Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
Intentional weight loss in old age not detrimental, study finds
Among obese group, those who shed pounds as part of diet study were less likely to die during follow-up years.
- Math
Hiding patients in plain sight
A new technique could help make medical records available to researchers without compromising privacy.
- Health & Medicine
Breast implants may mask early cancer
Breast augmentation is the leading cosmetic surgery in North America, with roughly 400,000 procedures a year in the United States alone. A study now finds some evidence that breast implants may hinder early detection of breast malignancies. The good news: This didn’t affect survival.
- Health & Medicine
Mapping the fruit fly brain
A new digital atlas could reveal how 100,000 neurons work together.
- Health & Medicine
Gulf War Syndrome real, Institute of Medicine concludes
U.S. veterans who claim to suffer from Gulf War Syndrome just received powerful new ammunition against arguments that their symptoms are trivial, if not altogether fictional. On April 9, the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences issued a report that concludes military service in the Persian Gulf War has not only been a cause of post-traumatic stress disorder in some veterans but also is "associated with multisymptom illness” – as in Gulf War Syndrome.
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- Health & Medicine
Traffic’s soot elevates blood pressure
Legions of studies have shown that air pollution can harm the heart and blood vessels. Scientists now have linked airborne concentrations of tiny black-carbon particles — soot — with increasing blood pressure in older men. They also showed that the genes we inherit appear to play a big role in determining our vulnerability to soot’s pressurizing impacts.
- Health & Medicine
Walnuts may slow prostate cancer
More news from the American Chemical Society meeting.
- Health & Medicine
Vaccine works against type 1 diabetes in mouse experiments
Researchers uncover a self-regulating feature of the immune system.
- Humans
Copycats prevail in computerized survival game
A virtual contest suggests that imitation beats innovation in the natural world.
- Anthropology
Partial skeletons may represent new hominid
Partial skeletons may represent a new hominid species with implications for Homo origins, one researcher claims. But many of his peers disagree.
- Humans
D.C. as science mecca
Not only is the D.C. area a center of research policy, but many scientific societies also call this place home. Still, I was a bit surprised to find out that fully one in 10 of our area residents work in research-related fields. That’s 50 percent more than in the next biggest hive of research: the New York City metro area.
