select the main idea: people might all have robots that will be our personal servants. They will look and behave much like real humans. We will be able to talk to these mechanical helpers and they will be able to respond in kind. Amazingly, the robots of the future will be able to learn from experience. They will be smart, strong, and untiring workers whose only goal will be to make our lives easier.

Housework is the first thing to fall by the wayside in the time-pressured lives of professional women. In a survey by Family Circle magazine, over 80 percent of full-time working women said the only way they could balance a job, home, and family was to sacrifice high cleaning standards. The next thing to get put on the back burner was sex. Almost 75 percent said that by the end of the day, they or their spouses were too tired for anything but TV. Fifty percent reported that friends and social events were third in line to get squeezed off the calendar.

Newspapers had been carrying reports on the famine in Ethiopia for months. Although stories described how people were starving, there was little response from the public. All that changed in October 1984, when NBC-TV showed a five-minute report on the famine. As soon as the pictures of starving children were shown, the network's switchboard lit up. This was the beginning of a huge worldwide effort to send aid to Ethiopia. Similarly, the television coverage of the Vietnam War contributed to the growing anti-war movement.

Patients should always be aware of a prescription drug's possible side effects. Unexpected side effects, such as nausea or dizziness, can be frightening and even dangerous. The consumer should ask, if he or she can take the medication along with other drugs he or she is taking. Some combination of drugs can be lethal. Finally, medication should always be stored in its own labeled bottle, never transferred to another. Accidental mix-ups of drugs can have tragic results.