Humans

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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Health & Medicine

    Joint Effort: Bacteria in yogurt combat arthritis in rats

    Yogurt containing certain types of live bacteria may help prevent or treat arthritis.

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  2. Health & Medicine

    Curbing Allergy to Insect Venom: Therapy stops reactions to stings years later

    Some children don't outgrow an allergy to insect stings, but immunizations against such allergies can protect them into adulthood.

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  3. Health & Medicine

    Cancer cells on the move

    A new study suggests how a gene recently linked to liver, skin, and pancreatic cancer also causes an often-deadly form of breast cancer.

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  4. Health & Medicine

    Boldly into the breech controversy

    Addressing a long-simmering controversy, a large new study has shown that in pregnancies where the baby has positioned itself to emerge feet or buttocks first, the delivery safest for the mother and child is a planned cesarean section rather than a vaginal birth.

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  5. Health & Medicine

    A vaccine to help ex-smokers

    By generating antibodies that neutralize nicotine, a vaccine could keep ex-smokers from getting the nicotine high that drives many of them back to their bad habit.

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  6. Health & Medicine

    Caffeine may ward off Parkinson’s

    Scientists may have found an explanation for why coffee drinking prevents Parkinson's disease.

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  7. Health & Medicine

    Sputum Test May Predict Lung Cancer

    By zeroing in on aberrations in two cancer-fighting genes, researchers have found a marker for cancer risk that could help doctors screen people for signs of lung cancer early enough for treatment to be effective.

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  8. Health & Medicine

    Old-fashioned circumcision can spread herpes

    Boys whose ritual circumcisions involve an ancient, and now rare, practice may acquire herpes during the operation.

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  9. Health & Medicine

    Severe sweating treated with Botox

    A new treatment has been approved for excessive sweating, or hyperhidrosis, which is surprisingly common.

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  10. Humans

    Letters from the August 14, 2004, issue of Science News

    It’s a groove thing I don’t want to downplay genuine discovery, but your story about optically reading old records left me a little underwhelmed (“Groovy Pictures: Extracting sound from images of old audio recordings,” SN: 5/29/04, p. 339: Groovy Pictures: Extracting sound from images of old audio recordings). The optical playing of records has been […]

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  11. Health & Medicine

    What’s the Beef?

    Beef certified as Angus may not always be as tender as consumers expect.

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  12. Health & Medicine

    HIV drugs may stop cervical disease

    A drug combination given to people with HIV, the AIDS virus, helps knock out precancerous cervical lesions in some women.

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