Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
Neuron Savers: Gene therapy slows Alzheimer’s disease
Putting extra copies of the gene for a cellular growth factor into the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease appears to slow the degenerative condition.
- Health & Medicine
Zinc boosts kids’ learning
Zinc fortification improved mental skills in children with normal healthy diets, suggesting that the recommended intake for this mineral may need to be raised.
- Health & Medicine
When the stomach gets low on acid
A study in mice shows that a shortage of stomach acid can lead to cancer, apparently as a result of bacterial overgrowth and inflammation.
- Health & Medicine
Licorice ingredient ferrets out herpes
A compound in licorice homes in on lab-grown cells infected with a herpes virus and induces them to self-destruct.
- Health & Medicine
Season Affects Cancer-Surgery Survival
Ample vitamin D at the time of lung-cancer surgery dramatically increases the odds that a patient will be alive and cancerfree 5 years later.
- Humans
Letters from the April 23, 2005, issue of Science News
The shark as red herring I’m sure you published “A Fishy Therapy,” (SN: 3/5/05, p. 154) in good faith, but I believe that claims for shark cartilage are not made seriously by anyone who studies the role of natural substances in cancer prevention. It was proved ineffective long ago. I think your article does a […]
- Humans
From the April 20, 1935, issue
Workings of human body portrayed in new exhibit, tapping brain waves to study epilepsy, and the discovery of a new amino acid.
- Health & Medicine
Fast Start: Sex readily spreads HIV in infection’s first weeks
People with HIV are many times more infectious to their sexual partners in the weeks or months just after they acquire the virus than they are later on, a study in Uganda demonstrates conclusively.
- 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.
- 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.
- Health & Medicine
Step up to denser bones
Step aerobics proved better than resistance exercises for building bone density.
- 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).
