Humans
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.)
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Health & Medicine
Recovery help from the blogosphere
And some who have been there now are sharing tips on what it takes to become a successful survivor.
- Health & Medicine
You can be too thin
Eating disorders aren’t about vanity. They are mental illnesses that can prove deadly.
- Health & Medicine
The media’s dangerous influence on body image
A study found how powerful TV and ad messages can be in distorting the attitudes about body image among young girls in Fiji.
- Archaeology
Mummies existed before Egypt’s pyramids
Materials from an ancient Egyptian cemetery suggest people were preserving their dead long before the pyramids and pharaohs.
- Health & Medicine
Watch out: Cell phones can be addictive
Smartphones and Facebook are convenient. New research shows that for some people they also can become dangerously addictive.
- Health & Medicine
Ebola update: Signs of hope
The deadly outbreak of Ebola in West Africa is the worst the world has ever seen. Scientists are studying the virus that causes it and testing experimental vaccines and treatments to try to save lives.
