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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Psychology
Lie defectives
A new analysis challenges the view that a few people with special experience can detect others’ lies with great accuracy.
By Bruce Bower - Health & Medicine
SIDS and serotonin
Study finds brain chemical deficiency causing sudden death in mice could be linked to SIDS
- Life
Fountain of Youth, with caveats
A chemical in red wine thought to mimic the life-extending properties of calorie restriction improves health, but doesn’t necessarily lengthen life; it could also harm the brain.
- Agriculture
Fishy Data on Weed Killer
A popular weed killer can feminize wildlife by tinkering with a gene that indirectly affects the production of sex hormones.
By Janet Raloff - Chemistry
HIV knockout
Cutting a gene in immune cells could offer a new way to treat HIV infections.
- Health & Medicine
Surviving HIV
Since the development in the mid-1990s of a state-of-the-art drug cocktail for HIV, patient survival has extended dramatically, a new study shows.
By Nathan Seppa - Climate
EPA asks: Could you drive less?
Gas prices may need to climb more before most of us do the right thing.
By Janet Raloff - Health & Medicine
Journey to the center of the brain
New map of brain's anatomy reveals communication hub that corresponds to an area active when the mind wanders.
- Psychology
Woman knob twists
People nonverbally impose a specific order on descriptions of witnessed events, a tendency that may influence the structure of new languages, a new study suggests.
By Bruce Bower - Astronomy
Citizen Astronomy
Astronomers have found big benefits from recruiting the public to lend their eyes and image-processing prowess
By Janet Raloff - Psychology
Wave of resilience
Indian survivors of the devastating Asian tsunami employed spiritual and community coping strategies to regain emotional balance
By Bruce Bower - Astronomy
Too much information in the Odyssey
A controversial interpretation of passages from the Odyssey suggests that Homer knew much more about planetary motions than historians thought possible.