Accutane Alternatives The medication that most of us know as Accutane hasn’t actually been sold under that brand name since 2009 when the company stopped selling the medication. That doesn’t mean you’re out of luck. There are still plenty of medications on the market today that contain the same active ingredient—isotretinoin. They’re just sold under different brand names. Some people still call any isotretinoin medication “Accutane,” simply because it was the first oral isotretinoin acne medication on the market, and the brand is the most well-known....

While the scientists rushed to call this an ““obesity gene,’’ it really appears to be more of a ““satiation gene.’’ Scientists think the gene sends a protein messenger to the brain, advising it that the body has stored enough fat. That’s a signal to stop eating. When the message isn’t sent, there’s no natural appetite suppressant – and no end to weight gain. For years, researchers have hypothesized about a biochemical signal that helps keep eyes from becoming bigger than the proverbial stomach....

Almost everyone stalls eventually, but the unrest seems more general today. Able boomers, ready for promotion, see jobs above them being snuffed. With few places to go, they’re topping out younger and at lower levels than they expected. Older generations weren’t stopped until they reached their late 40s, says consultant Judith Bardwick of La Jolla, Calif. Now it’s the early 40s and may go lower yet, leaving even thirtysomethings stuck at the same level for years....

But, hey, maybe I was being unfair to him. Howard Stern IS NOT JUST ANOTHER RANTING LOWLIFE WITH A RADIO SHOW He has a computer now, too! And somebody showed him how to use it, because his new book, “Private Parts,” has more capital letters, boldface and italics than an Italian soccer magazine! In it Stem reveals for the first time in print some of his most intimate feelings, such as his passion for Jessica Hahn and his reaction to his wife’s miscarriage (“Every slob on welfare has kids, why can’t I?...

Congressional staffers now are focusing on the accuracy of a list of Clinton library donors and fundraisers which was turned over to them by the former president’s lawyers a few days ago. A source in the Clinton camp familiar with the library donor list insists: “There’s not going to be anything in the library that’s going to be an issue.” But investigators continue to ask whether there was a correlation between last-minute presidential pardons and financial support for the Clinton library....

“House of Mirth” by Edith Wharton. An astonishment of a book; still so new despite being almost a century old. “Lucky Jim” by Kingsley Amis. Not just funny, but a litmus test of humor by which one can judge (harshly and without quarter) one’s prospective friends. Did they laugh? Fine, they’re in. “The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon.” Aphorisms and observations from a lady of the court of Heian Japan, fully a thousand years ago....

After all, Pota knows novels about novelists are “passe”–like novels about unhappy marriages, dysfunctional families and war. He knows too much. (Anyway, he’s done his war novel.) One idea needs “flashy plotting” that he “did not wish to think himself capable of executing.” Another would take tedious character development, and younger writers “are better at it now and have the gusto and the time.” Why does Pota, with money from his old best sellers, still bother?...

As the 20th century winds down, we humans seem increasingly convinced that serotonin is the key to a good life–and it’s easy to see why. This once obscure neurotransmitter is the secret behind Prozac, the drug that revolutionized the pursuit of happiness 10 years ago this winter. Prozac and its mood-altering cousins all work by boosting serotonin’s activity in the brain. So do Redux and fenfluramine, the blockbuster diet drugs that were pulled off the market this fall due to safety concerns....

Pan Am 103 blew up in the sky over Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988, killing all 259 people aboard and 11 on the ground. After combing hundreds of square miles of Scottish countryside and following the evidence across Europe, investigators identified two Libyan suspects, Abdel Basset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhima, who worked for the Libyan airline–and reportedly for Libyan intelligence. The country’s strongman, Muammar Kaddafi, was persuaded to hand them over for trial after receiving assurances that his government’s alleged support for the bombing operation would not be mentioned in court....

Are they? Two not very terrible events supposedly triggered the upset. First, striking workers won concessions from United Parcel Service. Nervous Wall Streeters saw that labor victory as a harbinger of inflation. Then Coca-Cola and Gillette hinted that quarterly earnings would fall short of expectations, inciting fear that similar deficiencies would pop up at other large corporations. These are setbacks, but hardly substantial enough to fashion a noose for the bull market....

Children with severe cerebral palsy have been successfully testing the keyboard system. That neurological condition often causes involuntary spasms, making it especially challenging to get the software and camera tracker to work. But the children have been able to use the keyboard successfully and have found it therapeutic, Van Dusen says. “Many of the children were more focused on their movements because they were motivated by the sounds they were creating,” he says....

But several pro-choice groups are nervous that his record isn’t speaking loudly enough—that, on the contrary, it’s been overshadowed by his reputation as a maverick who bucks the party line. Their fears are bolstered by a new Planned Parenthood survey, conducted in 16 likely battleground states, which shows that 23 percent of McCain’s female, pro-choice supporters mistakenly believe he shares their views on abortion. An additional half of the respondents said they did not know enough to describe his position....

It was the house that roared, a modest project (the renovation cost about $40,000) that brought Gehry instant notoriety. His neighbors went bananas, but critics loved the place for its raucous forms and the everydayness of materials like chain link and plywood, The house had a crazy, in-your-face toughness and the buoyant originality of a great work of art. But Gehry was still considered a regionalist, which was a polite but snotty way of saying that nobody thought his work would travel....

O’Brien, the mother of 6-year-old twins, may not fit most people’s stereotype of a serious gamer, but she’s not the only one hooked on casual videogames. In recent years downloads on sites like Yahoo! Games and pogo.com have become a furtive pastime among bored office workers, insomniac moms and chronic procrastinators. Like the Froggers and Ms. Pac-Mans of yesteryear, games like Bejeweled and Mystery Case Files take little skill to learn but are challenging enough to keep players fixated on their screens....

She pulls out a family photo album filled with faded snapshots of the handsome young man. In one image, he is with his high-school sweetheart; in another, he strums a guitar. A photograph from July 1970, taken just before the 18-year-old Dung headed south to the front along the Ho Chi Minh trail, shows him dressed in his North Vietnamese uniform, smiling and confident. Finally his mother unfolds a worn letter, dated March 1972....

The wanted man is Iraqi Minister of Culture Asad Kamal al-Hashimi—and his case is a typically tangled and bloody example of the Iraqi government’s weakness and the blurred lines of authority even within the fortified district, where soldiers, ambassadors, contractors and Iraqi leaders share space. Iraqi police are still reportedly seeking Hashimi after failing to catch him in a raid of his house on Monday. However, his suspected flight to the Green Zone has complicated the hunt....

This day 3,000 people turn out, most of them white, well-educated and suburban. A giant video screen displays the words our father. Summers had prayed it wouldn’t come to this, but she supports the war even so. “Bush and Powell and all those guys are Christian,” she says. “I do believe that God has blessed this country.” When it comes to matters of might and right, Americans look to the heavens in a way that bewilders much of the rest of the world–especially Europe....

The proposal, known as the Enterprise for the Americas Iniative, promises closer economic ties with Latin American nations–and ultimately raises the possibility of a common market for the entirre Western Hemisphere. In the more immediate future, the plan opened the door for debt forrgiveness, a tack taken by commercial banks but so far resisted by the government. While the Reagan administration used the stick of debt to compel nations to give support to the contra cause, Bush is asking those nations to reform theur economies–to move away from what he called “the statist economic policies that stifle growth” and toward free markets....