Humans

  1. Archaeology

    Ancient city grew from outside in

    A 6,000-year-old city in what's now northeastern Syria developed when initially independent settlements expanded and merged, unlike other nearby cities that grew from a core outward.

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  2. Anthropology

    Advantage: Starch

    An enhanced ability to digest starch may have given early humans an evolutionary advantage over their ape relatives.

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  3. Health & Medicine

    How platelets help cancer spread

    A tumor cell protein influences blood platelets in a way that helps a cancer spread through the body.

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  4. Health & Medicine

    Curry Power

    A component of the spice turmeric, the color-giving ingredient in yellow curries, may help prevent and possibly treat Alzheimer's disease.

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  5. Humans

    Letters from the September 15, 2007, issue of Science News

    Talk talk talk “Hidden Smarts: Abstract thought trumps IQ scores in autism” (SN: 7/7/07, p. 4) didn’t mention that traditional IQ tests are in one sense “language” tests. The Ravens test doesn’t involve language processing in a typical manner. A person with a language disorder, as an autistic person is assumed to be, would do […]

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  6. Humans

    From the September 4, 1937, issue

    Growling grizzlies star at Yellowstone, radioactive dating puts Earth's age at less than 3 billion years, and a suggestion that overanxious parents can turn their children into stutterers.

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  7. Health & Medicine

    Aura origins show the way in epilepsy surgery

    Epilepsy patients who experience multiple auras before a seizure, usually considered poor candidates for corrective brain surgery, might benefit from by a new brain scan procedure.

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  8. Anthropology

    Men’s fertile role in evolving long lives

    The ability of men 55 and older to father children may have had evolutionary effects that caused both sexes to develop longer lifespans.

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  9. Health & Medicine

    HIV is double trouble for brain

    The virus that causes AIDS can also cause dementia, by both killing mature brain cells and blocking the creation of new ones.

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  10. Humans

    Letters from the September 8, 2007, issue of Science News

    Patent pending If Drs. Glass and Venter succeed in assembling a viable synthetic bacterial genome (“Life Swap: Switching genomes converts bacteria,” SN: 6/30/07, p. 403), will the genome or the new life form itself be patentable? Virgil H. SouleFrederick, Md. The team that performed this work stirred controversy when it applied for a patent on […]

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  11. Humans

    From the August 28, 1937, issue

    Trying to revive an ancient Australian tree called Great-Grandfather Peter, first report of the eerie light known as Cerenkov radiation, and the discovery of a new vitamin.

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  12. Health & Medicine

    Bad Bug: Microbe raises stomach cancer risk

    A gene in some strains of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori may greatly increase the risk of stomach cancer.

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