Science Cheerleader

We should welcome new methods of improving our brain function. Nature commentary.

Last night, during a lovely baby shower for my friend Catherine, someone mentioned that parents are giving their perfectly healthy children drugs like Adderall and Ritalin to help them focus in school and give them  a “competitive advantage.” Sounded absurd. Until this morning when I read an AP article in the Philadelphia Inquirer that opened with this:

“Healthy people should have the right to boost their brains with pills, like those prescribed for hyperactive children or memory-impaired older folks, several scientists contend in a provocative commentary. College students are already illegally taking prescription stimulants such as Ritalin to help them study, and demand for such drugs is likely to grow elsewhere, they say.

As more effective brain-boosting pills are developed, demand for them is likely to grow among middle-aged people who want youthful memory powers and multitasking workers who need to keep track of multiple demands, said one of the commentary’s authors, brain scientist Martha Farah of the University of Pennsylvania. ‘Almost everybody is going to want to use it,’ Farah said.”

Oh, by the way, it’s a felony to strike deals to obtain prescription drugs. Still as many as 25% of college students do this!

Read the Nature commentary. It provides valuable insight and illuminates one of the many ways innovation and society don’t always travel at the same speed. It also demonstrates why it’s important for us “average citizens” to keep up on these issues–this is heading towards the development of new science policies.

After reading the article, did your opinion on this matter change? 

 

Science Cheerleader featured in Sunday, September 14, 2008 Philadelphia Inquirer article.

Just thought I’d share this recent Philadelphia Inquirer article with you. It’s on the concept of Crowdsourcing and you’ll see the Science Cheerleader in there in referenced to how citizen scientists can advance science through Crowdsourcing.

Being plastic on the outside is tacky.  But plastic on the inside might be a killer. 

A couple of weeks ago, the National Institutes of Health sided with an independent scientific panel expressing concerns about some possible effects of bisphenol A –an ingredient in plastics–on the brains of fetuses, infants and young children. 

Bisphenol A is found in practically everything we use on a daily basis from reusable food containers, to plastic baby bottles to the interior linings of soup cans. 

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