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The article highlights new discoveries about these ailments, too often understudied given their terrible toll and fresh ideas emerges about the ways such disorders get started, ideas that run counter to a century of medical dogma. Topics include considered that advances are leading to more refined treatments, based on a nuanced understanding of immune systems.

Bouts of disabling pain, bleeding, weight loss and hospitalization that sometimes require surgery: that's the lot of about three million adults in the U.S. who suffer from inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD. Now scientists have traced two detailed molecular pathways from the brain to the gut that produce IBD flares. And in three different groups of IBD patients, they found that psychological stress - a death in the family or a bad fight with a loved one, for instance - can trigger the release of brain chemicals that cause IBD symptoms. [Extracted from the article]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Amanda Kitts is mobbed by four- and five-year-olds as she enters the classroom at the Kiddie Kottage Learning Center near Knoxville, Tennessee. 'Hey kids, how're my babies today?' [...]

Working in clay, an artist added skin, muscle, and eyes to casts of skulls from Dmanisi, in the republic of Georgia. Discoveries there are fleshing out a new portrait of [...]

An introduction is presented in which the guest editors discuss the theme of the issue, air pollution raises the risk of Alzheimer's disease to a startling degree and explore the path between dirty air and brain destruction.

The sex chromosome has been shrinking throughout mammalian evolution, but many of its remaining genes play crucial roles beyond sex determination.

Legally, dogs and cats are moving closer to personhood. A new book says this poses problems for biomedical researchers and veterinarians.

The article focuses on the increase in cases of early-onset Alzheimer's disease, once thought to afflict only the elderly. The article discusses the effects of the disease on people in their fifties, forties, and, increasing, in their thirties. Particular focus is given to the lack of treatment options for younger victims, as the United States' Alzheimer's Association only recently acknowledged early-onset demenia. INSET: There's Hope in the Drug Pipeline.

The article reports on community hospitals, which are increasingly offering the complex medical procedures that used to drive people to seek out care in the nation's best hospitals. Researching your community hospital, their volume and quality of surgeries, their experience level and their expertise in your medical procedure can help you chose a good center close to home.

The article reports that doctors have found a new vaccine to treat cervical cancer. They are also focusing their research to eliminate the more destructive types, such as prostate and pancreatic cancer. The common element to all of these new treatments is the renewal of the immune system. Injections of the vaccine stimulates the body's production of antibodies, catching the virus before it infects any basal cell. The new vaccines will provide virus prevention and long term protection. INSET: Shots, Sex, and Safety.

The article reports on the use of electrical implants to mend brains damaged by Parkinson's, stroke and depression. About 70 percent of patients who receive deep brain stimulation get some benefit. Deep brain stimulation is being used for a movement disorder known as dystonia, which contorts the entire body. Not everyone returns to normal following this treatment, however. Those with severe paralysis may be aided by implant technology. It is also being used for treatment-resistant depression. Transcranial magnetic stimulation is another experimental technique for serious depression. INSET: 5 WAYS TO REPAIR A BROKEN BRAIN.

Offers a look at the use of high technology in hospitals and its impact on death rates. Use of technology in hospital intensive care units; Use of information technology to improve the quality and safety of hospital care; Reference to a survey of hospitals conducted by "Hospitals & Health Networks" that showed that the "100 Most Wired" had a lower patient mortality rate; Reference to a study in the "Journal of the American Medical Association" regarding computerized physician medication-ordering for the reduction of medical errors; Use of electronic health records. INSETS: HIGH-TECH SERVICES;THE GOOD AND THE WIRED.

Offers nine key ways to beat the pain of arthritis. How joint problems are hurting and crippling millions of Americans; Ways that rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis affect joints; Topical treatment; Supplements; Technique of strengthening the muscles and tendons that support the joint; Strength and flexibility exercises; Anti-inflammatory drugs; Disease-modifying drugs; Opioid analgesics; Joint lubrication; Surgery and replacement; Rehabilitation; Outlook for new treatments.

Discusses ways in which to get cheaper medications from Canada without risking one's life in order to get them. Efforts of several states to set up programs for importing medications from Canada; Possible dangers of ordering drugs online through web sites that are not approved; Steps consumers can take to safeguard their money and health in importing drugs; Attractiveness of Canadian drugs; Analysis of the programs that were created in Wisconsin and Minnesota; Problems with the programs; Possibility that the drugs from Canada may not be supplied from legitimate sources.

Examines how new research is helping Alzheimer's patients cope. The painful realities of Alzheimer's disease for patients and their families; How Alzheimer's specialist Pierre Tariot and other researchers are combining new and existing therapies to stave off brain failure; Role of drugs in slowing deterioration and reducing agitation and irritability; How new brain scans are making earlier, clearer diagnoses possible; Task-training; Increase in the rate of Medicare beneficiaries with Alzheimer's; Questions regarding Aricept, the most frequently prescribed Alzheimer drug; Approval of memantine for people in later stages of Alzheimer's; Treatment of agitation, depression and other symptoms in people with dementia; Hopes for the new approaches.

Discusses St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Story of one child treated at the hospital named Sydney Distefano, who had a rare cancer; Focus on certain catastrophic diseases at St. Jude, such as cancer, and AIDS; Five-year survival rates for cancers; New treatment methods being developed at St. Jude, such as new radiation methods for children with brain tumors; Possible reasons why treatments, such as the new brain tumor treatment, works on some children and not on other.

Discusses the truth behind the myth about the city of Troy in northwestern Turkey. Description of Troy and its desolate nature; Comparison of Troy to the place described by Homer in "The Iliad"; Recent excavations of Troy; Discovery of pottery, swords, and other relics during the excavation; Analysis of the story told in "The Iliad" and the truth behind it; Belief that King Agamemnon is a fictional character, as no relics have ever been found as proof of his existence; Conflict between the Mycenaeans and the residents of Troy.

Ginger Empey has battled breast cancer that spread to her liver, while Gloria Caruso fought lung cancer that spawned tumors in her neck and back. But the two also share some good fortune, including joy in their grandchildren. Empey is taking Herceptin, a drug that homes in on tumor cell proteins that flourish only in patients who have her specific subtype of breast cancer. Gene tests can now reveal whether an organ transplant patient is likely to have a bad reaction to a particular transplant drug, forewarning doctors about the risk. And tests under development can pick out people who have both good and poor responses to drugs for high blood pressure, which should allow doctors to match patients to the most suitable drugs in advance.

Byline: Josh Fischman Moshe Pritsker was about 30,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean, with North America ahead of his airplane and Europe receding, when he began seriously wondering why he [...]

Byline: Josh Fischman Aftershocks from an Italian court decision this week continued to ripple through the scientific and public-safety communities on Tuesday, as four officials in Italian risk-assessment and civil-protection [...]

Byline: Josh Fischman Lauren Lancaster for The Chronicle Review Screens show an experiment and results from a functional-magnetic-resonance-imaging machine in the lab at the Center for Neuroeconomics at New York [...]

Byline: Josh Fischman The bees are in the air early at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. Joseph W. Margotta, a graduate student working in the honeybee-physiology lab, is [...]

Byline: Josh Fischman Going Into the Lion's Den A. Scott Denning Professor of atmospheric sciences Colorado State U. at Fort Collins The Heartland Institute is noted for its climate-change skepticism [...]

Byline: Josh Fischman It's tricky being a state climatologist these days, says David Stooksbury, who was Georgia's until last year. People in the job-which focuses on local forecasts, not global [...]

Byline: Josh Fischman The Bronx, N.Y. -- Adolf Hitler would not have been particularly proud of him, Harry Ostrer says, though he, like the architect of the Holocaust, has developed [...]

Byline: Josh Fischman In the early 20th century, a folklorist and statistician named Joseph Jacobs wrote that 'there is about twice as much chance of finding a distinguished person among [...]

Byline: Josh Fischman Albert Einstein was an ageist. The journal Nature once quoted the physicist saying, 'A person who has not yet made his great contribution to science by the [...]

Byline: Josh Fischman In December, when scientists running a Mars rover announced that the robot had found a tiny rock that was the most 'bulletproof observation' of Martian water, they [...]

Byline: Josh Fischman A protest against Elsevier, the world's largest scientific journal publisher, is rapidly gaining momentum since it began as an irate blog post at the end of January. [...]

Focuses on how to deal with health insurance mistakes. How writing off insurance mistakes is something people can no longer afford; Problems which include paperwork errors; How to spot errors and take steps to prevent them; Importance of presenting a case effectively to an insurance company; Example of Leonard and Linda Larson, who hired a patient advocate to recover thousands of dollars.

Focuses on the efforts of New York City firefighters and others to find survivors of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. Number of firefighters who have died in the building's collapse; How the firefighters have become heroes; Courage of those helping others to escape from the building; Loss of Reverend Mychal Judge, a fire department chaplain; Details of acts of bravery at the Pentagon in Washington D.C., which was also hit by a hijacked airplane. INSET: A grim search for the lost, by Stacey Schultz and Nancy Shute.

Focuses on an epidemic of diabetes in the United States, and provides information about the disease. Changes in diet and lifestyle which can help control the disease; Incidence of diabetes among young people; Drugs which may help control blood sugar, or glucose; View that obesity is a leading cause of the disease among adults.

Reviews several Web sites related to audio and video as of December 4, 2000. Details of adcritic.com which features television advertisements; Details of memory.loc.gov; Downloadable music at napster.com; Others.

Reports on archaeological discoveries. Effect of rising water on discovery sites; Submersion of the ruins of Zeugma, due to the damming of the Euphrates river; Theories on the development of civilization based on findings at the sites; Signs of the domestication of animals at ancient sites; Discovery of the lost city of Herakleion submerged in the Mediterranean Sea; Discovery of a city in Peru which could be El Dorado; Threats posed to city ruins. INSET: A long-lost center of Mayan culture.

Examines the treatment of chronic pain with relaxation techniques, physical therapy, psychotherapy and drugs. Evidence which suggests the effectiveness of such programs; Costs of the treatment; Comparison of chronic pain to temporary pain; Importance of relaxation in the alleviation of chronic pain; Occupational therapy for the patients; Controversy regarding which drugs to use to treat chronic pain. INSET: Picking the right pain doctor.

Examines treatment options for prostate cancer detected at an early stage. Details on the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test, a blood test that can find cancer at earlier stages than was previously possible; Methods used to fight prostate cancer, including the removal of the prostate, standard radiation and implantation of radioactive material into the prostate; Likelihood of men to have prostate cancer. INSETS: Milken accelerates cancer research, by Katy Kelly;Greens (and reds) may cut your risk, by Rachel K. Sobel.

Discusses the basic principles of biology and genetics that govern who people pick for a mate and reasons why they fall in love. Physical characteristics people unconsciously look for when choosing a mate; The evolutionary connection between body type and fertility; How people are automatically attracted to mates with genetic diversity; Cultural differences in the ways people choose a mate. INSET: A fight over the evolution of rape, by Josh Fischman.

Byline: Josh Fischman Washington -- Here's a photo of a woman, Angela H. Gutchess tells people as she goes about her work, and this woman wears a large hat in [...]