Humans

Health & Medicine

The high cost of diabetes

Although an estimated 7.8 percent of Americans have been diagnosed with diabetes, patients with this metabolic disease rack up 23 percent of hospital costs nationwide, a new federal analysis finds. Their collective hospital bill in 2008, the most recent year for which data were available: almost $83 billion.

Life

Muscles remember past glory

Extra nuclei produced by training survive disuse, making it easier to rebuild lost strength.

Humans

Retirement at 62 boosts well-being

People who retire on the early side tend to feel better physically and emotionally than those who quit working earlier or later.

Humans

Depressed teens not shunned

In high school, students with depression seek — rather than settle for — friends with similar moods.

Humans

Sociologists looking at risky behavior plunge into the gene pool

A new study of youths reveals that social scientists’ opinions still vary on the potential of studying how genes interact with social contexts.

Astronomy

Celestial wish list

A panel of astronomers ranks proposed astrophysics projects for the coming decade.

Humans

Protecting innocent — and not so innocent — bystanders

Technique removes pedestrians from Google Street View images.

Health & Medicine

Want a baby? Relax . . .

Scientists have just confirmed what obstetricians knew anecdotally for years — that women under stress can have a difficult time getting pregnant. What’s new: Biochemical markers quantified the degree of stress — and potentially the type — affecting fertility.

Tech

The people’s pulsar

Thousands of volunteers help discover a neutron star by donating the processing power in their idle home computers.

Tech

Research trials pose challenge to medical privacy

How — or even whether — to share a medical data collected on research subjects poses a growing dilemma. Certainly, doctors would benefit from knowing if their patients had been receiving medicines, physical therapies or dietary supplements. Or if a patient had a history of drug abuse, mental illness, sexually transmitted diseases or engaging in risky behaviors. But in the wrong hands, such sensitive data could compromise an individual’s ability to keep a job — even retain shared custody rights to children during a contentious divorce.

Health & Medicine

Delivering a knockout

Scientists have finally succeeded in genetically engineering rats.

Archaeology

Lucy’s kind used stone tools to butcher animals

Animal bones found in East Africa show the oldest signs of stone-tool use and meat eating by hominids.