Stuff not related to elections

Now there's a concept... Actually this first one does have an indirect connection, but at least it's not about swift boats.

From the Wall Street Journal:

New employment data show that most election "battleground" states gained jobs in July, but three-quarters have fewer jobs than they did when Bush took office. In all, nonagricultural employers in 28 states and Washington, D.C., added jobs in July. The U.S. as a whole added only 32,000 nonfarm jobs.

(I have a new subscription to the WSJ but I'm sure I won't be able to link much from there, since everything is paid. I'll just have to do a lot of quoting.)


And also from the WSJ:

A simple blood test can predict how long a woman may survive with metastatic breast cancer, giving doctors a powerful new tool which some scientists believe can be used to customize treatments for individual patients.

The test, by Immunicon Corp., of Huntingdon Valley, Pa., measures the number of tumor cells circulating in the blood stream. That number offers a remarkably precise predictor of a patient's survival, according to a study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. In the study, which was funded by Immunicon, researchers found that women with five or more tumor cells in a small test tube of blood died in an average of 10 months. That compares with more than 18 months for those with fewer than five tumor cells in their blood.

That's pretty impressive.