Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Health & Medicine
Tracking obesity
New data suggest that childhood obesity in the United States may have leveled off between 1999 and 2006.
- Life
Fly fountain of youth
Hanging out with young, healthy flies helps fruit flies with a mutation that causes neurodegeneration live longer.
- 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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- Anthropology
They’re fake, Indy!
Scientists find that two rock crystal skulls often attributed to pre-Columbian societies are really modern phonies.
- Humans
BOOK REVIEW | Naked in the Woods: Joseph Knowles and the Legacy of Frontier Fakery
Review by Davide Castelvecchi.
- 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
- 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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