Antidepressants are commonly prescribed for treating both anxiety and depression, but talk therapy appears to work just as well as the medications, according to a new survey. People who both take medicine and get therapy fare even better. Nearly 80% of survey respondents with depression or anxiety reported antidepressant use, says Nancy Metcalf, senior program editor at Consumer Reports Health, which will publish the results of its third mental health survey of its readers in the July issue. While medication produced good results, so did talk therapy. ”What we found is, if you can get yourself to talk therapy, and if you stick with it for at least seven weeks, you are going to get results as good as you would if you just popped a pill,’ Metcalf tells WebMD. The survey, conducted in 2009, includes data from more than 1,500 survey respondents who had sought professional help for depression, anxiety, or another mental health problem between January 2006 and April 2009. They reported the treatments they sought and how well they helped, including specifics on types of drugs and side effects and the types of therapists they went to. About 16% of U.S. adults have […]
For the first time, physicists have confirmed that certain subatomic particles have mass and that they could account for a large proportion of matter in the universe, the so-called dark matter that astrophysicists know is there but that cannot be observed by conventional means. The finding concerns the behavior of neutrinos, ghost-like particles that travel at the speed of light. In the new experiment, physicists captured a muon neutrino in the process of transforming into a tau neutrino. Researchers had strongly believed that such transformations occur because they have been able to observe the disappearance of muon neutrinos in a variety of experiments. But the research announced Monday marks the first time that the appearance of a tau neutrino has been directly observed. Physicists from CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Geneva and the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics’ Gran Sasso National Laboratory were involved. ‘This is an important step for neutrino physics,’ CERN Director-General Rolf Heuer said in a statement. ‘We’re all looking forward to unveiling the new physics this result presages.’ Astrophysicists have inferred the existence of dark matter from their observations that the total amount of visible matter is […]
WASHINGTON – In a narrowly split ruling, the Supreme Court said Tuesday that criminal suspects seeking to protect their right to remain silent must speak up to invoke it, a decision that dissenting liberal justices said turns the protections of a Miranda warning ‘upside down.’ Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, did not disturb Miranda’s requirement that suspects be told they have the right to remain silent. But he said courts need not suppress statements made by defendants who received such warnings, did not expressly waive their rights and spoke only after remaining silent through hours of interrogation. Elena Kagan, nominated to join the court, sided with police as U.S. solicitor general when the case came before the court. A right to remain silent and a right to a lawyer are at the top of the warnings that police recite to suspects during arrests and interrogations. But Tuesday’s majority declared that in order to stop an interrogation, suspects must break their silence and tell police they are going to remain quiet. The 5-4 decision means that police can keep shooting questions at a suspect who refuses to talk as long as they want in hopes […]
The final straw came last summer, when she read reports that a female activist in Saudi Arabia’s eastern province, Wajeha al-Huwaider, had been to the border with Bahrain, demanding to cross using only her passport, without a male chaperon or a male guardian’s written permission. Ms. Huwaider was not allowed to leave the country unaccompanied and, like other Saudi women campaigning for new rights, has failed – so far – to change any existing laws or customs. But Ms. Yousef is still outraged, and since August has taken on activists at their own game. With 15 other women, she started a campaign, ‘My Guardian Knows What’s Best for Me. Within two months, they had collected more than 5,400 signatures on a petition ‘rejecting the ignorant requests of those inciting liberty and demanding ‘punishments for those who call for equality between men and women, mingling between men and women in mixed environments, and other unacceptable behaviors. Ms. Yousef’s fight against the would-be liberalizers symbolizes a larger tussle in Saudi society over women’s rights that has suddenly made the female factor a major issue for reformers and conservatives striving to shape Saudi Arabia’s future. Public separation of the […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
