Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
Coming to Terms with Death
Some newly recognized forms of cell death might be harnessed to aid people with cancer and other serious diseases.
- Anthropology
Human fossils tell a fish tale
Fossil clues indicate that Stone Age humans ate a considerable amount of seafood, giving them a broader and more resilient diet than that of Neandertals.
- Anthropology
Early agriculture flowered in Mexico
Mexico may have served as a center of early plant domestication in the Americas, according to researchers who have excavated a site near Mexico's Gulf Coast.
- Health & Medicine
Soy estrogens: Too much of a good thing?
Two studies of female mice suggest that genistein, an estrogen analog found in soy, could contribute to cancer risk.
- Health & Medicine
Immune attack on self halts nerve damage
T cells primed for autoimmune behavior may actually preserve nerves after a damaging blow.
- Health & Medicine
Enzyme defends germ against stomach acid
The newly solved structure of a Helicobacter pylori acid-fighting enzyme has scientists divided about how the enzyme works.
- Health & Medicine
Genetically altered cells ease hemophilia
A gene therapy using skin cells that are genetically modified to make clotting proteins, multiplied in a lab, and reinjected into a person eases some bleeding in patients with severe hemophilia.
- Health & Medicine
New guidelines would cut cholesterol
The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has developed new guidelines for physicians that could triple the number of people taking cholesterol-lowering medication.
- Health & Medicine
Angiostatin testing in people begins
Angiostatin, a drug that cured cancer in mice, appears safe to use in preliminary tests on people with cancer.
- Health & Medicine
Malaria prevention works in Tanzania
Giving infants intermittent doses of antimalarial drugs during their first year prevents serious illness in most cases and doesn't leave them susceptible to harsh disease in their second year.
- Health & Medicine
Heart disease linked to clotting gene
African Americans with a mutation in a blood-clotting gene have a sixfold increase in the risk of heart disease, but this is not the case for white Americans with the same mutation.
- Health & Medicine
Statins’ structure blocks cholesterol
X-ray crystallography shows that statins impede the build-up of cholesterol by physically blocking the binding site of an enzyme important for cholesterol production.
