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More Stories:
Can We Learn to Beat the Reaper?
Science has been winning battles against old age, but can it win the war?
Too Heavy, Too Young
Obesity is rapidly becoming the major health crisis of the next generation. What parents can do to help kids control their own weight
Walk Don't Run
It's simple, it's cheap, and studies show that walking may be the best exercise for reducing the risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes
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GAUR
Once scientists cloned run-of-the-mill livestock like dolly the sheep, could exotic endangered species have been far behind? meet noah the gaur, the first endangered clone. the gaur is a species of wild ox that is fast disappearing from its native india and burma. noah started out as a skin cell on an adult gaur that was fused with an empty egg from an ordinary cow and then brought to term by another cow named bessie. scientists hope that similar operations will someday be a practical way to keep endangered species alive. too late for noah, however. he died from an infection two days after he was born.
related story: Noah's New Ark
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Gleevec
There is still no cure for cancer, but drugs against the disease are getting a lot smarter. instead of killing cells indiscriminately, as standard chemotherapy and radiation do, designer drugs such as gleevec are engineered to block specific biological reactions that tumor cells — and not healthy ones — need to grow and thrive. gleevec is currently approved to treat a form of leukemia and a rare stomach cancer. close behind it in clinical trials is a string of experimental drugs that promise to do the same for other cancers, all with fewer side effects, so far, than current therapies.
related story: Why Gleevec Got Approved
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Genetic Engineering
You wouldn't normally expect to find a jellyfish gene in a rhesus monkey, but andi is not just any monkey. he's the first primate to carry an artificially introduced snippet of dna in every one of his cells. scientists have been splicing genes in and out of lesser species for years, but this is the first time they've done it to such a close cousin of homo sapiens. their success with andi (whose name is a backward acronym for inserted dna) suggests that they are closer to manipulating human cells to treat disease or — to choose a more controversial application — genetically enhancing individual humans and all their offspring.
related story: What Should the Rules Be?
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