Science

After spending the majority of her 48 years trying, and failing, to slim down, Veronica Mahaffey was still 50 pounds overweight -- not morbidly obese by a long shot, but still far from the size she wanted. Worried about her health, she called a San Diego weight-loss surgery clinic last spring and asked for help. She was told no. At 185 pounds and with a body mass index of 28, the Ramona mother of four was not heavy enough to meet medical guidelines or insurance company qualifications for weight-loss surgery.

Twelve years after Dr. Andrew Wakefield published his research in the international medical journal the Lancet purporting that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine causes autism, the journal on Tuesday formally retracted the paper. The action came less than a week after the U.K. General Medical Council's Fitness to Practice Panel concluded that Wakefield had provided false information in the report and acted with "callous disregard" for the children in the study. The council is now considering whether Wakefield is guilty of serious professional misconduct.

The nation's largest business lobby wants to put the science of global warming on trial. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, trying to ward off potentially sweeping federal emissions regulations, is pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to hold a rare public hearing on the scientific evidence for man-made climate change. Chamber officials say it would be "the Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century" -- complete with witnesses, cross-examinations and a judge who would rule, essentially, on whether humans are warming the planet to dangerous effect.

I've heard that ionized water can cure whatever ails you. Sounds like snake oil to me. MIKE Los Angeles --- The product: Ionized water isn't exactly snake oil. (These days, very few beverages are snake-based.) But because water ionizers can cost several thousand dollars, consumers are right to wonder what they're getting. Water ionizers attach directly to your kitchen faucet. The devices will filter water, infuse it with minerals and zap it with an electric current.

After six highly successful years of exploring the red sands of Mars, NASA's rover Spirit will rove no more. With its six wheels stuck in powdery sand and two wheels no longer working at all, the resilient little explorer will become an immobile scientific observatory -- if it can survive the harsh temperatures of the upcoming winter. "Its driving days are likely over," Doug McCuistion, director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, said in a telephone news conference Tuesday.

In what could be an encouraging sign of change in the long-standing shortage of Americans preparing for "clean energy" careers, the subject is suddenly hot on college campuses across the nation -- a surge of interest largely stimulated by the specter of global warming.

James Cameron's science-fiction blockbuster "Avatar" takes place in 2154 on the lush moon Pandora. To help make the set believable, Jodie Holt, chairwoman of the department of botany and plant sciences at UC Riverside, was approached to consult on the film's plant life, as well as how a botanist would study such flora. Holt, a plant physiologist, talked about her involvement in the film and the "Pandorapedia," a detailed catalog of the moon's features, including its many plants. How did you become involved in the film?

Dr. Karen Aboody estimates that she has cured several hundred mice of a cancer of the central nervous system called neuroblastoma. First she injected them with specialized neural stem cells that naturally zero in on the tumors and surround them. Then she administered an anti-cancer agent that the cells converted into a highly toxic drug. In her tests, 90% of the animals were rid of their tumors while healthy brain tissue remained undamaged. To hear Aboody tell it, that was the easy part.

Astrophysicist Geoffrey Burbidge, who with his wife and two other colleagues determined how elements are synthesized in the nuclear reactors of stars, died Tuesday at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla after a long illness. He was 84. Widely honored for his contributions to astrophysics, cosmology and the study of radio galaxies, Burbidge became notorious in recent years for his refusal to accept the widely held view that the universe originated in a Big Bang, arguing instead that matter is continually created, emerging as quasars ejected from energetic galaxies.

U.S. researchers have developed a prototype vaccine that protects monkeys and mice against the emerging chikungunya virus, a major step toward the production of a vaccine for humans. Human trials could begin later this year. Chikungunya is a mosquito-borne virus that first appeared on Reunion Island off the eastern coast of Africa in 2005 and has spread to more than 18 countries, infecting millions. It is characterized by rash, a high fever and its most distinctive characteristic, a severe arthritis that can persist for years.

An object imaged last week by the Hubble Space Telescope looks at first glance to be a comet, but a closer examination indicates that it is something researchers have never seen before -- the aftermath of two asteroids colliding. The scattered debris that looks like a comet's tail is actually the result of two asteroids colliding nearly head-on at more than 11,000 mph and scattering pieces in all directions, NASA announced Tuesday. The asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, where the collision occurred, contains the remains of many such events from the distant past, but this is the first time that researchers have observed such debris so soon after a collision.

The odds of a third wave of pandemic H1N1 influenza hitting this spring seem to be declining, but authorities are concerned that the virus is still spreading, though at a reduced rate from its peak, and is not disappearing as would be expected in a normal influenza outbreak, federal officials said Friday. "I think the most likely scenario now . . . is ongoing transmission of the virus, which continues to circulate," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

Dr. Thomas L. Petty, the Colorado lung specialist who pioneered the use of continuous oxygen therapy for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other lung disorders, died at his home in Denver on Dec. 12 from pulmonary hypertension. He was 76. More than 1 million people in the United States now use oxygen therapy at home, largely as a result of his research. He had needed oxygen therapy for several years while continuing his practice, giving him a unique perspective into the problems faced by lung patients.

Newly computer-processed images of Pluto taken by the Hubble Space Telescope show that it is not simply a ball of ice and rock, but a dynamic world that undergoes dramatic atmospheric changes produced by its seasons, NASA said Thursday. The images show an icy and dark molasses-colored world that is highly mottled and whose northern hemisphere is now getting brighter. The images show that the body -- once considered the ninth and most distant planet but now reduced to the status of dwarf planet -- also turned noticeably redder in the two years after the turn of the millennium for reasons that are not clear, and that its equator features a large bright spot whose origin remains a mystery.

Turkeys, the only domesticated animals from the New World that are now used globally, were actually domesticated twice -- once in Mesoamerica as was previously believed and once in what is now the southwestern United States. The new findings, reported this week by Canadian and American researchers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, come from a DNA analysis of ancient turkey bones and coprolites, the polite name for fossilized excrement. Surprisingly, the researchers found that both strains of domesticated turkeys are now extinct, replaced by more highly inbred strains.

Widely used antidepressants may help patients recover cognitive functions, such as memory skills, that are damaged following a stroke, according to research released Monday. Escitalopram, a type of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, or SSRI, was linked to improved cognitive functioning in a group of stroke patients who did not have symptoms of depression, scientists found. Previous research showed antidepressants were associated with improved cognitive functioning in stroke patients who were given the drug because they were depressed.

An object imaged last week by the Hubble Space Telescope looks at first glance to be a comet, but a closer examination indicates it is something researchers have never seen before -- the immediate aftermath of two asteroids colliding. The scattered debris that looks like a comet's tail is actually the result of two asteroids colliding nearly head-on at more than 11,000 miles per hour, scattering pieces in all directions, NASA announced Tuesday. The asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, where the collision occurred, contains the remains of many such events from the distant past, but this is first time that researchers have observed such debris so soon after a collision.

An infection of the uterine cavity during pregnancy combined with premature birth doubles the risk that an African American child will develop asthma, researchers have found. The combination also increases risk for some other ethnicities, though less severely. About 8% of pregnancies are marked by such bacterial infections, called chorioamnionitis, but it is not yet clear what proportion of asthma is induced by them, said the lead author, Dr. Darios Getahun of Kaiser Permanente's Department of Research and Evaluation in Pasadena.

Twelve years after Dr. Andrew Wakefield published his research in the international medical journal the Lancet purporting that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine causes autism, the journal on Tuesday formally retracted the paper. The action came less than a week after the U.K. General Medical Council's Fitness to Practice Panel concluded that Wakefield had provided false information in the report and acted with "callous disregard" for the children in the study. The council is now considering whether Wakefield is guilty of serious professional misconduct.

Lawrence Garfinkel, the statistician who overcame his lack of a doctoral degree and training in oncology to become one of the driving forces in demonstrating that smoking causes lung cancer, died Jan. 21 in Seattle. He was 88. The cause of death was cardiovascular disease, according to his son Martin. Garfinkel oversaw the training of thousands of volunteers for the American Cancer Society and helped conduct two of the largest epidemiological studies ever, enrolling more than 2.2 million men and women.