Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
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- Anthropology
Wild chimps scale branches of culture
Distinctive behaviors in wild-chimp communities point to a basic cultural capacity in these animals.
- Humans
Letters from the November 17, 2007, issue of Science News
Unequal opportunity “The Wealth of Nations” (SN: 9/1/07, p. 138) describes the difficulty of moving from exporting one product to exporting another in terms of a “distance” between various products. I would imagine, however, that a nation that already manufactures computers, for example, could easily move into calculators, but that the reverse might not be […]
- Humans
From the November 6, 1937, issue
Giant electrical generators take shape in Pittsburgh, astronomers puzzle over unusual stellar spectra, and a dinosaur ancestor from Texas visits Harvard.
- Humans
Where’s the Fire?
The National Interagency Fire Center tracks big wildfires blazing around the United States and identifies—via its InciWeb—which ones are contained, along with running totals for acres scorched so far this year. The site offers tables of multi-year fire records, interesting stats, as well as maps of current outbreaks. Go to: http://www.nifc.gov/fire_info.html
- Health & Medicine
Nongene DNA boosts AIDS risk
People with a newly discovered genetic variation are more vulnerable to HIV infection.
- Humans
Burdens of knowledge
Greater understanding of the role of genetics in human diseases presents scientists with ethical dilemmas.
- Health & Medicine
Salmonella seeks sweets
A sugarlike substance in the roots of lettuce may attract food-poisoning bacteria.
- Health & Medicine
Earache microbe shows resistance
A strain of bacterium that causes middle ear infection is resistant to all antibiotics currently approved for the ailment.
- Health & Medicine
Mother Knows All
Fragments of a fetus' genetic material that leak into a pregnant woman's bloodstream reveal details of early fetal development.
- Humans
Letters from the November 10, 2007, issue of Science News
Thinking it through Bjorn Merker says that “the tacit consensus concerning the cerebral cortex as the ‘organ of consciousness’ … may in fact be seriously in error” (“Consciousness in the Raw,” SN: 9/15/07, p. 170). But the real tacit consensus is that the cerebral cortex is the organ of conceptual consciousness, of thinking and reasoning, […]
- Humans
From the October 30, 1937, issue
A photographer captures the coming of winter, motion pictures show how cancer spreads through the blood, and engineers get new oil from old Pennsylvania wells.
