Uncategorized
- Health & Medicine
Shields Down: A cancer-fighting gene declines in old age
Decline of an important anti-cancer gene could contribute to increased cancer risk among the elderly.
- Astronomy
Match Made in Heaven: Nearby galaxies resemble faraway type
Several nearby galaxies seem nearly identical to some of the remotest galaxies known, offering a glimpse of the era when galaxies first formed.
- Health & Medicine
Fueling a Flu Debate: Do vaccinations save lives among the elderly?
Flu shots seem to prevent some deaths and limit hospitalizations for pneumonia in elderly people.
- Paleontology
Just a quick bite
Saber-toothed cats living in North America around 10,000 years ago had a much weaker bite than modern big cats.
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19888
Other than people with HIV or AIDS, the prime model for a group overrepresented among those taking the option of physician-assisted suicide would appear to be educated, insured, financially comfortable, psychologically fit, nondisabled white males between the ages of 21 and 80. Perhaps the research simply demonstrates that we are loath to yield control, even […]
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No Slippery Slope: Physician-aided deaths are rare among those presumed vulnerable
Vulnerable people such as the very old or the mentally ill do not seek out physician-assisted suicide in disproportionate numbers, as critics of the practice feared they would.
- Archaeology
Lake-Bottom Bounty: Some Arctic sediments didn’t erode during recent ice ages
Sediments in a few lakes in northeastern Canada were not scoured away during recent ice ages, a surprising find that could prove a boon to climate researchers.
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Dangerous DNA: Genes linked to suicidal thoughts with med use
Two gene variations mark many patients who develop suicidal thoughts when treated with widely used antidepressants.
- Humans
Letters from the October 6, 2007, issue of Science News
Cat scam? Oscar the cat possibly does identify dying patients (“Grim Reap Purr: Nursing home feline senses the end,” SN: 7/28/07, p. 53), but the story you printed presents anecdotal rather than scientific evidence and does not belong in a science magazine. Julie EnevoldsenSeattle, Wash. Correlation is not causation. Could it not be that, somehow, […]
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- Health & Medicine
Lonely white cells
In chronically lonely people, white blood cells show abnormal gene activity that may affect health through immune responses.
- Earth
Iron to blame
Typhoons that drench Madagascar and spill iron-rich runoff into the Indian Ocean account for that region's massive but sporadic algal blooms.
