October 28, 2007
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  • The World Is Not Enough for Humans
  • Successful Malaria Vaccine Also Proves Effective in Infants
  • Pollution-Busting Plants
  • News Bytes of the Week—Ovulating Strippers Make Bigger Tips
  • "Knockout mice" designers win Nobel Prize

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  • News Bytes of the Week—Star Trek Star Gets Own Asteroid
  • Putting the Squeeze on Nanothreads to Spin Living Tissue
  • News Bytes of the Week—Attack of the space microbes
  • HIV Vaccine Hopeful Fails
  • News Bytes of the Week—Peru Crater Mystery

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  • Hospitals and Superbugs: Go in Sick... Get Sicker
    Nearly 100,000 people die every year from bugs that they pick up in health care facilities; experts say most of these infections are preventable
  • 50 Years Ago in Scientific American: "Metropolitan Segregation"
    Appearing in the October, 1957 edition of Scientific American, this article is an early mention of a phenomenon that would come to be known as "white flight."
  • Do Nanoparticles and Sunscreen Mix?
    Your first encounter with "better" living through nanotechnology may be your sunscreen
  • Race-Based Medicine: A Recipe for Controversy
    Is race-based medicine a boon or boondoggle?
  • What Finnish Grandmothers Reveal about Human Evolution
    Biologist Virpi Lummaa's work reveals that humans may be the best subject to study for evolutionary effects across generations

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  • Floyd Landis tested positive for increased testosterone on the day of his spectacular stage win at the Tour de France last year, after testing negative on previous days. Can a large dose of the hormone produce such an immediate and profound improvement?
  • How is everyday onboard exercise on the International Space Station changing the rate of bone loss of its occupants? Can individual differences between humans explain differences in bone loss in microgravity?
  • Why and how do body parts itch? Why does it feel good to scratch an itch?
  • Does sleeping after a meal lead to weight gain?
  • What causes dizziness?

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  • Fact or Fiction?: Stress Causes Gray Hair
    Scientists have a hunch that the gray hairs we dread (or welcome) may arrive sooner with stress
  • Fact or Fiction?: Chewing Gum Takes Seven Years to Digest
    A myth as durable as gum itself holds that the chewy confection sticks to your innards like it does to the bottom of a desk
  • Strange but True: Less Sleep Means More Dreams
    Missing sleep tonight may just boost your dreams tomorrow night.
  • Fact or Fiction?: Pets Protect Children against Allergies
    Pets may or may not help fend off developing allergies but they will help keep the house from being antiseptically clean.
  • Strange but True: Cats Cannot Taste Sweets
    There is a reason cats prefer meaty wet food to dry kibble, and disdain sugar entirely

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  •   Blood Cells for Sale
    There's more to blood banking than just bagging blood
  •   Experimental Drugs on Trial
    A controversial lawsuit challenges the FDA's system of controlling access to experimental drugs and, some say, the scientific basis of drug approval
  •   A Question of Sustenance
    Globalization ushered in a world in which more than a billion are overfed. Yet hundreds of millions still suffer from hunger's persistent scourge
  • Can Fat Be Fit?
    A well-publicized study and a spate of popular books raise questions about the ill effects of being overweight. Their conclusions are probably wrong
  •   Is Your Food Contaminated
    New approaches are needed to protect the food supply

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  •   Easing Hormone Anxiety
    For women just past menopause, hormone pills seem safe
  •   Surviving Side Effects
    Security fears spawn ways to treat radiotherapy's downside
  •   Healing Broken Nerves
    Combination therapy as the best approach for damaged spinal cords
  • Suffering a Slow Recovery
    Failed rebuilding after Katrina sets off a mental health crisis in the Gulf
  •   Attitude Screen
    Seeing if the public is ready for personal genetic information

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  • An Institution between Covers
    The 39th edition expands Gray's original task
  • Deploying Science to Desperate Ends
    In the search for cures, how much is permissible?

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  • Going beyond X and Y
    Babies born with mixed sex organs often get immediate surgery. New genetic studies, Eric Vilain says, should force a rethinking about sex assignment and gender identity.
  • A Proposition for Stem Cells
    Last fall Robert Klein got Californians to vote for embryonic stem cell work. That was a piece of cake compared with getting the resulting research agency off the ground
  • A Biomedical Politician
    Detractors initially worried that he might be a White House shill, but Elias A. Zerhouni says his medical thinking guides his stewardship of the National Institutes of Health
  • Extreme Medicine
    In a hospital northeast of Kabul, surgeon Gino Strada is redefining what it means to provide quality medical care in a combat zone

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