Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Humans
Student Scientists to Watch: With diverse ideas, young talents win big in annual competition
With science projects by 40 of the nation's brightest high school students arrayed before them last week, judges had the task of weighing the merits of undertakings as diverse as the study of deep-sea volcanism and the development of a promising new antibiotic.
- Health & Medicine
Hepatitis B link to cancer is clarified
A kind of hepatitis B called genotype C is more likely to lead to liver cancer than are other genotypes of the hepatitis virus.
- Health & Medicine
Tungsten-alloy shrapnel might cause cancer
Wounds caused by shrapnel comprising tungsten alloyed with nickel and cobalt cause cancer in rats, raising questions about the wisdom of using tungsten in munitions.
- Humans
From the March 9, 1935, issue
How early fish learned to swim, a long-distance record for short radio waves, and tidal effects inside Earth.
- Health & Medicine
Anoint Them with Oil: Cheap-and-easy treatment cuts infection rates in premature infants
Massaging premature babies with sunflower-seed oil can cut bloodborne infection rates.
- Health & Medicine
Blindness Hazard: Gene variant tied to macular degeneration
People who make a particular form of an immune system protein have a heightened risk of developing old-age blindness.
- Health & Medicine
Injections cut need for HIV drugs
An experimental vaccine, when given to people infected with HIV, appears to reduce their dependence on antiviral drugs.
- Humans
Death can outdo ABCs of prevention
Abstinence and monogamy may deserve little, if any, credit for the recent drop in the proportion of Ugandans who are infected with HIV.
- Health & Medicine
The Zero Gravity Diet
Living in space punishes the body as much as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, says a new study of astronaut health and nutrition.
- Humans
Letters from the March 12, 2005, issue of Science News
Cheaters like us? The model for the emergence of a population of “cheaters” out of a population of “cooperators” described in “When Laziness Pays: Math explains how cooperation and cheating evolve” (SN: 1/15/05, p. 35) gives a fresh viewpoint on existing ecosystems—and much more. Might the evolution of asymmetric modern sex from symmetric DNA exchange […]
- Health & Medicine
Inner-brain electrode may curb depression
Deep-brain electrical stimulation has shown promise in treating severe depression.
- Anthropology
Inside view of our wee, ancient cousins
A tiny, humanlike species that inhabited an Indonesian island more than 20,000 years ago possessed a brain that shared some organizational features with Homo erectus, a large-brained human ancestor that thought in complex ways.
