The Weight of Progress Life has improved for lots of people. Economic development and globalization has brought many out of poverty. Kenyan farmers shop and bank with their cell phones. Hundreds of millions of Chinese have moved from the impoverishment of the Cultural Revolution to high levels of education and ambitious middle class lives. As […]
Oh Why Do We Need a Y? (1/6/14)
Is Maleness Overrated? Pity the mice. On countless occasions, mice without any say in the matter stand in for humans. And what we do to them can be perverse or bizarre – just so we can understand us a bit better. Or not. So now male mice have been “conceived” in the laboratory who only […]
Treating Depression Effectively – Getting People To Sleep (11/25/13)
Treatment of Depression Is Often Ineffective The key to successful treatment of depression may be treating the insomnia that accompanies it. What New Research is Changing Attitudes? Rachel Manber at Stanford studied cognitive behavioral treatments for insomniac, depressed people. When their insomnia was fixed following CBT, depression treatment success doubled. Get them to sleep and they stopped being depressed. […]
How Drugs Change You Through Time (11/19/13)
Steroids Can a single dose change your body the rest of your life? My patient wasn’t thinking about that. He just wanted to have big muscles. Really big. He had been caught red handed with syringes in his back pack. His parents wanted to know what they were – and why. Nothing much, he told […]
Life Is So Fast You Have To Rest (11/4/13)
Cleansing the Brain What is sleep for? A few answers: 1. Learning 2. Memory Consolidation 3. Rebuilding Tissues and – 4. A brand new use – Cleansing the Brain (washing out toxins) What Happens When You Don’t Sleep Well? Much higher rates of 1. Heart disease 2. Heart Attack 3. Stroke 4. Depression 5. Infections […]