Humans

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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Health & Medicine

    Good news for coffeeholics

    When lifestyle factors like smoking were taken into account, coffee drinkers had lower death rates than their non-drinking peers, according to a study of more than 120,000 people.

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  2. Health & Medicine

    Keep at it

    Moderate exercise can extend survival for overweight and obese men who have diabetes.

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  3. Humans

    Doritos in Space

    Today, a huge European radar-transmitter system sent an ad for a cheesy snack radiating out into space.

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  4. Archaeology

    Resurrection of a biblical tree

    Date palm pit found at Masada sprouts at age 2,000, becoming the oldest known seed to germinate.

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  5. Health & Medicine

    No babies, no hormones

    A radically different form of contraception would prevent pregnancies with small molecules of RNA.

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  6. Humans

    Wash Your Veggies!

    The lesson in all of these food-poisoning outbreaks is that we must not expect a risk-free food-supply chain.

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  7. Humans

    Teacher Certification Increases, But . . .

    Rigorous standards exist for what teachers should know and be able to do. The rub: only about three U.S. teachers out of every five schools have demonstrated they meet those standards.

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  8. Health & Medicine

    Virus versus virus

    Customized RNA snippets delivered by a harmless virus could someday provide a new way to combat the hepatitis B virus.

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  9. Health & Medicine

    Seeing disease’s acidic side

    Small tumors can be detected using a new technique that safely, reliably and noninvasively measures tissue chemistry.

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  10. Humans

    Symbolic snacks

    Capuchin monkeys can reason with tokens as they do with different foods, demonstrating a basic capacity for thinking symbolically.

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  11. Health & Medicine

    Parasite payback

    The protozoan parasite that causes leishmaniasis seems vulnerable to the anticancer drug tamoxifen, research in mice shows.

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  12. Health & Medicine

    Time on their side

    Review of a decade's worth of major league baseball games shows a slight cost in performance in teams with jet lag.

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