Pain in back? Check your head. When it comes to back pain, psychological distress is a more reliable predictor of the problem than imaging and diagnostic disc injection, Stanford University School of Medicine researchers say. Their finding could affect how doctors treat back pain, which often includes costly surgery that insuranc... [Science Blog]0000007:48:49 AMcomment []


Simple Nod of Encouragement May Benefit Kids More Than Hands-on Homework Help. What's more effective, a new study has found, is just a little extra encouragement. In the study, published today in Child Development, researchers tracked mother-and-child pairs to see how the mother's parenting style affected the child's performance. The researchers found low-achieving children showed success when their mothers reacted to the child's ... [World of Psychology]0000007:42:40 AMcomment []


When Retirement Leaves an Emptiness, Some Fill It With Alcohol. Retirement can often include sipping a single malt or two. And sometimes the drastic changes of retirement lead to added drinking. By Bonnie Rothman Morris. [New York Times: Science]0000007:39:54 AMcomment []


Approach of holidays has no effect on time of death. The idea that dying people hang on to life in order to celebrate one more birthday or holiday lacks any scientific basis, say scientists who reviewed two decades' worth of research. ''The studies published to date have not convincingly established that death can be postponed through force of will or... [Science Blog]0000007:38:12 AMcomment []