Health & Science

A Chinese scholar persecuted during the Cultural Revolution for smuggling a rare collection of mushrooms out of China before World War II was honored Saturday when the collection was returned more than 70 years later.

A Seattle team has collected a $900,000 prize in a NASA-backed competition to develop the concept of an elevator to space - an idea spurred by science fiction novels.

After two years of tough U.N. climate talks often pitting the world's rich against the poor, negotiators said Friday a new global agreement now rides on industrial nations pledging profound emissions cuts next month in Copenhagen.

In Britain, there are no long lines of people seeking swine flu vaccine. Doctor's offices aren't swamped with desperate calls. And there are no cries of injustice that the vaccine is going to wealthy corporations or healthy people who don't really need it.

Only about a third of adults who have tried to get a swine flu vaccine have been able to get it, according to a new national poll released Friday.

French scientists mixed gene therapy and bone marrow transplants in two boys to seemingly halt a brain disease that can kill by adolescence. The surprise ingredient: They disabled the HIV virus so it couldn't cause AIDS, and then used it to carry in the healthy new gene.

Airborne nitrogen pollution from vehicle exhaust and farm fertilizer is turning algae in the alpine lakes of Rocky Mountain National Park into junk food for fish, a study says.

Lower-than-feared sea temperatures this summer gave a break to fragile coral reefs across the Caribbean and the central Gulf of Mexico that were damaged in recent years, scientists said Thursday.

Some of New York's biggest companies, including Wall Street giants Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, received doses of swine flu vaccine for at-risk employees, drawing criticism that the hard-to-find vaccine is going first to the privileged.

The World Health Organization's flu chief said the swine flu virus has now become the predominant flu strain worldwide.

The global recession and pressure to divert funds to other health crises are hurting the fight against AIDS, a medical group warned Thursday, with one health worker saying he feared a return to the days when the AIDS virus was a death sentence in Africa.

Britain is using genetic tests on some African asylum seekers in an effort to catch those who are lying about their nationality, drawing criticism from scientists and provoking outrage from rights groups.

Advice about soft drinks and health from one of the nation's largest doctors groups will soon be brought to you by Coke.

It seemed like a great idea - doing bypass surgery while the heart is still beating, sparing patients the complications that can come from going on a heart-lung machine. Now the first big test of this method has produced a surprise: Bypass has fewer problems and is more successful done the old way.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Wednesday that pigs in a commercial herd in Indiana have tested positive for swine flu, making it the first time the virus has been found in such hogs.