Humans

  1. Humans

    Stone Age stencils: Really old art

    Scientists thought that cave art started in Europe. New analyses now dash that assessment. Stencils in an Indonesian cave are every bit as old as the better-known drawings in caves in France and Spain.

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  2. Health & Medicine

    Pills of frozen poop fight killer disease

    Popping poop pills? Of course it sounds yucky. But researchers find it might just be one of the most effective ways to knock out a very serious — and tough-to-kill — intestinal disease.

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  3. Microbes

    Explainer: What is C. difficile?

    Over the past two decades, these severe bacterial infections have evolved from a no-big-deal occurrence to a common, life-threatening problem.

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  4. Health & Medicine

    Strong body helps the mind

    Study finds new link between the body and brain in mice and may help explain how exercise heals.

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  5. Health & Medicine

    Exercise builds brawn — and brains

    One 20-minute session of leg exercises improved memory recall by about 10 percent.

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  6. Health & Medicine

    News Brief: First cases of Ebola acquired outside Africa

    Health workers who had worn extensive protective gear still became infected with Ebola while treating patients in Spain and the United States.

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  7. Brain

    The distracted teenage brain

    Teens often show poor judgment in decision-making. Scientists have long blamed this on the fact that their brains are still developing. A new study offers another explanation: distractions form rewarding behaviors — ones that persist even after the reward itself has disappeared.

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  8. Health & Medicine

    Artificial sweeteners may evict good gut microbes

    People use saccharin and other artificial sweeteners to try to stay healthy. A study now suggests such sweeteners might actually cause harm by encouraging the wrong bacteria to grow in our guts.

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  9. Health & Medicine

    News Brief: U.S. gets its first Ebola case

    Although U.S. hospitals have treated a handful of American health-care workers who had become exposed to Ebola in Africa, the first case of a sick traveller has emerged. His Ebola infection showed no symptoms until several days after he reached Texas. (Update: On October 8, the man died.)

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  10. Archaeology

    Pyramids’ blocks: Possibly rock ‘n’ rolled

    No one knows how the ancient Egyptians moved the big stones needed to build their pyramids. A new study suggests they could have rolled them, by attaching wooden posts to the sides.

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  11. Health & Medicine

    Ebola epidemic could top 1 million, CDC warns

    The deadly Ebola epidemic ravaging West Africa has now infected more people than in all previous outbreaks put together. And still the numbers of the sick and dying continue to grow, not shrink.

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  12. Brain

    Eating disorders: The brain’s foul trickery

    Experts on eating disorders are probing why sometimes deadly chemical changes can distort how much the brain says we need to eat.

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