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Can would-be buyer afford to take over more Chicago-area hospitals?
Insight Health Systems is in talks to take over West Suburban Medical Center and Weiss Memorial Hospital, which closed in the last year. But records show its Chicago hospital has money troubles.
Missouri should dump the use of junk science in its courtrooms
Missouri patients deserve confidence that the science presented in our courtrooms is credible, reliable and grounded in evidence. When unreliable expert testimony is allowed to influence juries, the consequences extend far beyond the courtroom. Manufactured claims can scare patients away from proven treatments and make medical innovators think twice about investing in research and development […]
Law and science collide in federal lawsuit over social media addiction
Attorneys for Meta and other companies have argued that because social media addiction has not been formally recognized by the medical community, they cannot be held liable when sued over it. But the standard for a diagnosis is changing, and judges have been skeptical of those arguments.
Fact-Checking 3 Competitive Senate Races in Maine, Michigan and Ohio
Republican attacks have focused on terrorism and illegal immigration, while Democrats have sought to capitalize on the unpopularity of President Trump’s cuts to Medicaid.
8 UCF Faculty Members to Be Inducted in Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine of Florida
UCF faculty were recognized for their advancements and impact in artificial intelligence, medical diagnostic technology, computer science, energy and manufacturing, and coastal resiliency.
These 'five pillars' for living healthier longer are easy and affordable
Longevity has become a bit of a buzz word, and has become increasingly aligned with the tech industry. But while it remains unclear whether the billions of US dollars being invested in life-extending bioscience is something any of us can access, a timely report from Harvard Medical School reminds us what we can do on our own – and it's backed by a huge body of evidence.
MU Health Care's South Providence medical building temporarily closed
One of MU Health Care’s buildings was temporarily closed on Friday.The South Providence Medical Building closed at noon on August 7, and would remain closed thr
Essentia Health-Duluth Clinic welcomes family medicine specialist Dr. Nicholas Woessner
Dr. Nicholas Woessner, a doctor of osteopathic medicine specializing family medicine, is thrilled to join the Essentia Health-Duluth Clinic.
Commentary: AI Could Help to Implement Health Policy
Artificial intelligence may enhance implementation of a new federal rule requiring aduts enrolled under the Affordable Care Act expansion of Medicaid eligibility to complete qualifying work hours or community engagement activities or meet exemption criteria to maintain coverage, according to a new commentary.
MetroPlusHealth Achieves 4-Star Medicare Advantage Rating
MetroPlusHealth, New York City’s high quality, affordable health plan, announced today that its Medicare Advantage plans have been awarded a 4-Star rating
A decade of heart: Camp Lionheart celebrates 10 years
Camp Lionheart recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, bringing together children and teens with heart disease for a week of traditional summer camp activities in a medically supported environment.
Practice Management Course is now Business of Sleep Medicine
The AASM Practice Management Course has been reintroduced as the Business of Sleep Medicine to reflect a broader scope.
Seattle-area community clinics to lose family medicine residents
A Providence Swedish training program plans to cut ties with three community clinics that have historically served lower-income patients of color.
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed on Historic Michigan Win: “People Are Sick and Tired of This Politics of Hatred”
We speak with Dr. Abdul El-Sayed after his victory in Michigan’s primary race for U.S. Senate sent shockwaves through the Democratic Party. El-Sayed, a former public health official, ran a progressive campaign focused on affordability, Medicare for All, getting money out of politics, and opposing Israel’s genocide in Gaza. He defeated Congressmember Haley Stevens, who was backed by tens of millions in outside spending including by AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobby group. “In an era where many of us can’t afford basic things like groceries or rent or healthcare, the idea that your government is sending your tax dollars to buy bombs and tanks for foreign governments seems anathema,” El-Sayed says. “That money could be spent to fix your potholes, rebuild your kid’s school.” El-Sayed says his focus now is on beating Republican nominee Mike Rogers, whom he calls a “bootlicker for Trumpism,” and to present a positive vision for his party that can lead into the next Democratic presidential administration.
Medicaid cuts stand to hit everyone (yes, even you). Here’s why
Even privately insured Californians could see longer ER waits and rising premiums as hospitals absorb Medi-Cal cuts.
School-Based Nurse Practitioner Program Expands Access to Healthcare for Monmouth County Students
Many families face barriers to accessing timely medical care for their children due to transportation challenges and the need for parents or caregivers to take time off work. VNA Health Group’s Children and Family Health Institute helps address these barriers through its School-Based Nurse Practitioner Program, which brings primary care directly into schools through three[...]
New Business Licenses: 8.7.26
Crawlspace construction, medical communications, family care practice are some of this week's new licenses. (BizSense Pro required)
SHARE program allows students to experience medicine and science
As Jayson Smith approached his sophomore year at Nettleton High School, he knew he wanted to pursue a career in medicine, but he didn’t really know where to start. “I...
Wearable ultrasound patch boosts REM sleep without drugs or surgery
A new wearable patch may help people reach REM sleep faster and remain there longer without medication or surgery. In a study of 28 participants, the device shortened the time to REM by 43 minutes and extended it by about 16 minutes. Researchers also observed signs of improved stress regulation and changes in brain circuits tied to emotion.
A clinically validated framework for auditing AI chatbot behavior in mental health interactions
Nature Medicine - Across 810 conversations, an evaluation framework finds that AI chatbots often amplify simulated users’ psychological vulnerabilities, revealing persistent safety risks in...
Andrea Hennigan testifies on Lindsay Clancy's mental health and postpartum treatment
Registered nurse Andrea Hennigan testifies about her former colleague Lindsay Clancy. She describes Clancy's struggles with postpartum anxiety, insomnia, and medication side effects prior to January 2023.
Supporters of a bipartisan bill say America’s biotechnology future depends on measurement science
I think the success will be that there are uniform standards that could be used by AI, by international scientists," said Congresswoman April McClain Delaney.
Costa Welcomes House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar to Central Valley Health Care Roundtable
FRESNO, Calif. - This week, during Affordable Healthcare for Every American Week of Action, Congressman Jim Costa (CA-21) welcomed Congressman Pete Aguilar (CA-33), Chair of the House Democratic Caucus, to the Central Valley for a roundtable hosted by Community Health System to hear directly from local hospitals and health care leaders focused on the federal funding reductions under H.R.1, including changes to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, as well as the Administration's decision to withhold approximately $867.5 million in federal Medicaid funding from Califor
Safety fears as scientists make first viruses designed by AI
Researchers say breakthrough offers hope for new medicines but also raises urgent biosecurity questions
Davenport University, U-M Health-West create innovative partnership; collaborative experience for healthcare professionals
Photo credit: Ning Zhu Davenport University’s nursing program recently hosted University of Michigan Health-West emergency medicine residents to the W.A. Lettinga Grand Rapids Campus to participate in simulation-based education using Davenport’s state-of-the-art technology. During the July 29 event, approximately 30 University of Michigan Health-West residents
This Underrated Medical Drama Just Became a Netflix Top 10 Hit
Netflix's Top 10 has a new surprise entry that viewers are quickly adding to their watch lists. Get all the details here.
AHF • ‘We the People’ Coalition Merges Faith & Politics to Engage Black Voters -- L.A. Gospel Concert & Panel, Sat., Aug. 8th
AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the world's largest HIV/AIDS healthcare organization, currently provides medical care and services to more than 1.75 million clients in 45 countries. With more than 7,000 employees worldwide, AHF now has treatment clinics and other operations in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific Region, and Europe. To learn more about AHF, please visit our website: www.aidshealth.org, find us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/aidshealth, and follow us on Twitter: @aidshealthcare and Instagram: @aidshealthcare.
Rural Health Transformation Program Reporting
August 5, 2026 Mehmet Oz, AdministratorCenters for Medicare & Medicaid ServicesDepartment of Health and Human ServicesAttention: CMS-10949P.O. Box 8010Baltimore, MD 21244-8010 RE: Rural Health Transformation Program Reporting Dear Administrator Oz: The Bipartisan Policy Center appreciates the opportunity to comment on CMS’s proposed Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) reporting requirements (file code CMS-10949). The work the … Continued
Bill Belichick Announces His Son, Steve, Is On Medical Leave
North Carolina football coach Bill Belichick revealed Thursday morning that his son, Steve, has been placed on medical leave. Steve Belichick is entering his second season as North Carolina's defensive coordinator. Although the program struggled in 2025, his defense was one of two units in the ACC ...
VA accelerates electronic health record rollout
After years of delays, the Department of Veterans Affairs says its federal electronic health record (EHR) program is now firmly back on track. VA Secretary Douglas Collins has accelerated the program with a renewed goal: full deployment across all VA medical centers by 2031. A major governance overhaul, replacing multiple competing councils with a single decision-making body, has cut through bureaucratic delays and allowed the VA to move faster and more consistently. Deputy Secretary Paul Lawrence has taken a hands-on role, including visiting deployment sites and holding daily meetings with Oracle Health to ensure front-line clinicians have what they need. Here’s how the rollout is going, according to the VA: The federal EHR has only experienced four outages since December 2025. The system has gone nearly two consecutive years without a major incident. It is currently live at six sites, supporting care for over 188,000 veterans. The system creates a lifelong medical record, integrating data across the VA, the Department of Defense and private community providers. With the first new deployments underway and four Michigan medical centers already live in 2026, the VA is entering its first true expansion phase since the program’s reset. Officials say the system’s improved stability, streamlined governance and standardized national workflows have cleared the obstacles that once stalled progress. With 13 sites scheduled for deployment in 2026 and a market‑based rollout strategy guiding future waves, the department believes it’s finally positioned to move at scale toward a modern, fully interoperable EHR, advancing steadily toward its goal of reaching every VA medical center in five years.
Medicare pushes ACCESS but doesn't tell patients what providers offer it
In this edition: Progress report on ACCESS, Medicare's chronic care pilot, and health regulators courting industry on AI regulation.
WVU Health System, Fulton County Medical Center sign definitive agreement
MORGANTOWN, W.Va., and MCCONNELLSBURG, PA. – The West Virginia University Health System, which operates under the brand WVU Medicine, and Fulton County Medical Center (FCMC) have signed a definitive affiliation agreement that will lead to FCMC joining the WVU Health System. ...
Senate committee set to vote on holding Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress
Hearing called after the former chief medical advisor invoked the fifth and refused to answer questions at a hearing on Covid-19
Perez Hilton receiving medical care after self-harming video livestreamed on TikTok
Police responded to Hilton's Miami home after multiple calls from concerned fans, and he was taken to a local hospital.
Perez Hilton, a medical emergency and how fans stepped in
In the age of social media, mental health crises are playing out differently. Perez Hilton's fans are one example.
Medicaid Work Rule Leaves Homeless People in the Cold
Conservatives who have long pushed for Medicaid work requirements often said vulnerable people would get a pass. But the federal government’s list of exemptions left off homeless people.
Minnesota DHS roll out eligibility tool ahead of federal Medicaid work requirement changes
Individuals enrolled in Medical Assistance can check if they meet the federal work reporting requirements set for 2027, as well as review a list of exemptions by using the new renewal lookup tool provided by DHS.
Stop asking if AI is good for medicine
Overgeneralizations about AI can slow down the adoption of tools that work.
Interventional radiologists, other docs release new tool kit for limiting radiation exposure
Nine medical societies taking part in the ALARA (As Low and as Light as Reasonably Achievable) Coalition collaborated to create the new suite of resources.
Medicover to sell India hospital business to KKR for €1.2 billion
Swedish healthcare provider Medicover agreed on Thursday to sell its India hospital business to funds managed by global investment firm KKR for €1.2 billion ($1.39 billion).
Penn Medicine named Alvernia University's official sports medicine provider
Care provided at the Penn Medicine - Alvernia Medical and Counseling Center will expand to include specialized sports medicine expertise.
Viewpoint: Europe needs a new scientific contract
The White House's new science strategy should be required reading in the Berlaymont and every European capital.Not because Europe should copy it. Parts of it should concern Europeans deeply. But because it asks the question Europe has so far avoided while steadily losing ground in the global race for technological leadership.Europe already possesses many of the world's finest universities, scientists and research-intensive companies. It produces world-leading research in fields ranging from quantum technologies and biotechnology to climate science. Yet time and again Europe generates the scientific breakthroughs while others build the companies, industries and strategic advantages around them, particularly in digital technologies. Increasingly, we find ourselves regulating technologies whose underlying capabilities were developed elsewhere.This is not primarily a scientific failure. It is an institutional one.The settlement that shaped modern science policy emerged after the Second World War. In Science, the Endless Frontier, Vannevar Bush argued that governments should invest in fundamental research while protecting scientists from political direction. Public investment was justified precisely because no government, university or company could predict where the next transformative discovery would emerge.That scientific contract served liberal democracies extraordinarily well. It underpinned decades of advances in medicine, computing, energy and communications, but the world for which it was designed no longer exists.Artificial intelligence is transforming not only technology but the production of knowledge itself. Advanced chips, computing power, data and scientific instruments have become strategic assets. Scientific knowledge now diffuses globally almost instantly. Competitive advantage increasingly lies not in making discoveries first, but in possessing the infrastructure, capital, engineering capability and institutions required to translate those ideas into products, industries and strategic advantage.The old boundaries between science, industrial policy, national security and geopolitics have largely disappeared. Dual-use technologies now underpin both economic power and military deterrence.The US has recognised this shift. In July, the White House published Science: A New Golden Age, a comprehensive attempt to rethink the relationship between science and national power. The report builds on Bush's legacy, but departs from his framework in important ways. Science is no longer treated simply as the source of future discoveries. It is presented as the foundation of economic resilience, technological leadership and national security. AI, advanced infrastructure and the capacity to build become as important as discovery itself.Yet the report also reveals a striking paradox. The same administration calling for “a new golden age” of US science has simultaneously proposed deep cuts to the federal research enterprise while expanding political influence over the allocation of public research funding. Europe should therefore distinguish between the report's diagnosis and its prescription. The diagnosis, that science has become a strategic asset, is compelling. But the prescription is self-defeating. Long-term technological leadership depends on strong universities, academic freedom and the institutional autonomy that makes scientific discovery possible. This distinction matters. Bush's achievement was never simply to make science serve national strength. It was to establish a division of labour in which governments invested in research without attempting to direct discovery itself. Scientific breakthroughs emerge precisely because researchers retain the freedom to pursue questions whose value cannot yet be demonstrated and whose conclusions cannot be anticipated.Neither China, nor the USAs science becomes more strategically important, the temptation to politicise it inevitably grows. But scientific freedom is not an obstacle to technological leadership, it is an essential precondition.China represents the opposite model. For decades it has integrated science, manufacturing, infrastructure and industrial policy into a single national strategy. Its ability to mobilise resources around critical technologies is formidable. But it does so within an authoritarian system where scientific priorities are increasingly inseparable from political power.Europe should imitate neither model. It should learn from the strategic ambition of the US without importing its growing politicisation of science. And it should learn from China's capacity to build without adopting its concentration of power.Instead, Europe needs a scientific contract of its own. Bush's scientific contract protected the freedom to discover because the defining challenge of the 20th century was producing new knowledge. Europe's next scientific contract must preserve that freedom while ensuring that scientific discoveries can be converted into technological, industrial and strategic capability. Because in a transactional world, Europe's freedom to shape its own future depends on its capacity to build it.Related articlesThe US ‘golden age’ science strategy: what Europeans need to knowEuropean researchers sound the alarm that Trump rule changes will hit cooperationNIH turmoil risks reciprocal EU-US access to health research fundingThis does not mean subordinating free science to competitiveness or industrial policy. On the contrary. Scientific autonomy remains the first principle of Europe's next scientific contract. Governments should not direct scientific discovery. Their responsibility is to ensure that Europe's scientific, industrial, financial and regulatory institutions work together rather than in isolation.Meeting that responsibility requires far more than research funding. European researchers need access to world-class computing infrastructure, advanced laboratories, shared datasets and scientific facilities. Innovative companies need patient capital, testing environments and a genuine single market in which they can scale without facing 27 different regulatory regimes. Public procurement must evolve from purchasing existing technologies to creating markets for new ones. Regulators must become partners in experimentation rather than guardians of yesterday's rules.A connecting architectureEurope does not need to invent the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) model from scratch. Britain's Aria, Germany's Sprind and Wellcome Leap already show that Europe can build institutions capable of taking high-risk, mission-oriented bets while preserving democratic accountability. The challenge now is not to create more isolated initiatives, but to connect them to Europe's broader scientific, industrial and financial system so that breakthrough discoveries can scale.Above all, Europe must stop treating research, innovation, industrial policy, finance and security as separate policy domains. The challenge is no longer to create excellent institutions in each of these fields, but to make them work as one European innovation system. Europe's strength will increasingly depend not on excellence within institutions, but on excellence across them.Europe's ambition should be neither to imitate the US nor to emulate China. It should demonstrate that scientific freedom, democratic legitimacy and technological capability are not competing objectives, but mutually reinforcing strengths. In an age of geopolitical rivalry, Europe's greatest advantage may ultimately be its ability to attract the world's best talent by combining scientific freedom, democratic openness and technological ambition.Bush's scientific contract helped define the 20th century because it protected the freedom to discover. Europe's challenge is not to abandon that achievement but to extend it. The defining task of Europe's next scientific contract is to preserve the freedom to discover while building Europe's capacity to translate scientific discovery into technological power.Kaare Nielsen is founder of Pomus, a Danish think tank on science and innovation.
Medicare cuts to impact 1.3M N.Y. seniors
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is slamming the Trump administration’s new Medicare cuts.
Medical aid in dying law takes effect in New York
Some Catholic groups are continuing to pursue litigation.
Perez Hilton's family offers health update after disturbing TikTok
Perez Hilton's family has asked for privacy and confirmed he is receiving medical care after a TikTok livestream frightened fans and triggered a law enforcement response.
A chastened UVM Health embarks on its first budget season after leadership reset
In a series of presentations to the Green Mountain Care Board, University of Vermont Health repeatedly emphasized the same message: We’ve changed.
Bottoms, Jackson offer competing visions on data centers, Medicaid expansion at business luncheon
Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms and Republican Rick Jackson took the stage at an Athens event center to pitch their policies to a crowd of over 1,000 members of the state’s business community.
Advocates celebrate as California's first cardiac ablation is performed in ASC
Medicare is looking to reduce healthcare costs, and EPs believe outpatient procedures are more convenient for patients.
The fight for safer cath labs continues: ‘We have to fix the work environment’
A group of nine U.S. medical societies wants to help hospital leaders improve cath lab safety. Their primary goals are to reduce radiation exposure and prevent orthopedic injuries.
New Golisano Children’s Mobile Health Clinic to Serve Communities Throughout Rochester
University of Rochester Medicine Golisano Children's launched its Pediatric Mobile Clinic Initiative with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by community leaders, healthcare providers, donors, and Rochester leaders.
Perez Hilton’s Family Says He Is Receiving Medical Care After Appearing To Harm Himself On Livestream
Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton was hospitalized late Tuesday after fans called the police during a disturbing TikTok livestream.
Fact vs. Fiction: Separating the Myths from the Science Behind GLP-1 Medications
From social media claims to questions about safety, UConn Health OB/GYN and obesity medicine specialist Dr. Jason Schneider explains what patients should re ...
ECU Health Medical Center begins using rapid blood culture testing tool
ECU Health Medical Center has announced that they are the fifth institution in the nation to begin using the BioMerieux Vitek Reveal analyzer, a rapid blood cul
AHA urges CMS to prioritize hospitals, providers with Rural Health Transformation Program funding
The AHA Aug. 5 provided comments to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on the distribution of funding for the Rural Health Transformation Program. The program will fund $50 billion to rural providers from fiscal year 2026 to FY 2030.
I 'soft retired' at 57. It was the best career move I made.
Veterinarian Ron Titterington says stepping back from management let him enjoy medicine again while earning more than before.
Progressive Abdul El-Sayed wins Michigan's Democratic primary for Senate
El-Sayed, an epidemiologist, backs Medicare for all and decries corporate money in politics. He beat Rep. Haley Stevens, whose supporters said she would have had a better chance in the fall.
More Potential Upheaval Awaits Indiana Medicaid
New work requirements, more frequent eligibility reviews and other policy changes will reshape Medicaid for many Hoosiers beginning in 2027.
He posted about this controversial medical test. Then came the backlash
Andrew Huberman's recent comments about full-body MRIs sparked a new wave of controversy. Here's what happened.
He posted about this controversial medical test. Then came the backlash
Andrew Huberman's recent comments about full-body MRIs sparked a new wave of controversy. Here's what happened.
THC medication made PTSD nightmares disappear for more than a third of patients
A prescription form of THC helped many people with PTSD escape recurring trauma-related nightmares, with more than one-third reporting that the nightmares disappeared completely after ten weeks. The results could point toward a long-awaited treatment for one of PTSD’s most distressing and stubborn symptoms.
Early Mental Health Support Before Birth May Help Prevent Postpartum Depression
New research from University of Rochester Medicine finds that offering pregnant patients evidence-based mental health support during their hospital stay can help prevent postpartum depression.
Complete Health to pay $14M to settle Medicare Advantage fraud allegations
The value-based primary care provider submitted false diagnosis codes to the CMS for three years, inflating its reimbursement by millions of dollars, according to the DOJ.
Construction continues as WVSOM science building expansion takes shape
PRESS RELEASE LEWISBURG, W.Va. – Greenbrier County residents may notice that a building on the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine’s (WVSOM)
Newcastle captain to hold Arsenal medical after £75m fee agreed
Arsenal have agreed a fee for the signing of Bruno Guimaraes, with details of the deal emerging and the player receiving permission from Newcastle United to hold a medical.Photo by Jan Kruger/Getty Im...
More Medicaid coverage hasn’t curbed increased firearm suicides among most men
New study finds that expanded access to Medicaid was related to a drop in suicide rates among men in only one group: white adults ages 35-49.
CVS Health enhances its direct-to-consumer weight management offerings to improve access, affordability, care and support for GLP-1 medications
CVS Health® today announced a revamp of its weight management program, making it easier for eligible adults to access clinical care, navigate medication costs and get ongoing support for GLP-1 therapy.
19 charged in $4M Pennsylvania home health care fraud schemes
Nineteen people were charged in Medicaid fraud cases involving more than $4 million in alleged false home care billings, authorities said.
Leaving the lab without leaving science
A former medicinal chemist never expected to leave the bench. But a conversation with a friend working in intellectual property law opened the door to a new career and showed her that scientific training can thrive far beyond the lab.
‘Your days are numbered’: DOJ, federal agencies target health care fraud, Medicaid schemers in Pennsylvania
Federal agencies and state partners announced criminal charges against 19 people who allegedly defrauded Medicaid with home health schemes.
UnityPoint Health unveils new LifeFlight helicopters and pediatric ambulance
UnityPoint Health - Des Moines introduced three new LifeFlight helicopters and a pediatric ambulance to enhance emergency medical care.
The Beauty Of Settled Science
Commenters convinced me I made a subtle mis-step in my framing of Psychology Research Is Mostly Fine. My framing emphasized that social priming studies had failed to replicate, but that many other subfields of psychology hadn’t. This naturally led commenters to point to failed replications in other subfields. Although none of these were as bad as social priming, few or none were entirely problem-free. Instead of emphasizing the difference between social priming and other subfields, I should have emphasized the difference between settled science and novel research. Here are some of my favorite psychology findings: The brain is sculpted by reinforcement learning, and a key driver of this learning is a prediction-error-based algorithm located in the nucleus accumbens and implemented through dopamine. Psychedelic drugs exert their effects through 5-HT2A receptors, pointing to a role for these receptors in some sort of construct like the balance between priors and new evidence. Certain cognitive functions are localized to certain brain areas (for example, impulse control to the frontal lobes; linguistic structure to Broca’s area, linguistic meaning to Wernicke’s area. But injure one of these areas, or render a certain function useless (eg a blind person having no more use for their visual cortex), and these mappings can gradually shift - suggesting that neurons are general-purpose compute whose specialization is a contingent fact about convenience and efficiency rather than a necessity. Most personality traits and general capabilities are about 50% genetic and 50% random, with little role for family environment or childhood history, with a few notable exceptions like partisan preference. Recent research complicates this story, but the further you go from this basic picture, the gnarlier the chains of indirect causation you require. Neurons fire together in “brain waves”, whose exact frequency corresponds with the character of consciousness; These divide neurons into natural subpopulations and linked graphs. The gamma rhythm corresponds surprisingly well to items in conscious awareness. GABA receptors seem to be involved in something like relaxation. By hitting different GABA receptors in different ways, you can modulate the exact type of relaxation you produce. Hitting GABA-A directly is too powerful and can cause dangerous levels of sedation, but allosteric modulation of GABA is an incredibly fruitful strategy that underlies drugs from benzos to barbituates to alcohol. If you know your GABA-A subunits, you can target specific subtypes of relaxation; for example, Ambien hits GABA-A1 and induces sleep. Memory divides somewhat fuzzily into bins of immediate-sensory, short-term, and long-term, with separate retrieval and storage functions, and separate systems for declarative vs. procedural learning. These can be harmed selectively, usually by hippocampal injury, so that some patients can remember their life stories but not form new long-term memories, or learn new skills like bike-riding but not new facts. The exact substrate of memory is unclear but seems to involve new synaptic connections between neurons in at least some way. The ability of modern psychology and psychiatry to treat mental illness is real but limited. SSRIs work for half or slightly fewer than half of patients; antipsychotics work with extreme side effects; benzodiazpines work but produce addiction and tolerance in many (not all) people. Most supplements are stuck in Poor Quality Study Replication Crisis Hell, but melatonin and l-theanine stand out as especially promising. Psychotherapy works with moderate effect size, but (with a few exceptions) seems to be more about the relationship with the provider than the details of the therapy itself. Mental hospitalization can sometimes defuse immediate crises but work less well than mental hospitals would like, with some studies showing overall negative effects. Schizophrenia is mostly genetic, but risk also increases with prenatal infection (especially rubella) and obstetric complications; there is suggestive evidence for roles of social stress and drug use (with psychedelics and marijuana making things worse, and nicotine if anything making things better). Bipolar and schizophrenia are so closely linked on a pathophysiological level that it seems like they might be the same disease; on the clinical level, they do seem to follow two separate courses/prognoses but can sometimes surprise clinicians by eg someone who seemed condemned to permanent schizophrenia unexpectedly recovering. The brain’s native reinforcement learning algorithms cash out in the phenomena of classical and operant conditioning; different reinforcement schedules reinforce at different levels, which can be exploited by bad actors to make especially compelling products (eg slot machines). None of these are immune to doubt. A few are speculative; one or two are genuinely unorthodox. But they’re all a step above one p = 0.049 paper that might not replicate. If they get overturned, they’ll be overturned by the same sort of genuine scientific shift that replaced Ptolemy with Copernicus or Lamarck with Darwin, not some sort of sordid discovery about someone entering random numbers into a spreadsheet. In 2008, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote about The Beauty Of Settled Science: If you only care about scientific issues that are controversial, you will end up with a head stuffed full of garbage. The media thinks that only the cutting edge of science is worth reporting on. How often do you see headlines like “General Relativity still governing planetary orbits” or “Phlogiston theory remains false”? So, by the time anything is solid science, it is no longer a breaking headline. “Newsworthy” science is often based on the thinnest of evidence and wrong half the time—if it were not on the uttermost fringes of the scientific frontier, it would not be breaking news. Scientific controversies are problems so difficult that even people who’ve spent years mastering the field can still fool themselves. That’s what makes for the heated arguments that attract all the media attention. Worse, if you aren’t in the field and part of the game, controversies aren’t even fun. Don’t be embarrassed to read elementary science textbooks, either. If you want to pretend to be sophisticated, go find a play to sneer at. If you just want to have fun, remember that simplicity is at the core of scientific beauty [...] A steady diet of science news is bad for you: You are what you eat, and if you eat only science reporting on fluid situations, without a solid textbook now and then, your brain will turn to liquid. Psychology isn’t centrally the new paper in Annals Of Recently-Breaking News saying that an n=5 study showing that large portion sizes increase support for terrorism. Psychology is centrally ideas like brain waves, GABA receptors, reinforcement learning, twin studies, and connectionism. People who think differently are worrying too much about BREAKING NEWS!!!, and should stop. The key distinction isn’t “recent research in social psychology” vs. “recent research in cognitive/bio/behavioral psychology”, as my essay last week unfortunately implied. It’s recent research in general vs. the deposit of settled science, battle-tested hypotheses, and carefully-earmarked speculation. And part of the reason social priming in particular was such a disaster was that it defied that heuristic, building itself up over hundreds of studies until it approached or even entered the pantheon of settled science - before collapsing (5-HTTLPR was also sort of like this). This isn’t a claim that settled science is always right - Freud was “settled science” for a long time - just that there’s an intuitive distinction between the level of credence you should have in the existence of power posing vs. the existence of Broca’s Area. (I compounded this error by calling the last post “Psychology Research Is Mostly Fine”, which suggested I was talking about the new research rather than the settled science. I actually meant to distinguish between research-psychology-the-field vs. clinical-psychology-aka-therapy, but this framing unintentionally pushed against the point I wanted to make) Some commenters on the previous article understood this point, but challenged its weight. It’s very cool, they said, to know how many neurons are in which brain lobe, but the main way that Psychology affected their lives was through bad clickbait studies used to buttress dumb policies; some p = 0.049 study says that exposure to microaggressions makes minorities’ brains shrivel into raisins, and now their company has to implement punitive DEI or be sued for hazardous work conditions. I won’t dispute this as an accurate description of how the sausage gets made, but it’s worth examining the trains of thought that connect this observation to a campaign against psychology in general: The dumb woke psychology was wrong and bad, and I don’t have good heuristics for distinguishing dumb woke psychology from other psychology, so I’m going to assume it’s all wrong and bad. The dumb woke psychology was wrong and bad; it seems useful to punish/discredit psychology as a whole to assist my campaign against it, so for propaganda purposes I will try to discredit psychology as a whole. To people in the first camp, my response is: come on, your heuristics aren’t that bad. “Microaggressions makes minorities’ brains shrivel up like raisins” is in the woke category; “the hippocampal theta rhythm seems to be associated with both memory and pathfinding, suggesting an unexpected yet surprisingly compelling relationship between the two” is in the not-woke category, don’t play dumb here. To people in the second camp, my response is: deliberately exaggerated propaganda campaigns are bad and this is a confession, not an excuse. Inability to view science through anything but a political lens was what got us into this problem; doubling down on it is a temporary solution but a recipe for permanent disaster. If you pronounce entire fields of science to be acceptable collateral damage in your campaign against bad political actors, you will alienate not just scientists but patients, clinicians, and general lovers of truth. Instead, you can say the thing you mean - that woke partisans shouldn’t try to occupy and exploit the otherwise-noble science of psychology for their own political gain - and wage the same campaign with a halo rather than a comic-book-villain goatee. From the font of oracular wisdom that is Weird Sun Twitter: [ Vessel Of Spirit@VesselOfSpirit i love you all conditionally but i love the good part of you unconditionally. even if it becomes a very small part 2:11 AM · Jan 22, 2015 1 Reply · 5 Reposts · 29 Likes ](https://x.com/VesselOfSpirit/status/558084551772471298) This is how I feel about psychology1, too, but with a touch more optimism. The good part of psychology is enormous, a hoard of endless treasures. You just have to look past the headlines! 1 To play devil’s advocate - should one always be so magnamious? Astrology? Phrenology? These seem different in that their entire orientation was flawed from the start; they didn’t simply fail to find the correct constellation-personality connections, the whole project of searching for connections between constellations and personality was doomed from the start. More difficult might be asking the same question about education research, which is notoriously bad. I don’t know enough about education research to know if there’s some settled science of correct and enlightening results lurking in the background beyond the day-to-day froth of poorly-conducted and politically-motivated studies. I think if it’s 90% bad, 10% good, it’s correct to call it bad as a compact way of communicating a useful truth; I think psychology is better than that, but admit it’s a tough judgment call.
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