Word: controller
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...while these hormones have been successfully manipulated in lab mice to prompt weight gain or loss, the same has not been true in humans. Experiments in which obese human patients were injected with leptin have failed, because the metabolic pathways that control hunger and fullness in people are far more complex than they are in mice. Knocking out one of, say, 50 such pathways through drug treatment just means the other 49 will eventually pick up the slack, says Dr. George Fielding, a bariatric surgeon at the NYU Program for Surgical Weight Loss...
...balance and simplicity; “At the height of the slave trade, African rulers seemed literally to have gone mad. To get hold of the guns and tobacco and brandy they craved, some chiefs betrayed and enslaved their own people. The desire to possess had spiraled out of control. Their successors behave no differently. Slavery, of course, is now illegal. But are there any moral distinctions to be drawn between a chief who, in order to satisfy his lust for brandy, sells his own people into slavery and the contemporary politician who, coveting a Mercedes-Benz, embezzles the funds...
...tone of satisfaction; having emerged into yet another creative groove, this record lacks the hints of ragged desperation that made “Beyond” just a shade more wonderful. But don’t call “Farm” a holding pattern. Call it cruise-control. —Staff writer Ryan J. Meehan can be reached at rmeehan@fas.harvard.edu...
...Blame it on Françafrique, the name given to the relationship between successive governments in Paris and the client regimes that arose across Africa as France swapped colonial control of nations in exchange for arrangements conducive to French political and business interests. For decades, Françafrique produced corrupt and brutal yet stable African partners for France and helped Paris fend off the rival influences of Britain, the U.S. and more recently China. Typically, the authoritarian African leaders who gained from this relationship grew magnificently rich as their people, inversely, became impoverished. And no ruler was more iconic...
...party leaders are ready to write Grassley and the Republicans out of their plans for action in September and October. "If we can't do a bipartisan bill, we can do a partisan bill," says Senate majority leader Harry Reid. That may be harder than it looks. Though Democrats control Congress, it takes 60 votes to get past a filibuster in the Senate; with the death of Ted Kennedy, they have only 59. And holding the Democrats' own ranks is getting dicier, given the sinking poll numbers for both Obama and his health-reform effort - particularly among women and voters...