Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Chemistry
Naming an atomic heavyweight
More than a decade after its debut in a German lab, element 112 is officially named copernicium.
- Ecosystems
Sea of plastics
Oceanographers are finding more patches of floating polymers, some up to 20 meters deep.
- Animals
Whale hunts: Discussions on lifting the ‘ban’
The International Whaling Commission will formally address its future, next week, at a meeting in St. Petersburg, Fla. Once comprised of whaling nations, the IWC now includes member states just as likely to condemn any hunting of cetaceans. That internal tension is guiding the meeting’s agenda. On it’s plate: whether to overturn the organization’s long-standing moratorium on commercial whaling.
- Health & Medicine
‘Ministrokes’ may cause more damage than thought
A common test given to patients after the passing attacks appears to miss some cognitive impairments.
- Life
Inflaming dangers of a fat-laden meal
In overweight people, immune cells embedded in fat are sensitive to high levels of fat in the blood, triggering inflammation that can lead to heart disease and diabetes.
- Health & Medicine
Early disruption of schizophrenia gene causes problems later
New study may help scientists to understand the sequence of events that can lead to schizophrenia
- Science & Society
Science literacy: U.S. college courses really count
Over the past two decades, science literacy in the United States – an estimate of the share of adults who can follow complex science issues and maybe even render an informed opinion on them – has nearly tripled. But – and it’s a big but -- the proportion of people who fall into this category remains small. Just 28 percent.
- Health & Medicine
Older adults’ brains boosted by more, not better, sleep
A study finds that older adults perform better on a learning and memory task if they have slept more, while uninterrupted rest matters more for younger folks.
- Health & Medicine
Brain tells signs from pantomime
Different brain areas light up when deaf people use American Sign Language than when they gesture.
- Health & Medicine
Rapid HIV treatment could slow growing TB rates
Widespread yearly testing and immediate treatment with antiretroviral drugs could avert more than 6 million tuberculosis cases in Africa, a new model finds.
- Health & Medicine
IVF kids show shift in gene activity
Team finds differences related to metabolism and growth.
- Health & Medicine
Possible prostate cancer culprit
Scientists identify a type of stem cell and a gene that play a role in the disease.
