Despite all the efforts made to get people who've had a heart attack to stick to the drug regimens they've started in hospital, many don't. One large Scottish study found that only 7.7% of patients continued to take statins after their myocardial infarction. There's a definite penalty to pay for stopping: those who took statins had a significant reduction in their risk of a further infarct compared to those who stopped (Heart2002;88:229-33)

When laparoscopic technology started, nitrous oxide (N₂O) was the gas of choice for creating a therapeutic pneumoperitoneum. But two reports of intraoperative explosions put a virtual stop to its use, and carbon dioxide (CO₂) replaced it. A prospective randomised clinical trial comparing the two gases now concludes that N₂O has sufficient advantages and should be reinstated as the gas of choice. Everything else being equal (and no explosions), patients in the N₂O group had less postoperative pain (Journal of the American College of Surgeons 2002;195:173-80)

In field experiments female lions tend to choose male partners with the darkest manes. Darker manes indicate better nutrition and higher testosterone, and are associated with longer reproductive lives …