BEIJING A Chinese scholar persecuted during the Cultural Revolution for smuggling a rare collection of mushrooms out of China before World War II was honored Saturday when the collection was returned more than 70 years later.

LOS ANGELES A Seattle team has collected a $900,000 prize in a NASA-backed competition to develop the concept of an elevator to space - an idea spurred by science fiction novels.

BARCELONA, Spain After two years of tough U.N. climate talks often pitting the world's rich against the poor, negotiators said Friday a new global agreement now rides on industrial nations pledging profound emissions cuts next month in Copenhagen.

LONDON In Britain, there are no long lines of people seeking swine flu vaccine. Doctor's offices aren't swamped with desperate calls. And there are no cries of injustice that the vaccine is going to wealthy corporations or healthy people who don't really need it.

ATLANTA Only about a third of adults who have tried to get a swine flu vaccine have been able to get it, according to a new national poll released Friday.

WASHINGTON French scientists mixed gene therapy and bone marrow transplants in two boys to seemingly halt a brain disease that can kill by adolescence. The surprise ingredient: They disabled the HIV virus so it couldn't cause AIDS, and then used it to carry in the healthy new gene.

DENVER Airborne nitrogen pollution from vehicle exhaust and farm fertilizer is turning algae in the alpine lakes of Rocky Mountain National Park into junk food for fish, a study says.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico Lower-than-feared sea temperatures this summer gave a break to fragile coral reefs across the Caribbean and the central Gulf of Mexico that were damaged in recent years, scientists said Thursday.

NEW YORK Some of New York's biggest companies, including Wall Street giants Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, received doses of swine flu vaccine for at-risk employees, drawing criticism that the hard-to-find vaccine is going first to the privileged.

LONDON The World Health Organization's flu chief said the swine flu virus has now become the predominant flu strain worldwide.

JOHANNESBURG The global recession and pressure to divert funds to other health crises are hurting the fight against AIDS, a medical group warned Thursday, with one health worker saying he feared a return to the days when the AIDS virus was a death sentence in Africa.

LONDON Britain is using genetic tests on some African asylum seekers in an effort to catch those who are lying about their nationality, drawing criticism from scientists and provoking outrage from rights groups.

CHICAGO Advice about soft drinks and health from one of the nation's largest doctors groups will soon be brought to you by Coke.

NEW YORK It seemed like a great idea - doing bypass surgery while the heart is still beating, sparing patients the complications that can come from going on a heart-lung machine. Now the first big test of this method has produced a surprise: Bypass has fewer problems and is more successful done the old way.

WASHINGTON The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Wednesday that pigs in a commercial herd in Indiana have tested positive for swine flu, making it the first time the virus has been found in such hogs.

DES MOINES, Iowa A 13-year-old Iowa cat has been infected with swine flu, veterinary and federal officials said Wednesday, and it is believed to be the first case of the H1N1 virus in a feline.

BOSTON Dr. James Wang says he tries to tell his patients when extra medical procedures aren't necessary. If they insist, though, he will do it - not so much to protect their health as his own practice.

WASHINGTON Last year pharmaceutical companies spent more than $4 billion urging patients like you to "ask your doctor" about their drugs. But if you want a prescription that won't empty your wallet, while still keeping you well, you might start asking your doctor about drugs you don't see on TV.

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. A robot powered by a ground-based laser beam climbed a long cable dangling from a helicopter on Wednesday to qualify for prize money in a $2 million competition to test the potential reality of the science fiction concept of space elevators.

Men may protect more than their hearts if they keep cholesterol in line: Their chances of getting aggressive prostate cancer may be lower, new research suggests.

ATLANTA Premature births, often due to poor care of low-income pregnant women, are the main reason the U.S. infant mortality rate is higher than in most European countries, a government report said Tuesday.

GENEVA China has seen a tenfold increase in syphilis cases over the past decade, as migrant workers made enough money in the country's economic boom to hire more prostitutes, a senior Chinese health official was quoted as saying Tuesday.

LVIV, Ukraine Russia and Slovakia tightened their borders with Ukraine on Tuesday as the World Health Organization began investigating a suspected swine flu outbreak.

GENEVA A rare Panamanian tree frog, a rodent from Madagascar and two lizards found only in the Philippines are among over 17,000 species threatened with extinction, a leading environmental group said Tuesday.

SIAYA, Kenya A mother watched with dread as a nurse inserted a tube in her baby's head. Blood streamed into the anemic 4-month-old who already has malaria, the mosquito-borne disease that kills a million African children every year.

CHICAGO Researchers studying antibiotics in pregnancy have found a surprising link between common drugs used to treat urinary infections and birth defects. Reassuringly, the most-used antibiotics in early pregnancy - penicillins - appear to be the safest.

CHICAGO Nearly half of all U.S. children and 90 percent of black youngsters will be on food stamps at some point during childhood, and fallout from the current recession could push those numbers even higher, researchers say.

WASHINGTON The nightly attacks by two man-eating lions terrified railway workers and brought construction to a halt in one of east Africa's most notorious onslaughts more than a hundred years ago. But the death toll, scientists now say, wasn't as high as previously thought.

WASHINGTON The snows of Kilimanjaro may soon be gone. The African mountain's white peak - made famous by writer Ernest Hemingway - is rapidly melting, researchers report.

WASHINGTON A single dose of the swine flu vaccine works well for almost all pregnant women, but young children will still need two doses for best results, federal health officials said Monday.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Ten years and $2.5 billion in research have found no cures from alternative medicine. Yet these mostly unproven treatments are now mainstream and used by more than a third of all Americans. This is one in an occasional Associated Press series on their use and potential risks.

WASHINGTON Nurses were training women in rural Mexico to examine their breasts for cancer when one raised her hand to object. If she lost her breast, Harvard public health specialist Felicia Knaul recalls the woman saying, "My man would leave me" - and with him, the family's income.

KIEV, Ukraine Urging its citizens not to panic, Ukraine on Monday closed the nation's schools for a week to avoid the spread of swine flu and suggested that nightclubs, cinemas and food markets in the west also shut down.

CHICAGO An international group of scientists has decoded the DNA of the domestic pig, research that may one day prove useful in finding new treatments for both pigs and people, and perhaps aid in efforts for a new swine flu vaccine for pigs.

WASHINGTON Independent health advisers begin monitoring safety of the swine flu vaccine on Monday, an extra step the government promised in this year's unprecedented program to watch for possible side effects.

LONDON To fight pneumonia, the world's top killer of children, United Nations officials say they need $39 billion (euro26.35 billion) over the next six years.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Ten years and $2.5 billion in research have found no cures from alternative medicine. Yet these mostly unproven treatments are now mainstream and used by more than a third of all Americans. This is one in an occasional Associated Press series on their use and potential risks.

WASHINGTON A senior adviser to President Barack Obama says the government will catch up to the demand for swine flu vaccine within a week.

HAVANA Fidel Castro has found something to sneeze at in Washington's decision to ease visits by Cuban-Americans to his island: He says more Americans mean more swine flu.

BEIJING Qian Xuesen, a rocket scientist known as the father of China's space technology program, died Saturday in Beijing, the official Xinhua News Agency said. He was 98.

A new study raises fresh safety concerns about widely used anemia medicines, finding that the drug Aranesp nearly doubled the risk of stroke in people with diabetes and chronic kidney problems who are not yet sick enough to need dialysis.

LONDON Hundreds of people on any given day will die, develop the paralyzing Guillain-Barre syndrome or have spontaneous abortions, and that doesn't necessarily mean that their swine flu vaccination shot was to blame, a new study says.

ATLANTA Swine flu has caused at least 19 more children's deaths - the largest one-week increase since the pandemic started in April, health officials said Friday.

Purposely polluting the upper atmosphere? Reflecting sunlight with giant space mirrors?

GENEVA A single dose of swine flu vaccine is enough to immunize adults and children over 10 against the pandemic strain, the World Health Organization said Friday.

LOS ANGELES It was bound to happen: Some people who aren't at high risk for swine flu complications got the much-in-demand vaccine.

LONDON Dutch scientists made a controversial suggestion Friday that children might be better off skipping the seasonal flu vaccine this year - a proposal flatly rejected by other health experts.

RENO, Nev. A fight broke out Thursday at a Reno, Nev., clinic giving shots for swine flu when someone reportedly tried to cut in line.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. Two of three parachutes malfunctioned in the test flight of a prototype moon rocket earlier this week, causing major damage to the booster, NASA said Friday.

With Dad a world leader and Nobel Prize winner, Malia and Sasha Obama surely could have been first in line when vaccinations began for swine flu. They weren't, the White House says. But that hasn't stopped complaints that President Barack Obama's daughters got preferential treatment.