Tiny, wired town is an English-teaching hub
Wyo. company hires people to teach English to Koreans using Skype

Robots Created That Develop And Display Emotions And Become Attached To Certain People
ScienceDaily (Nov. 25, 2008) — Robots that develop and display emotions as they interact with humans, and become attached to them, will be exhibited at the ICT’08 event organized by the European Commission in Lyon next week..

Bug Spy: U.S. Develops Tiny Flying Robots
U.S. military engineers are trying to design flying robots disguised as insects that could one day spy on enemies and conduct dangerous missions without risking lives.

Light-wave implant hope for deaf
An implant which works by firing infrared light into the inner ear is being investigated by US researchers.

5 Million People a Year Use Self-Help Addiction Programs
U.S. report finds 2.3 million of them currently abstain from alcohol, drugs

Magnificent Medical Miracles, and Everyday Ones, Too
Two new health books go a long way toward explicating medical miracles pursued and those that unfold against all expectations.

Microsoft Examines Causes of ‘Cyberchondria’
A new survey from Microsoft suggests that self-diagnosis by search engine frequently leads Web searchers to conclude the worst about what ails them.

Parents Often Choose ER for Routine Kids’ Care 
Wait times, frustration with primary care doctors driving the trend, study finds

Molecular Switch in Brain May End Smokers’ Cravings
A key receptor cuts the urge for nicotine, rat study suggests

Combination Therapies May Be Almost As Effective As Insecticide-treated Bednets In Preventing Malaria In Areas Of Low Transmission
ScienceDaily (Nov. 25, 2008) — Artemisinin combination therapies (ACTs) could be almost as effective in reducing transmission of malaria as insecticide-treated bednets (ITNs) in areas of low transmission, a study based on data from Tanzania has found. In high transmission areas, long-acting antimalarial regimens may be needed to achieve significant transmission reductions.

New Migraine Drug Shows Promise
Telcagepant works differently than standard triptans, researchers say

New Diabetes Treatment? New Source Of Insulin-producing Cells Identified
ScienceDaily (Nov. 25, 2008) — Researchers at the Joslin Diabetes Center have shown that insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells can form after birth or after injury from progenitor cells within the pancreas that were not beta cells, a finding that contradicts a widely-cited earlier study that had concluded this is not possible.

First Comprehensive Map Of Genes Likely To Be Involved In Bipolar Disorder
ScienceDaily (Nov. 24, 2008) — Neuroscientists at the Indiana University School of Medicine have created the first comprehensive map of genes likely to be involved in bipolar disorder, according to research published online Nov. 21 in the American Journal of Medical Genetics.

Avandia’s Heart Risk Higher Than Others in Its Class
A similar diabetes drug, Actos, doesn’t seem to carry same dangers, study finds.

Gasping Is Good When It Comes to Cardiac Arrest
Those who do have better survival odds, but swift action is needed

Chemotherapy Plus Targeted Therapies Shows Improved Survival In Advance-stage Lung Cancer Patients
The combination of traditional chemotherapy agents with targeted therapies called monoclonal antibodies showed no safety concerns and improved survival in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer.

Study Calls for Greater Scrutiny of ‘Off-Label’ Drug Use
Doctors often prescribe medicines for conditions that haven’t been studied thoroughly.

How dolphins outdo Olympic swimmers
Dolphins have a kick that would make Olympic gold-medalist Michael Phelps jealous — 212 pounds  worth.

Flies May Reveal Evolutionary Step To Live Birth
ScienceDaily (Nov. 25, 2008) — A species of fruit fly from the Seychelles Islands often lays larvae instead of eggs, UC San Diego biologists have discovered. Clues to how animals switch from laying eggs to live birth may be found in the well-studied species’ ecology and genes.

Siberian quake triggers false US seismic reports
PASADENA, Calif. (AP) – A powerful undersea earthquake off Russia’s eastern coast on Monday caused automated monitoring systems to falsely indicate small temblors in Idaho and California, scientists reported. 

Did asteroid cause ancient N.Y. tsunami?
Long before New York City was the Big Apple, or even New Amsterdam, a giant tsunami crashed ashore. No one knows for sure what caused it, but new clues found in the Hudson’s silt suggest an asteroid 330 feet in diameter slammed into the Atlantic Ocean nearby.

Witnesses: Large meteor streaks across Canada sky
SASKATOON, Saskatchewan (AP) – Scientists say they hope to find remnants of a meteor that brilliantly lit up the sky before falling to earth in western Canada.

Astronauts finish final spacewalk of mission
Two astronauts are safely back inside the international space station after finishing a spacewalk to clean and lube a jammed solar-wing rotary joint.

NASA scales back flagship Mars mission
LOS ANGELES (AP) – NASA is scrapping a controversial piece of hardware from its next-generation Mars rover that would have allowed the spacecraft to store rock fragments in a mini-basket for a future mission. The decision to slash the storage bin from the Mars Science Laboratory’s payload came as engineers raced to meet an October 2009 launch deadline on a project beset by escalating costs and technical challenges.

Binary Star Explosion Inside Nebula Challenges Star Theory
ScienceDaily (Nov. 25, 2008) — The explosion of a binary star inside a planetary nebula has been captured by a team led by UCL (University College London) researchers – an event that has not been witnessed for more than 100 years. The study, published in Astrophysical Journal Letters, predicts that the combined mass of the two stars in the system may be high enough for the stars to eventually spiral into each other, triggering a much bigger supernova explosion.

Strangulation Of Spiral Galaxies
ScienceDaily (Nov. 25, 2008) — Astronomers in two UK-led international collaborations have separately uncovered a type of galaxy that represents a missing link in our understanding of galaxy evolution.

Mystery Of Missing Hydrogen: Apparent Absence From Distant Galaxies Puzzles Astronomers
ScienceDaily (Nov. 24, 2008) — Something vital is missing in the far distant reaches of the universe: hydrogen — the raw material for stars, planets and possible life. The discovery of its apparent absence from distant galaxies by a team of Australian astronomers is puzzling because hydrogen gas is the most common constituent of normal matter in the universe. If anything, hydrogen was expected to be more abundant so early in the life of the universe because it had not yet been consumed by the formation of all the stars and galaxies we know today.

A Whisper, Perhaps, From the Universe’s Dark Side
Recent results from a number of experiments have led some scientists to suspect that they are getting signals from a shadow universe of dark matter.