There are four pages in the March 2007 Reader's Digest featuring amazing discoveries, devices, tests, and cures. And many of the snippets of information are -- yes -- somehow linked to cancer.

Think about this:

• A new ultrasound technique lets radiologists distinguish between malignant and benign breast lesions. Using elasticity imaging, researchers accurately identified harmless and cancerous lesions in almost all of the 80 cases studied. If results can be reproduced in a large trial, this technique could significantly reduce the number of breast biopsies required.

• Scientists seeking new treatment for diseases can use an online tool developed by researchers at MIT and Harvard. The Connectivity Map matches diseases with compatible drugs, based on the genetic profiles of both. So far, about 160 drugs and compounds are cataloged, and a few new uses for existing drugs have already been suggested. Eventually, all FDA-approved drugs will be included.

• For those who sometimes forget to take their pills, a new device -- that can be preloaded with up to 100 doses of medication -- could one day be implanted in the body and programmed to administer drugs via wireless signals. This device, successful in tests using dogs, was designed to deliver medicines that are less effective when taken orally.

Sometimes it seems cancer's grip is tightening. Other times, in the war against this pesky disease, it seems we are on the verge of something really great.

There's a bit of breast cancer news in just about every magazine out there -- news about treatments and protocols and studies, news about celebrity diagnoses, news about lives lost to breast cancer and lives conquering breast cancer, news that is scattered here and there and everywhere. But now, there is a magazine all about breast cancer -- and just about breast cancer. All sorts of breast cancer wisdom is conveniently packaged into one slick, glossy publication that debuted on newsstands yesterday, September 19.

Beyond: Live & Thrive After Breast Cancer is a semi-annual publication from Meredith Special Interest Media, part of the Meredith Corporation -- a leading media and marketing company and home to magazines such as Better Homes and Gardens, Ladies' Home Journal, Parents, and Fitness. Meredith's new breast cancer venture provides women living with the disease -- and those who may one day encounter it -- with support and with the latest information on treatment and recovery.

The Fall/Winter 2006 premiere issue of Beyond features a cover story about Dallas Mayor Laura Miller, a survivor forging ahead into a life beyond breast cancer. Also filling the pages are inspiring real-life profiles and stories, nutritional advice, up-do-date medical information, fashion tips, the Pink Pages -- a resource guide that details upcoming races and products that support breast cancer -- and much more.

Behind the scenes of this issue is an advisory board of leading experts in the breast cancer field. Experts include Susan Brown, the health manager at Susan G. Komen Foundation; Carolyn M. Kaelin, director of Comprehensive Breast Health Center and breast cancer survivor; and Lillie Shockney, Administrative Director at Johns Hopkins Breast Cancer.

If there is one theme common to women surviving breast cancer, it must be the desire to live beyond the control of this life-threatening and life-changing illness, to recapture an existence that resembles something normal, to embark on a journey outside the confines of cancer. Tips, techniques, strategies, and inspiration for accomplishing these feats are printed on the pages of this new magazine that is sure to reach its intended audience -- that today includes two million women who are living with breast cancer.

CNN's Todd Leopold has reviewed a new book of doubt, humor, hope and motherhood -- the passions of Marjorie Williams. A collection of Williams essays and profiles, The Woman at the Washington Zoo, is being timed for release on Mother's Day. Edited by her husband Noah, Williams, who once worked as a journalist for publications such as the Washington Post, Vanity Fair and Slate, and who lost her life to liver cancer, was known for her honesty and unflinching gaze into the complexities, conflict and truth about people and life. In the last section of the book, she writes about the shock of being diagnosed with liver cancer and how she coped with telling her children the truth about her cancer. Marjorie Williams died on January 16, 2005. She was 47. To read the entire book review and discover a book that makes for good reading, go here.

The August issue of CURE magazine will feature a cover story about cancer survivor Lance Armstrong, along with other survivor profiles and articles about maintaining health, managing life into the future and the medical and practical issues facing life as a cancer survivor. The Lance Armstrong Foundation and CURE magazine came together to create this special issue dedicated to cancer survivorship. All current CURE subscribers will receive the special survivorship issue. If you are not currently a subscriber, you can sign up for a free subscription. If you do so before June 19, you will receive the special cancer survivor magazine issue. Go here.