Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
Firm nears completion of human genome
Celera Genomics announced that it has sequenced 90 percent of the human genome and claimed it has found about 97 percent of all human genes.
- Health & Medicine
Impotence high after prostate removal
Roughly 60 percent of men who have a cancerous prostate gland removed are subsequently impotent.
- Anthropology
Cultures of Reason
East Asian and Western cultures may encourage fundamentally different reasoning styles, rather than build on universal processes often deemed necessary for thinking.
- Health & Medicine
Survivors’ Benefit?
Smallpox outbreaks throughout history may have endowed some people with genetic mutations that make them resistant to the AIDS virus.
- Health & Medicine
Oxygen limits infections from surgery
Giving patients extra oxygen during and shortly after colorectal surgery halves the incidence of infection.
- Health & Medicine
Boning Up
Biologists have discovered a mechanism for communication between two types of bone cell, and they're exploring the possible bone-growth-stimulating effect of popular cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins.
- Health & Medicine
Nerve cells of ALS patients harbor virus
Fragments of viral genetic material show up with unusually high frequency in nerve tissue of patients with ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease, suggesting a link between the virus and this lethal illness.
- Health & Medicine
The salmon that went moo
People allergic to milk products could face potentially life-threatening risks by eating casein-treated fish.
- Health & Medicine
This roe’s got a fish-E surprise
Scientists discovered a potent, new form of vitamin E, an antioxidant, in fish adapted for life in cold water.
- Health & Medicine
USDA gives nod to irradiating meats
The federal government approved food irradiation, the only technology known to kill an especially lethal strain of bacteria, for use on raw meats.
- Anthropology
Ishi’s Long Road Home
The reappearance of a California Indian's preserved brain, held at the Smithsonian Institution since 1917, triggers debate over the ethics of anthropological research and the repatriation process.
- Health & Medicine
Glutamate glut linked to multiple sclerosis
The chemical glutamate can overwhelm nervous-system cells called oligodendrocytes, adding to the nerve damage caused by wayward immune cells in multiple sclerosis.
