Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
Mind-Controlled
Linking brain and computer may soon lead to practical prosthetics for daily life.
- Health & Medicine
Body & Brain
The health benefits of wheat and olive oil, plus Down syndrome dementia, a heartbreaking gene and more in this week’s news.
- Humans
Couch potatoes: Where the risks lie
Several new studies finger television viewing as a potentially unhealthy pastime. I know, that hardly sounds surprising. For years, research has been linking hours in front of TV screens with an elevated risk of developing heart disease and diabetes, not to mention obesity. But what makes the recent spate of analyses different, researchers argue, is that they’re finally homing in on consistent estimates of the magnitude of risks — and hints at what underlies them.
- Psychology
Some fights vanish in plain sight
People engrossed in a task frequently overlook the seemingly obvious, such as a loud brawl.
- Life
Ketamine’s antidepressant effect explained
A potential fast-acting treatment boosts the brain chemical BDNF, which may be lacking in depression.
- Humans
Human mutation rate slower than thought
First direct measurements show that the number of genetic typos inherited from each parent can be highly skewed toward either mom or dad.
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- Health & Medicine
Body & Brain
Fat joins suite of tastes, plus crossword vision, metastasis clues and more in this week’s news.
- Tech
Social Networks
Power networks in Congress, Twitter’s crystal ball and iPhone contagion in news from an MIT workshop on information in social media.
- Humans
Traditional Chinese medicine: Big questions
Just because traditional Chinese medicines have been used for a long time is no guarantee they’re efficacious or safe. How would we know? It turns out this question is hard to answer — even for the Chinese.
- Life
Genetics offers more hints about autism
Three studies illustrate why a single cause for autism spectrum disorders has been so difficult to pin down.
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