Monday, June 25, 2007

Today's Globe: doses and devices for children, staph germ, Lyme controversy, ovarian cancer, Rubik's Cube

Doctors have long struggled with how best to treat small children with drugs and medical devices that are mostly designed, tested, and approved for use by adults. A Cambridge-based nonprofit that is officially being launched today hopes to change that. The Institute for Pediatric Innovation says it will work with three major children's hospitals in California, Kansas, and Ohio to redesign drugs and devices to better fit children.

A dangerous, drug-resistant staph germ may be infecting as many as 5 percent of hospital and nursing home patients, according to a comprehensive study.

More than two decades since the threat of Lyme disease was recognized, doctors and patients are still warring over how to identify and treat the insect-borne illness.

Ovarian cancer has long been known as the "silent killer," growing imperceptibly inside victims until the disease has spread too far to be stopped. Now, Seattle researchers have come up with what may be the first early-warning system for a disease that is expected to kill 15,280 women this year, most of whom never knew they had cancer until it was too late.

Remember Rubik's Cube, that devious little puzzle from the 1980s? Cubing -- as it is known -- has had a revival, thanks to the growing popularity of "speedcubing" competitions to see who can take a randomly scrambled cube and solve it the fastest.

When MIT geophysics professor Nafi Toksoz (left) embarked on his career, no one had yet articulated the theory of plate tectonics. Now 73 and a legend in his field, Toksoz still teaches, ponders the earth's evolution, and tries to better answer the great question that keeps seismologists up at night: How do you predict an earthquake?

Also in Health/Science, the color of light in fiber optic cables and prescribing exercise.

Posted by Elizabeth Cooney at 06:03 AM

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