Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
Friend or foe? Drunk, the brain can’t tell
Intoxicated brains can’t discern between threatening and safe situations.
- Humans
A Proposed NSF for Innovation
Researchers with the Brookings Institution have just published a blueprint for tackling what they perceive as a brewing innovation crisis. They propose that Uncle Sam create a federal agency to focus squarely on helping home-grown companies increase their innovation, productivity and profitability.
- Humans
Bear deadline
Court calls for the already overdue decision on listing polar bears as a threatened species.
- Health & Medicine
Let there be light
Researchers report restoring vision to people with a rare, genetic form of blindness. A different technique helped blind mice see again and could bring back some sight in people with macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa or other blinding diseases.
- Psychology
Smarten up
Taxing memory training produces at least short-term increases in a critical type of intelligence.
- Health & Medicine
Tripping up avian flu
Developing an effective vaccine for avian flu has been difficult, but small rings of DNA that hinder virus replication could offer an alternative.
- Ecosystems
Building Homes Where the Buffalo Roamed
A new study finds that being environmentally conscious is no guarantee you’ll put your home where you mouth is.
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- Humans
The Return of EPA’s Libraries
After mothballing five libraries as a purported cost-cutting gesture, the agency is now responding to congressional prodding and unboxing its books.
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- Health & Medicine
New approach might strike at the core of Alzheimer’s disease
By finding a way to stick an enzyme-inhibiting molecule to the membrane of a cell, scientists may have devised the framework for an Alzheimer’s drug.
- Humans
Incan skull surgery
Incan healers became highly adept at skull surgery techniques that developed over thousands of years in ancient Peru.
