As the baby boomers face middle age, we're all seeing more of those cover stories about our nation's restless quest for youth. But in this issue of Endeavors we are not selling skin creams or food supplements. The story here, as we see it, is not about youth. It's about age. Can we live well when were old?

What we learned as we worked on this story is that research into aging tends to lack dramatic breakthroughs on the order of, say, a polio vaccine. Aging does not have a single cause. More of us are living longer and better because of a steady and massive accumulation of discoveries, trials, and technologies--all so interrelated that it's impossible to point to one event and say, "That's the one that changed our lives." So we cannot tell the whole story of Carolina's contribution to the study of aging. We can only share a few examples to illustrate the range of work involved.

We also discovered, after some time with the dictionary, that English lacks words to describe an older person who is vigorous and active, whose vitality, like that of a vintage violin, resonates with experience. When we settle for the easy adjective "youthful" we imply, once again, that what we value is youth, not maturity. If you know a better word, please let us know.

The Editor