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I have good news and bad news.

First the good news. Researchers have found a strain of laboratory mouse that appears to be immune to cancer.

Seven years ago biologists at Wake Forest University in North Carolina discovered an individual male mouse that resisted cancer. The scientists, Zheng Cui and Mark Willingham, were studying how cancerous tumors grow by injecting lab mice with lethal amounts of cancer cells.

The mice developed fast-growing tumors. All except one, who was labeled merely as "Number 6." Tumors didn't grow on Number 6. The researchers injected him with many different types of cancer cells, in increasing amounts. Number 6 somehow destroyed the cancer cells in his body.

They bred Number 6 and studied his offspring. About 40 percent of his descendants also were cancer-proof.

How could this be? The biologists figured that something in Number 6's immune system fought off cancer, and this trait had been passed on to some — but not all — of his offspring.

After years of study and experimentation, Cui and Willingham identified the factors in the mice's immune system that gave them immunity to cancer. They even took white blood cells from the cancer-resistant strain and injected them into ordinary lab mice.

Within a few days the ordinary mice became cancer resistant.

One dose of the cancer-resistant cells gave normal mice immunity to cancer that usually lasted for the mouse's entire life span.

Reporting this remarkable finding in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers stated that they are now searching for the gene or genes that confer cancer resistance. Once that has been found, it may become possible to produce drugs, cell transplants, vaccines or other ways of immunizing human patients against cancer.

This is not the end of cancer. Far from it. But if this line of research is carried through successfully, we may all look forward to a day when people are routinely immunized against cancer, just as we are today immunized against polio, measles, and smallpox.

And now the bad news.

Global warming is real. Even the White House now admits it.

For years there's been a discrepancy between temperature measurements made on the surface of Earth and measurements made by satellites of the temperatures in the lower portion of the our planet's atmosphere.

The surface measurements showed that the global temperature is steadily rising. The satellite measurements didn't agree.

This led some scientists to downgrade or even dismiss completely the widespread fears of global warming. And such doubts by reputable scientists led others to believe that global warming is a sham perpetrated by Third World collectivists who want to cripple the industrialized world's economy.

The Bush White House was openly skeptical of global warming, although not entirely dismissive.

The Bush Administration commissioned a wide range of studies to examine the issue of global climate change. The first of these studies, released by the Climate Change Science Program, has resolved the discrepancies between surface and satellite measurements.

Thomas Karl, of the National Climatic Data Center in North Carolina, was chief editor of the report. He stated that a key element of the study was bringing together the scientists who disagreed about the temperature measurements and having them iron out their differences face-to-face.

The result? The scientists found subtle errors in earlier analyses and, once these were taken into account, the surface and satellite measurements agreed.

Global warming is real.

Now what are we going to do about it? A little more bad news — for the anti-Darwin diehards.

One of the persistent criticisms voiced against Darwin's concept of evolution through natural selection concerns "missing links." The argument runs like this: If evolution is correct, and organisms change over time from one form to another, how come no one's found the remains of animals that are in transition from one form to another? Where are the missing links in the fossil record? No matter that paleontologists have found fossils that show how today's horse grew and developed from a critter about the size of a poodle. Or that, more recently, a complete line of fossils has been unearthed that show how large land-dwelling animals evolved into today's whales. The anti-Darwin crowd still drums on missing links.

Well, a missing link between fish and land-dwellers has been discovered. The 375-million-year-old fossil was found in northern Canada. It has the jaws of a fish in a head like a crocodile, and stubby, muscular fins that are better suited to walking than swimming.

Named Tiktaalik roseae by the paleontologists (which means "big freshwater fish" in the local Inuit tongue), this creature could swim and walk. A missing link. So there!

A tiny bit of good news from MIT: Neuroscientists at MIT have developed a new material, made of nanometer-sized particles of protein, that apparently can bridge the gap between severed nerves.

(A nanometer is a billionth of a meter, about the size of a virus.) When nerves are torn apart by injury it leads to paralysis or even death. For years scientists have been seeking a way of reconnecting nerves, to restore the use of the injured part of the body. Think of Christopher Reeve and his spinal trauma, which eventually killed him. If the new protein material developed at MIT can actually bridge the gaps in severed neurons, it may become possible to repair spinal cord injuries, injuries to the brain, even the damage caused by strokes. Good news indeed.

Finally, an apology. In a recent column I mistakenly identified the marvelous pianist at the Bayside restaurant. His correct name is Chuck Jobes. Mea culpa.

Naples resident Ben Bova is the author of more than 110 books, including TITAN, his latest novel. Dr. Bova's web site address is www.benbova.com.