Recent research shows that TNF, rather than destroying tumors as first thought, may actually spur their growth.

FORBES: Chemical Chameleon

What is unusual about Physisporinus and Xylaria is that they gradually degrade the cell walls of the wood they infect thinning them rather than destroying them completely.

ECONOMIST: Violin-making

The idea that helping mosquitoes, rather than destroying them, may be the way to eradicate malaria is pleasingly counterintuitive, even if it would mean more mosquito bites at night.

ECONOMIST: Recruiting mosquitoes to fight malaria

Indeed, people worried about potentially cheating spouses may find praying together a better safeguard against adultery than checking mobile-phone bills and scrutinising credit-card receipts and one that builds trust, rather than destroying it.

ECONOMIST: Praying for your partner stops you straying

Rather than destroying sperm, as other contraceptive formulas do, VivaGel's dendrimers prevent the sperm from attaching to the egg much in the same way that they prevent, say, HIV viruses from attaching to the body's T-cells.

FORBES: New Nano Protection Against HIV And Herpes

It might just be that health care reform happening in the late oughties rather than the early nineties is what will save the for profit health care insurance business rather than as Rick Unger has it, destroying it.

FORBES: The Obamacare Bomb: Explosive or a Damp Squib?

Recently, however, the campaign has been all about destroying anti-Arroyo images, rather than building them up.

ECONOMIST: Anyone but Arroyo