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[...]definitely not least, thanks are owed the numerous reviewers of articles submitted to the journal, without whose generous donations of time and knowledge MAQ could not function. The five commentators in our discussion include a folklorist with graduate and postdoctoral training in medical anthropology (Shelley R. Adler), a medical anthropologist (Hans Baer), a medical sociologist (Meredith B. McGuire), a physician who has explored homeopathy, acupuncture, and aspects of mind-body medicine (David Reilly), and a doctor of naturopathy (Joseph E. Pizzorno Jr.), who is a cofounder and former president of Bastyr University, the first fully accredited university of natural medicine in the United States. Villarosa reports that \"43 percent of Americans have used some form of alternative medicine\" and notes that the White House Commission's report released in March 2002 called \"for increased research spending, more coverage by insurance companies and more Medicare coverage of these treatments\" (2002:13).

Harvard-trained doctor and journalist [Susan Okie] tackles the subject of childhood obesity with the latest scientific research and compelling street reporting. She paints a picture of a wealthy, educated nation losing children to inadequate understanding of nutrition, poor diets and preventable health problems. The protein, SIRT1, combined with a key metabolic regulator, PGC1- alpha, to jump-start the liver's production of glucose, a vital nutrient for all mammalian brains. The findings were published this week in Nature. Understanding the systems that trigger glucose production could lead to better treatments for diabetes and obesity, [Pere Puigserver] said. Photo(s); Scientists recently discovered that fossils found in 1996 were from an unknown species. The Neuquenraptor fossils are the first raptor remains found in the Southern Hemisphere.; Credit: Argentine Museum of Natural History

In 1994, scientists at New York's Rockefeller University discovered leptin, a hormone produced by fat cells that informs the brain how much fat the body has stored. Initially hailed as a potential cure for obesity, leptin proved disappointing as a treatment, except in rare cases in which people were fat because they genetically lacked the substance. But leptin's discovery propelled obesity research into the molecular era and led to a cascade of findings. For example, researchers have identified two groups of specialized nerve cells in the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus, a brain area that appears to be a major control centre for appetite, metabolic rate and weight regulation. One group, the NPY/AgRP neurons, induce hunger and the other, the POMC/CART neurons, suppress it. The two groups \"talk\" to each other and send signals to nerve cells in other parts of the brain. They respond to messages arriving from other organs in the form of circulating hormones, such as leptin, insulin and others. Researchers are developing and testing drugs to turn on the appetite-suppressing nerve cells and turn off the hunger-inducing ones. For instance, the melanocortin 4 receptor agonists -- the drugs that caused erections as a side effect -- worked by stimulating nerve cells in the appetite-suppression pathway. Other experimental medicines act on nerve cells in the hypothalamus.

Matt Ridley's marvelous new book goes a long way toward answering that question. Upon an ingeniously simple framework -- one chapter for each of the 23 pairs of human chromosomes -- Ridley has built a sweepingly ambitious work that tackles, in lucid and often poetic prose, many of the biggest questions in biology and beyond: How did life begin? What distinguishes us from chimps? What determines how smart we are? Why are men and women so often at odds? Why are some people shy and others adventurous? Why do we grow old and die? And (perhaps the central question) if genes guide our character and behavior, is there such a thing as free will? Despite the book's structure, chapters often have only the most tenuous connection with individual chromosomes. Instead, under broad themes such as \"conflict,\" \"sex\" and \"immortality,\" Ridley sketches the history of modern genetics and details the hottest discoveries and the most engrossing controversies in the field. Consider the war between the sexes, which some researchers suggest is quite literally a battle of the genes. According to this theory, the large and influential X chromosome (the \"female\" sex chromosome that exists in two copies in women) has evolved genetic strategies for attacking the \"male\" Y chromosome, because traits that benefit the males of a species are often disadvantageous for females. In response, the Y has shed or shut down many of its genes as a means of self-protection, becoming a sort of stealth chromosome -- the smallest of the human 46 -- with just one powerful gene called SRY that contains everything needed to make an embryo male. As weird as this argument sounds, Ridley describes evidence that the battle is being played out in various species. In the butterfly Acrea encedon, for example, males are so biologically beleaguered that the sex ratio is 97 percent female.

Public health experts rate Rhode Island's medical care for prisoners, and particularly HIV counseling and testing services, \"among the best in the country,\" according to the article by Dr. Susan Okie, a contributing editor at the journal. The state prison offers routine HIV testing, and 90 percent of inmates get tested. Rhode Island also provides other services, such as education about avoiding HIV transmission and referrals to HIV care providers upon release, Okie writes in \"Sex, Drugs, Prisons and HIV.\" [Josiah D. Rich] said he supports efforts to diminish the spread of HIV within prisons. But the majority of new HIV infections in Rhode Island result from needle use, rather than sexual contact, and most HIV-positive prisoners here contracted the virus before being incarcerated, [Scott A. Allen] said. The physicians believe the high incidence of HIV among prisoners correlates with the high percentage of prisoners who have used injected drugs, and does not indicate the virus is being transmitted within the ACI, at least not on a large scale.

\"We've thanked people, we've put up posts on the website thanking them, but we can't even come close to showing how thankful we are,\" he said. \"I think it's derived from so many different reasons, but it's really about how many people he's touched and affected.\" \"We received donations from people I've never met,\" he said. \"I've received messages from people saying, 'I'm willing to do whatever I can.' People came out of the woodwork, they're coming from everywhere.\" \"I'm on a floor with a number of other kids close to my age,\" Mr. Grier said. \"They're going through a similar thing, I've spent time talking with them, and they all say that if you don't put in energy to get better, you're not going to.\"

Phyllis G. Sidorsky reviews \"To Space and Back,\" by Sally Ride, with Susan Okie.

In brief Fed Up! Winning the War Against Childhood Obesity Susan Okie. Joseph Henry Press, 2005. Pp 322. $27.95. ISBN 0-309-09310-4.

Since the 1970s, the number of obese children and teens has nearly tripled, [Susan Okie] writes in \"Fed Up.\" Children between the ages of 11 and 17 now drink twice as much soda as they did 20 years ago and less milk. When Okie visited elementary schools to research her book, students told her \"the most frequent lunch entrees in their cafeterias included pizza, hamburgers with cheese, chicken nuggets, hot dogs, burritos, and macaroni and cheese.\" Small wonder that children and teens are now diagnosed with weight-related \"adult\" diseases, such as type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. Reversing this epidemic will be tough. Scientists are studying more than 60 genes that may contribute to obesity. Busy lives that welcome fast food and hours of television undermine healthy weight. Most affected are children in poor neighborhoods, Okie says. Healthy food costs more, supermarkets leave or fail to locate in underdeveloped areas, and for many children playing outside is dangerous.

In fact, corporations are stunningly aided and abetted in the fattening of America's children by schools and parents, in whom these children have innocently placed their trust. The reasons for this extraordinary betrayal are various and complicated. Underfunded schools are frankly selling their kids to the food industry, negotiating exclusive and sometimes secret contracts with soda companies -- occasionally with enticing up-front payments. \"Schools get band uniforms and Big Soda gets brand loyalty,\" write [Lisa Tartamella], [Elaine Herscher] and [Chris Woolston]. Many consider themselves dependent on the money from vending machines and fast-food purveyors. (One Florida county school board negotiated a contract with Pepsi-Cola in 2000 worth $13.5 million.) PRIMEDIA's Channel One, now beamed into 12,000 subscribing American schools, gives away \"free\" media equipment in exchange for requiring kids to watch a minimum 12 minutes daily of television programming laden with ads for candy, soft drinks and fast foods. (That adds up to a week out of every school year.) Corporate lobbying undermines attempts to regulate what happens in schools. Today, soft drinks are sold in vending machines in more than 76 percent of public schools in America. Classes in nutrition are futile when the environment sends a different message. At home, busy families rely more often on fast food or takeout and less on home-cooked meals. \"Aim-to-please parents\" often stock fridges and cupboards with sodas and junk food. In supermarkets, food choices are increasingly shaped by advertising, and processed foods often contain surprising amounts of added sugar. Fascinatingly, some modern processes -- for oatmeal, for instance -- actually change the rate at which the foods will be turned into energy; the slow-cooking kind is better. And high-fructose corn syrup, which has replaced sucrose in soft drinks, reduces the production of leptin, a hormone that tells the body it's full. Super- sizing or \"value marketing\" hasn't helped matters either. Poverty can be especially conducive to obesity because low-income parents are intuitively stretching their food dollars by choosing high- density foods that tend to be fattening, and because fresh fruits and vegetables may not be available in low-income neighborhoods. There is hope. The authors of Generation Extra Large cite Maria Golan, a nutritionist at the School of Nutritional Sciences at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who believes that \"even in the face of all the unhealthy influences in the world, parents have an astonishing power to shape their kids' eating habits.\" Community pressures can awaken schools to their responsibility to provide nutritious foods and an environment in which healthy choices are possible. New York City banned soda, candy, salty chips and sweet snacks from school vending machines in 2003, and Los Angeles is in the midst of implementing a similar plan. Instead of soda, school vending machines will offer water, milk, sports drinks and fruit- based drinks with at least 50 percent juice and no added sweeteners. Attitudes can change quickly: Philadelphia was contemplating an exclusive soft-drink contract for its public schools in August 2003 but public criticism resulted in the city's proposing a soda ban instead.