Click here for more Science & Health Archives

- Study Looks at Prehistoric Climate
- Scientists Identify Obesity Gene
- Stem Cell Research Supported
- Hale-Bopp: A Cosmic Leftover?
- Study Supports Marijuana for Medical Use
- 'Star Wars' Defense
- The Flying Car
- Human Gene Map Near Completion
- NASA To Fix Hubble Telescope
- HIV-Killing Proteins Found in Tears
- Enzyme Found That May Feed Tumors
- Study: Hepatitis Behind Cancer
- The Technological Envelope
- Closer to the Perfect Diet Pill?
- Netscape Rolls Out New Communicator
- "Web MD" Fascinating source for medical information
- Los Angeles Fault
- New rocket prototype unveiled
- Internet II Under Construction
- Linux holds first U.S. conference
- Wind to test Wright plane

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Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere fluctuated after the Ice Age, helping to heat up Earth's climate and trigger the spread of deserts thousands of years ago, a study suggests. Scientists say the findings, which were based on an analysis of ice cores drilled from glaciers in Antarctica, could serve as a warning of what global warming could do to the Earth in the 21st century.

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is called a ``greenhouse gas'' because it traps the sun's heat. Levels of carbon dioxide fell and rose by small but persistent amounts between 11,000 and 1,000 years ago, according to the Swiss and American scientists who examined the ice cores. They also found that the fluctuations correlate with droughts and the spread of deserts in Africa and Asia during the prehistoric period known as Holocene. These ancient carbon dioxide levels, while significant, were far lower than the rising concentrations in today's atmosphere that are blamed on industry and motor vehicles.

As a result, the findings raise questions about whether the Earth is headed for rapid and drastic climate changes in the 21st century. ``The carbon dioxide changes over the last few thousand years have been tiny and slow compared to what humans are doing,'' said glaciologist Richard Alley of Pennsylvania State University, who did not participate in the study. ``We are moving into uncharted waters.'' The study was published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

Researchers from the University of Bern in Switzerland and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif., examined 400 samples drilled from the upper layers of the Taylor Dome glacier in Antarctica. From 11,000 to 8,000 years ago, carbon dioxide levels overall dipped by 8 parts per million, the scientists reported. During the next 7,000 years, carbon dioxide rose by 25 ppm. The increase probably came from carbon that was released as plants burned or deteriorated in a drying climate, they said. The researchers reached their conclusions by analyzing different forms, or isotopes, of carbon dioxide in the layers of ice.

The findings challenge the assumption that Earth's climate has been stable since the glaciers retreated. ``We have tended to view the last 10,000 years as being constant,'' said ice core expert James White of the University of Colorado. ``But carbon levels really haven't stabilized. Humans have continuity built into their thinking, and this study will shock people.''

The Holocene's climate swings were a natural phenomenon. But during the past 200 years, the burning of coal, gasoline and other fossil fuels has added more than 80 ppm of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The total amount is now above 370 ppm and is expected to double in the 21st century. The 1990s are the warmest decade on record. Many scientists fear that human activity is the driving force behind the warming. White and other scientists said the group's analysis is plausible, but suspect it is too neat to be precisely accurate. It does not adequately reflect the complex interactions of oceans, forests and other ecological features in the carbon cycle, White said.

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Two research groups have identified the first gene known to suppress obesity and regulate the burning of calories, a find that could lead the way toward a drug that keeps people trim. But don't reach for that second jelly doughnut just yet. The gene, known as Mahogany, or the MG gene, was discovered in mice. It is the sixth gene found to be implicated in obesity. But researchers said it is the first discovered to regulate metabolism and the expenditure of energy.

In one of two studies published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature, scientists at Millennium Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, Mass., tested groups of mice with normal and mutated MG genes. They fed the mice diets with varying percentages of fat. Mice with a mutated MG gene did not gain weight regardless of whether they ate a high-fat diet or a low-fat one. Mice with the normal gene gained weight on the high-fat diet. Researchers said they were optimistic that the gene would play the same role in humans, but cautioned that it has been demonstrated only in mice so far.

``Mahogany'' refers to the animals' brown fur. And although the findings suggest it plays an important role in diet-related obesity, which afflicts most of the 54 percent of American adults who are too hefty, obesity is thought to more than a matter of genetics. ``Obesity is a complex problem for which diet, exercise and biology all are important,'' said geneticist Craig Warden of the

University of California at Davis. That's one reason why it could be several years before the researchers can transform their discovery into a fat-busting drug. ``I'm pessimistic that we'll ever get that pill that allows us to remain sedentary, eat high-fat diets and stay lean,'' said University of Colorado obesity researcher James O. Hill. ``But that's what Americans want.'' Molecular biologist Karen Moore, who directed the MG study for Millennium Pharmaceuticals, said the findings could show researchers how to develop a drug to control obesity by mimicking the activity of the mutated gene. The process of how such a drug could enter a cell is described in the second study in Nature, by Stanford University researchers. Other obesity researchers said the MG studies provide key information in understanding how the body warehouses fuel when people eat more than necessary.

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WASHINGTON (AP) _ Seventy-three prominent scientists, including 67 Nobel prize winners, signed a letter supporting plans by the National Institutes of Health to consider financing research with stem cells that originated from human embryos. The letter, to be published Friday in the journal Science, said that despite the opposition of more than 70 members of Congress, the NIH position on human stem cell research ``is both laudable and forward-thinking.'' Stem cell research, the scientists said, could be used to treat heart disease and brain disorders and could ``perhaps even cure'' diabetes.

The letter is the latest volley across a growing chasm of disagreement separating medical researchers who say stem cell research offers great promise from members of Congress who believe the research is immoral because it starts with aborted human embryos. The lawmakers support a ban on federal funding of human embryo research and say that ban includes stem cells. Pluripotent stem cells are the master cells from which all body tissue develops. During gestation, the cells change into the 210 types of cells that make up the human body.

Privately funded researchers recently took cells from aborted or unused embryos no longer needed for invitro fertilization and they grew colonies of pluripotent stem cells. In some experiments, the cells differentiated into other types of cells, supporting the theory that heart, brain and other tissue could be grown from such cells. Citing the promise of stem cell research, Dr. Harold Varmus, director of the National Institutes of Health, proposed in January that the agency consider funding such studies. He said the research may not violate the federal ban because it would use existing stem cell colonies and not involve working directly with embryos.

An NIH committee is being selected to evaluate the ethical concerns. In their letter in Science, the 73 scientists said Varmus' plan ``succeeds in protecting the sanctity of human life without impeding biomedical research that could be profoundly important to the understanding and treatment of human disease.'' Stem cells, the letter said, could be used to make ``a long list of cells and tissues that could be used for transplantation.'' New cells could be injected to restore ailing hearts, or to correct damage by Parkinson's disease, or to replace failed insulin-producing cells, and, thus, cure diabetes, they said. If Congress blocks this research, the letter said, ``these tremendous scientific and medical benefits may never become available to the patients who so desperately need them.''

In reply, the leader of an antiabortion group in Congress, Rep. Christopher H. Smith, R-N.J., said: ``Some scientists resent any moral limits on their use of taxpayer funds for harmful experiments.'' ``I reject the claim that a degree in science, even a Nobel Prize in science, makes scientists our supreme arbiters of morality and human dignity,'' said Smith, who leads a group of 70 Congress members who have written two letters opposing Varmus' plans. The congressman said medical experimenters have committed ``horrific abuses'' in the past. Addressing the scientists, Smith said: ``Americans will not endorse lethal experiments on infants just because you claim it would be useful. We should not start down that road now.''

Among those who signed the scientists' letter were Nobel laureates Dr. Robert F. Furchgott of State University of New York, 1998 winner for discovery the action of nitric oxide in the body; Eric F. Wieschaus of Princeton, 1995 winner for studies of genes in developing fetuses; Joseph E. Murray of Harvard, 1991 winner for studies on cell and organ transplantation, and James D. Watson of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories, co-discoverer in 1953 of the DNA molecule.

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Comet Hale-Bopp, which blazed across the sky in 1997, may be brimming with some of the primordial material from which the sun and the planets formed more than 4 billion years ago. California Institute of Technology scientists who tuned radio telescopes onto the comet's nucleus as it cut across the solar system found vents spewing a volatile mixture of gas and dust into space.  The images suggest that 15 percent to 40 percent of Hale-Bopp's mass is pristine interstellar material, while the rest has been transformed extensively during the comet's passage through space. The images are among the finest ever obtained of a comet with radio telescopes.

The findings were published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.   Comets are often called dirty snowballs. Most orbit far from the sun in the deep freeze beyond Pluto's orbit. That enables them to remain virtually unchanged over billions of years. ``Nothing has changed much out there since that time. Therefore it's a way of sampling some of the chemistry, or very close to what it was, when the solar system formed,'' said Paul Weisman, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., who was not involved in the work.

The CalTech researchers found two icy jets erupting with forms of primordial deuterium-hydrogen, the poisonous gas hydrogen cyanide and a form of hydrogen called heavy water. The material may be rising from deep within the comet, said Geoffrey Blake, a CalTech professor of cosmochemistry and planetary sciences. Actual proof that comets contain the primordial material of the solar system may have to wait until a spacecraft can dig inside one.  A NASA probe that is set for launch in 2003 will try to do that for the first time ever in 2006. If it survives the landing, it will drill into Comet Temple 1 to sample what's inside.

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A report issued Wednesday by the Institute of Medicine cautiously supports limited use of marijuana for medical purposes. The White House commissioned the report, hoping to bring science to a politicized debate between medical-marijuana advocates and anti-drug groups that fear encouraging recreational use. Experts reviewed the existing scientific literature and concluded that the substances in marijuana can relieve pain, nausea and improve appetite in seriously ill patients with AIDS, cancer and other diseases. But smoking the plant carries health risks that outweigh benefits in most cases, the report concluded. Late Wednesday, the White House indicated that the administration's position against legalizing medical marijuana would remain unchanged despite the report's findings. Listen as NPR's Jon Hamilton reports for All Things Considered.

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In a 97-to-three vote, the Senate Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a bill calling for a national missile defense system. President Clinton, too, supports a limited defense system in the wake of recent allegations that China stole sensitive nuclear secrets from an American laboratory. The bill calls for the creation of the so-called "Star Wars" system, "as soon as it's technologically feasible." Listen as NPR's Peter Kenyon reports for All Things Considered. Some critics fear the legislation could prompt Russia to stop reducing its nuclear stockpile. Military analyst Alexander Pikayev of the Carnegie Moscow Center says on All Things Considered that Russia worries the bill will encourage China to build up its nuclear arsenal. The House of Representatives will vote Thursday on the bill, and is expected to approve it.

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This is the story of the ConvAIRCAR flying car. Like so many other stories profiled in the Retro Future, it has a familiar ring: a bright idea, talented people and the slowly-dawning realization that their best-laid plans will amount to nothing more than a noble attempt.

The ConvAIRCAR was a noble attempt and a notable machine--it was truly the stuff of commuters' fantasies. Not only did it have a design straight out of a dime-store sci-fi novel, it had "all the advantages of a Cadillac" according to its manufacturer. So what happened? The same thing that happens to all flying cars--the dream crashed and burned before it could take off...this time literally.

The ConvAIRCAR was not the first flying car to make it to the drawing board. That honor goes to the Curtiss Autoplane of 1917. But public interest in a car-plane hybrid didn't take hold until after World War II. Airplane manufacturers, after the war, were shifting away from military aircraft to consumer production lines.

The Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Company of San Diego, California was one of those companies looking for a new outlet to sell their aircraft. Sensing the time was right for a flying car, they poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into developing a prototype built by aerodynamic engineer Theodore P. Hall.

Also lending a hand was Henry Dreyfuss, one of the outstanding industrial designers of the 20th century. Dreyfuss designed telephones for Bell, tractors for John Deere, thermostats for Honeywell, and cameras for Polaroid. But a flying car? What motivated the famously no-nonsense Dreyfuss--a devotee of the Louis Sullivan's dictum that "form follows function"--to lend his talents to such a far-fetched endeavor? The cynic would say money; but, in truth, a flying car didn't seem that far-fetched at the time.

"The market for this flying automobile will be far greater than a conventional light plane," Consolidated Vultee promised, "because the purchasers can obtain daily use from the car to get more out of his investment." The estimated cost: $1500. Flight attachments were an additional cost. These attachments were integral to the ConvAIRCAR's design. After driving to the airport, an owner had to connect a flight unit (which included a propeller) to take off. At the next airport they simply removed the detachable wings and drove away in what was an otherwise ordinary car.

Well, not exactly ordinary. Thanks to a "plastic-impregnated" fiberglass body that weighed only 725 pounds, the ConvAIRCAR achieved an astounding 45 miles per gallon. And it looked great--the aerodynamic envelope of "the only automobile that flies" was a remarkable achievement, truly years ahead of its time.

On November 17, 1947, the New York Times announced the news: a prototype of the ConvAIRCAR had circled San Diego for one hour and 18 minutes. These trials confirmed the best hopes of Consolidate Vultee. But success was short-lived. A few days after the test flight, a pilot crash-landed the ConvAIRCAR in the desert (it was later discovered a gas gauge had accidentally been shut off) and the only prototype in existence was demolished beyond repair.

Eventually another model of the ConvAIRCAR was built but the damage was done. The high cost of production and the limited market potential--not to mention the negative publicity--spelled doom (sadly no examples of the ConvAIRCAR survive; the second prototype perished in a fire at the San Diego Air & Space Museum).

The failure of the ConvAIRCAR was not unique. Dozens of inventors and aerodynamic engineers have tried to create similar vehicles in the last fifty years--none has successfully marketed a flying car. According to a 1989 article in Smithsonian, over 30 patents for flying cars have been filed this century in the United States alone; usually boasting fanciful names like Aerocar, Autoplane, Airphibian, and Skycar.

To this day several obstacles stand in the path of launching a successful flying car. First, the FAA is not likely to grant airspace to these vehicles--congestion in the air is bad enough. Secondly, flying cars, traditionally, have suffered from an engineering problem: as cars they are overpowered, as planes they are underpowered. And, last, the insurance is certain to be prohibitively expensive.

No, sadly, you will not be to jump into a flying car for a quick trip to the 7-11 in the year 2000. But rest assured--as long as "The Jetsons" keeps running on the Cartoon Network, the dream of a flying car will undoubtedly live on.

    

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The U.S. government project to decode the human gene map reported some exciting news Monday. The government scientists say they will complete an index of all human genes earlier than previously promised -- earlier than a private company that has promised to do the job faster, and more cheaply. The human genome project, or HUGO, is looking for the basic units of heredity. Researchers with the project hope to use the information to help treat and prevent genetic diseases. Find out more as NPR's Dan Charles reports for Morning Edition.

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) _ NASA will launch an emergency repair mission this fall to the Hubble Space Telescope, which is in danger of shutting down.  NASA decided Wednesday to move up the next regularly scheduled Hubble visit to October so that spacewalking astronauts can fix the telescope's deteriorating pointing system. The mission had been set for June 2000.

Two of Hubble's six gyroscopes, needed for pointing and stability, have failed since astronauts' last service call, in 1997. And a third gyroscope is partly broken and is considered unreliable.  Astronomers need at least three perfect gyroscopes to conduct observations throughout the universe. ``We are one failure away from losing science,'' said Ed Weiler, head of NASA's space science program. Although the $2 billion telescope would be safe in orbit without any working gyroscopes, NASA does not want to risk losing any valuable science time.

``This is not a so-called spacecraft emergency where we're in danger of losing the entire mission or the entire spacecraft,'' Weiler said. ``You can think of it more as a science emergency.''  Under the plan, the original 2000 mission will be divided into two parts: the first will be launched around mid-October aboard Discovery and the second in late 2000 or early 2001. Besides replacing all six gyroscopes in October, spacewalking astronauts will install a new computer, radio transmitter, guidance sensor and data recorder, and fix peeling insulation. During their second visit, the same astronauts will equip Hubble with new solar panels, an advanced camera and a newfangled cooling unit for an infrared camera that has run out of the frozen nitrogen needed for observations.  The four astronauts who will do the repairs have been training since last summer and can easily accommodate the early flight, NASA said.

The extra mission will cost NASA $75 million more than what's been budgeted for Hubble. But Weiler called it ``a rather good insurance policy'' considering the science that might be lost if NASA were to wait until next summer to make the repairs. Hubble was launched in 1990 with a misshapen mirror. Spacewalking astronauts corrected the telescope's vision in 1993, restoring Hubble to a world-class instrument able to see to the fringes of the universe, and returned in 1997 to add or replace 11 major parts.

NASA will have to rearrange the shuttle flight schedule to squeeze in the Hubble mission. Those details have yet to be worked out.

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WASHINGTON (AP) _ Tears, saliva and the urine of pregnant women all contain proteins that are potent killers of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, researchers say.  The scientists isolated a protein, called lysozyme, and found that it was able to kill the AIDS virus quickly in test-tube experiments. A report on the study appears Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  The lysozyme could become an important therapeutic drug against HIV because it is a natural compound that the body routinely makes, said Sylvia Lee-Huang, professor of biochemistry at New York University, who identified it with colleagues. ``It ought to be more tolerated and have fewer side effects than other HIV drugs,'' said Lee-Huang. ``It possibly could be used in combination with other drugs.''  The team also found that the urine of pregnant women contains another type of protein, called ribonucleases, that destroys the genetic material in the HIV virus. It's not known how lysozyme kills HIV, but Lee-Huang speculated that it could work by breaking down the outer membrane of the virus.

Nava Sarver, an AIDS researcher at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the study was interesting but needs to be confirmed by other laboratories. ``A lot of work needs to be done to simulate the (laboratory) findings in a more relevant situation,'' said Sarver. Her agency, NIAID, is part of the National Institutes of Health.  The search for the anti-HIV protein was prompted, said Lee-Huang, when researchers realized the babies of women infected with HIV were somewhat protected from the virus.

Researchers earlier suspected that human chorionic gonadotropin, or HCG, a hormone produced during pregnancy, was responsible for protecting against HIV and other viruses. Lee-Huang said she and her group purified HCG and found it had no effect on HIV. The researchers then spent two years isolating other proteins in urine and testing them against HIV. Eventually they found lysozyme and ribonucleases. The researcher speculated that pregnancy prompts a woman's body to make more virus-killing proteins to protect the developing baby from viruses and bacteria. That suggests ``Mother Nature knows best how to protect the earliest stages of life,'' Lee-Huang said. The proteins also were found in mother's milk, white blood cells and chicken egg white, and lysozyme was found in saliva and tears.  The presence of lysozyme in saliva may a factor in why HIV is not transmitted by casual kissing, said Lee-Huang.

The team is now trying to determine exactly how lysozyme attacks HIV. That is a critical step in developing a new HIV drug based on the protein, she said.

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WASHINGTON (AP) _ In a dramatic advance in the understanding of cancer, researchers have found an enzyme that helps build the blood vessels that feed the growth of tumors, a major step toward finding new drugs to attack the disease.  Researchers at Duke University in Durham, N.C., report that they have found, on the surface of cells inside blood vessels, a type of enzyme, called ATP synthase.

The enzyme apparently provides the energy for the growth of blood vessels, said Dr. Salvatore V. Pizzo, a member of the Duke team and co-author of a study appearing Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Without such energy, he said, tumors can never grow beyond the size of a pin head.

Researchers in many labs have recently been studying the growth of blood vessels that supply cancer tumors with oxygen and nutrients _ searching for possible ways to shut off that blood vessel growth.  The research intensified after Dr. Judah Folkman of Children's Hospital in Boston showed that a compound he calls angiostatin could stop tumor growth in mice by blocking the formation of blood vessels.

In all, a number of compounds that can block blood vessel formation have been discovered. In fact, a separate paper in Proceedings on Tuesday reports on isolating such a substance from cartilage. Researchers have been able to isolate angiostatin, which also occurs naturally in the body, and synthesize it in laboratories. But exactly how angiostatin and similar compounds work has not been known. The Duke discovery may be the answer. ``Until now, people knew that angiostatin blocked blood vessel growth, but there was no obvious mechanism,'' said Pizzo. ``Now we know why it works.''

The study ``is a big jump ahead,'' said Folkman, '' ... because it identifies a protein that binds (attaches to) angiostatin'' and suggests how angiostatin prevents blood vessel growth. The discovery puts researchers on track to isolate a compound from angiostatin that could work more directly to block blood vessel formation, he said. The discovery of ATP on the surface of endothelial cells, the lining of blood vessels, came as a surprise, said Pizzo. The enzyme was previously found only inside cells. ``ATP is what the cells use as a fuel, as an energy source,'' said Pizzo. ``It is present inside the cell, in the mitochondria, and is the little energy factory for the cell.''  The enzyme apparently is activated when the blood's oxygen content is lowered. Nature may have designed ATP as a healing mechanism, to build new vessels so the body can repair tissue damaged by injury or disease, said Pizzo. ``Tumors are that way,'' he said. ``Tumors tend to take advantage of a normal mechanism in the body and then exaggerate it to their own growth advantage.'' When tumors do form, cells in the center of the growth are deprived of oxygen. That may trigger the formation and action of ATP, said Pizzo.

With a better understanding of how ATP causes blood vessels to grow, researchers also might be able to use the enzyme to promote beneficial blood vessel growth, such as in heart disease or diabetes, Pizzo said.

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The most common form of liver cancer, a type that is nearly always fatal, is on the rise in the United States and the increase is likely to continue until hepatitis is better controlled, researchers reported today.  The incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma increased 71 percent from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s, according to researchers at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Albuquerque, N.M. Hospitalization and death rates for all types of liver cancer were also found to be increasing at a similar pace. The study was published in today's New England Journal of Medicine.  Liver cancer will strike an estimated 14,500 Americans in 1999, according to the American Cancer Society.  Most will get hepatocellular carcinoma.

Only 5 percent of people with hepatocellular carcinoma are alive five years after diagnosis, because the tumors usually are found only after the cancer has spread.  The cancer is often caused by chronic hepatitis B and hepatitis C, viral diseases that lead to liver scarring, known as cirrhosis, which in turn can lead to liver cancer. Hepatitis also can cause other changes in liver cells that make them cancerous. Alcoholism is another leading cause of cirrhosis and liver cancer.  But alcoholism is declining and hepatitis B infections are slowing because of a vaccine and effective treatments. So researchers believe most of the increase in liver cancer is due to hepatitis C, a disease discovered a decade ago.

Many Americans with hepatitis C got it from transfusions before the blood supply was cleaned up by 1992.  The virus can also be spread between drug users sharing needles, and in rare cases, through sex. In half of all cases, doctors do not know how patients got it.  An estimated 4 million Americans are infected with the hepatitis C virus, but no one knows the exact number because it can take up to 30 years for symptoms to develop.  There is no vaccine and the only available treatment does not help the majority of patients.  Scientists call hepatitis C a hidden epidemic.   ``A lot of people still don't know they have it,'' said Dr. Jack Wands, a liver research expert at Brown University. ``I think it will continue to rise until we have either a vaccine or an effective treatment.''

Doctors should test patients with hepatitis-induced cirrhosis for liver cancer, because if tumors are caught early enough, surgery can be successful, said Dr. Hashem El-Serag, lead author of the study.  Hepatitis B is more infectious but is easier to treat.  It is spread through blood, sex or from mother to child at birth. About 200,000 Americans are diagnosed each year. The vaccine has been available since 1991. Hepatitis A, a relatively mild form of the virus, is not a risk factor for liver cancer. It is spread primarily through contaminated food, such as shellfish from tainted water or restaurant food that has been touched by infected employees.

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People of the twentieth century have witnessed technological innovation of remarkable speed and range. In the past hundred years, we've learned to fly, walk on the moon, create movies, explode nuclear weapons, decode our own chromosomes, and even transform massive amounts of information into electric pulses over the Internet. As the new millennium approaches, NPR is reviewing this century’s technological accomplishments. 

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Scientists in the U.S. say they have cloned a gene that controls obesity in mice. Known as the MG or Mahogany gene, it is the first known obesity-related gene that actually regulates metabolism. Researchers are still determining whether MG will act in humans the way it has in mice, where animals with the normal gene gained weight on a high-fat diet, and those with a mutated gene did not. The findings, published in this week’s Nature magazine, have raised some people’s hopes for a pill that allows high-fat diets without weight gain.  But some scientists point out that the causes of human obesity may be more complex than simple genetics.

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A week before Microsoft debuts Internet Explorer 5.0, Netscape's latest Communicator 4.51 is out for your consumption. Click for more. It features an enhanced instant messaging client and a new utility for grabbing stock quotes off the Net without having to switch between apps. Jesse's take: Ho-hum. Netscape must do more to counter the buzz surrounding the release of IE 5. If it doesn't, it runs the risk of falling behind in the race for browser dominance. Click for more.

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The discovery of a formerly hidden fault right underneath downtown Los Angeles has scientists believing they've may have found the reason for the great earthquake of 1987. Formerly unseen, the scientists say the phenomenon is one of several "blind" faults discovered using data from the oil and gas industry.  Listen as NPR's Mandalit Del Barco reports on the findings, published in today's edition of Science magazine.

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MOJAVE, Calif. (AP) - The prototype of a reusable, manned rocket that can land like a helicopter after carrying satellites into orbit was unveiled Monday. The Roton, built by Rotary Rocket Co. of Redwood City, is a launch vehicle powered by kerosene instead of costly hydrogen, which the firm hopes will cut launch costs by 90%. It has been designed to launch like a rocket, then deploy a propeller and land like a helicopter. Some 1,200 people gathered as the prototype was rolled out of a hangar at Mojave Airport. Among them were NASA chief engineer Daniel Mulville, who hopes his agency will become a customer of the commercial launch vehicles, and novelist Tom Clancy, a Rotary Rocket investor. The prototype, dubbed Roton ATV, does not have launch engines. It will be used to test the rocket's landing system, which uses rotor blades with tip rockets to slow the vehicle down so it can land like a helicopter.

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If you despair because it takes forever for your computer to download Internet Web sites, a solution may be in sight. The Abilene Network is being touted by its creators as a prototype for a speedy "Internet II." It moves digital information one thousand times faster than a normal high-speed computer line and has more capacity. Abilene Network's project director Terry Rogers says it will one day offer users the opportunity to access images worthy of high-definition television, provide stereo-quality audio, and even allow musicians scattered about the country to play together in real time - with a real-time audience. Listen as All Things Considered host Noah Adams talks with Rogers about the need for a faster 'Net.

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SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - The man whose computer software is quietly challenging Microsoft Corp.'s industry-dominating Windows operating system doesn't have any interest in being like the software giant's chairman Bill Gates. "Bill who?" Linus Torvalds said Tuesday. At times bashful, at times brash, Torvalds enjoyed his first major coming-out party Tuesday as thousands of software developers, analysts and computer users came to LinuxWorld. It was the first major conference and exposition for the operating system, which was developed by Torvalds in the early 1990s when he was a student in Finland.

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MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. (AP) - Orville and Wilbur Wright would have been blown away. NASA engineers have mounted a full-scale replica of the brothers' original biplane in a wind tunnel to learn more about its stability, control and handling. Scientists hope the tests will help the plane buffs who plan to fly the replica in 2003 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first flight at Kitty Hawk, N.C., Dec. 17, 1903. A team of volunteers from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics built the replica using data from the original airplane provided by the Smithsonian. The wings are fabric, the supports are wood, and there are no wheels to land on - just skids. The replica will be subjected to conditions it would face traveling 30 mph about 10 feet off the ground.