It is amazing to realize, but there are few parts of our lives that do not influence the lives of animals. 

You’ve probably heard by now of Marshall Reid, the sixth grader from Sanford, North Carolina, who managed to change his and his family’s poor eating habits and wrote a book about the experience, titled “Portion Size Me,” which was obviously inspired by the well-known documentary film, “Super Size Me,” by Morgan Spurlock about the negative health effects of fast food.

The epidemic of skin cancer in the United States is often in the news. It’s worth knowing how these trends are changing over time. 

Since the 1960s, the incidence of skin cancer has increased by 5 to 8 percent annually. The increase is in all sorts of skin cancers, but particularly for melanoma. 

Medicaid, the health insurance program for poor people, has received renewed attention, not only from politicians in their search for more spending cuts but also from scientists who studied the program’s effects on its beneficiaries. A yearlong survey showed compelling evidence that recipients of Medicaid benefit in numerous ways from being insured by comparison to those who have no coverage at all.