Humans

  1. Anthropology

    These spines were made for walking

    A new analysis of fossil backbones indicates that human ancestors living around 3 million years ago were able to walk much as people today do.

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  2. Anthropology

    Noses didn’t need cold to evolve

    Neandertals evolved big, broad noses not in response to a cold climate, as has often been argued, but in conjunction with the expansion of their upper jaws.

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  3. Health & Medicine

    Step up to denser bones

    Step aerobics proved better than resistance exercises for building bone density.

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  4. Health & Medicine

    Company pulls pain drug from market

    The Food and Drug Administration has asked Pfizer to stop selling its prescription pain medication valdecoxib (Bextra).

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  5. Health & Medicine

    Is Chromium in Your Mineral Supplement?

    As a new study on chromium illustrates, the value of a mineral supplement can depend greatly on which chemical form of the mineral a manufacturer uses.

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  6. Humans

    From the April 13, 1935, issue

    A giant meteorite discovered in Kansas, gasoline made from coal in Germany, and elastic rock layers deep in the earth.

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  7. Anthropology

    Stone Age Cutups: Deathly rituals emerge at Neandertal site

    A new analysis of 130,000-year-old fossils found in a Croatian cave a century ago suggests that Neandertals ritually cut up corpses of their comrades and perhaps engaged in cannibalism.

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  8. Health & Medicine

    Messy Mix? Combined vaccine yields fewer antibodies

    Some common childhood vaccines don't seem to work as well when administered with, or at the same time as, other vaccines.

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  9. Humans

    Letters from the April 16, 2005, issue of Science News

    Ax questions, hard answers Another hypothesis for the polish on the Stone Age corundum ax head is that the Stone Age people never had absolutely pure corundum, which indeed would have required diamond to polish (“In the Buff: Stone Age tools may have derived luster from diamond,” SN: 2/19/05, p. 116). It is possible that […]

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  10. Health & Medicine

    Smelly garlic: A lung tonic?

    Fresh garlic or its powdered equivalent might prevent a potentially lethal condition in which pulmonary blood pressure is selectively elevated.

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  11. Health & Medicine

    Blood hints at autism’s source

    A new biochemical profile in blood may lead to earlier diagnosis of autism and a better understanding of its genetic causes.

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  12. Health & Medicine

    Viagra might rescue risky pregnancies

    Viagra shows promise for limiting threats of fetal loss from preeclampsia, a type of high blood pressure that frequently occurs during pregnancy.

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