From 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on February 16, more than 60 local merchants and community organizations will come together in the old Teachers Delight building at Market Square Shopping Center in Lafayette for education, entertainment, and shopping.

With free admission, the Kids Expo will give Tippecanoe County and surrounding residents an opportunity to learn about the businesses, programs, and services available to area kids and families. Just a few of the vendors and sponsors are LafayetteMoms.com, City Bus, Thrivent Financial, Uniquely Yours Pottery and Glass, Kerry Vintila of Shelter Insurance Company, and Learning is an Art. Additional attractions include face painting, carnival games, and a variety of other activities, products, and services geared toward parents and children.

Deadly new superbug emerges in Minnesota

The nation's first known cases of antibiotic-resistant meningococcal disease surfaced in northwest Minnesota and eastern North Dakota over the past year, according to the Minnesota Department of Health.

Health authorities on Friday asked doctors in the Fargo-Moorhead area to stop using ciprofloxacin for preventive treatment of people in close contact with meningococcal patients and to use antibiotics outside the quinolone family.

The drug-resistant strains are the latest evidence of antibiotic overuse, particularly in patients whose colds are viral and not bacterial.

"Even though there are other drugs that can be used to prevent meningococcal disease, having one less weapon in our arsenal reminds us of the importance of appropriate antibiotic use," said Dr. Ruth Lynfield, state epidemiologist.

Camp Alegria Offers Retreat For Latinas Diagnosed With Cancer

If you are a Latina diagnosed with cancer, Campamento Alegria can offer the support, education and networking you need - in Spanish. It is the first oncology camp, providing all activities in Spanish, tailored to the Latina community.

The free camp is April 4-6 at Rotary's Camp Florida in Brandon. Space is limited to 100 women, and applications are due Feb. 29. To receive an application, call camp coordinator Dina Martinez at (813) 745-6812 during the day or at (813) 979-4291 during evenings and weekends.

Activities during the three-day retreat are presented in Spanish. Topics will include stress management, education sessions, meditation and yoga, healthy and beauty, exercise, dance, nutrition, arts and medicine.

Camp Alegria is designed to empower Latina cancer survivors.

Why the future doesn't need us.

My friend Amory Lovins recently cowrote, along with Hunter Lovins, an editorial that provides an ecological view of some of these dangers. Among their concerns: that "the new botany aligns the development of plants with their economic, not evolutionary, success." (See "A Tale of Two Botanies," page 247.) Amory's long career has been focused on energy and resource efficiency by taking a whole-system view of human-made systems; such a whole-system view often finds simple, smart solutions to otherwise seemingly difficult problems, and is usefully applied here as well.

After reading the Lovins' editorial, I saw an op-ed by Gregg Easterbrook inThe New York Times (November 19, 1999) about genetically engineered crops, under the headline: "Food for the Future: Someday, rice will have built-in vitamin A.