Science News articles from November 2005

Science News archives from November 2005

New partners: Hubble finds more moons around Pluto.(This Week)
November 5, 2005... Already deemed the oddball among planets, Pluto just got a new wrinkle. Two, actually. This week, astronomers announced that the Hubble Space Telescope has spied a pair of previously unrecognized moons orbiting Pluto, giving this outer solar...

More than an annoyance: breathlessness could be sign of bigger problems.(dyspnea)
November 5, 2005... Everyone runs out of breath from physical exertion. But for people with a condition called dyspnea, even a minor effort makes breathing difficult. A new study suggests that these people are at greater risk of dying of heart problems or other...

Light pedaling: photonic brakes are vital for circuits.(This Week)
November 5, 2005... Just as optical fibers have replaced most electrical wires for long-distance telecommunications, light-based circuits may replace electrical ones in applications involving vast flows of data within computers and networks. Now, a team of...

Bad readout from DNA: genes that act on brain may promote dyslexia.(This Week)
November 5, 2005... Four independent studies from the United States, Germany, and England implicate two genes in fostering dyslexia. The genes contribute to early brain development. Dyslexia, a learning disorder that afflicts at least 5 percent of elementary...

Beyond falsetto: do mice sing at ultrasonic frequencies?(This Week)
November 5, 2005... Male mice may serenade prospective mates at pitches about two octaves higher than the shrillest sounds audible to people. This "mouse song" is comparable in complexity to the sequences of tones that songbirds and some whales make, say...

Up to snuff: nanotube network fights flames.(This Week)
November 5, 2005... Plastics readily burn. That's why their makers add fire-suppressing chemicals. But some of these additives have been shown to be harmful to animals and are being phased out. In an upcoming Nature Materials, researchers describe another way to...

Volcanic suppression: major eruptions can reduce sea level.(This Week)
November 5, 2005... Large volcanic eruptions can temporarily cool Earth's climate and, a team of scientists now suggests, lower sea level worldwide. The tiny particles of broken rock and droplets of condensed gases that a volcano ejects high into the...

Pushing the limit: digital-communications experts are zeroing in on the perfect code.
November 5, 2005... When SMART-1, the European Space Agency's first mission to the moon, launched in September 2003, astronomers hailed it as the testing ground for a revolutionary and efficient solar-electric-propulsion technology. While this technological leap...

Questions on the couch: researchers spar over how best to evaluate psychotherapy.(Cover Story)
November 5, 2005... These are the times that try psychotherapists' souls. Federal and state mental-health budget cuts have reduced the number of people who can afford one-on-one psychotherapy sessions to address their problems. Managed care companies demand to see...

A matter of gravity.(relativity theory research)(Brief Article)
November 5, 2005... "Einstein's theory triumphs!" So proclaimed the New York Times on Nov. 10, 1919 making Albert Einstein a celebrity. The headline referred to a stunning confirmation of one of relativity theory's most audacious claims: that starlight is bent by...

Chimps indifferent to others' welfare.(ANTHROPOLOGY)(Brief Article)
November 5, 2005... Even if they have nothing to lose, chimpanzees opt not to help strangers, according to a team that studied unrelated chimps at two research facilities. The new findings complement earlier studies indicating that chimps cooperate mainly...

Breath test could detect bad microbe.(fungal lung infection diagnosis)(Brief Article)
November 5, 2005... Scientists in New Zealand have devised a breath test for detecting a fungal lung infection. Using gas chromatography and mass spectroscopy, the team detected a substance called 2-pentylfuran in the breath of people infected with Aspergillus...

Dopamine gene ups schizophrenia risk.(GENETICS)
November 5, 2005... The chances of developing schizophrenia rise substantially for the small number of children who possess only one copy of a gene variant that regulates a crucial chemical messenger in the brain, according to a new finding of a long-term...

A World on Fire: A Heretic, an Aristocrat, and the Race to Discover Oxygen.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 5, 2005... A WORLD ON FIRE: A Heretic, an Aristocrat, and the Race to Discover Oxygen JOE JACKSON Oxygen was discovered by the combined but independent work of two rivals: Joseph Priestley, a self-taught scientist from England, and Antoine Lavoisier,...

The Everything Kids' Sharks Book: Dive into Fun-Infested Waters!(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 5, 2005... THE EVERYTHING KIDS' SHARKS BOOK: Dive into Fun-Infested Waters! KATHI WAGNER AND OBE WAGNER This enjoyable book uses every kind of kid-attention getter imaginable to convey information on sharks. There are word games, puzzles, riddles,...

Firefly Atlas of the Universe.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 5, 2005... FIREFLY ATLAS OF THE UNIVERSE PATRICK MOORE Billed as "a definitive reference to the stars, the planets, and the universe," this book could serve as either textbook or coffee table selection. Big, beautiful photographs from space missions,...

Out of the Blue: A Journey through the World's Oceans.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 5, 2005... OUT OF THE BLUE: A Journey through the World's Oceans PAUL HORSMAN Seventy percent of our planet is covered with water, life came from the oceans, and most people today live within a short drive of an ocean shoreline. This book is a...

Descartes' Secret Notebook: A True Tale of Mathematics, Mysticism, and the Quest to Understand the Universe.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 5, 2005... DESCARTES' SECRET NOTEBOOK: A True Tale of Mathematics, Mysticism, and the quest to Understand the Universe AMIR D. ACZEL Rene Descartes, the Frenchman responsible for both modern geometry and modern philosophy, had a secret. It was in the...

Wind or fury?(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
November 5, 2005... "The Wind and the Fury" (SN: 9/17/05, p. 184) states, "In 2004, Florida suffered its worst hurricane season in 118 years, with nine hurricanes, five of which were classified as major." While it's true that 9 of the 15 named tropical or...

They, the people?(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
November 5, 2005... Just curious about the wording in the first paragraph of "French site sparks Neandertal debate" (SN: 9/17/05, p. 189): "Around 36,000 years ago, Neandertals and people lived side by side...." Were not the Neandertals "people" and isn't it true...

Gone with the flow: ancient Andes canals irrigated farmland.(This Week)
November 12, 2005... Archaeologists working in a valley on the western slopes of Peru's Andes mountains have discovered the earliest known irrigation canals in South America, a find that illuminates the origins of large-scale agriculture in the New World. Tom...

Protective progeny: peptide treats and prevents breast cancer.
November 12, 2005... A synthetic version of a protein present in a woman's body during pregnancy is as effective against breast cancer as the current drug tamoxifen is, according to a study in rodents. The new substance may avoid tamoxifen's side effects. ...

Statins for Algernon: cholesterol-lowering drug fights learning disability.
November 12, 2005... In Daniel Keyes' 1966 novel Flowers for Algernon (Harcourt), an experimental treatment gives a mouse and a learning-disabled man increased intellectual abilities. Real-life researchers, too, have strived to develop effective treatments for...

Whiff weapon: pheromone might control invasive sea lampreys.
November 12, 2005... The sea lamprey, a serpentine fish that feasts on other fishes' blood, nearly wiped out the Great Lakes' native game fish populations in the 1940s. Now, researchers have characterized the primary components of the pheromone that the lamprey...

Yikes! The moon! Bat lunar phobia may come from slim pickings.
November 12, 2005... A study of creatures that fly around at night supplies a new answer to the question of why some bats avoid hunting under a full moon. Earlier work suggested that the bats were hiding from predators, according to Alexander Lang of the Karl...

Ghostly electrons: particles flit through atom-thin islands.(This Week)
November 12, 2005... Confine electrons within microscopically thin layers of material and weird things happen. Experiments on semiconductors in the 1980s demonstrated that to physicists (SN: 10/17/98, p. 247). Now, two independent research teams have found that...

From prison yard to holy ground.(remains of oldest Christian churches discovered at Israel )(Brief Article)
November 12, 2005... Archaeological excavations at a prison near Megiddo, Israel, have uncovered remains of what may have been one of the region's oldest Christian churches. The mosaic floor of the 6-meter-by-9-m structure, uncovered in the past 2 weeks, bears...

Protecting earth: gravitational tractor could lure asteroids off course.(This Week)
November 12, 2005... When a wayward asteroid is about to smash into Earth, scriptwriters for the movie Armageddon called in Bruce Willis to drill into the rock and nuke it. He succeeds but sacrifices his own life. Now, two NASA scientists, both also astronauts,...

Runaway heat? A darkening Arctic may accelerate warming trends there.(Cover Story)
November 12, 2005... Slide into the black vinyl seat of a car that s been parked for hours on a sunny summer day, and your exposed skin will be assaulted by heat. On an 80[degrees]F (27[degrees]C) day, that dark vinyl can reach a scorching 180[degrees]F...

That's the way the spaghetti crumbles: physicists solve a vexing kitchen puzzle.(fragmentation)
November 12, 2005... Great scientists sometimes do silly experiments. The renowned physicist and Nobel prize winner Richard P. Feynman, for instance, once got it into his head to figure out why uncooked spaghetti doesn't snap neatly in two when you bend it far...

A toast to thin blood.(alcohol consumption induces bleeding strokes)(Brief Article)
November 12, 2005... Moderate consumption of alcohol may make a person's blood less likely to clot, scientists have found. Studies have shown that people who drink regularly have a lower risk of heart attacks but a higher risk of bleeding strokes than do...

Revisiting Einstein's incomplete theory.(Brownian motion)(Brief Article)
November 12, 2005... Scientists have long known that Albert Einstein skipped something a century ago when he analyzed Brownian motion--the jiggling of particles in a fluid, such as pollen in water. Now, researchers using measurements of unprecedented precision have...

Mmmm, that's crunchy.(ANCIENT HOMINID DIET)
November 12, 2005... Analysis of isotopes in the teeth of otters and mongooses from Africa have led one paleontologist to suggest that some of humanity's ancient kin shared those modern animals' preference for shelled prey such as freshwater crabs and snails. ...

Tusk analyses suggest weaning took years.(MAMMOTHS)(Brief Article)
November 12, 2005... Tusks of juvenile mammoths carry a chemical record of the animals' environment and behaviors, including how quickly they became weaned from their mothers, scientists have found. As the tusks of modern elephants do, a mammoth's tusks grew...

Big bird terrorized South America.(flightless bird fossils)(Brief Article)
November 12, 2005... Researchers working in Argentina have discovered fossils that may represent the heftiest flightless bird to ever have roamed the planet. The fragmentary remains--a nearly complete skull and a foot bone called a tarsometatarsus--belonged to...

Thin Ice: Unlocking the Secrets of Climate in the World's Highest Mountains.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 12, 2005... THIN ICE: Unlocking the Secrets of Climate in the World's Highest Mountains MARK BOWEN Bowen, a physicist, magazine writer, and mountain climber, follows climatologist Lonnie Thompson and his collaborators as they travel to the highest...

Inside the Neolithic Mind.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 12, 2005... INSIDE THE NEOLITHIC MIND DAVID LEWIS-WILLIAMS AND DAVID PEARCE In this sequel to Lewis-Williams' bestseller The Mind in the Cave, he and Pearce examine the impetus for ancient peoples' transition from hunter-gatherers to farmers during a...

Hiding in the Mirror: The Mysterious Allure of Extra Dimensions, from Plato to String Theory and Beyond.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 12, 2005... HIDING IN THE MIRROR: The Mysterious Allure of Extra Dimensions, from Plato to String Theory and Beyond LAWRENCE M. KRAUSS The notion that other worlds exist beyond the realm of perception has captivated the minds of physicists and...

The Discoveries: Great Breakthroughs in 20th Century Science, Including the Original Papers.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 12, 2005... THE DISCOVERIES: Great Breakthroughs in 20th Century Science, Including the Original Papers ALAN LIGHTMAN The history of science is highlighted by ingenious insights, fateful accidents, and groundbreaking experimentation leading to...

Universe: The Definitive Visual Guide.(atlas by Martin Rees)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 12, 2005... UNIVERSE: The Definitive Visual Guide MARTIN REES ET AL., EDS. This oversized, illustrated atlas is a seemingly complete reference guide to the universe and astronomy. Richly detailed with full-color illustrations, diagrams, and photos, the...

Big leap.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
November 12, 2005... The pendular running gait described in "Stepping Lightly: New view of how human gaits conserve energy" (SN: 9/17/05,p. 182) as one of the most efficient bipedal gaits looks remarkably like the way eyewitnesses claim Bigfoot creatures move. In a...

Tooth teller.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
November 12, 2005... In "Oral Exams: Saliva could produce an alternative for some diagnostic tests" (SN: 9/17/05, p. 187), biologist Paul Denny indicates that if the test of the saliva shows that the young patient is at high risk for developing cavities, then extra...

Desert air.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
November 12, 2005... In "Save the Flowers" (SN: 9/24/05, p. 202), there was a line or two about carnations with an aroma of Earl Grey tea or fruit loops. Well, here in the Sonoran Desert, we have wildflowers that smell like sweaty gym socks, grape Kool-Aid, or even...

Correction.(LETTERS)(Correction Notice)
November 12, 2005... Correction "Icy world found inside asteroid" (SN: 9/24/05, p. 206) reversed the order of visits that NASA mission Dawn will make to asteroids Ceres and Vesta. The craft is scheduled to orbit Vesta in 2011 and 2012 and move on to orbit Ceres in...

Ancient grazers: find adds grass to dinosaur menu.(This Week)
November 19, 2005... Analyses of fossilized dinosaur feces in India reveal the remains of at least five types of grasses. The finding not only provides the first evidence of grass-eating dinosaurs but also shows that grasses evolved diverse forms much earlier than...

Mental meeting of the sexes: boys' spatial advantage fades in poor families.(This Week)
November 19, 2005... Time and again, researchers have found that males outperform females on spatial tasks, such as those that require mental rotation of objects and shapes. A new study indicates, however, that boys and girls from poor families don't display this...

Way to glow: butterfly-wing structure matches high-tech lights' design.(This Week)
November 19, 2005... The blue-green-streaked wings of the swallowtail butterfly harbor an intricate optical system with a design reminiscent of the latest in light-emitting diode technology, researchers now report. Swallowtails of the group Princeps nireus are...

Tszzzzzt! Electric fish may jam rivals' signals.(This Week)
November 19, 2005... For the first time, researchers say, they've found an electric fish sabotaging another fish's electric signals. The brown ghost knifefish (Apteronotus leptorhynchus) generates a weak electric field that it uses to detect obstacles and to...

Hidden in disorder: chaos-encrypted information goes the distance.(This Week)
November 19, 2005... On any given day, millions of e-commerce transactions send credit card and bank-account numbers zipping across the globe. To keep the bits of information private, companies such as PayPal use encryption software that employs mathematically...

Global wetting and drying: regions face opposing prospects for water supply.(THIS WEEK)
November 19, 2005... In the next half century, rivers and streams in some parts of the world will diminish in flow, while waterways elsewhere rise in output, according to a new analysis of climate simulations. Drying could contribute to droughts and wildfires,...

Infrared telescope spies mountains of star creation.(This Week)(Brief Article)
November 19, 2005... These peaks of gas and dust in a part of the Cassiopeia constellation 7,000 lightyears from Earth show hundreds of stars in the making (bright dots within the structures). Radiation and winds blasting from a massive star, which lies above the...

Novel approach: cancer drug might ease scleroderma.(This Week)
November 19, 2005... The chemotherapy drug paclitaxel, when given to mice, shows signs of impeding the skin disease scleroderma, researchers report. By slowing skin thickening, paclitaxel might offer a treatment for a disease that has defied cure. Scleroderma...

Groovy Science: Cassini gets the skinny on Saturn's rings.(Galileo Galilei)
November 19, 2005... By July 1610, Galileo Galilei had already viewed Jupiter and its large moons, watched mysterious dark spots march across the sun, and studied craters on the moon. But when he turned his small, homemade telescope toward Saturn, Galileo was...

Katrina's fallout: storm-struck researchers forge on--many, far from home.
November 19, 2005... Hand over hand, the scuba diving researchers felt their way down the offshore oil rig, blinded by water black with ocean detritus and marsh debris. They tried not to think about the 7-foot alligator patrolling the rig at the water's surface, 15...

Cassini snaps icy moon Dione.(PLANETARY SCIENCE)(Brief Article)
November 19, 2005... Like a wrinkled dowager, Saturn's small moon Dione has a heavily cratered and fractured surface. The first close-up portrait of this moon, recorded by the Cassini spacecraft on Oct. 11 when it passed within 500 kilometers, shows that Dione's...

Monthly cycle changes women's brains.(BIOMEDICINE)(Brief Article)
November 19, 2005... Activity in a brain region that regulates emotions fluctuates over the course of a woman's menstrual cycle, according to a new brain-imaging study. Up to half of all women experience a variety of emotional symptoms, such as mood swings,...

Sex and the sewage.(ENVIRONMENT)(Brief Article)
November 19, 2005... A new study links sewage sludge, used as pasture fertilizer, to stunted testes in fetal lambs. The finding signals a developmental problem that could have consequences in adult male sheep. Researchers in Scotland treated lamb pastures for 5...

Dairy fats cut colon cancer risk.(FOOD AND NUTRITION)(Brief Article)
November 19, 2005... A diet high in dairy products dramatically reduces the risk of colon cancer, the third most lethal type of cancer, a Swedish study finds. The catch: To have the effect, these foods must be rich in fat, the component that nutritionists have been...

Wearing your food.(CANCER PREVENTION)(Brief Article)
November 19, 2005... Broccoli, no doubt, is a healthful food. But for those who don't like its flavor, there may be another way to reap the vegetable's benefits. Researchers have determined that when sulforaphane, a compound found in broccoli, is applied to the...

Our big fat cancer statistics.(OBESITY AND CANCER)(Brief Article)
November 19, 2005... A new analysis of data on people's health finds obesity to be the second-largest cause of cancer in the United States, contributing to 10 percent of all cancers. Tobacco is responsible for 30 percent of cancer cases. Unlike smoking,...

The Thames and Hudson Dictionary of Ancient Egypt.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 19, 2005... THE THAMES & HUDSON DICTIONARY OF ANCIENT EGYPT TOBY WILKINSON The ancient Egyptian culture, with its gilded artifacts, extensive lineup of pharaohs, and majestic pyramids, continues to inspire intensive academic study and widespread...

The Complete Houseplant Survival Manual: Essential Know-How for Keeping (Not Killing!) More Than 160 Indoor Plants.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 19, 2005... THE COMPLETE HOUSEPLANT SURVIVAL MANUAL: Essential Know-How for Keeping (Not Killing!) More Than 160 Indoor Plants BARBARA PLEASANT Houseplants can bring vitality to any home, but many people are at a loss when it comes to properly caring...

God Created the Integers: the Mathematical Breakthroughs that Changed History.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 19, 2005... GOD CREATED THE INTEGERS: The Mathematical Breakthroughs that Changed History STEPHEN HAWKING, ED. Mathematics, the foundation of the physical sciences, is responsible for innumerable technological advances as well as the scope of...

Life As We Do Not Know It: The NASA Search for (and Synthesis of) Alien Life.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 19, 2005... LIFE AS WE DO NOT KNOW IT: The NASA Search for (and Synthesis of) Alien Life PETER WARD What is life? Answering this fundamental question is complex, but until scientists have done so, they may not recognize life on other planets. In the...

A Natural History of Human Emotions.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 19, 2005... A NATURAL HISTORY OF HUMAN EMOTIONS STUART WALTON The universality of human emotions has been a subject of debate since Charles Darwin's 1872 treatise on the expression of emotions in people and animals. In recent research, pictures...

It's not there.(Letter to the Editor)
November 19, 2005... "Organic Choice: Pesticides vanish from body after change in diet" (SN: 9/24/05, p. 197), as presented, doesn't address the statement made in the headline. The article shows only that on days when no pesticides are ingested in food, no...

Sex differences.(Letter to the Editor)
November 19, 2005... I am dismayed and offended that your article about the child sex trade in Thailand ("Childhood's End," SN: 9/24/05, p. 200) overlooked or avoided the circumstances of the under-12-year-old victims. As much as half of Thailand's sex tourism...

From the editor.(Brief Article)(Editorial)(Obituary)
November 19, 2005... Willis Harlow Shapley, a longtime member of the Science Service Board of Trustees, died Oct. 24. His family has established the Willis Harlow Shapley Education Fund at Science Service to support science-education programs, including the weekly...

Natural ingredients: method grows vessels from one's own cells.(This Week)
November 26, 2005... Starting with bits of skin, scientists have produced new blood vessels in a laboratory and successfully implanted them into two patients, a medical first. Previously, vessels grown in a lab had failed to hold together without the support...

Atom hauler: molecular rig snags multi-atom loads.(This Week)
November 26, 2005... A molecule with a knack for picking up and delivering atoms may prove a useful tool for atomic-scale construction. Scientists in France and Germany who created and tested the molecule say that it and similar custom-made structures might aid...

Roots of climate: plants' water transport cools Amazon basin.(This Week)
November 26, 2005... Field tests in the Amazon have for the first time measured daily and seasonal movements of soil moisture through the deep roots of trees. This water management, which enables the plants to maintain photosynthesis during the region's long dry...

Unway sign: ant pheromone stops traffic.(This Week)
November 26, 2005... Researchers say that they've discovered a new kind of traffic sign on ant highways--a chemical "Do not enter" that lets the insects avoid wasting time on paths that don't lead to food. Ant science has for decades focused on chemical...

Nonstick taints: fluorochemicals are in us all.
November 26, 2005... A new federal study strongly suggests that all U.S. residents harbor measurable traces of fluorochemicals, compounds used to impart water- and oil-repelling features to a host of consumer products. Separately, Japanese researchers report that...

Danger mouse: deleting a gene transforms timid rodents into daredevils.(This Week)
November 26, 2005... By removing one gene from a mouse's standard repertoire, scientists have turned a timid animal into an intrepid one. Gleb Shumyatsky of Rutgers University in Piscataway, N.J., and his colleagues study the genetics that affect how animals...

DNA clues to our kind: regulatory gene linked to human evolution.
November 26, 2005... A gene that exerts wide-ranging effects on the brain works harder in people than it does in chimpanzees and other nonhuman primates, a DNA disparity that apparently contributed to the evolution of Homo sapiens, according to a new study. ...

Ring around the galaxy.(Brief Article)
November 26, 2005... When two galaxies lie along one line of sight, the nearer galaxy's mass bends light from the more distant one, as predicted by the general theory of relativity. The phenomenon, called gravitational lensing, usually creates an arc of light tight...

Staring into the dark: research investigates insomnia drugs.
November 26, 2005... When a groggy reporter complaining of difficulties falling asleep recently visited a doctor in Washington, D.C., the physician's quick solution was to offer her a free sample of a drug called Rozerem (ramelteon). "What do you know about the...

Mars or bust: science helps those with the right stuff keep their stuff right.(Cover Story)
November 26, 2005... The Apollo moon missions were a 21st-century idea that was slipped into the 20th century, said former astronaut Eugene Cernan in his 1999 book The Last Man on the Moon (St. Martin's Press). In the 1970s, soon after Cernan and his Apollo 17 crew...

Images of a fiery youth.(observations from a snapshot of the cosmic dawn)(Brief Article)
November 26, 2005... A faint wash of infrared light captured by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope could be a snapshot of the cosmic dawn--the era when millions of the first starry bodies in the universe ignited. These collections of stars, dating from nearly 13.7...

Sleep apnea could signal greater danger.(BIOMEDICINE)(Brief Article)
November 26, 2005... The nighttime breathing disorder known as obstructive sleep apnea doubles a person's risk of stroke or death, a new study suggests. In this form of apnea, a person's breathing halts for at least 10 seconds at a time during sleep, typically...

Found and lost.(Brief Article)
November 26, 2005... Ever since NASA lost contact with the Mars Polar Lander in late 1999, minutes before it was to have parachuted onto the Red Planet, astronomers have been looking for the craft's remains. Last summer, astronomers reported that a camera aboard...

Antibiotics afield.(ENVIRONMENT)(Brief Article)
November 26, 2005... Livestock farmers usually feed their animals small doses of antibiotics to promote growth. The livestock typically shed a large share of the drugs--up to 90 percent--in their feces, leading some researchers to question whether using this manure...

Marrow cells boost ailing hearts.
November 26, 2005... Extracting cells from a heart attack patient's bone marrow and then inserting them into the person's heart via a catheter can improve pumping capacity, a new study shows. Previous attempts to seed damaged hearts with marrow cells provided...

New drug fights heart failure.(levosimendan)(Brief Article)
November 26, 2005... A drug called levosimendan, in combination with standard drugs, eases symptoms in patients hospitalized for heart failure better than do those drugs alone, scientists report. Heart failure, which affects 5 million people in the United States,...