Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Climate
Climate might be right for a deal
The upcoming Copenhagen negotiations will take steps toward an international, climate-stabilizing treaty.
- Health & Medicine
Malaria shows signs of resisting best drug used to fight it
The frontline malaria medicine artemisinin shows gaps in effectiveness in Southeast Asia.
- Humans
Obese people can misjudge body size
Survey finds that many overweight individuals consider their body size normal and healthy despite having health problems
- Health & Medicine
Marathoners’ hearts stressed, but not necessarily by heart attacks
Detailed imaging of runners’ hearts before and after races doesn’t find signatures of heart attacks
- Health & Medicine
Mummies reveal heart disease plagued ancient Egyptians
CT scans of preserved individuals show hardening of arteries similar to that seen in people today.
- Health & Medicine
PCBs hike blood pressure
No one would choose to eat polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs — yet we unwittingly do. And a new study finds that the cost of their pervasive contamination of our food supply can be elevated blood pressure, a major risk factor for heart disease.
- Health & Medicine
Heart attack patients get high radiation dose
Medical imaging can add up to exposure similar to what nuclear power plant workers experience.
- Earth
Plastics ingredients could make a boy’s play less masculine
Study links boys' fetal phthalate exposure to tendency toward gender-neutral play later on.
- Health & Medicine
B vitamin outperforms another drug in keeping arteries clear
The findings led to an early halt of a small study comparing Niaspan and Zetia, two compounds commonly used along with statins to reduce heart attack risk.
- Health & Medicine
Changing the paradigm around Alzheimer’s disease
Prevention could begin with lifestyle in younger years, one researcher says during the American Public Health Association meeting.
- Health & Medicine
Chill-out device may protect brain during heart attacks
A portable method to quickly lower body temperature passes safety tests
- Anthropology
For Hadza, build and brawn don’t matter for choosing mates
Study of hunter-gatherer community in Tanzania shows that, across human groups, mating criteria vary.
