Humans
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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
Put Down That Fork: Studies document hazards of obesity
Being overweight or obese in middle age increases a person's risk of heart or kidney problems later in life.
By Nathan Seppa - Humans
Faked Finds: Human stem cell work is discredited
South Korean scientist Woo Suk Hwang faked embryonic stem cell findings, say investigators from Seoul National University.
By Nathan Seppa - Health & Medicine
Musical therapy for sounder sleeping
Regularly playing a droning wind instrument native to Australia significantly reduced snoring and sleep problems, Swiss researchers found.
By Janet Raloff - Humans
Letters from the January 14, 2006, issue of Science News
Alcohol calculus “A toast to thin blood” (SN: 11/12/05, p. 317) says, “the blood of people who consume 3 to 6 drinks weekly was less likely to clot in a test tube than was the blood from nondrinkers.” I wonder if there is a rebound effect that could make the blood of new abstainers even […]
By Science News - Humans
Fattening fears
Parents' concerns over neighborhood safety may cause them to keep their children indoors and thereby increase the possibility that the youngsters will become overweight.
By Janet Raloff - Archaeology
Stone Age Britons pay surprise visit
Estimated to be roughly 700,000 years old, stone tools recently unearthed along England's southeastern coast are the earliest evidence of human ancestors in northern Europe.
By Bruce Bower - Humans
From the January 4, 1936, issue
Experimental rockets, a tuberculosis-fighting bacteriophage, and an antidote for barbiturate poisoning.
By Science News - Health & Medicine
Bright Lights, Big Cancer
A woman's blood provides better sustenance for breast cancer just after she's been exposed to bright light than when she's been in steady darkness.
By Ben Harder - Humans
Letters from the January 7, 2006, issue of Science News
Death in the Americas I was wondering if researchers have given any thought to the idea that in the same way that disease devastated human populations after the European discovery of the Americas, perhaps disease was a contributing factor in the demise of much of the fauna of the Western Hemisphere (“Caribbean Extinctions: Climate change […]
By Science News - Health & Medicine
Alzheimer Clue: Busy brain connections may have downside
Brain areas that are chronically activated have excess amyloid beta, the waxy protein associated with Alzheimer's disease.
By Nathan Seppa - Anthropology
Stone Age Footwork: Ancient human prints turn up down under
An ancient, dried-up lakeshore in Australia has yielded the largest known collection of Stone Age footprints, made about 20,000 years ago.
By Bruce Bower - Anthropology
European face-off for early farmers
A new analysis of modern and ancient human skulls supports the idea that early farmers in the Middle East spread into Europe between 11,000 and 6,500 years ago, intermarried with people there, and passed on their agricultural way of life to the native Europeans.
By Bruce Bower