Humans

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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Chemistry

    Kavli Awardees Named

    Norwegian Academy awards three novel and hefty prizes to three teams of scientists.

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  2. Health & Medicine

    Gut feeling

    A bacterial compound can reverse intestinal disease in a mouse, providing the first example of a microbial product “networking” with the mammalian immune system to quell inflammation.

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  3. Health & Medicine

    Lead’s legacy

    High levels of lead in the blood during childhood are associated with smaller brains and with an increased risk for violent criminal behavior, report two new studies.

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  4. Health & Medicine

    Stunning reversal

    A man’s irregular heartbeat returns to normal after he is shocked with a Taser, the first report of such an effect.

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  5. Health & Medicine

    Tracking obesity

    New data suggest that childhood obesity in the United States may have leveled off between 1999 and 2006.

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  6. Life

    Fly fountain of youth

    Hanging out with young, healthy flies helps fruit flies with a mutation that causes neurodegeneration live longer.

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  7. Humans

    Impoverished Science

    Most people believe science and engineering would be better off – richer – if blacks, Hispanics, and native Americans weren’t such bit players in the research world. The question is why these groups have traditionally been so underrepresented. A new analysis points to low family income as a hefty contributor. Kathryn Kailikole, director of the […]

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  8. Humans

    From Science News Letter, June 7, 1958

    Carbon dioxide changes undifferentiated cells

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  9. Anthropology

    They’re fake, Indy!

    Scientists find that two rock crystal skulls often attributed to pre-Columbian societies are really modern phonies.

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  10. Humans

    BOOK REVIEW | Naked in the Woods: Joseph Knowles and the Legacy of Frontier Fakery

    Review by Davide Castelvecchi.

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  11. Humans

    BOOK LIST | Human Origins: What Bones and Genomes Tell Us about Ourselves

    A guided tour of our pre-history and how we understand it. Texas A&M Univ. Press, 2008, 216 p., $29.95. HUMAN ORIGINS: WHAT BONES AND GENOMES TELL US ABOUT OURSELVES

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  12. Health & Medicine

    BOOK LIST | Guilty Robots, Happy Dogs: The Question of Alien Minds

    The alien minds are of animals. The question: Can robots mimic them? Oxford Univ. Press, 2008, 252 p., $34.95. GUILTY ROBOTS, HAPPY DOGS: THE QUESTION OF ALIEN MINDS

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