News

Health & Medicine

Thalidomide-like drug treats blood disorder

A novel drug appears to help people with myelodysplasia, a persistent condition that leaves them short of crucial blood components.

Health & Medicine

Novel drug fights leukemia

An experimental drug helps a small but significant fraction of people with acute myeloid leukemia and causes minimal side effects.

Health & Medicine

Select immune cells help marrow grafts

By excising certain immune cells from donor bone marrow, physicians have devised a new way of performing marrow transplants.

Planetary Science

A Tale of Two Landers: NASA’s Spirit phones home, but Europe’s Beagle 2 remains mum on Mars

NASA's Spirit rover sent its first signals home soon after it touched down on Mars Jan. 3, but European Space Agency scientists haven't yet heard from their Beagle 2 lander, which dropped to the surface of Mars on Dec. 24.

Health & Medicine

Going against the Grain: Aspirin use linked to pancreatic cancer

Scientists have associated aspirin use with cancer of the pancreas.

Tech

Flashy Transistors: Electronic workhorses also shed light

Researchers have discovered that the transistor can emit light, a yet-untapped talent.

Chemistry

Moonlighting: Reflective protein causes squid to shimmer

Squid can manipulate light in amazing ways to camouflage themselves at night, and researchers have unveiled a bizarre set of reflective proteins in the animals' tissues that underlie this trait.

Humans

Cow Madness: Disease’s U.S. emergence highlights role of feed ban

The threat of mad cow disease to both people and animals in the U.S. remains low, as long as government regulations designed to prevent the disease's spread are enforced, risk analysts say.

Astronomy

Taste of a Comet: Spacecraft samples and views Wild 2

Pummeled by debris, a NASA spacecraft last week snatched up dust samples while taking the sharpest images ever of a comet's icy core.

Humans

Letters

Letters from the Jan. 10, 2004, issue of Science News.