Humans

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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. 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.

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  2. 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.

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  3. 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.

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  4. 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 […]

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  5. 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.

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  6. 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.

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  7. Humans

    From the January 4, 1936, issue

    Experimental rockets, a tuberculosis-fighting bacteriophage, and an antidote for barbiturate poisoning.

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  8. 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.

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  9. 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 […]

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  10. 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.

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  11. 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.

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  12. 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.

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