Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Tech
Twitter kept up with Haiti cholera outbreak
Epidemiologists find that social media can be used to track disease outbreaks as they happen, even in countries with little infrastructure.
- Health & Medicine
Study tracks booze’s buzz in the brain
In both heavy and light drinkers, alcohol causes the release of morphinelike chemicals.
- Health & Medicine
Light pot smoking easy on lungs
Infrequent marijuana users show a slight improvement in breathing capacity and middling smokers had no change, a 20-year study shows.
- Psychology
Europeans’ heartfelt ignorance
Many people in nine countries don't know how to recognize or react to heart attacks and strokes.
- Health & Medicine
Drug gives rats booze-guzzling superpowers
Rodents that consume alcohol along with a compound derived from an ancient herbal remedy get less drunk, recover faster and appear less prone to addiction.
- Humans
Insurance payouts point to climate change
Natural disasters in 2011 exerted the costliest toll in history — a whopping $380 billion worth of losses from earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires, tsunamis and more. Only a third of those costs were covered by insurance. And the tally ignores completely any expenses associated with sickness or injuries triggered by the disasters. And except for quake-related events, climate change appears to have played a role in the growing cost of disasters, insurers said.
- Humans
Botanists et al freed from Latin, paper
As of January 1, people who classify new plant, algae and fungus species can do it in English and online.
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- Humans
Bt: The lesson not learned
The more things change, the more they stay the same, as a Dec. 29 Associated Press report on genetically engineered corn notes. Like déjà vu, this news story on emerging resistance to Bt toxin — a fabulously effective and popular insecticide to protect corn — brings to mind articles I encountered over the weekend while flipping through historic issues of Science News. More than a half-century ago, our magazine chronicled, real time, the emergence of resistance to DDT, the golden child of pest controllers worldwide. Now much the same thing is happening again with Bt, its contemporary agricultural counterpart. Will we never learn?
- Life
Staggered lessons may work better
Training at irregular intervals improves learning in sea snails.
- Humans
Network analysis predicts drug side effects
A computer technique can foresee adverse events before medications are widely prescribed.
- Humans
Researchers, journals asked to censor data
Scientists undertake research to advance knowledge. Normally, one aspect of that advancement is to find as broad an audience for the newly acquired data as possible. But what happens if medically important data could be put to ruthless purposes? That question underlies the ruckus developing over two new bird flu papers.
