Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
Global child deaths on decline
Infectious diseases kept numbers for 2008 staggeringly high, with 8.8 million children dying before age 5, a new survey shows.
- Health & Medicine
Sickle-cell anemia tied to cognitive impairment
Patients with the hereditary condition score worse on standardized tests than people without it.
- Psychology
Bereaved relatives helped by chance to view body after sudden loss
Grieving people rarely regret having seen a dead loved one, even in cases of violent death, a British study suggests.
- Science & Society
Intel International Science and Engineering Fair begins
Young scientists converge in San Jose, Calif., where they will compete for over $4 million in scholarships and prizes.
- Space
Asteroid-bound: Scientists look for worthy rock
Scientists consider how to pick a prime asteroid for human exploration
- Health & Medicine
Taste of power goes to the head, then muscles
Just a swish of the carbohydrates in an energy drink can increase muscle performance, a study suggests.
- Earth
Atrazine paper’s challenge: Who’s responsible for accuracy?
As a new critique of a review paper on atrazine suggests, some papers may simply overtax a journal’s fact-vetting enterprise. Which would be bad for science. And bad for society.
- Health & Medicine
Genetic switch makes old mice forgetful
Reversing a chemical change restored the animals’ memory-making ability.
- Life
Neandertal genome yields evidence of interbreeding with humans
After years of looking, geneticists are shocked to find that 1 percent to 4 percent of DNA in people from Europe and Asia is inherited from Neandertals.
- Chemistry
Decon Green can clean up the most toxic messes, developers claim
A new decontaminant could be a more benign alternative for cleaning up after chemical and biological accidents.
- Life
Undereducated immune cells get aggressive with HIV
Scientists discover a mechanism that makes some people resistant to infection with the AIDS virus.
- Tech
A Gulf spill news review
Oil companies have said it's possible the gusher could grow substantially before its capped.
