While You Were Oh So Close

Chalk it up as a learning experience for US Soccer, but damn that was a tough loss on Sunday in the Confederations Cup final. At least the trip to the finals should bode well for next year's world cup. OK we're off to our Euro-Biotech Forum meeting early in the morning on Monday (a 6am bus to the airport! so glamorous.) so we're letting this WYW fly early (we'll try to update early Monday morning ET).

Hope to see some of you in Barcelona. While you were brushing up on your Catalan ...

• The New York Times' Forty Years War series about cancer research asks whether the NCI's grant system--which tends to award cash for projects likely to lead toward only incremental advances, according to the article--is an impediment to more fundamental advances that are typically based on riskier research.
  
• This week's rumored buyer of Elan is Novartis. The Sunday Times (via Reuters) is reporting a well placed sources confirmed the talks. Meh.
  
• Novo Nordisk tries to capitalize on Sanofi's Lantus woes, points out its Levemir insulin hasn't seen the same cancer signal that has knocked Lantus.
  
• Is fibromuscular dysplasia an underdiagnosed condition or an extremely rare disease? The WSJ reviews the evidence.
  
• The NYT's Well blog asks (and kind of answers) the question, Can you get fit in six minutes a week? Check out the post; we'd tell you ourselves but the premise got us to thinking about the 'six minute abs' scene in "There's Something About Mary" and we surfed over to youtube to find it. Yes, it's still hilarious.
• Lidge saves. No kidding!