Word: part
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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What's becoming clear to scientists in the obesity business is that the body's energy-processing system involves not one or two but a maze of metabolic pathways. POMC, leptin and brown fat cells are part of the story. But nerve cells have also been implicated in weight regulation, and it's not clear how these different pathways relate to one another. "Not a month goes by," says Dr. Eric Ravussin, director of endocrine research at Eli Lilly, "without publication of a new pathway that regulates feeding behavior, giving us new potential targets...
...while at least we'll keep getting fatter. We can't undo evolution, and we haven't found a way to fool Mother Nature--yet. But before the 21st century is half over, with the body's fat-centric metabolism laid bare and the ability to manipulate genes part of medicine's standard tool kit, the trend may finally stop. Chubbiness may not disappear, but it could become optional. A future without Richard Simmons' commercials would be a wonderful future indeed...
...stores of petroleum are not quite as ample as those of coal or natural gas, but there is enough to supply humanity for many decades, even with rising population and living standards. Crippling shortages may still occur, of course. But they will arise from skulduggery or incompetence on the part of corporations or governments, not from any physical scarcity...
...best part is that we could make money by making peace with the planet. If governments launched a program--call it a Global Green Deal--to environmentally retrofit our civilization from top to bottom, they could create the biggest business enterprise of the next 25 years, a huge source of jobs and profits...
That may seem impossible, but it's not unprecedented. In nature, Liss points out, there is no such thing as waste. What dies or is discarded from one part of an ecosystem nourishes another part. Liss says humanity can emulate nature's garbage-free ways, but it will require innovative technology and a big change in attitude...