Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
Highlights from the Pediatric Academic Societies meeting
Highlights from the pediatrics meeting held May 4-7 in Washington, D.C., include adolescent suicide risk and access to guns, a reason to let preemies get more umbilical cord blood and teens' cognitive dissonance on football concussions.
- Humans
Greed may breed financial fitness, but evolution allows unselfishness to survive
If greed is good, as Gordon Gekko proclaimed in the 1987 movie Wall Street, then economics ought to be a superlative science. After all, at the core of economic theory sits a greedy idealization of human nature known as Homo economicus. It’s a fictitious species that represents the individual economic agent, motivated by selfishness. H. […]
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- Anthropology
Paleofantasy
What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live by Marlene Zuk.
- Humans
Human ancestors had taste for meat, brains
A mix of hunting and scavenging fed carnivorous cravings of early Homo species.
- Health & Medicine
Allergy, asthma less frequent in foreign-born kids in U.S.
But protection from some immune conditions fades after a decade, a study finds.
- Humans
Cannibalism in Colonial America comes to life
Researchers have found the first skeletal evidence that starving colonists ate their own.
- Health & Medicine
Brain measurements predict math progress with tutoring
The size and connections of a brain structure associated with memory formation predicted learning ability in 8- and 9-year-old children.
- Humans
What ancient mummies have to tell us about the perils of modern life
Once you hit a certain age, visiting a doctor is basically a guilt trip. All that satisfying stuff you eat, drink or smoke is killing you, a white-coated overachiever tells you. You need to exercise and lose weight, or the grim reaper will be at your door long before you’re ready. And it will all […]
- Health & Medicine
HIV vaccine trial stopped
Shots-plus-booster strategy deemed ineffective in preventing infection.
- Health & Medicine
Hookah smoking delivers carcinogens and carbon monoxide
Water pipes deliver carcinogens, nicotine and carbon monoxide to the user, a study finds.
- Humans
Maya civilization’s roots may lie in ritual
Cultural exchanges in southern Mexico and Guatemala tied to ancient society's rise.
