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A new study suggests that drinking too much coffee can shrink your brain and increase your risk of dementia or stroke. Well, crap. “High coffee consumption is associated with smaller total brain volumes and an increased risk of dementia,” claim researchers from the Australian Centre for Precision Health at the University of South Australia. Just how much coffee is too much? According to the study, “Those who drank more than six cups of coffee a day had a 53 per cent increased risk of dementia.” I guess this is somewhat comforting. I drink quite a bit of coffee daily—I’m drinking...

Certain measures of brain anatomy were even better at judging learning potential than traditional measures of ability such as IQ and standardized test results, says study author Kaustubh Supekar of Stanford University. These signatures include the size of the hippocampus — a string bean–shaped structure involved in making memories — and how connected the area was with other parts of the brain. The findings suggest that kids struggling with their math homework aren’t necessarily slacking off, says cognitive scientist David Geary of the University of Missouri in Columbia. “They just may not have as much brain region devoted to memory...

‘Forward’, He Cried From The Rear - (You’re Kidding, Right?) by R.A. Hawkins As we headed for summer this year I listened to the likes of Carville (The lefty skin head) and numerous other leftwing minions as they warned of possible violence and uprisings here in the US. Did I just say they were warning us of the possibility? Yeah I did, didn’t I? I guess I was just being nice. I’m over that now. The left has called for civility in the political dialogue for quite some time now. While they’ve opined they have repeatedly pulled stunts like Carville’s....

Progressive creationist anthropology: many reasons NOT to believe A review of Who was Adam? by Fazale Rana with Hugh Ross Although mostly written by Fazale Rana, the book is said to equally represent the work of Hugh Ross. Their salvos against biblical creationists are mostly confined to the earlier chapters of the book, with the first shot being to blame us for the biblical perspective on human origins not being ‘at the high table of scientific debate’ (p. 12). Here they characterize the approach taken by creationists as largely attacking human evolutionary models, but seldom offering ‘a viable theory of...

A 10-year study by National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) scientists has found that brains of children and adolescents with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are 3-4 percent smaller than those of children who don't have the disorder – and that medication treatment is not the cause. Indeed, in this first major study to scan previously never-medicated patients, they found "strikingly smaller" white matter volumes in children who had not taken stimulant drugs. Still, the course of brain development in the ADHD patients paralleled that of normal subjects, suggesting that whatever caused the disorder happened earlier. Drs. Xavier Castellanos, Judith...