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2010 Science News of the Year: Humans

Credit: Y. Haile-Selassie et al/PNAS 2010 Extreme makeover for Lucy’s kind Recent fossil discoveries suggest that the early hominid species represented by the famous bones of Lucy, who lived 3.2 million years ago in Ethiopia, may have been more like modern humans than previously thought. The skeleton of a 3.6-million-year-old male of the same species, […]

2010 Science News of the Year: Technology

Credit: Michael Morgenstern Lie detectors blend fact and fiction Devices that can discern honest statements from lies are much sought after, especially since a 2003 National Research Council report concluded that traditional polygraphs flag stress, not deception. But newer gadgets increasingly used by police departments and other agencies don’t tell fact from fiction either, researchers […]

2010 Science News of the Year: Body & Brain

Credit: © Bettmann/Corbis Gene therapy moves forward Despite their promise, technologies to correct defective genes have been plagued by safety problems leading to unintended — and sometimes fatal — outcomes.