Researchers have announced that the magnetic fields emitted by one manufacturer's security surveillance system, of which type there are 200,000 worldwide, can interfere with pacemakers and that this interaction can bring on missed or irregular heartbeats, nausea, breathlessness, dizziness, and even fainting.

By the same techniques used for genetically enhancing plants, making them disease-or pest-resistant, researchers have been able to increase the amount of protein in potatoes, sweet potatoes, and tobacco.

Researchers are using computer images to help surgeons plan difficult operations and to develop programs that will work for doctors and nurses in the same way that flight simulators do for pilots, letting medical personnel practice their techniques and test their reflexes before they ever see a patient.

Citing the recent increase in earnings by several computer companies, economists feel that a cycle has begun in which personal computer users, especially corporate consumers, are replacing their PC's with more powerful models.

The artist Renoir's last word was "flowers," spoken as they arranged a bouquet of roses just picked from his garden in a vase on his bedroom windowsill.

Gas hydrates, chemical compounds of water and natural gas, are increasingly being studied for their potential to be huge reservoirs of energy, possibly causing sea floor instability, and significant contributors to global warming.

Scientists have recently discovered that the ultrathin, layered construction of a butterfly's wings, the same as the one making some butterflies shimmer via the phenomenon of iridescence, are enabling the insect to control how much heat energy is absorbed by its wings and how much is reflected away.

Biologists working in Spain say that their discovery of teeming life in a highly acidic river may not only broaden the search for life, or for evidence of past life, on other planets but also show that a number of forms of microscopic life can adapt to conditions that scientists have long thought hostile to all but the hardiest bacteria.

Most of Portugal's 250,000 university students boycotted classes in a one-day strike to protest a law that requires them to contribute $330 a year toward the cost of higher education, previously paying $7 per year.

According to recent studies comparing the nutritional value of meat from wild animals and meat from domesticated animals, wild animals have less total fat than do livestock fed on grain and more of a kind of fat they think is good for cardiac health.