(Sci­enceDaily) Although caf­feine is the most widely con­sumed psy­choac­tive drug world­wide, its poten­tial ben­e­fi­cial effect for main­te­nance of proper brain func­tion­ing has only recently begun to be ade­quately appre­ci­ated. Sub­stan­tial evi­dence from epi­demi­o­log­i­cal stud­ies and fun­da­men­tal research in ani­mal mod­els sug­gests that caf­feine may be pro­tec­tive against the cog­ni­tive decline seen in demen­tia and...
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(Dai­ly­Mail UK) An air­line pas­sen­ger ate his £8,930 win­ning scratch­card after he was told he could not claim the money imme­di­ately. The unnamed British man was fly­ing with Ryanair from Krakow in Poland to East Mid­lands Air­port when he won 10,000 euros with the ticket. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-1254570/Ryanair-passenger-eats-10–000-euro-winning-scratchcard.html#ixzz0gy8N6QSx
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(The Denver Post) Federal prosecutors Tuesday filed drug-distribution charges against a Highlands Ranch man who operated a massive basement marijuana garden that he said served medical-marijuana patients. Chris Bartkowicz was charged with a single count in U.S. District Court and could face up to 40 years in prison and a $2 million fine, according to...
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By Bob Egelko (SFGate) More than 100 stud­ies have found that “chil­dren who are raised by gay and les­bian par­ents are just as likely to be well-​​adjusted,” Michael Lamb, chair­man of the depart­ment of social and devel­op­men­tal psy­chol­ogy at Cam­bridge Uni­ver­sity in Eng­land, tes­ti­fied at the San Fran­cisco trial of a law­suit seek­ing to...
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(APS) In times of doubt and uncer­tainty, many Amer­i­cans turn to self-​​help books in search of encour­age­ment, guid­ance and self-​​affirmation. The pos­i­tive self-​​statements sug­gested in these books, such as “I am a lov­able per­son” or “I will suc­ceed,” are designed to lift a person’s low self-​​esteem and push them into pos­i­tive action. Accord­ing to...
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(NYTimes) A 32-​​year-​​old woman hanged her­self in a hold­ing cell at an East New York police sta­tion Fri­day evening, police said. A police offi­cial said she had been arrested on a charge of pos­ses­sion of marijuana. Read the rest: Woman Hangs Her­self at Police Sta­tion After Mar­i­juana Arrest
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By Jonathan Lipp­man, chief judge of the State of New York (NYTimes) A new report issued by a state panel formed to inves­ti­gate New York’s juve­nile deten­tion cen­ters has found that they “fail to keep their young peo­ple safe and secure, let alone meet their myr­iad ser­vice and treat­ment needs,” and that “youth are sub­jected...
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By Duff Wil­son, The New York Times New fed­er­ally financed drug research reveals a stark dis­par­ity: chil­dren cov­ered by Med­ic­aid are given pow­er­ful antipsy­chotic med­i­cines at a rate four times higher than chil­dren whose par­ents have pri­vate insur­ance. And the Med­ic­aid chil­dren are more likely to receive the drugs for less severe con­di­tions than their...
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(New­Sci­en­tist) A syn­thetic chem­i­cal sim­i­lar to the active ingre­di­ent in mar­i­juana makes new cells grow in rat brains. What is more, in rats this cell growth appears to be linked with reduc­ing anx­i­ety and depres­sion. The results sug­gest that mar­i­juana, or its deriv­a­tives, could actu­ally be good for the brain. In mam­mals, new nerve cells...
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Ron Brix’s long­time job as a com­puter sys­tems devel­oper for Wrigley, the gum and candy maker, required intense atten­tion to detail, single-​​minded focus and a will­ing­ness to work on some­thing repet­i­tively until perfect. The secret he cred­its to his suc­cess? Autism. Brix, age 54, was diag­nosed in 2001 with Asperger Syn­drome, a form of...
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