New research on the finicky eating habits of children with autism finds that while autistic children tend to eat a less varied diet than other kids do, their dietary preferences have little negative effect on their height, weight and growth. Researchers at the University of Bristol began with a database of children born from 1991 to 1992 who were enrolled in a long-term study in Avon, England. The children's caregivers completed detailed food questionnaires describing the kids' eating ...

The British Government is said to have compiled a secret list of twelve paintings, now in private British collections, which authorities consider too precious to let England lose at any price. If such a list exists it could hardly fail to include Titian's Diana, and Actaeon, Reynolds' Master Crewe, Romney's Gower Children, Raeburn's The MacNab, Gainsborough's-portrait of Anne, Duchess of Cumberland , Lawrence's Lord Lyndoch, two of Lord Ellesmere's Raphaels, or Rembrandt's Rabbi in a Chair. One picture which might ...

MORATORIUM" was scarcely a household word a couple of months ago. The dictionary definition is "a period of permissive or obligatory delay," and to most people it meant a pause in paying one's debts or in talking. Now, suddenly, "moratorium" has become the focus of national attention in its special 1969 sense: M-day, Oct. 15, a movement intended by its organizers and supporters to show the Nixon Administration that large and growing numbers of Americans want out of the Viet ...

NEW ENGLAND: INDIAN SUMMER—Van Wyck Brooks—Dutton . During the '20s and '30s, Critic Van Wyck Brooks pondered a theory and a project. His project was to write a synthesis of U. S. culture in terms of the New England mind. The theory, used chiefly as a literary framework for the project, was German Philosopher Oswald Spengler's theory of cultural cycles: that cultures, like individuals, pass through youth and maturity to old age and death. Cultures are born in the countryside ...

Prescription pads, clipboards and patient charts are so 20th century. In the era of CT scans, gene-splicing and stem-cell breakthroughs, handwritten record-keeping feels about as outmoded as the fluoroscope. It's more than just strangely retro; it's fantastically expensive. Health care in the U.S. costs a jaw-dropping $2 trillion annually, or more than $6,600 for every man, woman and child in the country. Streamlining the industry by eliminating medical errors, labor costs and general clunkiness caused by paperwork alone ...

In Africa, drought continues for the sixth consecutive year, adding terribly to the toll of famine victims. During 1972 record rains in parts of the U.S., Pakistan and Japan caused some of the worst flooding in centuries. In Canada's wheat belt, a particularly chilly and rainy spring has delayed planting and may well bring a disappointingly small harvest. Rainy Britain, on the other hand, has suffered from uncharacteristic dry spells the past few springs. A series of unusually cold winters has gripped the American Far West, while ...

Look closely and you can make out a theme running through Russell Brand's major movie roles to date: lascivious rock star, drug-addicted rock star, drunk, rich drunk and an Easter Bunny who would rather be a rock star. But if Brand's acting career lacks range, he hasn't suffered for it. Forgetting Sarah Marshall, his first U.S. movie , hit screens in 2008. Three years and a slew of warm reviews later, the working-class Brit and former junkie produced and stars ...

Reader alert: This story quotes quite a few four-letter words, all of them spoken by a future King of England. Some readers may wish to skip the dialogue section after the next boldface advisory. His elocution teacher worked with George VI to clarify the king's speech, to unlock his ability to talk to his subjects with ease and power. Now the Weinstein Company, in tandem with the Motion Picture Association of America, has sanitized The King's Speech. ...

The passport on Yang Hua's desk is stamped with visas that would alarm immigration clerks around the world. He showed up in Indonesia two days after the Bali nightclub bombings in 2002. He's logged trips on a moment's notice to Iran, Yemen and Qatar, as well as to the U.S., Australia, Canada, England and Brazil. But Yang doesn't try to hide the substances contained in little glass vials that he brings home from his travels. They're lined up on the ...

Oral sex can get most men's attention. The topic becomes considerably more relevant, however, when coupled with a new study linking the human papillomavirus to an increased risk of a kind of oral cancer more often seen in men. The study, which appears in this week's New England Journal of Medicine , shows that men and women who reported having six or more oral-sex partners during their lifetime had a nearly ninefold increased risk of ...