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DOHA, Qatar — Olympic champion Justin Gatlin broke the 100-meter world record Friday with a time of 9.76 seconds at the Qatar Grand Prix. The American sprinter lowered the mark of 9.77 seconds set by Jamaica's Asafa Powell on June 14, 2005, in Athens, Greece. Gatlin won the 100- and 200-meter titles at the world championships in Helsinki, Finland, last August. He said Monday he intended to break the record in Doha. Olusoji Fasuban of Nigeria finished second Friday in 9.84 seconds, with Shawn Crawford of the United States third in 10.08. Gatlin and Powell ran 9.95s in separate races...

Tests dash hopes of rapid production of bird flu vaccine 17:43 16 December 2005 NewScientist.com news service Debora MacKenzie The results of first large-scale trials of a low-dose vaccine against H5N1 bird flu have been announced – and they are unexpectedly disappointing. Scientists had hoped that very low doses of vaccine virus would make humans immune if injected along with an immune-stimulating chemical called an adjuvant. But on Thursday, French vaccine company Sanofi pasteur announced that in tests on 300 people in France, they did not. “The prospects for adequate global supplies of an effective pandemic vaccine of any kind...

Once you get there, you stay there. That could well be the one timeless truth about Congress. For the 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, re-election is one of life's certainties. The possibility of a lifetime job - a job with no shortage of power, perks and prestige - also explains much about the mad dash that began Wednesday, with the unexpected announcement by Republican Rep. Jim Kolbe that he will not run for a 12th term in 2006. "These opportunities don't happen everyday," said Rep. Raúl Grijalva, a Tucson Democrat. Open congressional seats are indeed among the...

Sam Dash and Archibald Cox died on Saturday night...anyone notice the coincidence?

After a decades-long scientific quest, scientists analyzing data from the Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft have at last found critical evidence the instrument was built to search for – the presence of water-related carbonate minerals on the surface of Mars. However, the discovery also potentially contradicts what scientists had hoped to prove: the past existence of large bodies of liquid water on Mars, such as oceans and seas. In a report to be published in the August 22 issue of the journal Science, Arizona State University planetary geologists Joshua Bandfield, Timothy Glotch and Philip Christensen...

Blair warns of 'crucial moment' in dash for BaghdadTwo British soldiers missing in southern Iraq; Stray US missile kills five on Syrian bus; Iraqi TV shows downed US helicopter; Sandstorm halts troops AP 24 March 2003 Coalition forces are close to confronting a key unit of the Republican Guard in Iraq, Tony Blair said this afternoon. He told MPs that coalition forces are about 60 miles south of Baghdad near Karbala, adding: "It is a little way from there that they will encounter the Medina division of the Republican Guard who are defending the route to Baghdad. This will be...