In a report published late Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine, samples from three patients -- all of whom died -- had mutations that have previously been shown to increase transmissibility, and to help the virus grow in a mammal's respiratory tract.

CNN: New bird flu well-adapted to infect people

While we told you earlier this week that the Ion 2-powered ASUS Eee PC 1201PN wouldn't be arriving until late May, a number of European sites have gotten early review samples of the 12-inch "netbook" -- if you choose to call it that -- and have discovered that it doesn't use NVIDIA's Optimus automatic graphics switching technology.

ENGADGET: First wave of Ion 2 ASUS Eee PC 1201PNs lack NVIDIA Optimus

They are chemical variants of an antibiotic called rapamycin, which Wyeth researchers found in soil samples from Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean in the late 1960s.

FORBES: Health

Those results contrast with figures published by authorities in the provincial capital of Guangzhou late last week showing high levels of cadmium in almost half of rice samples tested in local markets a revelation that triggered widespread anger among consumers despite officials' later statements that the sample size was too small and not representative of the city as a whole.

WSJ: China Seeks to Calm Anxiety Over Rice