When the airline lost my suitcase on a recent trip to visit my son in Peru, I was desperate to get it back. After hours of frantic conversations on the phone, frustration, and eventual resignation, I walked into town to buy the basics: a shirt, a pair of pants, shoes, and some mascara.

In response to my blog post Scientific Proof You Can Heal Yourself, Mind/Body Medicine expert Dr. Susan Bernstein wrote a comment that bears highlighting. In a rousing conversation in the comments, we were debating whether doctors should be actively prescribing placebos when patients suffer from conditions for which we have inadequate treatment.

Native Americans maintain a vast knowledge about curing diseases with plants and substances from their natural environment. What’s most interesting about this practice is that it understands and treats diseases not as disorders that are exclusive to the body or the soul, but in an amalgam of the two.

Rock paintings near the Rio Grande contain hidden 
messages about a mysterious 4,000-year-old religion. Now one archaeologist has learned to read them.

In a land straddling the Arctic Circle, where shifting lifestyles are coming to grips with the realities of Western culture, the arts of the Inuit still show evidence of a deep-rooted past.