Ben Harder

All Stories by Ben Harder

  1. Health & Medicine

    Gene transfer puts good fats in mammals

    Scientists have used a worm gene to genetically engineer mice whose tissues are unusually rich in the heart-healthy fats found mainly in fish.

  2. Anthropology

    Linguists in Siberia record dying tongues

    Researchers trekking through remote Russian villages have identified and interviewed some of the last remaining speakers of two Turkic languages.

  3. Animals

    Feral breed lacks domestic dogs’ skill

    Wild dogs that haven't lived with people for 5,000 years share little of the capacity of their domesticated cousins for interpreting human gestures.

  4. Health & Medicine

    HIV infects 1 in 100 in New York

    A change in how New York City officials identify and track cases of HIV infection has yielded the clearest picture yet of how deeply rooted that city's epidemic has become.

  5. Health & Medicine

    Primate virus found in zoo workers

    Viruses related to HIV can be found in the blood of some zoo staff and other people who work with primates, although the infections don't appear to be harmful.

  6. Health & Medicine

    Drug Racing: Gene tied to HIV-drug response

    A genetic mutation more common in blacks than in whites increases the odds that people taking a common HIV medicine will suffer side effects that lead them to halt treatment.

  7. Health & Medicine

    Surgery removes grenade from soldier’s head

    Colombian military doctors extracted an intact grenade from the head of a teenage soldier.

  8. Humans

    The Chosen: A New Crop of Scientific Minds; Student science competition announces finalists

    Forty high school students from 14 states and the District of Columbia have been selected to compete for the top prizes in the 2004 Intel Science Talent Search.

  9. Health & Medicine

    Telltale Charts

    Overturning a basic tenet of conventional wisdom in cardiology, new research suggests that more than half the people who develop heart disease first show one of the warning signs of smoking, having diabetes, or having high blood pressure or cholesterol.

  10. Health & Medicine

    Arsenic helps tumors, blood vessels grow

    Rather than being a potential antitumor agent, arsenic may actually help a tumor's supporting network of blood vessels thrive.

  11. Earth

    Farmed salmon bring PCBs to the table

    High concentrations of chlorinated organic contaminants in farm-raised Atlantic salmon may warrant limiting consumption of the otherwise-healthful fish to no more than once per month.

  12. Health & Medicine

    Conduit to the Brain: Particles enter the nervous system via the nose

    Tiny airborne particles can apparently infiltrate the brain by shimmying up the nerve that governs smell.