Scientists in California have found a way to ”turn off’’ a gene that makes cancerous cells lethal. They eliminated aggressive, incurable liver tumours in laboratory mice in four weeks, they report in an advance paper in Nature this week. Cancer affects one person in three, and kills one in five. But above all, cancer is a DNA disease.

It turns out that, after all, the past 13 years were a bad dream. Dallas fans awoke on Thursday morning to discover that the glamorous Texas TV soap opera, which expired in 1991, is to be resurrected. The machinations of the oil-rich Ewings are set for the big screen. The director of Legally Blonde, Robert Luketic, is reportedly in talks to make the film.

George Bush has squandered a wealth of sympathy around the world towards the United States since September 11 with public opinion in 10 leading countries — including some of its closest allies — growing more hostile to the US while he has been in office.

After 50 years of failure, a vaccine against malaria could be in sight, raising hopes of slashing the death toll from a disease that kills more than a million people, mostly babies and pregnant women, every year. Results from the trials in Mozambique are published today in The Lancet medical journal.

An unknown work confidently believed to be by Raphael has been found beneath a later painting which had been put into the wall of an Umbrian church and forgotten. A banner once paraded by a Catholic lay fraternity shows Christ flanked by St Francis of Assisi and St Ubaldo, the 12th century bishop of Gubbio, the town where it was found.

Dutch scientists have confirmed that red wine is healthier than an alcopop. A binge drinking experiment showed those who hit the bottle might do better to choose Cotes du Rhone over cocktails. Twenty healthy volunteers drank six glasses of red wine or six glasses of Bacardi Breezer in three hours.