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Mental Health Gun Laws Unlikely To Reduce Shootings
NPR: States aren't likely to prevent many shootings by requiring mental health professionals to report potentially violent patients, psychiatrists and psychologists say. The approach is part of a gun control law passed in New York yesterday in response to the Newtown, Conn., shooting a month ago. But it's unlikely to work because assessing the risk of violent behavior is difficult, error-prone and not something most mental health professionals are trained to do it, say specialists who deal with violence among the mentally ill.
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Contemplation: A Healthy State of Mind
Most dieticians will tell us that the first step in achieving a healthy body weight is buying a good bathroom scale. The second is using it, regularly. Knowing our weight keeps us honest, and this basic bit of information is a key motivator for the nutrition and exercise changes needed to stay fit over the long haul. And it’s simple and effortless. Except that it’s not. Many people do not have a scale, and what’s more, do not want one. Or if they have one, they never use it. There are many explanations for such avoidance. Some people hold on to a bygone image of themselves, believing that they are still fit and healthy. They don’t want this cherished delusion shattered.
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That Loving Feeling Takes a Lot of Work
The New York Times: When people fall in love and decide to marry, the expectation is nearly always that love and marriage and the happiness they bring will last; as the vows say, till death do us part. Only the most cynical among us would think, walking down the aisle, that if things don’t work out, “We can always split.” But the divorce rate in the United States is half the marriage rate, and that does not bode well for this cherished institution.
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How Scarcity Leads to Spending
TIME: Will economic uncertainty make you save more — or spend more? The answer may depend on your childhood experience, a new study suggests. The research, published in Psychological Science could help explain why poverty can sometimes be so difficult to escape. In two different experiments, researchers led by Vladas Griskevicius of the University of Minnesota studied people who had been raised either in relative financial comfort in middle or upper class households or had had some childhood experience with poverty.
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Need Some Help Getting to Convention?
In case you were on the fence about whether to attend the APS Annual Convention, the APSSC is offering ways to cut down on the travel and registration costs. For volunteering and travel assistance, the APSSC is currently accepting applications online here. The APS student affiliates who are selected as volunteers are provided with a $200 travel grant to help defray the cost of attending the annual convention. For 2013 the APSSC expects to fund 45-50 volunteers. The APSSC hotel match-up program is a service for APS student members seeking to reduce their convention-related expenses by finding other students who are interested in sharing the cost of accommodation at the annual convention.
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Agreed, Baby Pandas Are Cute. But Why?
NPR: Xiao Liwu made his public debut Thursday at the San Diego Zoo. Fans crowded around the exhibit, their camera lenses extended, hoping to catch a glimpse of the 5-month-old giant panda cub. If they're lucky and actually do see the 16-pound panda (his Chinese name means "Little Gift"), there'll be much oooing and aaahing. You'd have to be heartless not to agree that pandas, especially the youngest of them, are as cute as all get-out. Right? But why? Read the whole story: NPR
