Humans

Health & Medicine

Shields Down: A cancer-fighting gene declines in old age

Decline of an important anti-cancer gene could contribute to increased cancer risk among the elderly.

Health & Medicine

Fueling a Flu Debate: Do vaccinations save lives among the elderly?

Flu shots seem to prevent some deaths and limit hospitalizations for pneumonia in elderly people.

Archaeology

Lake-Bottom Bounty: Some Arctic sediments didn’t erode during recent ice ages

Sediments in a few lakes in northeastern Canada were not scoured away during recent ice ages, a surprising find that could prove a boon to climate researchers.

Humans

Letters from the October 6, 2007, issue of Science News

Cat scam? Oscar the cat possibly does identify dying patients (“Grim Reap Purr: Nursing home feline senses the end,” SN: 7/28/07, p. 53), but the story you printed presents anecdotal rather than scientific evidence and does not belong in a science magazine. Julie EnevoldsenSeattle, Wash. Correlation is not causation. Could it not be that, somehow, […]

Health & Medicine

Lonely white cells

In chronically lonely people, white blood cells show abnormal gene activity that may affect health through immune responses.

Humans

From the September 25, 1937, issue

Insulin's molecular structure revealed, a new supernova observed less than a fortnight after an earlier one, and a hypothesis for how X rays kill cancer cells.

Anthropology

Sail Away: Tools reveal extent of ancient Polynesian trips

Rock from Hawaii was fashioned into a stone tool found in Polynesian islands more than 4,000 kilometers to the south, indicating that canoeists made the sea journey around 1,000 years ago.

Health & Medicine

Lack of Evidence: Vaccine additive not linked to developmental problems

Thimerosal, a mercury-containing vaccine preservative, shows no signs of causing memory, attention or other problems in children.

Health & Medicine

Keep Out: Treated mosquito nets limit child deaths

Mosquito nets treated with insecticides decrease death rates among children in Kenya's malarial zones.

Health & Medicine

Distracted? Tea might help your focus

An amino acid in tea combines with the brew's caffeine to enliven brain cells that aid concentration.

Health & Medicine

Tea compound aids dying brain cells

A constituent of green tea rescues brain cells damaged in a way that mimics the effect of Parkinson's disease.

Health & Medicine

Malaria’s sweet spot

The malaria parasite's reliance on a sugar in the gut of mosquitoes may offer a way to block the disease's transmission.