Many children eagerly enter their first classroom excited and a little nervous. It is perfectly natural, after all, to feel jittery when confronting something so new as school. But some children come bearing more than a normal amount of trepidation; some, in fact, are deathly afraid of saying good bye to their mothers. “I had…
In the relatively short time since the massacre at Columbine High School in April 1999, the incident has grown to embody the need for educational and gun-control reform in the United States. But it has also focused attention on how dangerous and stressful places schools can be—and not just the ones in which children are…
Scientists have noted over the years a litany of consequences associated with underage drinking. According to Dr. Enoch Gordis, director of the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the list includes: “interference with learning, social, and other competencies, fatal traffic crashes, [alcohol-related] injuries, homicide, suicide, and early, more frequent, and less safe sexual activity.”…
Centuries of Craving Caffeine, particularly in the form of tea and coffee, has enjoyed a long history of adoration and exaltation the world over, dating back nearly 5000 years to ancient China. When coffee was introduced in Europe in the seventeenth century, its powers of wakefulness were immediately recognized as a fortuitous boon, coming, as…
The Apparent Race You’re a proud new parent and you’ve spent innumerable hours—months, probably, if not years—poring over parenting books. You’re practically an expert on the subject now, even though your child is only a month old. You wanted to get it all just right, so you’ve read up on “the Mozart Effect” and Attention…
An Ugly Little Secret Charles Darwin had a very dark secret, one made all the darker because he was a moneyed gentleman of polite society, a man of scientific leisure, and one with ties to England’s governmental, religious, financial and academic elite. That is to say, he was someone with a significant reputation at stake,…
