Isabelle Dinoire, the woman who received the world's first partial face transplant with a new nose, chin and mouth, in an operation on Nov. 27, 2005, addresses reporters during her first press conference at the Amiens hospital, northern France, Feb. 6, 2006.
A man studies a 20-week-old fetus, preserved to show how its bone structure develops, at an exhibition called "Bodies" in London, April 12, 2006. The exhibition is designed to show how the human body is made up, with 22 real cadavers and over 250 real body parts, presented in ways to help the general public understand the workings of the body.
Bao Xishun, the world's tallest man, reaches in to retrieve objects from the stomach of a sick dolphin at an aquarium in Fushun, in China's northern Liaoning province Dec. 13, 2006. Bao, whose arms measure more than a meter in length, was called in by the aquarium after experts failed to surgically remove unidentified objects from the stomachs of two dolphins. Bao was able to reach in and retrieve the objects.
Tourists and journalists watch penguins being released after their rehabilitation from an oil spill in San Clemente del Tuyu, some 186 miles from Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 31, 2006. Around 224 penguins were found in Santa Cruz province during the month of May, victims of an oil spill.
After two attempts to launch Discovery were scrubbed due to the weather, the space shuttle finally lifts off at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on mission STS-121, July 4, 2006. The crew of six returned July 17 from a mission that put NASA back in the space station construction business. Because of its three successful shuttle launches, NASA said it would try to fix the Hubble Space Telescope in 2008.
A Ukrainian man watches a partial solar eclipse through a piece of film in Kiev, Ukraine, March 29, 2006.
Four beluga whales rest their chins on the glass wall as they are introduced by their keeper to the audience during a show at the Hakkeijima Sea Paradise aquarium-amusement park complex in Yokohama, southwest of Tokyo, March 18, 2006.
The cofferdam protecting the main wall of the Three Gorges Dam is exploded underwater June 6, 2006, in Yichang, Hubei Province, central China. The demolition of the cofferdam was carried out today in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, China's longest, with enough explosives to topple 400 10-story buildings.
An Airbus A380, the world's largest passenger aircraft comes in to land for the first time at Heathrow airport in London on May 18, 2006. The A380 had earlier flown over the two British Airbus plants at Filton and Broughton that are involved in the design and manufacture of the wings.
Expatriates play polo on Segway Human Transporters before a charity polo match at Dubai Polo Club on March 31, 2006, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The Segway is a self-balancing personal transportation device that relies on a gyroscopic system to keep level. The sport of Segway polo is a popular activity in Dubai.
A large flock of starlings fly over a park at sunset seeking an area to land for the evening in Algiers on Jan. 15, 2006. Millions of birds migrate every year, arriving from Europe and crossing into Africa.
A man dances after buying Sony PlayStation 3 in Mountain View, Calif. The much-desired electronic games went on sale at midnight Friday, Nov. 17, 2006, throughout North America. The Wii console from Nintendo was another sought after system that debuted in 2006.
People are seen as they dine at a Taco Bell restaurant in South Plainfield, N.J. Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2006 An E. coli outbreak was linked to lettuce at Taco Bell restaurants, sickening scores of customers in four states. In the summer, spinach tainted with the E. coli bacteria sickened more than 200 people, killing three. The FDA warned consumers nationwide not to eat fresh spinach.
The New Horizons spacecraft atop an Atlas V rocket lifts-off Jan. 19, 2006, from Cape Canaveral, Fla. The spacecraft is on a trailblazing probe to Pluto, at the solar system's outermost limit. In August, Pluto was downgraded to a dwarf planet by scientists, leading hundreds of astronomers to petition against the change to no avail.
Andrew Z. Fire, left, of Stanford University, receives the 2006 Nobel Prize in Medicine from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden at a ceremony in Stockholm, Sunday, Dec. 10 2006. U.S. researchers swept all the Nobel science awards this year for the first time since 1983. The Nobel Prize in medicine went to Fire and Craig C. Mello for discovering a powerful way to turn off the effect of specific genes.
Dr. Donald Brown holds the human papillomavirus vaccine Gardiasil in his hand Aug. 28, 2006. Hailed by many doctors as a breakthrough in cancer prevention, the vaccine prevents infections from four strains of the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, or HPV, which can cause cervical cancer, other genital lesions and genital warts.