Things Are Better Today

Some things are better left unsaid.

In law enforcement, as in radiology, it is customary to ask a witness (in our case our trainees) to repeatedly describe an observed event (in our situation the imaging findings). Sometimes we ask our trainees to describe the features of different lesions even when they are not looking at images. This is based on our belief that repeated verbal processing builds mental images that we can all lat...

Bigger and better things.

Things We Said Today: A Linguistic Analysis of the Beatles

The musical group the Beatles had a profound impact on Western culture during their time together between 1960 and 1970. The three songwriters, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison, together and separately evolved in their lyrical styles over time. Using a new generation of computer text analyses, the Beatles’ lyrics were analyzed to address how the group changed as a unit over time...

Varenicline : Where are we today ?

In 2006, Chantix (varenicline) splashed boldly onto the nicotine cessation medication scene with full Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval following the completion of three distinct Pfizer-funded clinical trials (Jorenby et al., 2006; Gonzales et al., 2006; Tonstad et al., 2006). Almost immediately, however, and contrary to the initial findings supporting the safety and efficacy of varen...

Rumination and Age: Some Things Get Better

Rumination has been defined as a mode of responding to distress that involves passively focusing one's attention on symptoms of distress without taking action. This dysfunctional response style intensifies depressed mood, impairs interpersonal problem solving, and leads to more pessimistic future perspectives and less social support. As most of these results were obtained from younger people, i...