Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- 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.
- Health & Medicine
Path to heart health is one with a peel
Consuming lots of oranges and other citrus fruits, or their juices, can trigger beneficial, cholesterol-moderating changes in the blood.
- Humans
Science gets a start on the space station
Although the space station's main laboratories have yet to be launched, scientists are already using nooks and crannies in the existing structure to conduct experiments in biotechnology and physics.
