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Below is today’s selection of the most interesting science, health, and tech news reports. For analysis and commentary from around the Web, check out the hot topics page. For Human Nature’s takes on some of these stories, visit the blog. (I generally post the link first and write the blog entry later, so check back.) To add your own take, open or join a discussion thread in the Fray—and please link to the original story so others can participate intelligently in the conversation.
April 16
Growing “a human vascular system in mice” to test drugs
(Hellmut Augustin et al, Nature Methods)
A video-game headset that translates your real thoughts into virtual action
(Peter Sergo, Scientific American)
U.S. on track for 2 million knee and hip replacements per year
(Sunny Kim, Arthritis Care & Research)
Injection reactivates paralyzed limbs
(Prachi Patel-Predd, Technology Review)
A progress report on walking military robots – model #1 and model #2
(Larry Greenemeier, Scientific American)
“Many animals prefer to mate with their brothers, sisters and other relatives.”
(Ewen Callaway, Science News)
Testosterone spray to boost women’s sex lives works no better than placebo
(Andrew Humberstone et al, Annals of Internal Medicine)
HGH doesn’t help athletic performance
(Andrew Hoffman et al, Annals of Internal Medicine)
Extra choices deplete stamina and productivity
(Kathleen Vohs et al, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology)
“Could Microbes Cause Mental Illness?”
(Melinda Wenner , Scientific American)
Goodbye, antibiotics. Hello, bacteria-killing viruses.
(Jennifer Chu, Technology Review)
April 15
Brain scans predict human choices 7 seconds in advance
(John-Dylan Haynes et al, Nature Neuroscience)
Testosterone improves financial traders’ performance but could lead to market crashes
(John Coates et al, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)
French Assembly approves ban on images that incite extreme thinness
(Devorah Lauter, Associated Press)
South Korea begins inspections of dog-meat restaurants
(Agence France Presse)
A new way to create cloned and chimeric children?
(Steve Connor, Independent)
Will “artificial gametes” let gay couples produce fully biological kids?
(BBC)
U.S. abortion and teen pregnancy rates declined from 1990 to 2004
(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
Progress in male birth control
(Kathleen Doheny, HealthDay)
State legislators seek to restrict criminals’ access to guns
(Jennifer Steinhauer, New York Times)
Cell phones endanger walking kids
(HealthDay)
Food and energy shortages are good for slimming down
(Manuel Franco et al, Canadian Medical Association Journal)
Girls are doing more organized sports but getting less non-sports activity
(Robert Preidt, HealthDay)
Detecting terrorists through sweat-scanning
(Yuri Feldman et al, (Physical Review Letters)
Robot faces start to look more expressive
(Bill Christensen, LiveScience)
Hospitals replace factories as employers
(Conor Dougherty, Wall Street Journal) ($)
April 14
Church attendance predicts marital fidelity, but self-reported faith doesn’t
(David Atkins et al, Journal of Marriage and Family)
Man uses foreign saliva to confound a paternity test
(José Antonio Lorente Acosta et al, University of Granada)
Even rich college kids exchange sex for goods and services
(Daniel Kruger, Journal of Evolutionary Psychology)
U.S. prepares to use satellites for domestic surveillance
(Spencer Hsu, Washington Post)
Majority-female classrooms produce better performance and behavior
(Analia Schlosser, Tel Aviv University)
Guns are the weapon in 49 percent of violent U.S. deaths
(CDC / Agence France Presse)
8,000-year-old trees found alive
(Niklas Pollard, Reuters)
China prepares weather-control rockets for Olympics
(Liu Zhen, Reuters)
Female sexual dissatisfaction isn’t related to circulation
(Jennifer McCall-Hosenfeld et al, American Journal of Medicine)
Germany moves to ease its cut-off date for embryonic stem cells
(Kerstin Gehmlich, Reuters)
Web sites promote suicide and tell you how to do it
(Lucy Biddle et al, British Medical Journal)
Seattle’s proposal to ban foam plates, cups, and cartons
(Stuart Glascock, Los Angeles Times)
More on mobile traffic-congestion monitoring
(Joseph White, Wall Street Journal) ($)
April 11
Parents of two-faced baby reject medical intervention
(Tony Tharakan, Reuters)
The newest muscle-building drugs: Advil and Tylenol
(Chad Carroll et al, Experimental Biology 2008)
Housework improves mental health—but sports are even better
(Mark Hamer et al, British Journal of Sports Medicine)
Substituting amphetamines for cocaine
(Paul Czoty et al, Wake Forest University)
Are backpacks bad for circulation?
(Timothy Neuschwander et al, University of California–San Diego)
Aerobic fitness “can delay biological aging by up to 12 years”
(Roy Shephard, British Journal of Sports Medicine)
Living on campus means more calories but more exercise
(Sukho Lee and Kyung-shin Park, Texas A&M International University)
More bad habits related to TV in your bedroom
(Daheia Barr-Anderson et al, University of Minnesota)
Remotely-operated chemical detection of explosives
(Theodore Goodson, Nanotechnology)
April 10
The new German chemical suicide machine
(Roger Boyes, Times)
20% of Nature readers say they’ve taken pills for brain enhancement
(Brendan Maher, Nature)
Limb-lengthening surgery adds 12 centimeters to dwarf girl
(Pushpa Narayan, TNN)
New York begins routine steroid testing of cops
(Al Baker, New York Times)
Surgery to add two inches to the top of your head
(Tom Worden, Daily Mail)
Breast enlargements for minors increased 500 percent in a decade
(Melanie Lefkowitz and Beth Whitehouse, Newsday)
Washington, D.C., centralizes 24-hour monitoring of 5,000 surveillance cameras
(Mary Beth Sheridan, Washington Post)
“Intelligent surveillance cameras” identify security threats
(Yomiuri Shimbun)
Evidence that horses can count
(Nic Fleming, Telegraph)
Microsoft offers a traffic-avoidance route planner
(John Markoff, New York Times)
Breastfeeding can pass HIV from babies to moms
(Leila Saralayeva, Associated Press)
New York expands its definition of “gifted” kids
(Elissa Gootman, New York Times)
Does diagnostic expansion account for the autism explosion?
(Dorothy Bishop et al, Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology)
Christian legal group sues to stop human-animal hybrids
(BBC / Roger Highfield, Telegraph)
U.K. poll supports making hybrids but opposes IVF without a father
(Mark Henderson and Greg Hurst, Times)
Baldness link to heart disease refuted
(American Journal of Epidemiology / Reuters)
Robots modeled on human brains
(Hubertus Breuer, Guardian)
Are intelligence agencies already using brain scans to detect lies?
(Jonathan Marks, American Journal of Law and Medicine / Tom Chivers, Telegraph)
Breast enlargement without surgery?
(Anjana Gosai, Times)
Lieberman campaign’s allegation of “coordinated attack” on its Web site debunked
(Thomas Kaplan, New York Times)
