Research

Can a private company own rights to your DNA? The nine justices of the Supreme Court will consider that question Monday as lawyers for Myriad Genetics make their best case that the company should be able to keep its patent on two genes known to influence the risk of developing breast cancer and ovarian cancer. Challenging that notion will be lawyers representing the Assn. for Molecular Pathology and other scientific organizations, which argue that allowing genes to be patented slows or shuts down scientific research involving those genes.

Financially strapped homeowners who are close to foreclosure may want to face the music now rather than continuing to struggle with their monthly payments. There's a high probability of losing the house anyway, even with the government's help. According to a new report, people who take advantage of a key federal program to modify their mortgages in an effort to save their homes are defaulting "at an alarming rate. " The report from the special inspector general for the Treasury Department's Troubled Asset Relief Program doesn't say why an inordinately high percentage of owners who take part in the Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, are unable to maintain their loan modifications.

Healthy middle-aged women who take hormones to ease the misery of hot flashes and night sweats have fewer depressive symptoms, less anxiety and tension, and better and more sex than those who do not, according to a new study. Though the long-term effects of hormone replacement therapy could not be measured by the new research, it did offer some reassuring findings. It suggested that some women's cholesterol profiles and metabolic function might improve on hormone replacement therapy and that blood pressure did not rise during or after a relatively brief stay on hormone replacement.

Having one or more older brothers boosts the likelihood of a boy growing up to be gay -- an effect due not to social factors, but biological events that occur in their mother's womb, according to a study published today. In an analysis of 905 men and their siblings, Canadian psychologist Anthony Bogaert found no evidence that social interactions among family members played a role in determining whether a man was gay or straight.

In response to pressure from California regulators, Anthem Blue Cross agreed to a slightly lower rate increase for about 630,000 individual policyholders that will save consumers an estimated $54 million. Anthem, a unit of Indianapolis insurance giant WellPoint Inc., had sought to raise rates an average of 18% beginning Feb. 1. California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said Thursday that the company had agreed to reduce the average increase to 14% after regulators reviewed Anthem's rate filing.

The history of Europe is written in its people's DNA. The Huns and the Slavs made incursions into Eastern Europe about 1,500 years ago. Migrants moved from Ireland to England in recent centuries. Populations in Italy and Spain have been comparatively stable. None of this is breaking news. But scientists were able to see it anew by examining the patterns of genes in 2,257 people now living in 40 countries on the continent. It's surprising "how much past history was still evident in the patterns we've seen," said Peter Ralph, a computational biologist at USC who reported the findings Tuesday in the journal PLOS Biology.

By quizzing small children about the first events they remember — a cousin misbehaving, a trip to a grocery store, a mother's bribe of red and green licorice — researchers have discovered that the earliest memories of children shift as they get older, and don't solidify into the first memories carried throughout life until about age 10. The research, published Wednesday in the journal Child Development, could help psychologists better understand...

Dr. Alexa Albert is a researcher on human sexuality issues. She is the author of the recently published "Brothel: Mustang Ranch and Its Women" (Random House, 2001), based on studies she conducted on condom use at a Nevada brothel. A graduate of Harvard Medical School, Albert is a pediatric resident at Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle. * I didn't go to learn, "What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"

Over the years, a couple of dozen descendants of the Chumash Indians have complied with the odd requests of their old friend John Johnson, a leading scholar of the tribe's culture and head of the anthropology department at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. After all, what harm could come from parting with a few of their hairs or letting him swab the inside of their cheeks for a saliva sample?

Scientists have discovered what could be the ultimate workout for couch potatoes: exercise in a pill. In experiments on mice that did no exercise, the chemical compound, known as AICAR, allowed them to run 44% farther on a treadmill than those that did not receive the drug.