Champagne. Do you drink it out of a narrow flute or the broader, more shallow coupe?

The Philippine tarsier (Tarsius syrichta) makes ultrasonic calls. (Credit: Nathaniel Dominy, Dartmouth)

Let’s be honest: tarsiers look odd. Among the smallest of all primates, most species of tarsier would fit easily in the palm of your hand. They have long, slender, largely hairless tails and elongated fingers with knobby knuckles and mushroom-cap finger pads.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto/luckyraccoon

Men tend to get coronary artery disease much earlier than do women. For some men, the reason for that might be in part because of their fathers and their father’s father according to a new study , published online Wednesday in The Lancet .

Gonorrhea under a microscope. Image: courtesy of CDC/Susan Lindsley

The arms race between humanity and disease-causing bacteria is drawing to a close and the bacteria are winning. The latest evidence: gonorrhea is becoming resistant to all standard antibiotic treatment.

When large airliners approach an airport for a landing, a combination of radio signals and high-intensity lighting shows the pilot exactly where the runway is, even at night or in fog. But millions of people a year fly on smaller commercial planes, many private, that do not have such technology. The pilots of those craft must rely on less sophisticated instruments, along with their cockpit window view during landing, a situation that can be fatal in bad weather. In 2011 alone four such commercial jets crashed into terrain or an obstacle, killing 140 passengers and crew, according to avionics-maker Honeywell and aerospace research firm Ascend . The accidents are known as "controlled flight into terrain." [More]

Cancer treatment can be brutal for patients. Many of the tools we have-- chemotherapy , radiation--are big, blunt weapons that deal punishing blows to healthy tissues along with cancerous ones. So the hunt has been on for more and more finely targeted therapies that will attack malignant cells yet minimize damage to patients' bodies.