Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Life
Genetic effects suggest FOXP2 role in language evolution
Human version of the protein alters activity of 116 genes compared with the chimp version.
- Science & Society
Why Cousteau’s granddaughter was at a meeting on public health
Philadelphia — On brainstorming possible keynote speakers for a major public health conference, the granddaughter of ocean giant Jacques Cousteau does not exactly stand out. But in Philadelphia on Sunday, filmmaker and diver Celine Cousteau stood before the 11,000 or so attendees of the American Public Health Association's annual meeting to explain just why exactly she was there to give the opening session's address.
- Earth
Buried-lakes story wins top award
Some readers may be unaware of our sister publication, Science News for Kids, a weekly online magazine for middle-school readers. This morning, we learned that one of the site’s feature stories — Where Rivers Run Uphill — won this year’s top science journalism award for reporting news for children.
- Health & Medicine
The childhood nerve cancer neuroblastoma shows weakness
A compound that unshackles a tumor-suppressing protein called p53 can slow the growth of the malignancy in mice, a new study finds.
- Climate
Guarded optimism on Copenhagen climate talks
Negotiators representing 181 nations completed their final prep work in Barcelona, Spain, last Friday, on a new climate treaty — one that they hope to build a month from now at a major conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. But at least one scientist worries that what comes out of the Copenhagen deliberations may not have sufficient coordination and strength to meet the challenges that Earth’s climate has begun throwing at us.
- Health & Medicine
Vinegar: Label lead-tainting data
Under California’s Proposition 65 law, products containing chemicals that may cause cancer, birth defects or reproductive toxicity must carry a warning label at their point of sale. Among such products: pricy balsamic and red-wine vinegars that contain lead. At least some California groceries apparently have taken a conservative approach and post labels suggesting all such vinegars are dangerously tainted. Although they aren't.
- Health & Medicine
H1N1: Call to revise flu-mask policy
Three groups of healthcare professionals sent a letter to President Obama yesterday asking that he instruct his administration to revise federal flu-mask guidance. What these groups want: formal recognition that two studies last month showed conventional surgical masks are about as protective as the fancy — but much more expensive — N95 respirators in limiting H1N1 infection.
- Anthropology
Macaws bred far from tropics during pre-Columbian times
Colorful birds possibly raised for ceremonial and trade purposes long before Spanish arrival
- Tech
House passes medical isotopes bill
A spot of encouraging news emerged yesterday on the medical-isotope front. The House of Representatives voted 440 to 17 in favor of a bill to reestablish domestic production of molybdenum-99. It’s the feedstock for the most heavily used nuclear agent in diagnostic medicine.
- Health & Medicine
Smallpox — The Death of a Disease
The Inside Story of Eradicating a Worldwide Killer, by D.A. Henderson.
- Tech
Large Hadron Collider suffers carb attack
Efforts to get the Large Hadron Collider up and running just encountered a temporary snag, according to yesterday's online edition of The Times of London. A crusty chunk of bread “paralysed a high voltage installation that should have been powering the cooling unit.”
- Health & Medicine
Bacteria flourish in favorite ecosystems on the human body
Study offers most comprehensive inventory yet of the human microbiome and a basis for understanding how those microbes affect health.
