March 15, 1994

ONE THOUSAND years ago, a woman in southern Peru died at the age of 40 to 45 and was buried in a stone tomb in a river valley near what is now the coastal community of Ilo. As sometimes happened in the desiccated climate of the Atacama Desert, her body dried out and was spontaneously mummified. Now, modern scientists have come along and conducted a revealing post-mortem examination of the well-preserved body. Their research offers new evidence that pre-Columbian Americans may already have been infected with some of the devastating diseases that were thought to have been brought to the New World by Columbus and other early explorers.

WHEN this reach of dry forest and lotus-covered lakes in central India was a private hunting reserve of the Maharajah of Jaipur, the beaters' cries of "Bagh! Bagh!" -- tiger! tiger! -- sounded the death knell for the animal considered by many as the greatest of the cats. The tigers that fell here to the hunters' guns were among tens of thousands "bagged" during the period of British rule in India alone. Now, in the forest stillness, it is the shrill calls of the langur monkeys and the sambar deer that signal a tiger's approach. But the calls are increasingly rare, for Ranthambhore's tigers, like all India's tigers in the wild, are threatened more than they ever were in the era of the maharajahs and the British sahibs who made sport of shooting tigers from hunting towers and the safety of elephants' backs.

After months of hovering on the edge of bankruptcy, Euro Disney took its first step away from the brink today when it announced that a plan to save the troubled theme park had been worked out with the Walt Disney Company and a steering committee representing creditor banks. The package includes a capital increase of 6 billion francs, or $1.05 billion, from both the Disney Company and its creditors, and an easing of Euro Disney's royalty, interest and debt payments. The package took four months to negotiate. It was announced shortly before the company's stockholders meeting today.

THE sea squirt, a slippery, little creature most familiar as the slime overgrowing boat bottoms and harbor outlet pipes, would seem to have little to offer toward understanding the mysteries of the human body. But under the coaxing of one patient researcher, these inch-long marine invertebrates have begun revealing their strange secrets, which include organs full of humanlike kidney stones and a world of creatures socked away inside. Researchers say that sea squirts are beginning to provide important clues to the painful problems of kidney stones and gout and to answer such tantalizing questions as why animals urinate and how symbioses evolve.

Saying concerted efforts to control the spread of tuberculosis seem to be paying off, New York City's Health Commissioner announced yesterday that the city last year experienced its most significant drop in new cases in 15 years. Nationwide, the number of new cases dropped 5 percent last year, Federal health officials said. But the decline was particularly steep in New York, where health officials have spent more than $70 million in the last three years to combat a resurgence of the disease.