The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved "Artiss, a fibrin sealant used to attach skin grafts in burn patients."
The product "contains lower amounts of thrombin than similar adhesives, giving surgeons more time to align grafts before they begin adhering to the skin."
Researchers "have gained new insight into the workings of insulin, potentially laying the groundwork for an anti-aging treatment," according to a study published in the Mar. 21 issue of the journal Cell.
T. Keith Blackwell, M.D., Ph.D., senior investigator at Harvard Medical School's Joslin Diabetes Center, in Boston, and colleagues, examined "the effects of changing insulin levels in a species of tiny worm known as Caenorhabditis elegans," which has a very short life span.
The scientists "found that more insulin results in less activity by a gene-regulating protein called SKN-1." Therefore, "by lowering insulin levels, the study authors were able to boost levels of the protein, and make the worms live longer."
The researchers noted that the "mechanism at work here seems to relate to how well cells defend themselves against damage," which may enable people to fight disease better, thereby extending their lives.
The participants "wore devices that recorded their blood pressure at random times over 24 hours," . After analyzing the data, the researchers "found that the more marital satisfaction and adjustment spouses reported, the lower their average blood pressure was over the 24 hours, and during the daytime." But, "spouses who scored low in marital satisfaction had higher average blood pressure than single people did." Moreover, in "the daytime, their average was about five points higher."
The authors stated that "Most prior research focused on marital status, and ignored the impact of the quality of relationships," "It's not just being married that benefits health. What's really the most protective of health is having a happy marriage."
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New York is home to the world's largest pile of gold is it safe there?
On the bedrock of Manhattan, five storeys below ground, the largest accumulation of gold anywhere on earth... 
Most of the gold belongs to foreign governments
King Midas or perhaps Tutankhamen must have known the feeling well. But whereas they would have been able to take a few bars home whenever they wanted, here the limits are a great deal more stringent.
No-one has ever tried to rob the gold vault of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY), a few scant blocks from Wall Street, and our humble gathering of foreign correspondents were not about to test the security arrangements.
The entire place can be locked down in just 28 seconds by armed guards, most of them expert marksmen. There is even a practice firing-range on site, along with an in-house medical centre.
There is no door into the vault, where gold worth about $90bn (£50bn) is held, representing roughly one-quarter of the world's official reserves, weighing in at 7,000 tonnes. Instead, a narrow two-metre-long passageway is cut into a 90-tonne steel cylinder that is rotated shut every night.
The vault is locked manually, using large circular wheels
It's hardly comforting to be told that there is only enough oxygen to survive within the air-tight room for about 72 hours, just when we're standing inside when the locking procedure is demonstrated.
Goldfinger
Journalists are not allowed to take notes inside the vault, lest someone provides an overly-graphic account of the layout.
There are elements which, in a surreal fashion, resemble the set of the James Bond movie "Goldfinger" - beyond the beautiful, gleaming and numbered bars themselves.
The vault is locked manually, using large circular wheels, and the huge bullion-weighing machine itself looks like a throwback to the 1960s.
Most of the subterranean gold here belongs to foreign governments, although the Fed's employees are not at liberty to say exactly which. The New York Fed's senior vice president and spokesman, Peter Bakstansky, is good-natured but firm on the issue of whether, say, Iraq had any bars down below.
"I don't know where their gold is, and I wouldn't be able to tell you if it's here," he says.
"We know who our account relationships are with, but just as with the place where you banked, you probably wouldn't want your name listed on the wall.
"Our account holders feel much the same way."
Independence - of sorts
The reason why the bullion inside the thick walls and barred windows of the FRBNY comes from both domestic and foreign sources is the devolved responsibilities of the independent Federal Reserve System.
The Fed is a self-financing and trusted deposit point
New York not only handles foreign financial transactions for the US Treasury, but also for many central banks abroad. It is a self-financing and trusted deposit point for most of the world economy.
America's carefully-constructed central banking system ensures that routine politics and the changing desires of the markets are kept outside the door.
But independence has its limits. In the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979, the Fed froze Iran's assets by presidential order.
In foreign dealings, Mr Bakstansky says, the State Department's instructions come first.
"We're independent in our policy making, but we're not an independent, floating-free entity within the United States. We're part of the government."
Foreign governments are not charged by the Fed for storing their precious reserves, but fees are incurred for withdrawals, or for moving bars to another compartment within the vault.
There has not been a single transaction so far this year. Governments, it seems, are happy to leave things as they are, despite the ever-present threats and alerts.
No charge
The threat of becoming a target is of course on the minds of those at the FRBNY.
The events of 11 September 2001 shook the Fed as it shook all other New York institutions.
Governments are charged for withdrawals and for moving bars
That day marked the most recent lockdown of the vaults, the doors staying shut for several days.
Yet moving the world's biggest pot of gold to somewhere which is a less obvious target is not an option.
"There's been no discussion of which I am aware to move gold reserves, and countries have not moved their reserves," Mr Bakstansky said.
"We have roughly the same amount now as we did three years ago and if countries felt this was an insecure facility, they would have moved their gold out and put it somewhere else where they felt safer."
Overseas dollars
The gold reserves are the glamorous focus of the FRBNY.
But the truly mind-boggling statistics are to be found in the volume of electronic funds that are moved around the national system.
The average daily weight of transactions is $2.2 trillion, with an individual "Fed Wire" payment averaging $3.5m.
Out there in the world's cash economy, however, the Fed has only limited control over the ebb and flow of the mighty dollar.
For all the levers at the disposal of the Board of Governors, and the dozen Reserve Banks around the country, it is worth remembering that only 30% of the dollars in circulation are in the US.
And although the FRBNY still has the biggest gold reserves in the world, the country with more 100-dollar bills than anywhere else isn't the US. It's Russia.There are not many countries you can bicycle around before breakfast. One of the very few is Nauru, a Pacific island nation halfway between Australia and Hawaii.
 The island of Nauru is the world's smallest independent republic |
Dubbed Pleasant Island in the 18th Century by the captain of a passing British ship - it is the world's smallest independent republic, a coral speck dwarfed by the vastness of the Pacific Ocean.
On most assignments, one of the first tasks is to hire a car. On Nauru, it didn't really seem worth the bother, I opted instead for a battered mountain bike.
It took me about an hour and a half to cycle the narrow coast road, sweating profusely beneath the fierce equatorial sun. Before I knew it, I was back where I started. I had just circumnavigated the entire country.
Nauru may be little, but it once enjoyed enormous wealth. In fact Nauruans were among the richest people, per capita, in the world.
 |  Hardly anyone thought of investing the money. Dollar notes were even used as toilet paper  |
A quirk of nature means that their island consists of some of the world's purest phosphate - the legacy of millions of years of sea bird droppings reacting with an uplifted coral.
Spending spree
From independence from Britain and Australia in 1968, until the 1990s, Nauru earned a fortune exporting its phosphate for fertiliser.
 Islanders are returning to fishing now the money has run out |
They gave up their jobs, brought in migrants from other Pacific islands to do the hot, dirty work of digging and sat back waiting for the royalty cheques to drop into their hands.
They then went on an extraordinary spending spree. Families who had never left the island would charter aircraft to take them on shopping expeditions in Hawaii, Fiji and Singapore.
Sports cars were imported, despite the fact that Nauru has only one paved road and the speed limit is 25mph.
A police chief memorably bought a sleek yellow Lamborghini, only to find he was too portly to fit in the driver's seat. "We just didn't know how to handle it all," a barefoot islander told me as he played his guitar beneath a tree.
"Hardly anyone thought of investing the money. Dollar notes were even used as toilet paper," his friend told me. "It's true," he insisted seeing my look of disbelief. "It was like every day was party day."
 The Nauraun children are still hopeful for the island's future |
Nauru amassed a property portfolio of hotels and office blocks around the world. But corruption and downright incompetence took their toll and by the early part of this century, most of the assets had to be sold off to pay for the country's mounting debts.
Now all the money is gone.
Angry islanders
Signs of Nauru's former wealth are few and far between. Homes are dilapidated, with holes punched through their walls.
An area known as Location is one of the most squalid slums I have come across in the South Pacific, a concrete ghetto of smashed windows, stray dogs and graffiti.
| We're doing our best to climb out of it. It won't be like in our heyday, but at least we'll be comfortable Marcus Stephen, Nauru president |
The brand new cars which islanders bought are rusted wrecks smothered in tropical undergrowth.
Last week a mob of angry islanders burnt down Nauru's only prison in what the government said was politically motivated unrest orchestrated by a former president.
Now comes another blow to this Micronesian micro-nation. A refugee detention centre, set up by Australia seven years ago, will close down at the end of this month.
It was built by the government of Prime Minister John Howard at a time when hundreds of boat people were trying to reach Australia.
It proved a huge vote-winner, but Mr Howard was turfed out in November and his successor, Labour Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, swiftly moved to shut it down. Nauruans are distraught - the facility brought much-needed jobs and hundreds of big-spending contractors, police and officials.
 Phosphate mining has resumed in on the island of Nauru |
A mining company hopes to extract precious metals from the surrounding sea-bed. Phosphate mining has resumed with the government claiming there is another 30 years of reserves up in the scarred interior.
Hangover
"We find ourselves in a big hole," concedes newly-elected president and former weight-lifting champion, Marcus Stephen. "We're doing our best to climb out of it. It won't be like in our heyday, but at least we'll be comfortable."
Nauruans realise that the party is well and truly over.
Now comes the hangover and then, with luck, some sort of recovery. But it will take squeaky clean governance, hard work and rock-solid investments for Pleasant Island to once again live up to its name.
It may not yet be paradise lost, but it is most definitely paradise postponed.
