New Hope

TAIPEI, Taiwan - A decision by President Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan to send a secret message to China's leaders, the most direct contact between the sides since his election five years ago, is awakening new hopes here of a possible thaw in relations across the Formosa Strait. Chen said yesterday that he had spoken by phone Saturday night with James Soong, chairman of the small People First Party, and asked him to convey a message to Beijing. Soong is to fly to the mainland Thursday for a weeklong trip, and is to be in Beijing from May 10 to May 12. Speaking to reporters on the first leg of a flight to the Marshall Islands, Chen said the message was based on a 10-point consensus he had reached on Feb. 24 with Soong on cross-straits relations and other issues, the state-owned Central News Agency said.

Ever since Joan Hebert turned down a donor heart to replace her diseased one, doctors have struggled for 14 years to keep her heart ticking. They boosted her standard treatment with a pacemaker to speed her heart when it slowed, and a defibrillator to shock the 73-year-old back to life in case it stopped. Hebert's defibrillator has never been used - most people's aren't - but she's thankful for the insurance it offered in extending her life, which could have ended with the massive heart attack she had in 1991.

My son, my granddaughter and I have inherited a blood vessel disease (HHT) that results in frequent debilitating nosebleeds. My mother had thousands of transfusions that led her to contract AIDS and die 20 years ago. I am on disability, and my son, now 31, can't hold a full-time job. I read in your column about a product that stops nosebleeds, but I lost the paper. Please tell us what it is. The product is NosebleedQR. It combines potassium salt with a hydrophilic polymer and usually stops a nosebleed in less than a minute.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. - The first snow fell softly, dusting the tired old city with a sense of serenity. In the five downtown blocks that once housed theaters, restaurants and busy department stores, vacant buildings stood dark and doors were shut tight. There was little sign of life at nightfall that Saturday. Then suddenly, joyously, the artists burst onto North Street. Laughing, working feverishly, they dragged sofas and chairs from their studios to the sidewalk. Someone brought a lamp and a coffee table.

JERUSALEM - For many Israelis, Yasser Arafat's death yesterday brought hope that his successors will find a way to end the violence that Israelis believed he encouraged or was unwilling to stop. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, without mentioning Arafat by name, expressed cautious optimism that relations with the Palestinians might improve. "Recent events are likely to constitute a turning point in Middle Eastern history," Sharon said. "I hope the new Palestinian leadership ... will understand that progress in relations and in the resolution of problems depends, first and foremost, on the cessation of terrorism.

KENT NARROWS - On the surface, the stretch of water between the two white buoys where the Chester River meets the Chesapeake Bay looks unremarkable. But when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research vessel Bay Commitment lowers a sonar device, a different picture emerges. There are oysters there - millions of them. And at month's end, oystermen who all but lost their livelihoods to overharvesting and disease will again have a crop to sell from the area known as Blunts Bar. While Maryland's Department of Natural Resources is investigating whether to introduce a non-native species to the Chesapeake, scientists in Maryland and Virginia are striving to bring back a sustainable population of native oysters.

Tiny stem cells hidden within hair follicles can be induced to grow skin, hair follicles and hair, scientists reported yesterday. The work, done in mice, suggests it may eventually become possible to banish baldness and to improve treatment for burn patients. The next step, said researchers at Rockefeller University in New York City, is to isolate the same kinds of hair-making stem cells from humans and see whether similar results can be achieved. The possibility that bald heads can be revitalized now looks better, but as cell biologist Elaine Fuchs warned: "Don't hold your breath.

Against a backdrop of soaring Howard County home prices, housing officials are to select two middle-income families today to buy extensively renovated homes in a 100-year-old building in Ellicott City's historic district. "I had been looking for over a year," said nine-year Long Reach resident Serena Goodwin, 34, a bank office worker and mother of two who is eligible for the drawing to purchase the homes for $132,000 each. She could find nothing in Howard County below $150,000, she said.

WHEN Prime Minister Jean Chretien steps down as Canada's leader tomorrow, his departure won't be lamented by many politicians north or south of the U.S. border. In Canada, the combative, imperious Liberal Party chief who assumed office in 1993 is widely viewed as having long overstayed his welcome. His canny understanding of power politics and his street-fighter stubbornness - and a long-splintered opposition - allowed Mr. Chretien to hold on despite criticisms of patronage abuses, ethical laxity within his Cabinet and waning public popularity.

With a career like his, Dr. Leon Rosenberg never had to worry much about how people perceived him until he battled a near-fatal episode of mental illness five years ago. A physician and genetics professor at Princeton University, Rosenberg previously served as dean of the Yale University School of Medicine and as vice president for scientific affairs of the Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, an elite group...