Life

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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Life

    Years or decades later, flu exposure still prompts immunity

    New forms of influenza viruses can spur production of antibodies to past pandemics in people who lived through them.

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  2. Life

    To make biofuel, cut the lignin

    Researchers disable key protein making plant sugars easier to access.

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  3. Health & Medicine

    Gut-brain communication failure may spur overeating

    Restoring a depleted molecule in obese mice repaired their abnormal response to food.

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  4. Life

    Lab-grown heart has rhythm

    Researchers transform stem cells into contracting cardiac cells.

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  5. Animals

    New carnivore species found

    Tiny olingo species dubbed 'olinguito'.

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  6. Animals

    Antarctic waters may shelter wrecks from shipworms

    Ocean currents and polar front form 'moat' that keeps destructive mollusks at bay.

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  7. Health & Medicine

    Mediterranean diet may offset genetic risk for stroke

    Compared to a low-fat diet, eating fish and olive oil kept blood sugar levels lower in people with a common diabetes risk factor.

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  8. Humans

    DNA reveals details of the peopling of the Americas

    Migrants came in three distinct waves that interbred once in the New World.

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  9. Life

    Envisioning a fly brain

    A new map of the fruit fly brain shows how the insect detects motion.

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  10. Neuroscience

    The Autistic Brain

    Thinking Across the Spectrum by Temple Grandin and Richard Panek.

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  11. Genetics

    A glowing green thumb

    Omri Amirav-Drory wants to engineer a glow-in-the-dark garden.

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  12. Animals

    Noise may disrupt a bat’s dinner

    Mechanical cacophony can drown out the whispers of moving insect prey.

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