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Because of the power of optimism, enhancing graduates’ faith in the American dream by presenting them with rare examples as proof may be just what the doctor ordered. Their hopes may not be fully realized, but they will be more successful, healthier and happier if they hold on to positively biased expectations.

Whether you are 9 or 90, male or female, of African or European descent, you are likely to have an optimism bias. In fact, 80 percent of the world does. (Many believe optimism is unique to Americans; studies show the rest of the world is just as optimistic.)

In fact, the people who accurately predict the likelihood of coming events tend to be mildly depressed.

Two American Football stars say they will donate their brains for medical research after their deaths.

Many former players in the sport suffer degenerative brain disease

"There are a lot of issues that stem from brain injuries and it's not just professional athletes. This affects everybody,"

extra difficulties imposed irrationally by antiscience.

Large outbreaks in the U.S. of the highly infectious disease have become more common in the past two years, even though measles hasn’t been indigenous since 2000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

difficult because concerns about a possible link between vaccines and autism—now debunked by science—have expanded to more general, and equally groundless, worries about the effects of multiple shots on a child’s immune system, vaccine experts and doctors say.

Few people, let alone those just 31 years old, have amassed the accolades and riches bestowed on Elizabeth Holmes, founder and chief executive of the blood-testing start-up Theranos.

This year President Obama named her a United States ambassador for global entrepreneurship. She gave the commencement address at Pepperdine University. She was the youngest person ever to be awarded the Horatio Alger Award in recognition of “remarkable achievements accomplished through honesty, hard work, self-reliance and perseverance over adversity.” She is on the Board of Fellows of Harvard Medical School.

Time named her one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World this year. She was the subject of lengthy profiles in The New Yorker and Fortune. Over the last week, she appeared on the cover of T: The New York Times Style Magazine, and Glamour anointed her one of its eight Women of the Year. She has been on “Charlie Rose,” as well as on stage at the Clinton Global Initiative, the World Economic Forum at Davos and the Aspen Ideas Festival, among numerous other conferences.

For years, we’ve been told how detrimental a lack of sleep can be for our mental and physical health.

But is it bad to get too much sleep — and if so, how much is too much?

“It’s important to remember that not everyone’s ‘too much sleep’ is the same,” sleep psychologist Jade Wu, a researcher at the Duke University School of Medicine, told HuffPost. “And sleep needs change over the lifetime. For example, a teenager or young adult may very well need nine or more hours per night, whereas a retiree likely doesn’t.”

So, What’s Your ‘Fauxmorbidity’?

People are racing to get vaccinated — even those who don’t yet technically qualify. And that’s good news.

After Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna were approved for use in late 2020, anecdotes proliferated about rich people finding ways to jump the distribution priority line.

Confirmation bias is a ubiquitous phenomenon, the effects of which have been traced as far back as Pythagoras’ studies of harmonic relationships in the 6th century B.C. (Nickerson, 1998), and is referenced in the writings of William Shakespeare and Francis Bacon (Risinger, Saks, Thompson, & Rosenthal, 2002). It is also a problematic phenomenon, having been implicated in “a significant fraction of the disputes, altercations, and misunderstandings that occur among individuals, groups, and nations” throughout human history, including the witch trials of Western Europe and New England, and the perpetuation of inaccurate medical diagnoses, ineffective medical treatments, and erroneous scientific theories (Nickerson, 1998, p. 175).

For over a century, psychologists have observed that people naturally favor information that is consistent with their beliefs or desires, and ignore or discount evidence to the contrary. In an article titled “The Mind’s Eye,” Jastrow (1899) was among the first to explain how the mind plays an active role in information processing, such that two individuals with different mindsets might interpret the same information in entirely different ways (see also Boring, 1930). Since then, a wealth of empirical research has demonstrated that confirmation bias affects how we perceive visual stimuli (e.g., Bruner & Potter, 1964; Leeper, 1935), how we gather and evaluate evidence (e.g., Lord, Ross, & Lepper, 1979; Wason, 1960), and how we judge—and behave toward—other people (e.g., Asch, 1946; Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1966; Snyder & Swann, 1978).

Cognitive biases contribute significantly to diagnostic and treatment errors

A 2016 review of their roles in decision making lists 4 domains of concern for physicians: gathering and interpreting evidence, taking action, and evaluating decisions

Confirmation bias is the selective gathering and interpretation of evidence consistent with current beliefs and the neglect of evidence that contradicts them.

Last month, Gov. Bill Lee of Tennessee signed into law a discriminatory bill to prevent transgender people from using restrooms aligning with their gender identity at any business or place of public accommodation.

hese new laws are the latest in a series of unprecedented legislative assaults aimed at trans people that have swept state houses t

are not simply living in a state of emergency; we are living in many states of imminent danger

When COVID-19 struck, mRNA vaccines in particular were ready to be put to a real-world test. The 94% efficacy of the mRNA vaccines surpassed health officials’ highest expectations.

DNA and mRNA vaccines offer huge advantages over traditional types of vaccines, since they use only genetic code from a pathogen – rather than the entire virus or bacteria.

Gene-based vaccines also produce precise and effective immune responses. They stimulate not only antibodies that block an infection, but also a strong T cell response that can clear an infection if one occurs.

diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

why women are more susceptible to it

This study was looking at the relationship between these genes and the possibility that they are a factor in what causes gender dysphoria.

By examining a link between genetics and gender dysphoria, this study is investigating a potential biological cause for the existence of transgender people.

“This is nothing new. These arguments have happened before with research into the ‘gay gene’ in the late 1980s and early 90s.”

. The purpose of this review article is to summarize recent researches focusing on phantom limb in order to discuss its definition, mechanisms, and treatments.

The incidence of phantom limb pain has varied from 2% in earlier records to higher rates today. Initially, patients were less likely to mention pain symptoms than today which is a potential explanation for the discrepancy in incidence rates. However, Sherman et al.4 discuss that only 17% phantom limb complaints were initiated treated by physicians. Consequently, it is important to determine what constitutes phantom pain in order to provide efficacious care. Phantom pain is pain sensation to a limb, organ or other tissue after amputation and/or nerve injury.5 In podiatry, the predominant cause of phantom limb pain is after limb amputation due to diseased state presenting with an unsalvageable limb. Postoperative pain sensations from stump neuroma pain, prosthesis, fibrosis, and residual local tissue inflammation can be similar to phantom limb pain (PLP). Patients with PLP complain of various sensations including burning, stinging, aching, and piercing pain with changing warmth and cold sensation to the amputated area which waxes and wanes.6 Onset of symptoms may be elicited by environmental, emotional, or physical changes.

The human body encompasses various neurologic mechanisms allowing reception, transport, recognition, and response to numerous stimuli. Pain, temperature, crude touch, and pressure sensory information are carried to the central nervous system via the anterolateral system, with pain & temperature information transfer via lateral spinothalamic tracts to the parietal lobe. In detail, pain sensation from the lower extremity is transported from a peripheral receptor to a first degree pseudounipolar neurons in the dorsal root ganglion and decussate and ascend to the third-degree neurons within the thalamus.7 This sensory information will finally arrive at the primary sensory cortex in the postcentral gyrus of the parietal lobe which houses the sensory homunculus.8 It is unsurprising that with an amputation that such an intricate highway of information transport to and from the periphery may have the potential for problematic neurologic developments.

It turns out that sitting down for a nightly meal is great for the brain, the body and the spirit

And that nightly dinner doesn’t have to be a gourmet meal that took three hours to cook, nor does it need to be made with organic arugula and heirloom parsnips.

For starters, researchers found that for young children, dinnertime conversation boosts vocabulary even more than being read aloud t

Ambiguity and vagueness in clinical practice guidelines reduce the likelihood of clinician adherence. They lead to inconsistent interpretation and, in turn, to inappropriate practice variation and medical errors.

mbiguity and vagueness have been the subject of considerable attention in linguistics and philosophy

In a study published in the journal Annals of Clinical Microbiology, researchers at Ondokuz Mayis University in Samsun, Turkey screened the mobile phones of 200 health care workers in hospitals for germs that are known to be dangerous to human health.

The solution to this problem may be decidedly low tech -- disinfectant spray and a paper towel.

Specifically, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University studied the brain waves of drivers using cell phones -- and they found that even just listening to a conversation reduced the amount of brain activity devoted to driving by 37 percent

Fake news existed long before the internet. In an essay on political lying in the early 18th century, the writer Jonathan Swift noted that "Falsehood flies and the truth comes limping after it." You have to hire a train to pull the truth, explained English pastor Charles Spurgeon in the 19th century, while a lie is "light as a feather ... a breath will carry it."

MIT researchers recently studied more than 10 years' worth of data on the most shared stories on Facebook. Their study covered conspiracy theories about the Boston bombings, misleading reports on natural disasters, unfounded business rumors and incorrect scientific claims. There is an inundation of false medical advice online, for example, that encourages people to avoid life-saving treatments such as vaccines and promotes unproven therapies. (Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop is just one example.)

The psychological research does, however, offer us a silver lining to this storm cloud, with various experiments demonstrating that people can learn to be better lie detectors with a little training in critical thinking.

"Next time you see a TV commercial for a prescription drug, remind yourself that you know nothing about medical treatment and that everybody who made the commercial has a financial interest in your future behavior." —Eric Horowitz, Psychology Today, How Pharmaceutical Ads Distort Healthcare Markets

"According to Kantar Media, a firm that tracks multimedia advertising, 771,368 such ads were shown in 2016, the last full year for which data is (sic) available, an increase of almost 65 percent over 2012."

What catches my ears is the way in which drug presentations are made, often beginning with a personal story about someone suffering from a specific disease and how a particular drug helped them along. All well and good, until we learn that the players are usually fake patients called "actor portrayals" and fake doctors, often referred to as "actor portrayals" or "doctor dramatizations." After learning what a drug might be good for, the ads consist of rapid staccato-like talk about possible side-effects and lists in tiny text that are virtually impossible to read.

In a landmark trial, a cocktail of immunotherapy medications harnessed patients’ immune systems to kill their own cancer cells and prompted “a positive trend in survival”, according to researchers at the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), London, and the Royal Marsden NHS foundation trust.

Scientists found the combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab medications led to a reduction in the size of tumours in terminally-ill head and neck patients. In some, their cancer vanished altogether, with doctors stunned to find no detectable sign of disease.

the immunotherapy treatment also triggered far fewer side-effects compared with the often gruelling nature of “extreme” chemotherapy,

It’s no surprise that when a person gets a diagnosis of heart disease, cancer or some other life-limiting or life-threatening physical ailment, they become anxious or depressed.

But the reverse can also be true: Undue anxiety or depression can foster the development of a serious physical disease, and even impede the ability to withstand or recover from one.

The human organism does not recognize the medical profession’s artificial separation of mental and physical ills. Rather, mind and body form a two-way street.