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Are Antidepressant Drugs Actually Worth Taking?

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 11:03:50 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: A psychologist says secret corporate documents show how ineffective the drugs really are.

Clip Source: discovermagazine.com

THE STUDY
"Initial Severity and Antidepressant Benefits: A Meta-Analysis of Data Submitted to the Food and Drug Administration" by Irving Kirsch et al., published online on February 26 in PLoS Medicine.

THE QUESTION
Irving Kirsch no longer sends patients to seek out antidepressants. "As a clinical psychologist," he says, "I used to refer patients to colleagues who were psychiatrists to get these medications." But his research over the years has soured him on the drugs, suggesting they work only marginally better in the average patient than a placebo pill. Kirsch recently analyzed the numbers behind a multitude of studies to answer the question: Do antidepressants work?

Tags: antidepressants, study

Look alikes

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 20:44:44 GMT

clipped by: wiganfootie

Clip Source: totallylookslike.com

Dr. Richard Dawkins Totally Looks Like Emma Watson

Clip Source: totallylookslike.com

Severus Snape Totally Looks Like Franz Liszt

Clip Source: totallylookslike.com

Queen Elizabeth Totally Looks Like Angel Tree Topper

Clip Source: totallylookslike.com

Rupert Grint Totally Looks Like Sir David Wilkie

Clip Source: totallylookslike.com

The US Economy Totally Looks Like A Train Wreck

Clip Source: totallylookslike.com

Sam Elliot Totally Looks Like An Afghan Hound

Clip Source: totallylookslike.com

Bad Hair Day Cat Totally Looks Like Vyvyan

Clip Source: totallylookslike.com

Furbie Totally Looks Like Gizmo

Clip Source: totallylookslike.com

Bill Maher Totally Looks Like Ryan Stiles

Clip Source: totallylookslike.com

Stanley Kubrick Totally Looks Like Salman Rushdie

Clip Source: totallylookslike.com

John C. Calhoun Totally Looks Like Sam the Eagle

Clip Source: totallylookslike.com

Daniel Day-Lewis Totally Looks Like Fidel Castro

Clip Source: totallylookslike.com

Al Franken Totally Looks Like Dr. Susan Love

Clip Source: totallylookslike.com

Chris Masterson Totally Looks Like Neil Patrick Harris

Clip Source: totallylookslike.com

Daily Show’s Jon Stewart Totally Looks Like Charlie Chaplin

Clip Source: totallylookslike.com

Jordin Sparks Totally Looks Like America Ferrara

Clip Source: totallylookslike.com

Al Roker Totally Looks Like Ollie Williams

Clip Source: totallylookslike.com

Maria Shriver Totally Looks Like The Predator

Clip Source: totallylookslike.com

Seth Rogen Totally Looks Like Jonah Hill

Clip Source: totallylookslike.com

Davy Jones Totally Looks Like Cthulhu

Clip Source: totallylookslike.com

Don Frye Totally Looks Like Mike Haggar

Clip Source: totallylookslike.com

Roger Waters Totally Looks Like Richard Gere

Mind the gap -Why We Say One Thing But Do The Opposite ??

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 10:22:29 GMT

clipped by: einbar
clipper's remarks: The exact way in which people's attitudes and behaviour are connected remains a mystery. All we can say with certainty is that people are frequently extremely inconsistent.

Clip Source: www.spring.org.uk

Why We Say One Thing But Do The Opposite

t's only natural to think a person's attitudes and behaviours are directly related

the link between a person's attitudes and their behaviours is not always that strong. In fact people have a nasty habit of saying one thing then doing the opposite, even with the best of intentions.

You see it all the time. People say they're worried about global warming and yet they drive around in a big gas guzzler. They say that money isn't their God, yet they work all the hours. They say they want to be fit but they don't do any exercise.

The question is: why?

In some ways an attitude is like a snapshot of the prejudices the respondent has available to memory just at the moment they are questioned.

Despite these findings, the picture is extremely complicated and frustratingly inconclusive

The exact way in which people's attitudes and behaviour are connected remains a mystery. All we can say with certainty is that people are frequently extremely inconsistent.

In Virginia, Palin crowd believes every myth

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 06:45:48 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: This sounds like The Onion, but it's a New York Times story covering a race-track rally by Sarah Palin. How have we failed, that Americans could be so poorly educated as to be vulnerable to such tripe?

Clip Source: www.timesonline.co.uk

Their answers were uniform because they all followed the same right-wing radio chat-show hosts and conservative bloggers. The “liberal media elite” is enemy number two here. Only Mr Obama is detested more.

Others considered Mr Obama to be a subversive, terrorist- sympathising, America-hating radical and covert Muslim

Some claimed that he supported sharia in Kenya and consorted with Hugo Chávez of Venezuela.

his supporters — his inner circle— are radicals who want revolution,” Billy Benton, 55, an estate agent, said. “I don't know what he was doing in Indonesia all those years — hanging around with Muslim terrorists?” Madeleine Willis, 60, a retired factory worker, asked

wore a T-shirt proclaiming: “The difference between Obama and Osama is just a little B.S.”

“What turned me off was the way he wouldn't put his hand over his heart for the Pledge of Allegiance or wear a flag pin. I don't know how you can call yourself an American if you don't do that,”

a substitute teacher, said

Tags: palin, obama, virginia

Words With Two Meanings

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 08:52:43 GMT

clipped by: thisnamecantbetaken

Clip Source: g33klite.com

Words with two Meanings

THINGY (thing-ee) n.

Female: Any part under a car's hood.

Male: The strap fastener on a woman's bra.

VULNERABLE (vul-ne-ra-bel) adj.

Female: Fully opening up one's self emotionally to another.

Male: Playing football without a cup.

COMMUNICATION (ko-myoo-ni-kay-shon) n .

Female: The open sharing of thoughts and feelings with one's partner.

Male: Leaving a note before taking off on a fishing trip with the boys.

COMMITMENT (ko- mit-ment) n.

Female: A desire to get married and raise a family.

Male: Trying not to hit on other women while out with this one.

ENTERTAINMENT (en-ter-tayn-ment) n.

Female: A good movie, concert, play or book.

Male: Anything that can be done while drinking beer.

FLATULENCE (flach-u-lens) n.

Female: An embarrassing byproduct of indigestion.

Male: A source of entertainment, self-expression, male bonding.

MAKING LOVE (may-king luv) n.

Female: The greatest expression of intimacy a couple can achieve.

Male: Call it whatever you want, just as long as we do it.

Searching! A brain exercise!

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 10:14:50 GMT

clipped by: Rashid Malik
clipper's remarks: Search buddies, search! (To keep your sanity intact and neurons firing)

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

For middle-aged and older people at least, using the internet helps boost brain power, research suggests.

A University of California Los Angeles team found searching the web stimulated centres in the brain that controlled decision-making and complex reasoning.

The researchers say this might even help to counteract the age-related physiological changes that cause the brain to slow down.

As the brain ages, a number of changes occur, including shrinkage and reductions in cell activity, which can affect performance.

It has long been thought that activities which keep the brain active, such as crossword puzzles, may help minimise that impact - and the latest study suggests that surfing the web can be added to the list.

The researchers said that, compared to simple reading, the internet's wealth of choices required people to make decisions about what to click on in order to get the relevant information.

Tags: brain, exercise, old age

Relationship Humor

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 22:00:09 GMT

clipped by: wiganfootie

Clip Source: 68.gmodules.com

Relationship Humor

Why are married women heavier than single women?
Single women come home, see what's in the fridge and go to bed. Married women come home, see what's in bed, and then go to the fridge.

It's Not Ethical?

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 10:01:28 GMT

clipped by: thisnamecantbetaken

Clip Source: www.tompaine.com

It�s Not Ethical?

President Pro-Life George W. Bush

“Destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical.” He called the United States “a nation founded on the principle that all human life is sacred.”

Apparently,

it’s OK to destroy human life to alter geopolitics, to enhance the power of the United States, to seek revenge on collaterally-placed victims, to try out new weapons and tactics, to give our untested armies a chance to see actual combat, or, just for the holy Hell of it.

When a fundamentalist-posturing, millennial, faith-based militarist says "human life," he means undifferentiated clumps of cells;

not mean dark, moneyless foreigners.

And, if the United States has surmounted its bloody history and moved into a period in which all life is sacred, then a fine way to show it would be to, now and today, stop shooting in Iraq.

indifference to human suffering in the defense of nation-building is

equivalent to any other military dictator

Sacred life, indeed.

Heavy Drinkers Have Smaller Brains

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 22:54:26 GMT

clipped by: SenorCoconut

Clip Source: www.elements4health.com

The more alcohol an individual drinks, the smaller his or her total brain volume, according to a report in the October issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Brain volume decreases with age at an estimated rate of 1.9 percent per decade, accompanied by an increase in white matter lesions, according to background information in the article. Lower brain volumes and larger white matter lesions also occur with the progression of dementia and problems with thinking, learning and memory. Moderate alcohol consumption has been associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease; because the brain receives blood from this system, researchers have hypothesized that small amounts of alcohol may also attenuate age-related declines in brain volume.

Although men were more likely to drink alcohol, the association between drinking and brain volume was stronger in women, they note.

Tags: alcohol consumption, brain volume, dementia

Is money part of human nature??

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 10:38:44 GMT

clipped by: einbar

Clip Source: www.spring.org.uk

Why Money is Part of Human Nature: Money as Both Tool and Drug

Money is more than just a useful tool, as some economists have argued; while money is certainly useful, human behaviour towards it can't be explained just by its utility. The drug metaphor helps demonstrate how the motivation for money often extends past its actual utility. This ties in with many sociological analyses that emphasise money's social meaning and symbolic nature over and above its simple utilitarian applications.

Thinking of money as a drug highlights the biological basis of money. An evolutionary account underlines this biological perspective by suggesting that money addiction might be built on our drive to trade and play.

What Lea and Webley are implicitly arguing against is a purely cultural understanding of humans' relationship with money. Their view is that culture on its own is not powerful enough to explain the human motivation for money. Money, they argue, whether for good or evil, is part of human nature

Beautiful Women in Beautiful Dresses by J.W. Waterhouse

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 20:36:20 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman
clipper's remarks: - oh and a mermaid

Clip Source: www.jwwaterhouse.com

Waterhouse's works are perhaps the best of the Pre-Raphaelites (although really a Neoclassic). His combination of mythology, poetry and mystique femme fatale is absolutely outstanding and soulfully touching

Clip Source: www.threadsofrohan.com

Fair Rosemund

Psyche opening the Golden Box

Destiny

Ophelia

Lady of Shallot

Ophelia

The Lady Clare

Lamia

St. Cecilia

Finding the head of Orpheus

Miranda the Tempest

Circe Invidiosa

The Charmer

Cupids Garden

I am half sick of shadows

Nymps finding the head of Orpheus

The Rose

The Mermaid

Pandora

Boreas

La Belle

At the Shrine

Circe offering the cup to Ulysses

Juliet

Miranda in the South

The Sorceress

The picture

Flora

Gather Ye Rosebuds

The Danaides

The Magic Circle

Ariandne

Thisbe

Apollo and Daphine

Echo and Narcissus

Penelope and the Suitors

Sweet Summer

The Awakening of Adonis

Emotions that are often evoked when hearing a piece of music..

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 09:46:57 GMT

clipped by: einbar

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

despite music's importance to our lives, very little is known about the memories and emotions that are often evoked when hearing a piece of music

Does music have a more powerful effect on memory than other influences, like images, words, or smells?

"This region in the front of the brain where we mapped musical activity is important for a number of functions, like assimilating information that is important to one's self, or mediating interactions between emotional and non-emotional information. Our results provide a stronger foundation for explaining the link between music, emotion and the brain.

songs you like are more likely to be associated with memories. But do the preferred songs evoke the memories, or do we like the songs because we associate them with memories? Since this is only a correlation

Maybe memories associated with pictures viewed in a museum on a first date would be different

How nice is this?

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:03:04 GMT

clipped by: Antara
clipper's remarks:

Clip Source: www.dallasnews.com

Aledo High seniors pick classmate with Down syndrome as homecoming queen

Never has the selection of a homecoming queen sent so many tears falling so freely.

Kristin Pass, an 18-year-old senior with Down syndrome, became Aledo High School's homecoming queen Friday to a joyous standing ovation and the flutter of a thousand tissues on a remarkable night for an amazing young woman.

Her grandfather, Dr. David Campbell of Corsicana, escorted her onto the field and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek as Kristin joined eight other young women in the Homecoming Court to await the results of the vote, cast by the 360-plus members of Aledo High's senior class.

Then came the announcement ... and pandemonium.

"Oh my gosh! I was sitting in the student section and everyone stood up, crying and cheering for Kristin," said longtime friend and fellow senior Meaghan Geary, 17, who first met Kristin in the third grade. "It was great!"

"She's the person we all want to be," Meaghan said.

Tags: good news, downs syndrome, life, love, beautiful story

Political Science: What Being Neat or Messy Says about Political Leanings

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 10:10:17 GMT

clipped by: einbar

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

Do genes determine whether you'll be liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican?

Researchers insist they can tell someone's politlcal affiliation by looking at the condition of their offices and bedrooms. Messy? You're a lefty. A neatnik? Welcome to the Right.

According to a controversial new study, set to be published in The Journal of Political Psychology, the bedrooms and offices of liberals, who are generally thought of as open, tend to be colorful and awash in books about travel, ethnicity, feminism and music, along with music CDs covering folk, classic and modern rock, as well as art supplies, movie tickets and travel memorabilia.

Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to surround themselves with calendars, postage stamps, laundry baskets, irons and sewing materials in their personal spaces, according to the study. Their bedrooms and offices are well-lighted and decorated with sports paraphernalia and flags—especially American ones.

Microscope-On-a-Chip Is One Step Closer to the Tricorder

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 18:51:31 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: The implant option is pretty cool.

Clip Source: www.wired.com

In the very near future, drawing blood may be obsolete. Instead, implants will be able to image your blood and monitor it constantly.

This is because scientists at Caltech have squeezed a microscope onto a computer chip not much larger than a dime. And that’s just the demo unit.

Shrinking a standard microscope to this size is practically impossible due to the layers of optics involved, but Caltech professor Changhuei Yang decided to skip the optics altogether and put microscopic samples almost directly onto a photo sensor chip — just like the one found in your cheap point-and-shoot.

The microscope-on-a-chip uses standard, off-the-shelf hardware sensors with a clever modification — pixels on the sensor are forced to only look through microscopic holes, which allows the chip to image very tiny things.

In addition to the handheld devices, Yang envisions blood- monitoring implants that provide instant health warnings and diagnoses.

Tags: microelectronics, medicine