challenged the influential view that the human evolutionary family has contained as many as 20 different fossil species.
- Health & Medicine
Do more infections mean less asthma?
Young infants kept out of day care and having no more than one older sibling are significantly more likely to develop asthma than are babies who have greater exposure to other children.
- Humans
From the April 22, 1933, issue
SPARKING PROCESS STUDIED WITH LICHTENBERG FIGURES What is an electric spark made of, is the question partly answered by the brilliant whirligig figure on the front cover of this weeks Science News Letter. The picture is one of several hundred made during research of Prof. C. Edward Magnusson of the University of Washington, Seattle. Prof. […]
