Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
Catching macular degeneration early
Scientists have developed a test that uses the eye's ability to adapt to darkness as a test for age-related macular degeneration, the most common cause of blindness in elderly people.
- Humans
From the October 8, 1932, issue
AUTUMN BRINGS NOBILITY EVEN TO CORNFIELD WEEDS Autumn is the time of the Truce of God. Even as a beggar may assume a certain dignity when he is about to die, so the commonest weeds often take on beauty when all things pause to make last salute to the retreating sun, before the hora novissima […]
- Health & Medicine
A Prized Worm
This year’s Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine went to researchers who pioneered the use of the tiny worm Caenorhabditis elegans as an animal model for exploring basic processes involved in the development and behavior of multicellular organisms. Learn more about the remarkable C. elegans from a Vanderbilt University news feature about this “elegant worm” […]
- Health & Medicine
Stressing out
A gene variant reduces people's response to the stress hormone cortisol, and people with the variant are less likely to have risk factors for heart disease and diabetes.
- Archaeology
Maya warfare takes 10 steps forward
The discovery of hieroglyphic-covered steps on the side of a Maya pyramid has yielded new information about warfare between two competing city-states around 1,500 years ago.
- Health & Medicine
Iron Cooking Pots Help Combat Malnutrition
Iron deficiency, the most common nutritional disorder in the world, is a major problem in many developing countries. The World Health Organization (WHO) currently estimates that a mind-boggling 4 to 5 billion people may suffer from some form of iron deficiency–that’s 66 to 88% of the world’s population. Up to 2 billion of these people […]
- Health & Medicine
Into the Tank: Pressurized oxygen is best at countering carbon monoxide exposure
Oxygen treatment for serious carbon monoxide poisoning prevents long-term brain damage best if delivered as pressurized gas.
- Humans
Flame Out: Fishy findings sustain, then snuff, stellar career
Investigators have concluded that a young, up-and-coming physicist repeatedly faked data and committed other types of scientific misconduct.
- Humans
From the April 19, 1930, issue
TRAVEL TO THE MOON BY THE YEAR 2050 By the year 2050, Earth-dwellers will probably be able to travel to the moon and to communicate with their terrestrial home by telephoning over a beam of light. They will get there by traveling in a rocket ship at a speed of some 50,000 miles an hour, […]
- Health & Medicine
Lingering legacy of Sept. 11, 2001, on firefighters’ health
Of the New York firefighters involved in the rescue and recovery effort after last year's terrorist attacks, relatively few have developed chronic coughs and respiratory problems, but among those who did, the problems seem unusually severe.
- Health & Medicine
Challenges in testing for West Nile virus
The Food and Drug Administration is trying to figure out how blood banks can detect signs of West Nile infection in blood donors and, eventually, test donated blood for the virus itself.
- Anthropology
Iceman mummy shares last meals
DNA analyses of food remains from the intestines of a 5,000-year-old mummified man found in Europe's Tyrolean Alps indicate that his last two meals included meat from mountain goats and red deer, as well as wild cereals.
