Humans

Health & Medicine

Cell transplants combat diabetes in mice

Scientists have successfully reversed diabetes in mice by harvesting immature pancreatic cells that make insulin from one mouse, growing them in culture, and transplanting them into a mouse with the disease, which then recedes.

Health & Medicine

Smoking Gun? Mouse tests link nicotine to crib death

Nicotine may impair a molecule that's necessary for arousing people and other animals from sleep, an effect that could account for the heightened risk of sudden infant death syndrome in babies born to women who smoked during pregnancy.

Humans

From the March 8, 1930, issue

LEAVES OLDER THAN GRAND CANYON FOUND Fossil remains of plants found in the walls of the Grand Canyon show that many millions of years ago stunted vegetation of very singular aspect grew in a great, red, sandy floodplain under a semi-arid climate in northern Arizona. This great red land has been found by Dr. David […]

Humans

Small Steps: World Summit delegates wrangle over eco-friendly future

Twenty thousand delegates from around the world met in Johannesburg last week for a contentious World Summit on Sustainable Development.

Humans

From the September 10, 1932, issue

COVER PICTURE PURSUED OVER NEW ENGLAND HILLS By chasing a blue hole in the screen of cloud that covered part of New England, a party of eclipse observers that included Prof. John Q. Stewart, Princeton astronomer, successfully saw the corona in clear sky and obtained the News Letter‘s cover picture. Originally they planned to view […]

Health & Medicine

Targeted Therapies

Tailoring prescriptions based on a person's genes may help reduce side effects and allow the development of more personalized medicine.

Archaeology

Could the Anasazi have stayed?

New computer simulations of the changing environmental conditions around one of the Anasazi cultural centers in the first part of the last millennium suggest that drought wasn't the only factor behind a sudden collapse of the civilization.

Health & Medicine

Protein flags colon, prostate cancers

A compound first identified as a possible culprit in Huntington's disease may be an indicator of cancers of the prostate gland and colon.

Health & Medicine

Antibodies fight Ebola virus in mouse test

Specially designed antibodies can thwart Ebola virus in mice by binding to a glycoprotein on the surface of virus-infected cells, suggesting a potential treatment for the lethal disease.

Health & Medicine

Fused cells hold promise of cancer vaccines

A vaccine composed of tumor cells fused to immune cells has helped several people survive advanced kidney cancer.

Archaeology

Ancient Asian Tools Crossed the Line

Excavations in China yield surprising finds of 800,000-year-old stone hand axes.

Health & Medicine

Arctic Sneeze: Greenlanders’ allergies are increasing

Allergies in Greenland nearly doubled from 1987 to 1998.