Sprint to offer online shopping on cell phones
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Sprint Nextel Corp customers can now use mobile phones to shop for everything from shoes to televisions in a new service the No. 3 U.S. wireless company has launched to boost revenue.

U.S. Life Expectancy Hits New High
Drops in deaths from heart disease, cancer and stroke fuel the trend.

Education Linked to Cancer Death Rates
WEDNESDAY, Sept. 12 (HealthDay News) — If you have a college degree, you have up to a 76 percent reduced risk of dying from cancer, a new study found… Education is tied to socioeconomic status and access to medical care, [co-author Elizabeth Ward, the American Cancer Society's director of cancer surveillance] noted. The new study finding makes it clear that many of the factors that influence cancer mortality are preventable, she said. “They are preventable by social policies — things we can change, such as smoking prevention, access to cancer screening and opportunities to good nutrition and physical activity,” Ward said.

Jogging in Traffic Cuts Blood Flow to Heart
Men with stable heart disease showed effect after brief exposure to diesel exhaust.

Being Overweight is Hard on the Heart
It raises risks even if blood pressure, cholesterol factored out, study finds

Family Dinners Shape Healthier Eating Habits
Routine helps teens make better food choices as adults, study finds

Veggies Might Ward Off Age-Linked Vision Woes
Two nutrients protect against macular degeneration, study finds

Tamoxifen Helps Treat Bipolar Disorder
Discovery may lead to new drug to treat manic phase of the illness, study says
Tamoxifen is both a treatment and a prophylactic for the most common type of breast cancer.

Shrinking kilogram bewilders physicists
A kilogram just isn’t what it used to be. The 118-year-old cylinder that is the international prototype for the metric mass, kept tightly under lock and key outside Paris, is mysteriously losing weight — if ever so slightly.

Big climate change did not kill Neanderthals
LONDON (Reuters) – Neanderthals probably fell victim to taller and superior Cro-Magnons rather than catastrophic climate change, researchers said on Wednesday.

Wobbles of Mars Produced 40 Ice Ages
Wobbles in the rotation of Mars swung the planet into about 40 extreme ice ages in the past 5 million years and allowed thick ice layers to remain far away from the poles, an astronomer says.

Small ‘Hobbit’ Galaxies Made Almost Entirely of Dark Matter
Small, ultrafaint “hobbit” galaxies recently found hovering around our Milky Way are comprised almost entirely of dark matter, a new study confirms. Dark matter is a mysterious substance scientists think accounts for most of the mass in the universe but that is invisible to current instruments.

Bizarre Parasitic Star Found
A dead, spinning star has been found feeding on its stellar companion, whittling it down to an object smaller than some planets. “This object is merely the skeleton of a star,” says study team member Craig Markwardt of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. “The pulsar has eaten away the star’s outer envelope, and all that remains is its helium-rich core.”

First known planet to survive red-giant phase found
LONDON (Reuters) – Astronomers have discovered the first known planet to survive its “red-giant” phase, a period when an aging star expands and engulfs bodies orbiting it.