Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
A glass of red may keep arteries loose
A newly uncovered effect of a compound abundant in red wines may provide the mechanism needed to explain how reds could outperform whites and rosés in reducing heart disease.
- Health & Medicine
Prenatal folate averts child leukemia
Even a little supplementary folate during pregnancy now appears to reduce the risk that the child will develop acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
- Health & Medicine
Vaccine prevents urinary-tract infections
An experimental vaccine designed to repel 10 common bacteria that cause bladder infections has cleared a key hurdle by proving safe and effective in a group of women.
- Health & Medicine
Virus Shapes Risk of Multiple Sclerosis
A huge, decade-long study bolsters the link between Epstein-Barr virus and the autoimmune disorder multiple sclerosis by showing that the common infection is more active in people who later develop symptoms of the disease.
- Humans
Weekly Science Snoop
WARNING: This fake tabloid contains rumor, humor, and other words that don't rhyme with truth.
- Health & Medicine
Sometimes lying down is harder work
Squatting or standing might ease baby delivery by allowing the birth canal more room to expand.
- Health & Medicine
Ultrasound boosts drug delivery to tumors
A beam of ultrasound can make the blood vessels that infiltrate cancerous growths leakier than normal.
- Health & Medicine
Weak appetite in elderly ties to hormone
A hormone known to suppress appetite is more abundant in seniors than in young adults and has a greater effect in squelching hunger in elderly people.
- Health & Medicine
Mice reveal the off switch for inflammation
Working with genetically engineered mice, scientists have identified a crucial natural mechanism that rodents use to shut down inflammation before it does harm.
- Health & Medicine
Newfound flu protein may kill immune cells
A dash of serendipity led to the discovery of a new protein, produced by most strains of the influenza A virus.
- Health & Medicine
Boost in protein repair extends fly lives
In warmer-than-normal conditions, fruit flies that overproduce a protein-repair enzyme live about one-third longer than typical flies.
- Health & Medicine
Gene Therapy for Sickle-Cell Disease?
By adding a useful gene to offset the effects of a faulty one, scientists have devised a gene therapy that prevents sickle-cell anemia in mice.
