Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
Still Waters: Skin disease microbe tracked to ponds, swamps
Scientists establish pond water as the natural environment of Mycobacterium ulcerans, the cause of the skin disease Buruli ulcer.
- Anthropology
European Roots: Human ancestors go back in time in Spanish cave
Excavations of a cave in northern Spain have yielded a fossil jaw and tooth that provide the first solid evidence that human ancestors reached Western Europe more than 1 million years ago.
- Anthropology
A hip stance by an ancient ancestor
By 6 million years ago, upright human ancestors had evolved a hip design that remained stable for perhaps the next 4 million years, until the appearance of hip modifications in Homo erectus.
- Health & Medicine
Strong support for a basic diet
The alkalinity of diets rich in potassium—usually a reflection of heavy fruit and vegetable consumption—helps preserve muscle.
- Humans
What’s Cookin’
Science and cooking have gotten intimate, resulting in a new understanding of how molecules are transformed into food and how food is transformed by the body.
- Humans
Letters from the March 29, 2008, issue of Science News
Why switch to grass? Regarding “Switchgrass may yield biofuel bounty” (SN: 1/19/08, p. 46): Distilleries have been around since the dawn of time, including barleycorn (whiskey), maize (whiskey), potatoes (vodka), sugarcane (rum), and arcane brews distilled from beets, bread crumbs, and bamboo. The ethanol molecule cares not one wit about its particular provenance, so what […]
- Humans
Getting Facts Straight . . . or the Sarah Woolley Chronicles
Sometimes we run afoul through the best of intentions.
- Humans
A Growing Doctor Shortage
The older we get, the fewer doctors there are to attend to our frailties.
- Humans
From the March 19, 1938, issue
A unique, parabolic motion picture, an aircraft pioneer contemplates the future of flight, and a formula to link large and small.
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- Health & Medicine
Long-life Link: Gut protein ties low insulin to longevity
A new link between insulin and aging adds to scientists' understanding of longevity and points to possible targets for life-extending therapies.
- Health & Medicine
Bad Blood? Old units might be substandard
Heart patients who get transfusions of donated blood that's kept more than 14 days fare worse than patients who get fresher blood.
