Today's Globe: Harvard research-funding change, soldier suicides, rare swimmers' illness, Vioxx suits

Faced with the threat of losing tens of millions of dollars in federal research money, scientists in Harvard's sprawling medical empire will collaborate as never before. Under a program announced yesterday, the fiercely competitive Harvard teaching hospitals have agreed to pool some of their research efforts to shorten the time it takes to turn discoveries into treatments.

Army soldiers committed suicide in 2007 at the highest rate on record, and the toll is climbing ever higher this year as long war deployments stretch on.

A rare brain illness spread in freshwater lakes, rivers, and hot springs killed six people in Florida, Texas, and Arizona in 2007, the most in more than five years, according to a US report (fourth item).

Merck & Co. won reversals of a $26.1 million Vioxx verdict in Texas and a $9 million punitive damages award in New Jersey, in separate court rulings yesterday on trials over its withdrawn painkiller.