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It's hard to believe, but we're actually safer now than at just about any time since the world began. Yes, there have been the Adam Lanzas and the Isla Vista, Calif. mad man mass murderers but, in fact, gun homicides are down almost 50% since 1933, Pew Research reports.  We've never been safer. But, as T.M. Luhrmann points out, that doesn't help us much.  The New York Times contributing opinion writer and professor of anthropology at Stanford calls it "our flinching state of mind."  We are so programmed now to flinch when we enter department stores, or city halls, or even schools, expecting violence, that, as she puts it, "That's not what it feels like, and what it feels like damages our sense of who we are." I'll admit it.  We live right off High Ridge Road, very near our son's middle school,  and now, every time I hear sirens, I scan Twitter and local news reports, terrified there's a shooter at his school.  It didn't h...

Here's some good news (if you can call it that).  If your partner has oral cancer  linked to the  human papillomavirus (HPV) infection. there's a good chance you will not be affected. A new study has found that p artners of patients diagnosed with HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancer were no more likely to test positive for oral HPV infection than people in the general population, according to newswise.com. " The findings should lessen anxiety that (this) cancer is contagious, at least among long-term partners, and confirms that couples who have been together for several years do not need to change their intimacy or sexual behavior because of the cancer diagnosis," the Web site reports. HPV infection is common among men and women in the U.S., but the overwhelming majority of individuals with the infection will not get cancer. The incidence of HPV-positive head and neck cancers, however, has increased significantly over the past 20 years, particularly among n...

I was intrigued when I saw this headline at weather.com, 13 healthy habits that can hurt .  We're all so drummed over the head about healthy behaviors, I thought, hmm, let's see exactly what we're not supposed to be doing, after all. 1.)  Sun.  Not too much.  OK, OK, sunscreen.  We all know that. 2.)  Water.  Drinking only that during high-energy exercise depletes the body of sodium, causing fatigue and sometimes fainting.  Drink energy drinks, too, but watch out for the sugar. 3.)  Exercise.  Too much is the problem.  Many think the more they exercise, and the harder, the more quickly they'll get in shape.  Not.  Too much exercise can actually cause a person to lose strength, says weather.com, and cause fatigue and muscle pain. 4.)  Exercise, again.  But this time it's people who are addicted to it.  I know quite a few, and may even be one of them, at times.  When it makes you ru...