Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
Mixed Blessing: Unusual gene helps heart, hurts immunity
People carrying a variant of a gene that encodes an immune protein called toll-like receptor 4 have a weaker defense against infections but appear to be less prone to heart disease.
- Health & Medicine
More than Skin Deep? Beauty products may damage fetal development
A new report shows that many cosmetics contain phthalates—a class of chemicals known to cause developmental deformities in animals.
- Health & Medicine
Disabled Defense: HIV protein counters immune-cell gene
Immune cells contain a protein that can inhibit HIV replication if the AIDS virus lacks a key protein.
- Health & Medicine
Gender differences in weight loss
Men and women gain weight differently and may lose it differently, too.
- Health & Medicine
Antioxidants for greyhounds? Not a good bet
Antioxidant vitamins that greyhound racers have been giving their animals to boost performance actually slow down the dogs.
- Health & Medicine
Study fails to link vasectomy to cancer
Researchers have found that men with prostate cancer are no more likely to have had a vasectomy than healthy men are.
- Health & Medicine
Method could boost diabetes therapy
Allowing insulin-producing islets to grow in close contact with each other during cell culture may increase the chance of successful transplant into diabetic people.
- Health & Medicine
Melanoma gene quickly reeled in
Biologists have discovered a gene that may contribute to many cases of deadly skin cancer.
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- Health & Medicine
Do-It-Yourself: Virus recreated from synthetic DNA
In an experiment with implications for bioterrorism, scientists have used poliovirus' widely known genetic sequence to synthesize that virus from DNA and other chemicals.
- Health & Medicine
Vaccine for All? Math model supports mass smallpox inoculation
Vaccinating an entire city in response to a smallpox terrorist attack would save thousands more lives than would quarantining infected people and vaccinating anyone they contacted.
- Anthropology
Evolution’s Surprise: Fossil find uproots our early ancestors
Researchers announced the discovery of a nearly complete fossil skull, along with jaw fragments and isolated teeth, from the earliest known member of the human evolutionary family, which lived in central Africa between 7 million and 6 million years ago.
