"Using ultra-short light pulses gives us the ability to focus in a well confined region and the ability for intense radiation, " said Parigger.

ENGADGET: Researchers develop femtosecond laser that can diagnose, blast cancerous tumors

As a work of popular science it is exemplary: the focus may be the numbers, but most of the mathematical legwork is confined to the appendices and the accompanying commentary is amusing and witty, as well as informed.

ECONOMIST: What to do?

Helicobacter's activities seem, so far, to be confined to the stomach (though the bacterium has now been implicated in cancer there, as well as in its ulcers).

ECONOMIST: Bugged by disease