People’s Pharmacy: Did cold remedy cause sex headache? 2D
Today
T H U R S D A Y , A P R I L 10, 2003
SECTION
D
WWW.TUSCALOOSANEWS.COM
-TALK SPORTS TRIATHLETE STRESSES MOBILITY When a world-class triathlete
chats up the power of walking,
people believe it. And that’s why
Lyn Brooks, with 20 consecutive
finishes of the Hawaiian Ironman
World Triathlon, captures the
imaginations of seniors she visits
on promotional tours for a new
walker called Hugo. Looking fit and trim, she
promotes any type of comfortable
mobility as people age, including
something as moderate as walk-
ing five to 10 minutes a day, “vac-
uuming with vigor,” even dancing
with your broom, Fred and
Ginger- style.
OBESITY TARGETING JUNK FOOD The nonprofit organization
Commercial Alert is leading a
campaign to help stop childhood
obesity by banning the marketing,
distribution and sale of junk food
in schools, and improving the
quality of food provided to
schoolchildren.
PHOTO | ROBERT SUTTON
Mamie Ellis has been diagnosed with posterior vitreous detachment, which causes a dark speck to appear in the field of vision.
Commercial Alert sent the
Eyeshadow
agenda to chairs and ranking
members of state legislative edu-
cation committees, and the chief
state public health and education
officers in all 50 states. Get more information at
www.commercialalert.org or by
calling (503) 235-8012.
ENVIRONMENT GREAT APES IN GREAT DANGER
Disorder causes floating spot in person’s vision
The future of our closest living
By Tiffany Lacey
relatives is much more fragile
than previously thought.
According to a report published
online by the journal Nature, the
number of great apes in the wilds
of western Africa has been more
than halved during the past two
decades. If the current trend
continues, scientists say, these
A
Staff Writer
t first, he thought he just had something in his eye. But what Allen Booth was really experiencing had the potential to take his sight away. “It’s like a little dark speck in your eye,” he said. “To start with, I had a bunch of little, bitty ones. Then, all of a sudden, I got a little bubble on my eye, like a drop of water.” That’s when he went to his eye doctor who recognized his problem as posterior
primates could suffer population
vitreous detachment and directed him to go immediately to the Callahan Eye Foundation in Birmingham. “That’s when I started getting scared,” the 70-year-old said. “I didn’t have any idea what it was.” At its worst, a PVD involves the vitrous humor — the jelly-like filling of the inner eyeball — separating from the back of the eye, can cause blindness. The following morning, Booth underwent an emergency laser surgery to seal off the potentially harmful detachment. Nearly five years later, the detachment has been repaired, but he has accepted that the floater in his field of vision is a permanent part of his life. Similar to Booth, the are many people who have or will have floaters, though they may not be harmful or progress to the point of retinal detachment. In either case, however, an extensive eye exam should be performed to determine the severity of the floater. SEE EYE | 3D
Floaters materialize in the field of vision as the result of two actions. Over time, the proteins in the vitreous humor can form clumps that light can't pass through. On the other hand, the vitreous humor can begin to detach from the back of the eyeball due to a retinal tear.
1 Detatchment of Vitreous Humor from Retina
Eyeball Iris
Retina Optical Nerve
Light
Shadow 2 Proteins
Vitreous Humor
GRAPHIC ANTHONY BRATINA
childhood obesity prevention
declines of another 80 percent
over the next 30 years, drastical-
SOUTH AMERICAN TRAVEL DIARY
ly endangering their survival. Peter Walsh of Princeton
University and the Wildlife
Conservation Society led an
international team of researchers
Minas Gerais harbors historic personality Traveled Planned Travel Venezuela Guyana Suriname Fr. Guiana
who studied wild populations of
great apes in Gabon, in central
Africa. The small equatorial
forest cover and is a stronghold
Columbia
?
azon R iver Am
for wild chimpanzees and gorillas.
The team traipsed through 2,500
Bolivia
miles of dense jungle on several
surveys to count ape nests. It
determined that the ape popula-
tion declined by 56 percent
between the early 1980s and
2002. The study highlights the impact
of factors other than deforesta-
tion that can kill apes, namely
illegal hunting and the Ebola
virus.
Ecuador Peru Chile
Pacific Ocean
Brazil
South Ame ric a
nation retains 80 percent of its
Ouro Preto
Paraguay
Uruguay Argentina
South Atlantic STAFF ILLUSTRATION | ANTHONY BRATINA
By Sylvere and Martha Coussement
Special to The Tuscaloosa News
MINAS GERAIS ow! The state of Minas Gerais is over whelming.We left the state of Bahia and headed for Ouro Preto in Minas Gerais. We have spent nearly three weeks in this state, not surprising since so many aspects of this region deserved exploration. The colonial architecture, the art, the different cultures and personalities of its towns, the abundance of gemstones, and certainly not least, Aleijadinho, a figure of international prominence in the history of art. The state of Minas Gerais is the most important historical state of Brazil, and to get a better feeling for the background it serves well to travel back a few centuries. In 1494, the Spaniards and the Portuguese agreed to divide the New World
W
A view of Ouro Preto from the hillsides. between themselves at the Treaty of Tordesillas. For centuries the Portuguese were frustrated seeing the gold and gems flowing from the Spanish territories, while Brasilwood and sugar
THE COUSSEMENTS
were the only products coming out of their area. At the beginning of the 18th century, Bandeirantes (privately financed SEE DIARY | 6D