By LEE BOWMAN, Scripps Howard News Service

When it comes to surgical incisions, the smaller and less intrusive they are, the better off patients are likely to be.And surgeons are becoming more and more creative about getting to internal organs via smaller and sometimes unorthodox routes, often using robotic devices to reach remote spots with instruments.

Those "free" drug samples docs give out can turn out to be costly in the long run.A new study published this week in the journal Medical Care shows that patients who get the samples wind up having significantly higher out-of-pocket prescription costs than those who don't get the samples from their doctor.

Personalized medicine, drugs tailored to your specific genetic makeup, all your risk factors reduced to a panel or chip. It all sounds so wonderful. Scientists are unraveling new genetic markers for diseases rare and common every day.

A generation or so ago, spring sports meant baseball and softball and track. Today, young athletes look forward to warm-weather opportunities in those sports plus soccer, lacrosse, tennis, roller hockey and more.

The 12-year-old utility player for Japan's top youth-baseball team carried a little extra baggage as he and his squad winged their way toward Williamsport, Pa., and the Little League World Series last August by way of Detroit and Baltimore.Like tens of thousands of his countrymen each year, the youth with a sore throat and a blah feeling was coming down with the measles.

Two journal reports out this week suggest that even for folks with heart disease or diabetes, with a little lifestyle change, it's not so hard to live to your 90s or even 100.Yet another report in the same Archives of Internal Medicine, though, concludes that after 40 years of improvement, the rate of death from heart disease in the United States may be on the rise again.

The sexes may fight equally hard for that remote, but new research demonstrates that men are predisposed to have a harder time letting go of a video-game control once they get started than women.

Every year, 166,000 Americans die when their hearts stop and they're nowhere near a hospital.Most of the time, sudden cardiac arrest is caused by an irregular heartbeat called ventricular fibrillation, which makes the heart quiver so it cannot generate blood flow. The heart requires a shock to break the irregular pace and allow the heart's normal rhythm to resume.

Many of us have cut out much of the sugars, starches and candy that brought us generations of cavities, so our teeth should be safe as long as we floss and brush, right?Not so fast.

Even with sleeping in on New Year's Day, many of us are starting 2008 feeling groggy. And that could well undermine more than a few good intentions about losing a few pounds.