Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Chemistry
Obama’s brain trust
Featured blog: Sixty-one Nobel laureates sign a letter explaining why they support Barack Obama's run for the presidency.
- Humans
Teaching babies to err
A puzzling error that infants make in a hiding game arises from their inherent tendency to interpret others’ behavior, a research team contends.
- Health & Medicine
The Foreign Drug Trade
Chances are you haven't a clue where your medicines come from.
- Health & Medicine
Window of opportunity for stroke treatment widens
Use of clot-busting drugs as long as 4½ hours after an event pays dividends later.
- Health & Medicine
Cancer data: Burying bad news
Featured blog: Data from the vast majority of human cancer trials never get published, a new study finds — and that's not a good thing.
- Health & Medicine
Closing in on Rett syndrome
Scientists find that a particular part of the mouse brain is responsible for behavioral abnormalities associated with Rett syndrome, an autism spectrum disease that strikes females.
- Health & Medicine
Diabetes drug helps shed pounds
The diabetes drug pramlintide facilitates year-long weight loss in obese volunteers, a new study shows.
- Health & Medicine
This is the brain on age
The activity of genes in men's brains begins to change sooner than it does in women's brains, a new study shows.
- Humans
Stone Age seafood fans
Excavations in two Gibraltar caves suggest that Neandertals, like modern humans, regularly visited the Mediterranean shore to complement a land-based diet with seafood
- Health & Medicine
Lo-Cal bones hold up
One study of many recent investigations of how calorie restriction affects people shows that bone density does not necessarily suffer when a person loses weight quickly.
- Climate
(Political) party animals
Featured blog: When it comes to attitudes about climate change, the chasm between Democrats and Republicans is wide. Political-polling analysts speculate that a McCain win in November might do more than an Obama victory to win over the minds of climate-change skeptics.
- Physics
Apollo or Manhattan Project: Which Paradigm Fits Energy Better?
A new petition developed to lobby the presidential candidates argues that increased federal investments in basic energy research are essential.
