links for 2009-08-04

"In modern life, our environment is continually activating the brain's stress response," Ilardi said, bombarded as we are by email, tragic news and interpersonal demands. Certain circuits in the brain react to stress as if it is an infection, triggering social withdrawal, inflammation and potentially leading to brain damage in areas such as the hippocampus, the frontal cortex and the basal ganglia, Ilardi said.

Teenage risk-taking is likely a result of immature brain formation — "a relative surfeit of limbic drive at a time when frontal circuitry, and its attendant cautious oversight, is incompletely functional."

And this clearly unproductive propensity to crack your head open during a period when the body is otherwise trying to be productive — that is, mate — can be explained in the context of evolutionary theory, Duhaime said. Without the unjustified feeling of confidence to control fate and cheat death, adolescent animals might never leave home to seek new territory and mate.

It is easy to use weight as a determinant of insurance premiums since weight is easily measured in any physical exam required to get insurance. That private insurance companies do not use weight as a premium determinant means either that they do not consider the effects of obesity on their cost to be that large, or that they are afraid they will be accused of discrimination if they do use weight as a criterion.

TV drama rarely deals with authentically frightening subjects. Except murder, which has been so overdone it's almost ceased to seem like a real or scary phenomenon. If I died at the hands of a serial killer I'd probably just think, "Ooh, how exciting, it's like something off the telly", before enjoying a nice lie down and a bleed.