By Philip Copitch, Ph.D.
If you had a limited budget, but you really wanted to talk to lots of people around the world about drugs, how would you get the word out?
The Israel Anti-Drug Authority got creative and used Facebook...
until they were forced to stop.
Take one minute and 43 seconds to learn what happened:
Drugs set your timeline from Israel Anti-drug Authority on Vimeo.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Are You As Smart As A Bacterium?
By Philip Copitch, Ph.D.
Otters use rocks that they place on their tummies to help them break open stubborn clams.
Crows use tools to get to food. They even use multiple toods in sequences to get their needs met.
Monkeys, chimps, and gorillas use tools such as large sticks or stones as powerful weapons. They also use small sticks to gather food.
The adorable dolphin uses sea sponges to protect its nose when foraging for food that is hiding in sandy ocean floors. (Not a happy day for the lowly sea sponge.)
More info see: Mystery of Dolphin Tool Use Solved by GU Researchers - Georgetown University
Bacteria were here first, we are evolving on their planet. Have a nice day!
Tool making
Today let's have a little fun with the concept that using tools separates us humans from the animals. You have probably heard that humans and a few other animals use tools to get the jobs we need to do... done. Tool use shows intelligence, right?... well maybe not.Otters use rocks that they place on their tummies to help them break open stubborn clams.
Crows use tools to get to food. They even use multiple toods in sequences to get their needs met.
Monkeys, chimps, and gorillas use tools such as large sticks or stones as powerful weapons. They also use small sticks to gather food.
The adorable dolphin uses sea sponges to protect its nose when foraging for food that is hiding in sandy ocean floors. (Not a happy day for the lowly sea sponge.)
But what about a bacterium
Bacterium is a single bacteria. Bacteria are amazing, they can help us digest our food (in our intestines) or kill us, depending on what kind they are. Bacteria are single celled microscopic organisms, tiny for sure, but plentiful. In fact, if you add all the bacteria of the Earth together their biomass would be greater than all the plants and animals of the Earth combined.
But are they tool using little germs?
According to Douglas Fox in the April 2012 issue of Discover Magazine the answer is yes. Scientists report that P. syringae bacteria are tool users.
"...syringae bacteria on leaves actually use ice crystals as crowbars to rip open plant cells and grab their nutrients."Not bad for a single celled organism with no arms or opposable thumbs.
Bacteria were here first, we are evolving on their planet. Have a nice day!
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Parenting is hard work
By Philip Copitch, Ph.D.
y son Josh sent me the little video clip at the end of this blog entry. It shows a mom cat taking care of her mischievous kittens.
I have shown this to a few moms in the last week and each mom said about the same thing. "I wish I was a better mom."
The pressure to be a "Great Parent" is astronomical. But often the pressure is self imposed and self defeating. Most parents do a great job... but... we only notice the screw ups. I once bopped my oldest son's head on the car door frame as I was putting him into his car seat. He didn't even cry. He just looked at me in a way that I interpreted as, "This is not good... my dad is an idiot."
All parents make mistakes. But most of what we do is wonderful. We tend to remember the screw-ups and beat ourselves up with them. This is not psychologically healthy for us.
This mommy cat shows us how hard it is to be a good parent. So my advice is to take it easy on yourself. Learn from your mistakes and don't dwell on them. In fact it is probably good to laugh at your mistakes as you learn from them.
That being said, my oldest boy is now 23 and I am still talking about how I hit him on the head with the car door frame.
Be kind to yourself,
Dr. Phil
y son Josh sent me the little video clip at the end of this blog entry. It shows a mom cat taking care of her mischievous kittens.
I have shown this to a few moms in the last week and each mom said about the same thing. "I wish I was a better mom."
The pressure to be a "Great Parent" is astronomical. But often the pressure is self imposed and self defeating. Most parents do a great job... but... we only notice the screw ups. I once bopped my oldest son's head on the car door frame as I was putting him into his car seat. He didn't even cry. He just looked at me in a way that I interpreted as, "This is not good... my dad is an idiot."
All parents make mistakes. But most of what we do is wonderful. We tend to remember the screw-ups and beat ourselves up with them. This is not psychologically healthy for us.
This mommy cat shows us how hard it is to be a good parent. So my advice is to take it easy on yourself. Learn from your mistakes and don't dwell on them. In fact it is probably good to laugh at your mistakes as you learn from them.
That being said, my oldest boy is now 23 and I am still talking about how I hit him on the head with the car door frame.
Be kind to yourself,
Dr. Phil
 |
| Parenting is a lot of work! |
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Drug use and mental health problems in the Unitied States for 2010
By Philip Copitch, Ph.D.
Customer Reviews: drug testing kits
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Multi Drug TestsDrug use and mental health problems
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration recently released the statistics for drug use and mental health problems in the Unitied States for 2010. The numbers are staggering.
Because statistics can be very boring, I am going to limit the actual numbers in this article. But, if you want to read the whole report you can get it for free from:
First a small quiz…
1. What percentage of adults in America had a severe mental illness in 2010?
1%
5%
10%
25%
The answer 5 %. That equals over 11 million adults.
2. Who are more likely to have a serious mental illness, men or women?
Answer: Women are about twice as likely to have a serious mental illness.
3. True or false: In 2010, 31.3 million adults (13.7 percent of the population 18 years or older) received mental health services during the past 12 months.
Answer: True
Interesting graph:
The 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), is an annual survey of the civilian, noninstitutionalized population of the United States aged 12 years old or older.
Highlights of the report
In 2010, there were an estimated 45.9 million adults aged 18 or older in the United States with any mental illness (AMI) in the past year. This represents 20.0 percent of all adults in this country. Among adults aged 18 or older in 2010, the percentage having serious mental illness (SMI) in the past year was 5.0 percent (11.4 million adults).- Women aged 18 or older were more likely than men aged 18 or older to have past year AMI (23.0 vs. 16.8 percent) and SMI (6.5 vs. 3.4 percent).
- In 2010, an estimated 8.7 million adults (3.8 percent) aged 18 or older had serious thoughts of suicide in the past year. Among adults aged 18 or older, 2.5 million (1.1 percent) made suicide plans in the past year, and 1.1 million (0.5 percent) attempted suicide in the past year.
- Among the 45.9 million adults aged 18 or older with AMI in the past year, 20.0 percent (9.2 million adults) met criteria for substance dependence or abuse in that period compared with 6.1 percent (11.2 million adults) among those who did not have mental illness in the past year. Among the 11.4 million adults aged 18 or older with SMI in the past year, 25.2 percent also had past year substance dependence or abuse compared with 6.1 percent of adults who did not have mental illness.
- In 2010, 31.3 million adults (13.7 percent of the population 18 years or older) received mental health services during the past 12 months.
- Among the 45.9 million adults aged 18 or older with AMI in 2010, 17.9 million (39.2 percent) received mental health services in the past year. Among the 11.4 million adults aged 18 or older with SMI in 2010, 6.9 million (60.8 percent) received mental health services in the past year.
- Among the 2.9 million adults aged 18 or older in 2010 with both SMI and substance dependence or abuse in the past year, 64.0 percent received substance use treatment at a specialty facility or mental health treatment in that period. Included in the 64.0 percent are 14.5 percent who received both mental health treatment and specialty substance use treatment, 45.0 percent who received mental health treatment only, and 4.3 percent who received specialty substance use treatment only.
- In 2010, there were 1.9 million youths (8.0 percent of the population aged 12 to 17) who had major depressive episode (MDE) during the past year. Among youths aged 12 to 17 in 2010 who had past year MDE, 37.2 percent used illicit drugs in the past year compared with 17.8 percent among youths who did not have past year MDE.
- In 2010, 2.9 million youths aged 12 to 17 (12.2 percent) received treatment or counseling for problems with emotions or behavior in a specialty mental health setting (inpatient or outpatient care). The most common reason for receiving specialty mental health services among youths was feeling depressed (47.6 percent).
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Results from the 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: Mental Health Findings, NSDUH Series H-42, HHS Publication No. (SMA) 11-4667. Rockville, MD: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2012.
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Living to 100: New Research
So you want to live to 100?
Those of you who have been reading my blog for some time know that I do not put much stock into vitamin pills and new age "live forever diets." I read this study and thought you needed to know about it.
Researches reported in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society showed how important good genes are to living to 100.
When they looked at extremely old folks (95 and older) and compared them to old folks that died before 95, they found that both groups of people had lots of bad habits. Many of them smoked and lots were overweight. Which brings us back to the importance of good genes over over snake oil sellers with new live forever diets.
I know some of you will still be skeptical: Read the report!
Those of you who have been reading my blog for some time know that I do not put much stock into vitamin pills and new age "live forever diets." I read this study and thought you needed to know about it.
Researches reported in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society showed how important good genes are to living to 100.
When they looked at extremely old folks (95 and older) and compared them to old folks that died before 95, they found that both groups of people had lots of bad habits. Many of them smoked and lots were overweight. Which brings us back to the importance of good genes over over snake oil sellers with new live forever diets.
I know some of you will still be skeptical: Read the report!
Friday, December 16, 2011
Forgetting why you went into the other room
Doorways and memory loss
Comedian Bill Cosby tells a great story of looking for his glasses. He looked all over the living room then walked into another room to look there. Once in the other room, he can't remember why he went into that room in the first place. If I recall correctly he blamed the whole mess on his kids driving him crazy.
Researcher Gabriel A. Radvansky and colleagues at the University of Notre Dame conducted an experiment to see if the act of walking through a doorway actually decreases ones memory. (Published in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology in 2011: show me the article.)
Their findings showed that the process of walking through a doorway did in fact lower experimental subjects short term memory. Subjects that walked through a doorway did much worse than subjects that walked the same distance without passing through a doorway. The research indicated that the act of going through a doorway compartmentalizes one's memory into separate activities weakening memory access to what was just learned in the previous room.
Least I forget, Bill Cosby was looking for his reading glasses that traveled with him from room to room perched on his head.
A few books on memory improvement that I recommend to my patients. Helpful, but they do take work. You have to learn how to improve your memory:
Comedian Bill Cosby tells a great story of looking for his glasses. He looked all over the living room then walked into another room to look there. Once in the other room, he can't remember why he went into that room in the first place. If I recall correctly he blamed the whole mess on his kids driving him crazy.
Researcher Gabriel A. Radvansky and colleagues at the University of Notre Dame conducted an experiment to see if the act of walking through a doorway actually decreases ones memory. (Published in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology in 2011: show me the article.)
Their findings showed that the process of walking through a doorway did in fact lower experimental subjects short term memory. Subjects that walked through a doorway did much worse than subjects that walked the same distance without passing through a doorway. The research indicated that the act of going through a doorway compartmentalizes one's memory into separate activities weakening memory access to what was just learned in the previous room.
Least I forget, Bill Cosby was looking for his reading glasses that traveled with him from room to room perched on his head.
A few books on memory improvement that I recommend to my patients. Helpful, but they do take work. You have to learn how to improve your memory:
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