Word: treeing
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Samoan healers concoct poultices and infusions from the leaves, bark and roots of local plants, using them for conditions that range from high fever to appendicitis. Among them are root of 'Ago (Curcuma longa) for rashes, leaves of the kuava tree (Psidium guajava) for diarrhea, and the bark of vavae (Ceiba pentandra) for asthma. Virtually all the healers are women who learned their art from their mothers, who in turn learned it from their mothers. Now knowledge of the recipes and their administration, even the location of the plants in the forests, is endangered as more and more daughters forgo...
...ethnobotanical field research provides a far more streamlined way of locating plants that have medical potential. "Indigenous people have been testing plants on people for thousands of years," says Cox. More important, healers may alert ethnobotanists to nuances that random collecting could miss. Take Homalanthus nutans, a rain-forest tree whose bark Samoans have used for centuries as a cure for hepatitis. Cox quickly found that he could not just casually go into the forest and gather the bark because 1) there are two varieties of the tree, and the bark of only one is effective, and 2) only trees...
...taking, hypericum," observes Jerry Cott, a Maryland-based pharmacologist, "and none of the side effects reported have been anything like those we've seen with drugs like Prozac. That's kind of exciting." Indeed, just as aspirin (whose active ingredient was first isolated from the bark of the willow tree) has spurred the development of a new generation of anti-inflammatories, so hypericum may eventually stimulate the creation of safer, more powerful, antidepressant drugs...
They don't. The students' families have already enlisted superlawyer Nathan Lewin, veteran of 27 arguments before the Supreme Court, including a 1989 case requiring the city of Pittsburgh, Pa., to display a menorah next to its Christmas tree...
...self-described Beavis and Butt-head goofball while growing up, Spacey, 38, moved around California frequently because his father, a technical writer, switched jobs often. Packed off to a military school after setting his sister's tree house on fire, Kevin was booted from the academy when he tossed a tire at a fellow cadet during a boxing match. He finally settled down at 14, when he saw a production of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie at a high school drama festival and caught the acting bug. He joined a drama class and studied alongside other fledgling thespians, including...