Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
Too Much of a Good Thing: Excess vitamin A may hike bone-fracture rate
Dietary studies suggest that people who consume large amounts of vitamin A in foods or multivitamins are more likely to suffer hip fractures than are people who ingest modest amounts.
- Health & Medicine
Do liver stem cells come from bone marrow?
Tests of liver tissue from people who've received liver or blood-marrow transplants show that stem cells in bone marrow can populate the liver as liver cells.
- Health & Medicine
Getting the Bugs Out of Blood
Researchers are developing methods for inactivating all sorts of pathogens that could be found in blood, including West Nile virus, an emerging infection recently brought to the United States from Africa.
- Humans
From the January 21, 1933, issue
SEVEN SLEEPERS CATACOMBS EXPLORED BY ARCHAEOLOGISTS One of the most venerable of Christian legends, running back through the middle ages into late antiquity, is that of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus: seven youths who hid themselves from the persecution of a pagan Roman emperor and awoke 200 years later to find the empire Christian. Then, […]
- Health & Medicine
C-Minus—The Fallout of Parents’ Smoking
Children who live with smokers may need more oranges and other rich sources of vitamin C, a new study concludes. It finds that exposure to even a little secondhand smoke significantly depresses concentrations of this important vitamin. Oranges are usually the first food that most people think of when asked to name sources of vitamin […]
- Health & Medicine
Blood-Clot Surprise: Finding might explain a danger of Viagra
An amendment to the blood-clotting pathway might link Viagra to heart attacks in some users.
- Health & Medicine
Nifty Spittle: Compound in bat saliva may aid stroke patients
An anticlotting molecule in the saliva of vampire bats combats strokelike brain damage in mice.
- Humans
From the June 28, 1930, issue
MULTIPLE AILERONS When men first began to dream of flying like birds (which they have done ever since the legendary Daedalus), they watched the flight of birds, hoping to catch their trick and learn to imitate them. The many-faceted Leonardo used to spend hours and days watching and sketching pigeons. And when at last the […]
- Health & Medicine
Herbal Activity
The Alternative Medicine Foundation offers a searchable database that provides scientific and general information about the biochemical activity of a variety of herbs, from Achillea (Yarrow) to Ziziphus (Jujube). The entry for each herb includes warnings about dangers to human health and links to relevant abstracts in the scientific literature. Go to: http://www.herbmed.org
- Health & Medicine
Stroke protection: A little fish helps
As little as one serving of fish per month offers protection against the most common form of stroke.
- Health & Medicine
Drug protects mouse eggs from radiation
Mice protected by a drug from radiation-induced sterility have normal offspring.
- Health & Medicine
Cheap hypertension drug works best
An old-fashioned pill for preventing high blood pressure and some heart disease appears to work better than new, more expensive drugs.
