Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
It’s that time. . .for heart attacks?
A small study of young women already at high risk of having a heart attack suggests that heart attacks are most frequent when estrogen levels are low, soon after a woman's period begins.
- Health & Medicine
Big meals boost heart attack risk
Unusually heavy meals boost a person's chance of developing a heart attack, at least among those people who already have risk factors for heart disease.
- Health & Medicine
Teasing out tea’s heart-healthy effect
Drinking black tea makes a person's blood vessels dilate more easily, which may explain why drinking tea can protect against heart disease.
- Health & Medicine
Nitric oxide may benefit damaged hearts
A small study in mice suggests that inhaling nitric oxide may protect against tissue damage after a heart attack.
- Anthropology
Out on a Limb
The science of body development may make kindling out of evolutionary trees.
- Health & Medicine
Sputum Test May Predict Lung Cancer
By zeroing in on aberrations in two cancer-fighting genes, researchers have found a marker for cancer risk that could help doctors screen people for signs of lung cancer early enough for treatment to be effective.
- Health & Medicine
Caffeine may ward off Parkinson’s
Scientists may have found an explanation for why coffee drinking prevents Parkinson's disease.
- Health & Medicine
A vaccine to help ex-smokers
By generating antibodies that neutralize nicotine, a vaccine could keep ex-smokers from getting the nicotine high that drives many of them back to their bad habit.
- Health & Medicine
Boldly into the breech controversy
Addressing a long-simmering controversy, a large new study has shown that in pregnancies where the baby has positioned itself to emerge feet or buttocks first, the delivery safest for the mother and child is a planned cesarean section rather than a vaginal birth.
- Health & Medicine
Cancer cells on the move
A new study suggests how a gene recently linked to liver, skin, and pancreatic cancer also causes an often-deadly form of breast cancer.
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- Health & Medicine
Gene therapy might keep arteries open
Tiny steel-mesh tubes coated with a DNA-containing polymer could prevent arteries from becoming reclogged after cardiovascular treatment.
