Environmental Medicine News

The News Review:

- Nurturing native Americans on campus
- Not just green slimy stuff — a celebration of seaweed Growers,…
- Military Still Paying for Articles, Rumsfeld Says
- Gynecology, school lunches, gender politics at VisArts
- U. Cincinnati: Study: New evidence explaining memory loss.
- New hangover cure developed in France

Nurturing native Americans on campus
Christian Science Monitor - Feb 22, 2006
That’s what drew Tewa back to NAU. She saw a brochure for Applied Indigenous Studies, a program that grounds students in both traditional native knowledge and Western academics - and equips them to apply their skills in indigenous communities. Paired with a minor in environmental studies, it was a perfect fit for Tewa, who had been working to bring solar energy to parts of reservations that were still without electricity. For the first time, Tewa’s classes covered the history of native Americans. But she also learned practical matters, like how to apply for grants. “When I graduated [in December 2004] and became involved with the Sandia National Laboratories [as a liaison with tribal governments], all of the theories and the course work totally applied,” she says. The reason the indigenous studies program is so attractive? “It’s affirmation - there’s now relevancy for what they’re learning,” says department chair Octaviana Trujillo… But the department’s offerings have a much wider reach - both for native and nonnative students and faculty. Perhaps there’s no more tangible form of outreach than the “resident elders” on campus. A few years ago the department brought in James Peshlakai, a Navajo “Keeper of the Way,” as he calls himself (preferring that to labels such as “medicine man”). He brings a treasure trove of knowledge both of the songs and ceremonies that transmit Navajo culture, and on how to straddle two worlds - his remote sheep farm, where life is governed by the rhythms of nature, and city life, dominated by brick buildings, clocks, and e-mail. The story of his first semester at NAU shows the ripple effects his presence has had. “I thought, these kids, they come off the reservation.

Not just green slimy stuff — a celebration of seaweed Growers,…
San Francisco Chronicle - Feb 22, 2006
com, he presents information on sea vegetables for food and medicinal uses. — Joyce Young, a board-certified naturopathic physician in private practice in Portland, Ore. , is completing a master’s degree in Oriental medicine. — Betty Stechmeyer and her late husband, Gordon, started G… — Eric Tucker, executive chef of Millennium restaurant in San Francisco, will demonstrate some of his creative preparations, such as Sea Palm Yuba Salad with chile-peanut dressing, Sea Whip-Green Papaya Salad with roasted apricot dressing, Ginger Kombu Broth “Shooter” with Nori Foam, Jasmine Rice Pudding Nigiri, and Wasabi-Infused Ice Cream served with candied sea palm. Tucker trained at the National Gourmet Institute for Food and Health in New York City. His dedication to creating innovative, natural, low-fat cuisine brought him to Millennium in 1994. As executive chef of the opening team, he has been the creative force behind the restaurant’s success. — Barry Horton, chef at the Stanford Inn’s vegetarian restaurant, Ravens, will probably demonstrate his signature dish, Sea Palm Strudel. — Two chefs from the Sea Ranch Lodge, Leo Altenberg and James Romeo, will be demonstrating seaweed preparations. Raw-food chef Cherie Soria, of the Living Light School & Restaurant in Fort Bragg, will also be doing a food demonstration.

Military Still Paying for Articles, Rumsfeld Says
Washington Post - Feb 22, 2006
When we heard about it, we said, ‘Gee, that’s not what we ought to be doing. ‘ And we told the people down there, and they — they told the contractor who did it — it wasn’t a military person — and they stopped doing that,” Rumsfeld added in the interview. Health Care Costs Will Keep Rising, CMS SaysWithin a decade, an aging America will be spending one of every five dollars on health care, according to government analysts who see no end to increases in the cost of going to the doctor and taking medicine. The nation’s total health care bill by 2015: more than $4 trillion. Consumers will foot about half the bill, the government the rest. Hospital costs will rise more quickly than previously anticipated, reflecting a construction boom for urban hospitals. Meanwhile, drug costs are expected to be lower, in part because of the new Medicare prescription drug program… The projections, published in the journal Health Affairs, come as President Bush urges Americans to confront the rising cost of health care. In his State of the Union address last month, the president pushed health savings accounts and the high-deductible insurance plans that go with them. The report, written by analysts with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, attributes rising costs to the aging of the baby-boom population and the changing nature of health insurance. McCain Wants Harder Push on Guest WorkersPresident Bush needs to do more to help push a guest-worker program through Congress, said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz. ), the author of a key immigration bill. McCain, acknowledging that Bush has stepped up a campaign on behalf of the program, said the president has credibility on the issue because he was governor of Texas, the state with the largest border with Mexico.

Gynecology, school lunches, gender politics at VisArts
Business Gazette - Feb 22, 2006
The particularly tense environment the paintings express in bright and even garish colors also connotes cross-cultural and ethnicity issues. Using graphite to outline the figures, Weinblatt achieves a spontaneity of expression that makes an especially powerful comment on adolescent social interaction. Still, by combining the attractive and the uneasy, these paintings succeed in challenging the viewer to reconsider the nature of relationships in general. Cristin Millet’s large-scale installation is, without doubt, the most compelling part of the exhibit. ‘‘The Transparency of Knowledge (Levret Version)” is comprised of three chambers, each built of wooden slats with ‘‘walls” made of a translucent organza. On a primary level, the artist writes, the chambers are intended to explore ‘‘the metaphorical relationship between the interior and exterior spaces of architecture and that of the body… Millet is from a medical family, and fascinated with these issues since her childhood, has done extensive research on gynecological and obstetrical history as a gender-specific metaphor. Her research took her to Europe to see, among other things, the anatomy theater at Padua, the wax medical specimens at La Specola and the instruments at the Museum of the History of Science in Florence. These conceptual investigations into the history of medicine, with regard to the female body and its processes, are at the core of the present installation, and resonate strongly throughout it. Although it is not a comfortable history, it is strangely comfortable inside the chambers. The first holds the ‘‘Coronation Throne for Artemis,” a wood-frame yellow upholstered chair turned into a Victorian birthing chair. The Ephesian Artemis, goddess of fertility, with rows of breasts, is evoked by three rows of red resin breasts in its back. There is a pun here relating the word ‘‘coronation” with the ‘‘crowning” of a baby during birth.

U. Cincinnati: Study: New evidence explaining memory loss.
Free with registration - America's Intelligence Wire - AccessMyLibrary.com - Feb 22, 2006
Cincinnati: Study: New evidence explaining memory loss. –> COPYRIGHT 2006 Financial Times Ltd. (From University Wire) Byline: Karen Shinkle A hormone, Ghrelin, known for the regulation of food intake and body weight, could also be involved with memory loss associated with aging and Alzheimer’s disease, according to research appearing in the March 2006 issue of Nature Neuroscience. Two members of the University of Cincinnati research team at.

New hangover cure developed in France
abc.net.au - Feb 22, 2006
VOX POP 4: If people are dumb enough to drink that much that they need the product, then maybe they shouldn’t drink that much in the first place. BARNEY PORTER: The beverage was developed in the 1990s after six years of research by two brothers in France, one of whom is a chemist. The manufacturers caution that their juice is not a medicine, nor is it effective against alcohol dependency. However, that subtle warning hasn’t reassured Donna Bull the CEO of the Alcohol and Other Drugs Council of Australia. DONNA BULL: Alcohol’s a really toxic substance for us and it does damage every organ in the body and so perhaps a better way to be going about addressing the issues might be to be promoting something that actually lowers the risk of drinking too much in the first place. BARNEY PORTER: Surely though it’s a good thing for someone who’s just about to leave a pub and get into a car to have a potion like this and help sober them up a little more quickly?DONNA BULL: I don’t know that it’s necessarily helping sober them up. It may be making them feel more sober, it may be making them feel better and less hungover, for instance, the next day, but your liver’s still only going to be able to process one standard drink an hour, approximately one standard drink an hour.