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CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Human tissue stolen from funeral homes in New York may have been implanted in at least 26 patients of four Charlotte-area hospitals. None of the patients appears to have been harmed. Officials at Carolinas Medical Center and Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte and Catawba Valley Medical Center in Hickory say they notified doctors and patients after learning patients received bone and other tissue. The tissue came from companies that bought material from Biomedical Tissue Services of New Jersey. Biomedical is under investigation for allegedly removing bone and tissue from corpses without permission from families and selling them for...

The world's population will increase by 800 million in the next decade, with the highest growth in Asia and Africa, local media reported on Friday. "The world population stands at 6.4 billion this year. It is expected to shoot up to 7.2 billion by 2015," the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) representative to Malaysia Richard Leete was quoted as saying by The Star. The majority of the 800 million people will be found in the southern part of Asia and Africa as well as the sub-Saharan region,the UN official said, adding that those countries with a high population growth rate...

A low birthrate combined with increased longevity is placing severe stresses on the welfare state. The president of the European Central Bank, Henri Gaspaud, warned Eurozone governments that drastic measures may have to be taken. Officials in Brussels reputedly are looking into an idea first broached in a movie called “Soylent Green.”

The Dutch government intends to expand its current euthanasia policy, setting guidelines for when doctors may end the lives of terminally ill newborns with the parents' consent, The Associated Press has learned. A letter outlining the new directives was expected to be submitted to parliament for discussion by mid-October, but the new policy will not require a change of law, Dutch Health Ministry spokeswoman Annette Dijkstra said Thursday. The new guidelines are likely to spark an outcry from the Vatican, right-to-life proponents and some advocacy groups for the handicapped who abhor the current policy that allows adult euthanasia if the...

A research team is proposing a new technique that would allow meat to be grown in a laboratory for mass consumption, according to a report. Researchers in the U.S. say the technology now exists now to produce processed meats such as burgers and sausages, starting with cells taken from cows, chickens, pigs, fish or other animals. Growing meat without the animal would not only reduce the need for the animals -- which often are kept in less than ideal conditions -- but may also address a number of environmental ills blamed on meat production. Cultured meat could also be tailored...

No more room to bury unclaimed, unidentified bodies By Michael Marizco ARIZONA DAILY STAR The pauper's cemetery is unremarkable. A wind blows dirt over the framed white paper that marks the grave of John Doe No. 9, dead three years. But the cemetery's boundaries, marked by strips of fresh concrete, are widening as more illegal entrants die in Southern Arizona. For Pima County, they represent a grim reality: There's no more room to bury them. Using a state law that became effective last October, Pima County is going to begin cremating the remains of dead illegal border crossers it cannot...

"The Schiavo case will probably be the turning point, in our ability to make our case to Americans about the incredible invasiveness of Republicans, when it comes to (citizens) making personal and private decisions," he said. By contrast, the Democrats should be viewed as "the party of individual freedom ... individual and personal responsibility," he said. One problem, however, is that while Dean may speak officially for the Democratic party, he's only one of many players. Sunday, he struggled to explain why so many Senate Democrats barely raised a whimper when the Schiavo intervention bill was sailing through the chamber....

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Sales have dropped sharply at Wendy's fast food restaurants in the area of northern California where  a woman claimed she found part of a finger in a bowl of chili, but analysts say the company's long-term prognosis should not be affected. Peter Oakes, a restaurant analyst with Piper Jaffray & Co. in New York, said he doesn't expect Wendy's business to suffer long term from the discovery Tuesday night of a partial finger. The hamburger chain serves about 6 million meals a day across the country and has a "national reputation for both quality and cleanliness,"...

Big Media Won't Touch Agenda 21 Nancy Levant I keep waiting, and waiting, and waiting for Bill O’Reilly or Shaun Hannity or Oprah Winfrey or somebody…..anybody, who has daily access to the multitudes, to say the words, “Agenda 21.” I’m still waiting, and for the life of me, I don’t understand the refusal to talk about the greatest threat to America that has ever existed. However, it dawns on me that wrapping a brain around Agenda 21 requires time, effort, interest, and a lot diligence. No one told me about Agenda 21. I found it by accident on the Internet....

Lets turn the clock back to 1996, when the religious, ethical, and scientific debate on cloning began as the world was introduced to Dolly, the first cloned animal. And although the idea of cloning for some is disturbing in regard to the balance of nature, the most important (at least in OUR opinion) issue at hand is whether or not food from cloned animals should be sold. That's right, THE ISSUE IS WHETHER CLONED MEAT IS SAFE FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION. Can you just imagine going into a supermarket or fast foodery near you and being asked to choose between a...

<p>Cherries, blueberries and veggies, too.</p> <p>A growing number of schools nationwide are putting more fruits and vegetables into fat-laden meats like burgers and breakfast sausage to combat soaring childhood obesity rates.</p> <p>Students returning to class in the District of Columbia Sept. 2 will be able to choose between veggie burgers and regular hamburgers, said Louis Erste, chief operating officer for the D.C. public schools.</p>

KASSEL - Prosecutors Thursday said they have filed a murder indictment against one of two gay men who met in an Internet chat room, where it allegedly was agreed that one of them would kill and devour the other. And in a stunning new development, prosecutors in Kassel said they are broadening the investigation to include some 430 other persons believed to have been involved in the Internet gay cannibalism chat room that led to the death of a 42-year-old man in March 2001. Prosecutors are convinced that the victim, a computer analyst from Berlin, agreed to be killed and...