Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
Stroke Stopper: New vaccine curbs blood vessel damage in lab animals
A vaccine that desensitizes the immune system to a protein inside blood vessels prevents some strokes in laboratory rats.
- Health & Medicine
Pet exposure may reduce allergies
Exposing children to cats or dogs at an early age may make them less prone to allergies later in life.
- Anthropology
Gene change hints at brain evolution
A genetic mutation found only in humans first appeared around 2.8 million years ago, perhaps setting the stage for brain enlargement in the Homo lineage.
- Health & Medicine
Missed ZZZ’s, More Disease?
New evidence suggests that chronic lack of sleep may be as important as poor nutrition and physical inactivity in the development of chronic illnesses such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.
- Health & Medicine
Bacteria offer drug for organ recipients
Korean investigators have identified a compound that suppresses the immune system of animals.
- Health & Medicine
You’re Feeling Sleepy . . . : Anesthetics activate brain’s sleep switch
Anesthesia's sedative effect may depend on activating sleep circuits in the brain.
- Health & Medicine
Flower Power: Corn lily compound stops cancer in mice
A new study in mice suggests that cyclopamine, a plant derivative that causes birth defects in animals, can inhibit medulloblastoma, a brain cancer in children.
- Health & Medicine
Lost and found
Researchers have shown that a drug may shepherd a mutated protein—gone astray in people with cystic fibrosis—into its proper place.
- Health & Medicine
Processing corn boosts antioxidants
Cooking sweet corn increases its disease-fighting antioxidant activity, despite decreasing its vitamin C content.
- Health & Medicine
Inflammatory Ideas
Researchers are gathering evidence that inflammation precedes and predicts diabetes.
- Health & Medicine
Hear, Hear
A 14-year study of twin babies shows definitively for the first time that there's a link between middle ear infections and heredity.
- Archaeology
Vase shows that ancients dug fossils, too
A painting on an ancient Corinthian vase may be the first record of a fossil find.
