Drugs that lower cholesterol benefit patients who have just had a heart attack or chest pains, regardless of the patient's initial cholesterol levels. (p. 366)

A small study of young women already at high risk of having a heart attack suggests that heart attacks are most frequent when estrogen levels are low, soon after a woman's period begins. (p. 366)

Unusually heavy meals boost a person's chance of developing a heart attack, at least among those people who already have risk factors for heart disease. (p. 366)

Drinking black tea makes a person's blood vessels dilate more easily, which may explain why drinking tea can protect against heart disease. (p. 366)

A small study in mice suggests that inhaling nitric oxide may protect against tissue damage after a heart attack. (p. 366)

Addressing a long-simmering controversy, a large new study has shown that in pregnancies where the baby has positioned itself to emerge feet or buttocks first, the delivery safest for the mother and child is a planned cesarean section rather than a vaginal birth. (p. 348)

A new study suggests how a gene recently linked to liver, skin, and pancreatic cancer also causes an often-deadly form of breast cancer. (p. 348)

Scientists mine the tuberculosis genome. (p. 270)

Among people with mild symptoms of memory loss, a limited ability to recognize smells—along with an inability to detect the disability—has been linked to the future development of Alzheimer's. (p. 269)