May/June 2009

Lindquist’s Labyrinth
Scientists can cure Parkinson’s Disease in yeast - can they extend this to humans? A short documentary produced by Anne-Marie Corley. Directed by Annie Glausser. Edited by Genevieve Wanucha and Lisa Song.

Lindquist Lab Documentary
Experiments are being done with Parkinson’s disease, but how close are researchers to making a difference? Scientists from the Whitehead Institute’s Lindquist Lab show us.
By MacGregor Campbell, Stephanie Dutchen, and Iris Mónica Vargas

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle:
A Year of Food Life
by Barbara Kingsolver
New York: HarperCollins, 2007

After driving a blue pumpkin halfway around the Italian countryside, Barbara Kingsolver butchered the vegetable, scooped out its seeds, and replanted them in Virginia. This is the kind of moment (and there are many of them) that elevates Animal, Vegetable, Miracle from a how-to manual on local eating into a reclamation of food culture. The book’s premise is deceptively simple: along with husband Steven Hopp and their two daughters, Kingsolver (best known for her novel The Bean Trees) dedicated one year to eating only locally-produced foods, growing much of it on the family’s Virginia farm, buying the rest from neighboring farmer’s markets. In returning to the land, the “Hoppsolvers” sought to reduce their environmental footprint and enjoy a year’s worth of fresh foods produced from their doorstep. Part lament on the flaws of the modern food industry, part ode to the joy of understanding—fully—where our food comes from, the result is a lyrical, well-choreographed book that weaves together nutrition, botany, environment, and social responsibility.

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by Diane Ackerman
W. W. Norton, 2007
288 pages

On September 1, 1939, Warsaw’s inhabitants awoke to the grumblings of approaching Luftwaffe bomber squadrons. It was to be the first day of school for Polish school children. But this morning, running Polish soldiers took the place of would-be backpack-laden youngsters. Hours earlier, Adolf Hitler had staged a fake attack on the German border town of Gleiwitz to justify invading Poland, dressing SS troops in Polish uniforms who then issued a counterfeit call to arms. His initial plan was simple: drive ethnic Poles east, condense Jews into a reservation plot, and claim a pure Aryan Lebensraum (“living space”). But as the Germans methodically claimed Polish towns over the months, he grew bolder. “Kill without pity or mercy,” he ordered his troops, “all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language… Only in this way can we obtain the Lebensraum we need.” Nordic-looking children, however, would be renamed and raised by Germans.

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