Hot MedFax

What is it with cleaning out our closets? At the beginning of every season, I do it. But I dread it. At first I feel so great, weeding out all the size 14s – and size 8s – so that I can finally see into the very back of my very tiny closet. I pack them in shopping bags and take them to a charitable donation spot but carrying them in, something else sweeps over me. I leave, feeling hollow. Granted, getting rid of baby clothes is very hard. Who doesn't remember when that little head fit inside that bunny hood, instead of headphones now? But it's not just that. I see slices of my life peeling away, ones that will never come back. His favorite striped shirt I had to cut a hole in so he could fit his head through it in preschool. (My husband's family is known for their big heads.) The shoes he wore when he first started walking (thankfully, I knew enough to grab them back from the garbage when we bought him new sneakers.) And his ghost Halloween co...

Pretty hard to believe, with all the f-bombs and other four-letter words flying around.  But did you know that human beings lean towards expressing themselves in positive words rather than negative ones? According to new research, probably all human language skews toward the use of happy words, newswise.com reports. This includes newspapers, magazines, TV news.  I guess, even blogs. "We looked at 10 languages,” says UVM mathematician Peter Dodds who co-led the study, “and in every source we looked at, people use more positive words than negative ones.” This huge study of the “atoms of language—individual words,” Dodds says, indicates that language itself—perhaps humanity’s greatest technology—has a positive outlook. And, therefore, “it seems that positive social interaction,” it is built into its fundamental structure. I beg to differ.  Taking a quick look at the leading headlines at cnn.com, "Three Killed at UNC,"  "Bush Aide Resigns After Offensive Tw...

We are all grieving. But Dr. Sanjay Gupta says the sleep the victims' -- and survivors' --parents and siblings got last night will determine how well they cope. https://twitter.com/drsanjaygupta/status/279822454145306624