Christie?s sale of Impressionist and modern artworks included blockbuster paintings by Klimt and Gauguin.

Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein sent New York City?s principals a letter blaming their union for the fact that they have gone more than three years without a contract.

Microbes may compete with large animal scavengers by producing repugnant chemicals that deter higher species from consuming valuable food resources, a new study suggests. Ecologists have long recognized microbes as decomposers and pathogens in ecological communities. But their role as classic consumers who produce chemicals to compete with larger animals could be an important and common interaction within many ecosystems, according to a paper published this week in the journal Ecology.

Results of a new Fox Chase Cancer Center study show that men with a rapidly rising PSA level before treatment have a high probability of metastatic disease and should receive hormone therapy in addition to radiation.

Scientists have successfully transplanted light-sensing cells called photoreceptors directly into the eyes of mice and restored their visual function. The achievement is based on a novel technology in which the cells are introduced at a particular stage in their development. The experiment has potential implications for human eye diseases that dim the sight of millions of people.

Difficulties in the heart's ability to fill with blood are common causes of heart failure -- and appear to be as significant in placing a heart patient at risk of death as are deficiencies in the heart's ability to pump blood, new research from Mayo Clinic shows.

Gene therapy administered intravenously could be used as an agent to protect vital organs and tissues from the effects of ionizing radiation in the event of large-scale exposure from a radiological or nuclear bomb. In the University of Pittsburgh study, mice were used to test the protective effects of manganese superoxide dismutase plasmid liposome (MnSOD-PL) gene therapy on the bone marrow during whole-body irradiation.

Memories of events comprise many components -- including sights, sounds, smells and tastes. Somehow the many features of an episodic memory are woven together into a coherent whole, and researchers have had little understanding of how this binding takes place as the memories are processed by the brain's memory center, the hippocampus. A central question has been whether the hippocampus receives an "episodic packet," or a collection of perceptual strands that it must integrate into a memory.

Atmospheric scientists have reported a new and potentially important mechanism by which chemical emissions from ocean phytoplankton may influence the formation of clouds that reflect sunlight away from our planet.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have discovered how the Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) subverts a normal cell process in order to promote tumor growth. The finding, published in the most recent issue of PLoS Pathogens, offers new potential strategies for treating Kaposi's sarcoma and other cancers associated with viruses.

A gene variant associated with mental illness goes hand-in-hand with enlargement of a brain region that handles negative emotions, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center and the Central Texas Veterans Health Care System have found.

Radiation oncologists have found that giving less radiation than usual is just as effective against a benign but potential devastating brain tumor called an acoustic schwannoma, and better yet, might save more of the patient's hearing. They compared two groups among 115 patients with acoustic schwannomas treated at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital between 1994 and 2005. Both had effective tumor control, but those who received the lower radiation dose had more hearing preserved.

Researchers in computational biology and marine science have combined their diverse expertise and found that trace-metal usage by present-day organisms probably derives from major changes in ocean chemistry occurring over geological time scales.