PT Staff

Not so hot for tots

Reports that a team of researchers has found that children exposed prenatally to polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) have cognitive deficits that can adversely affect their learning abilities. Belief of psychologist Joseph L. Jacobson; Takes children longer than normal to process information; PCBs seem to target short-term memory; Details of the tests.

One game, two arenas

Reports that men and women approach and respond to television sports in different ways. Producers use differences in scheduling sports events; Telephone interview findings; Differences in amount of time spent watching; Reasons for watching; Differences in attitudes while watching; Focus; More.

No more hopscotch

Reports on the shrinking size of the average family, from 2.3 children in 1970 to 1.8 in 1991, and how it is transforming the childhood experience in ways that make it less fun. More children growing up as only children; Less competitive; Difficulties in the dog-eat-dog world of the classroom; Waiting five years for next sibling has major effect on first child's self-esteem; Larger families promote cooperation and sharing; More.

Armchair Shell Shock

People are often unprepared for the elemental emotions that emerge from watching tragic news segments and respond by emotionally turning off.

Last laugh

Cites research by John Morreall (Rochester Institute of Technology), who reports on positive and negative humor, the latter mostly a male phenomenon. Examples of humor from men and women; Thoughts on comedians Rita Rudner, Andrew Dice Clay, Joan Rivers, Roseanne and Lily Tomlin. INSET: What's so damn funny?

When Burnout Isn't an Option

The Institute for the Transformation of Medicine challenges Western medicine as the only answer for treating and diagnosing ailments.

A Toll on the Tummy

Find out how stress sometimes goes right to your belly.

Name that tune

Reports that teaching music basics to babes may open their minds to science and math. Finding of neurobiologist Frances Rauscher, Ph.D.; Belief that music 'exercises' basic inborn neural connections related to abstract reasoning; Music as a sort of prelanguage; The linear and patterned format of Mozart's concertos put many people in a mathy frame of mind; Details.

Yea, though I walk through the valley

Calls for smashing the last irrational and most fearsome taboo of planned death and thereby opening the floodgates of ...benefit for humankind. Excerpted from 'Prescription: Medicide: The Goodness of Planned Death,' by Jack Kevorkian, M.D.

The colors of love

What type of lover are you? Identify your love persona.

Queen of hearts

An interview with advice columnist Ann Landers, discussing about why so many pour their hearts out to her.

IV Drug Abuse: Inside the Clinic

An exclusive look inside one of the country's best IV drug treatmentunits

And you think you've got it bad

Both the rejector and the rejected sufferwhen a relationship ends.

Mother Marian

Presents an interview with the most concerned parent in America, founder and president of the Children's Defense Fund, Marian Wright Edelman. Crack, AIDS and violence facing the nation; Rates of immunized US children low; Things which Edelman would most like to accomplish in the next year or two; Development of a very high-quality-early childhood system building on Head Start; Black community; More. INSET: Dear Joshua: (Excerpt from Edelman's book, 'The Measure of Our...

After the flood

Discusses a study of flood victims conducted by psychologist Lennis Echterling of James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va. Survivors of the devastating Johnstown, West Va., flood of 1985. Assertion that after a natural disaster, survivors do not often seek help from psychologists or other professionals; Additional information.

Ending the silence of the heart

Questions why some people with heart disease suffer from terrible chest pains that warn them of their dangerous condition, while others feel nothing at all and die suddenly. Chief of behavioral medicine at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, Peter Kaufmann; Kaufmann's belief that the answer may be firmly rooted in psychology; Silent bouts of myocardial ischemia (SMI); Beta-endorphin; Details.

When Raises Don't Raise Consciousness

When men get raises, women cry discrimination. And when women get raises? It's the same.

Lids together, dreams apart

Suggests that women's changing role in the workplace may also have an impact in bed; Changing dreams; Report by Monique Lortie-Lussier and colleagues at the University of Ottawa, who analyzed the dream themes of 96 adults; Women's dreams now mirror the traditional dream scenarios of men; Men's dreams changing also; Decreased gender differences in waking life and in dreams.

Know Thy Work Style

Your self-esteem and personality may determine which job will make you happy.

Fighting fire with focus

Reports on psychologist Ronald J. Pekala's new proof of the power of mind over matter, after giving six hours of intensive training to 71 virgin firewalkers. Firewalking is possible through one-point focusing. 'Cool moss' technique; Growth of firewalking in appeal to motivational trainers; Ancient ceremonial custom; More.

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