Suddenly, Chicago is the place where long winning streaks go to die.

This time, it was Carmelo Anthony and the New York Knicks going down. Late last month, it was LeBron James and the Miami Heat.

The Chicago Cubs found a severed goat's head at Wrigley Field, and they're treating the cruel reference to a longtime curse as a crime.

Police were called in to investigate after a man stopped the white van he was driving, walked a box to a security entrance on Waveland Avenue and wordlessly put it down, Cubs spokesman Julian Green said. Security workers opened the box, addressed to team owner Tom Ricketts, and discovered the severed head. The team immediately called police.

Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso has responded sarcastically to the qualifying edge currently enjoyed by his teammate Felipe Massa, saying he can't sleep and is losing his hair.

Massa has qualified ahead of Alonso in the past four races — the first two this season and the last two of 2012 — and if he does it again at Sunday's Formula One Chinese Grand Prix it will represent the first time in Alonso's career that he has been out-qualified by a teammate five straight times.

Fourteen-year-old Guan Tianlang is the youngest golfer ever to compete at the Masters.

But the Chinese high school student looked more like a veteran Thursday when he shot a 1-over 73 in his debut at Augusta National.

Japan's government on Friday gave itself new powers aimed at curbing the outbreak of infectious diseases, as the country nervously watches the spread of deadly H7N9 bird flu in China.

Under a new law, if the virus mutates and becomes transmissible between humans, the government would set up an emergency headquarters, strengthen quarantine activities at airports, and vaccinate doctors and government officials.

A doctor removes a kidney for a transplant at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland last June. The number of people in Britain donating their organs after death has surged 50% in the …more

The number of people in Britain donating their organs after death has surged 50 percent in the past five years, says the NHS Blood and Transplant service (NHSBT).

Salt and lime with tequila. Salt with your iced "michelada" beer. Salt and chili on fruit and even candy. Mexicans love salt, so much so that some estimates show them eating nearly three times the recommended amount and significantly more than what Americans put down.

Add this to rising obesity and a hypertension epidemic, and you have a potential health nightmare that has spurred Mexico's massive capital city to try to get residents to shun the salt shaker.

A tiny magnetic bracelet implanted at the base of the throat is greatly improving life for some people with chronic heartburn who get limited relief from medicines. It's a novel way to treat severe acid reflux, which plagues millions of Americans and can raise their risk for more serious health problems.

It happens when a weak muscle doesn't close after swallowing as it should. That lets stomach juices splash back into the throat. Drugs like Nexium and Prilosec reduce acid. But they don't fix the underlying problem, called GERD, or gastroesophageal reflux disease.

Strands from baby's first haircut. The first tooth. Tiny footprints sunk into clay. Some parents even tuck away the dried stump of the umbilical cord or the stick pregnancy test as a touching memento marking the milestones of their kids.

The latest? Breast milk jewelry.

The Nobel Prize won by Francis Crick in 1962 for his discovery of DNA was sold Thursday at auction for more than $2 million.

Heritage Auctions identified the buyer as Jack Wang, CEO of Biomobie, a regenerative medicine technology company located in Silicon Valley and Shanghai. The price surpassed the pre-sale estimate of $500,000.