Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
Flies on meth burn through sugar
Cellular effects may explain why addicts often have a sweet tooth.
- Health & Medicine
Mucus-related gene tied to lung disease
People with pulmonary fibrosis are much more likely to make excess amounts of a normally beneficial protein, a study finds.
- Health & Medicine
Experimental Biology 2011 conference
Even larvae can love the blues, plus distemper’s roots, fat-busting blueberries and more meeting news.
- Life
Gut bacteria come in three flavors
Everybody has one of a trio of types — and which one seems to be less important than how the bugs behave.
- Humans
Killing fields of ancient Syria revealed
Stone corrals were used to trap whole herds of animals for mass slaughter.
- Anthropology
American Association of Physical Anthropologists
Hobbit dentistry, ancient footprints and navigating gibbons in news from the recent physical anthropology meeting.
- Humans
Possibly pivotal human ancestor debated
An ancient species that may have sparked the rise of humankind gets a new appraisal.
- Health & Medicine
Body & Brain
A hidden herpes risk, the rapid effects of a high-fat diet, explaining seniors' early rising and more in this week's news.
- Health & Medicine
Body’s immune protein fights breast cancer
A new study clarifies the role of interleukin-25 in stalling malignancy, possibly clearing the way for new drug development.
- Health & Medicine
Simple-sugar effects aren’t necessarily simple, animal study suggests
New mouse data suggest that even among seemingly identical sugars, how they are delivered can exert subtle metabolic differences with long-term impacts on vitality -- and lifespan.
- Humans
Obesity compromises ability to fend off H1N1 flu
Think you’ll easily survive a bout of H1N1 swine flu? Fat chance – if you’re really fat. New research points to a likely explanation for this weighty vulnerability: a failure of the immune system to rev up as strongly as it should.
- Tech
Fishy fat from soy is headed for U.S. dinner tables
Most people have heard about omega-3 fatty acids, the primary constituents of fish oil. Stearidonic acid, one of those omega-3s, is hardly a household term. But it should become one, researchers argued this week at the 2011 Experimental Biology meeting.
