Watch For Holiday E-Card Spam, Symantec Warns
Some malware authors have even gone so far as to include the phrases “no worm, no virus” in the e-card’s text, as if such an assurance made the message safe.

Live Documents Looks Exactly Like Office (by Stan Schroeder at Mashable)
The folks of Microsoft have rarely impressed us with their online applications, but this time might be different. Live Documents, created by Sabeer Bhatia of Hotmail fame, has one huge advantage over every other online office suite – it looks exactly like Microsoft Office 2007, and Office is by far the most often used desktop office package out there.

Gotta Go On the Go? Check MizPee. (by Kristen Nicole at Mashable)
The latest site from Yojo Mobile, MizPee will help you find the nearest, cleanest public bathroom. It’s accessible on the web as well as your mobile phone, so you’ll be able to get to MizPee while on the go. What’s useful about MizPee is the profile capabilities that let you save the best and worst bathrooms that you’ve come across.
I kid you not.

New editing program touches up Flickr
SAN FRANCISCO – Yahoo Inc. is touching up its popular online photo-sharing service, Flickr, with free editing tools aimed at the growing number of shutterbugs who want to doctor their digital pictures.

Digital scan detects hues in Leonardo piece
New digital examination of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Lady with an Ermine” has revealed bolder hues, softer contours and other details lost in centuries of deterioration and touchups on the masterpiece.

Radio Antenna Made of Plasma
A radio antenna made of electrified gas could lead to stealthy, jamming-resistant transmitters, research now reveals. Electrified gas, or plasma, makes up stars and lightning and is what sheds light in fluorescent bulbs. Sealed glass, ceramic or even flexible plastic tubes of plasma can behave just like conventional metal antennas.

New hypothesis for origin of life proposed
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– Life may have begun in the protected spaces inside of layers of the mineral mica, in ancient oceans, according to a new hypothesis. The [Helen] Hansma mica hypothesis proposes that the narrow confined spaces between the thin layers of mica could have provided exactly the right conditions for the rise of the first biomolecules –– effectively creating cells without membranes. The separation of the layers would have also provided the isolation needed for Darwinian evolution.

Israeli study says generosity may be linked to genes
JERUSALEM (AFP) – The spirit of giving may lie in an individual person’s genetic makeup, according to a recent study conducted by researchers at Hebrew University’s psychology department, the school said on Wednesday.
Yes, and I’d write a book about how this applies to politics, if I could ever find a publisher.

Mitochondria Defects Linked To Social Behavior And Spatial Memory
ScienceDaily (Dec. 5, 2007) — Respiration deficiencies in mitochondria, the cell’s powerhouses, are associated with changed social behavior and spatial memory in laboratory mice.

Possible Markers For Mental Illness Discovered
ScienceDaily (Dec. 5, 2007) — Researchers have discovered natural genetic differences that might help predict the most effective antipsychotic drugs for particular patients with mental disorders such as schizophrenia, Parkinson’s and drug addiction.

Depressed Moms’ Kids at Higher Injury Risk
Boys, especially, were also more likely to ‘act out’, study found

Controlled Drinking: Controversial Alternative to AA
Can you fight the disease of alcohol addiction and still be a social drinker? Making such a stance was heretical only a generation ago. Yet controlled drinking, as it is called, has emerged as an accepted treatment option for those who find abstinence too daunting.
There IS life after drinking.  Trust me.

Night Shift Work May Heighten Risk for Cancer
Expert panel to add it to list of ‘probable’ causes of malignancy.

7 or 8 Hours of Sleep Best for Health
Shorter, longer rest periods were tied to increased death risk, research shows

Fitness, Not Fatness, Predicts a Longer Life
People in good shape tend to outlive folks who aren’t, study finds

Protein found to turn up metabolism in mice
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Tricking muscle tissue to burn rather than store fat has succeeded in increasing the average life span of mice and staved off some age-related diseases, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday. 

Could Hydrogen Sulfide Hold The Key To A Long Life?
ScienceDaily (Dec. 5, 2007) — Hydrogen sulfide, or H2S, the chemical that gives rotten eggs their sulfurous stench — and the same compound that researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center successfully have used to put mice into a state of reversible metabolic hibernation — has now been shown to significantly increase life span and heat tolerance in the nematode worm.

First known example of Roman throne found near Pompeii
The lava and ash that buried the ancient city of Herculaneum, near Pompeii, have yielded the first known example of a Roman throne, archaeologists said Tuesday.

Ancient limestone graveyards unearthed
Syrian archeologists have unearthed two Bronze-era cemeteries dating from the 18th century B.C., the third set of ancient graveyards found in less than a month, Syria’s Archaeological Department chief said Tuesday.

Neanderthals grew up faster than we do
A new analysis shows that the teeth of Neanderthal children grew faster than the teeth of human children today, suggesting that a long childhood is uniquely human.

‘Monster’ Arctic Reptile Remains Found
OSLO, Norway (AP) – Remains of a bus-sized prehistoric “monster” reptile found on a remote Arctic island may be a new species never before recorded by science, researchers said Tuesday.

Stars align for space station buildup
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – NASA hopes to launch its fourth shuttle mission in six months on Thursday, a pace that will keep the International Space Station on track for completion by 2010. 

Dead Stars Propelled Like Rockets
As white dwarfs form, they get a “kick” that propels them to speeds of thousands of miles per hour, new evidence from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope shows.