Uncategorized
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Archaeology
Openings to the Underworld
Archaeological finds indicate that ancient groups in Mexico and Central America, including the Maya, held beliefs about a sacred landscape that focused on natural and human-made caves as sites of important ritual activities and burials.
By Bruce Bower -
Health & Medicine
D-fending the Colon: Bile component triggers vitamin D receptor
The protein that enables cells to respond to vitamin D also helps the gastrointestinal tract protect itself from an especially dangerous acid in bile.
By John Travis -
Tech
Live Tour: Joystick journeys reveal tumor interiors
A new holographic technique may someday enable doctors to skip certain biopsies and choose instead to take video excursions inside suspicious growths in skin or internal body linings.
By Peter Weiss -
Health & Medicine
Wholesome Grains: Insulin effects may explain healthful diet
Overweight people who eat whole grains rather than refined ones appear better equipped to manage their blood-sugar concentrations with minimal production of the hormone insulin, which could help explain why a diet rich in whole grains appears to guard against type II diabetes and heart disease.
By Ben Harder -
Earth
Shelter from Space Storms: Energy rebounds from Earth
NASA satellite observations show that Earth's outer atmosphere interacts dramatically with the solar wind and shields the planet from it.
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Health & Medicine
Amyloid Buster? New drug hinders Alzheimer’s protein
By disabling a dementia-linked protein, a synthetic drug is showing a tantalizing capacity to interfere with the formation of waxy amyloid deposits like those that accumulate in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease.
By Nathan Seppa -
Baby Facial: Infants monkey with face recognition
Between ages 6 months and 9 months, babies apparently lose the ability to discriminate between the faces of individuals in different animal species and start to develop an expertise in discerning human faces.
By Bruce Bower -
19005
Your article reports that, after infancy, humans have trouble recognizing facial differences between members of other species. Many of us commonly observe that people of other races than ourselves “all look alike” to us. Could this stem from lack of early exposure to others? Anecdotally, my wife, raised in a multiracial environment, has far less […]
By Science News -
Health & Medicine
A Model Mouse
Mice with symptoms similar to rheumatoid arthritis may illuminate the puzzling disorder.
By John Travis -
Health & Medicine
Liquid could aid vaccine storage and use
A new medium for vaccines could remove the need to either refrigerate or rehydrate vaccines, hurdles that impede immunization campaigns in poor countries.
By Ben Harder -
Health & Medicine
Beating two infections with one vaccine
Identifying key similarities between related viruses could enable researchers to coax some vaccines to do double duty.
By Ben Harder -
In depression, the placebo also rises
In a small group of depressed patients, those whose condition improved after taking placebo pills for 6 weeks displayed many of the same brain changes observed in people who benefited from an antidepressant drug.
By Bruce Bower