Morning Roundup: 'I passed, right?' edition

Good morning, Houston. We remember our days as student drivers — not bad overall, though we did have a pregnant in-car instructor who had a nasty habit of slamming on the brakes every time we passed a doughnut shop. Still, we didn't have it anywhere near as bad as the kid who passed his driver's test Monday, then crashed his car into the side of a Houston DPS office. The driver was parking his car when the vehicle went over a curb and ran into the building wall, causing a slight hole; DPS spokesman Tom Vinger said the driving instructor wasn't in the car (whew!). No one was hurt, but we imagine people will think twice before riding with the new driver.

>> The breath of health: Scientists at Houston's M.D. Anderson Cancer Center have discovered a gas that could help save people's lives. It's an aerosol form of a purified extract of a bacterium that causes the lungs to reject pathogens — meaning it can be effective against anthrax, flu and bubonic plague if it's inhaled just a few hours before exposure. "The aerosol stimulates an innate immune system response in the lung lining that kills the invading pathogens, virtually on contact," researcher Brenton Scott told the Chronicle. In experiments, the research team let mice inhale the aerosol for 20 minutes, and then a few hours later they were exposed to several pathogens. All the aerosoled mice survived the Staphylococcus aureus bacterium, 90 percent survived Influenza A and 60 percent survived the plague. (If only they'd had this stuff in the 14th century, right?) The team will next conduct trials on larger animals and hope to begin human trials early in 2009.

>> Back to the dark ages: Turns out city buildings aren't immune from the recent rash of copper wire thefts: The downtown library's Julia Ideson Building was closed Monday after thieves liberated some of its wiring. The theft left the building without power to its elevator, fire alarm and staircases, which meant it had to shut down for the day. "Well, without any light, we cannot operate," library spokeswoman Sandra Fernandez told the Chronicle. "We had to send everyone home, or tell them to stay home, as the case may be." Issa Dadoush, director of the city's General Services Department, estimated that the theft and resulting closure cost the city between $20,000 and $25,000; in the past two years, five city buildings have fallen victim to wire theft resulting in a total of $150,000 in damages. "We are taking [security] very, very seriously, Dadoush said. The Ideson Building is expected to reopen this morning.

>> Today's weather: Wow, it's chilly this morning, eh? But the good news is that we should have a beautiful afternoon, with plenty of sun and a high around 66. Tonight, the clear skies should remain, allowing temperatures to fall into the low 40s.

Help warm yourself up with these hot, hot headlines ...