“Women, Girls and HIV/AIDS,” the fourth issue of Health Alert—Asia Pacific,published by the Health Action Information Network (www.hain.org/Ha/hanewsletter.htm), examinesthe factors that make women vulnerable to HIV. This issue looks particularly at the gender and human rights dimensions of HIV and AIDS, and it discusses programmes that create environments that would empower women and uphold their health and dignity.

Shakespeare, the Bible, and Gray's Anatomy are the only three written worksneeded on a doctor's shelf, according to American novelist and Nobel Prize winner Sinclair Lewis. Gray's Anatomy, first published in 1858, has undergone major surgery in its recently launched 39th edition, and has been fully restructured by body region rather than by organ system. The number of illustrations has risen to nearly 2000. But thanks to the removal of unnecessary “Victorian purple prose,” the number of pages has shrunk from 2100 to 1600 (www.graysanatomyonline.com).

Imagine being able to move a cursor across a computer screen, just by thinking about it. It's now possible. Scientists have invented a non-invasive brain-computer interface, a system thattranslates electrical signals in the brain into physical outputs. They have demonstrated that humans can control two …