Like many patients given tonics in medicine's early days, however, some people given placebos in modern trials see their health improve. Researchers are beginning to ask why. The cell-like envelopes in which life on Earth arose and evolved may literally have dropped from the sky. A carnivorous plant called a bladderwort may not be a fierce predator at all but a misunderstood mutualist. The genome of a toxic Escherichia coli strain shows that the pathogen had picked up chunks of DNA from unrelated, ineffective bacteria, acquiring unpleasant traits that can send people to the hospital.
Some chemists oppose posting research online.
In the past 10 years, angioplasty and other procedures to unblock clogged arteries have steadily improved, probably due to increasing use of wire-mesh tubes called stents to help patients' arteries stay open. Some plastics can accumulate toxic pollutants from water, increasing the risk that they might poison wildlife mistaking these plastics for food. All rights reserved. Cyber Space Day Subscribe to Science News . Copyright Clearance Center Browse a Science News photo collection.