Tired

I think this happens to everyone. You say you're gonna blog, you're gonna be good about it and put something up there hopefully every day, but at least every week.

And then a couple of weeks go by and you just haven't had an original thought. Being tired does that, I think. But sunshine helps.

Mommy Brain

On Friday the NYTimes published an article entitled Maternal Instinct is Wired Into the Brain. It reported the results of a Tokyo study where 13 mothers, all with 16 month old babies, watched videos of their own babies and others both smiling and crying while they were in an MRI machine. The mothers had very different brain waves when they saw their own children than when they saw others, and a stronger reaction to cries than to smiles.

Although this is an interesting study, I was kind of surprised it got NYTimes attention. 13 women is quite a small number, and the article doesn't say that they were randomly selected. I wonder, also, if they chose babies that were 16 months old in order to skip over chances of postpartum depression?

It does seem *obvious* that mothers are "hard-wired" to love their own children (even if they can't stand anyone else's!), but my humble opinion is that laypeople should be cautious when analyzing a study of this size. Narrow, shallow scientific findings are often contorted to mean things their creators never intended them to mean, and zealots eagerly seize them to be used as bludgeons in political arguments.

On the other hand, three cheers for brain studies :). They never cease to come up with something fascinating.

WebMD is RIDICULOUS

Say you have a headache. One that kind of is creeping in through the back of your neck and up to your temple. You say to yourself, "I wonder what kind of headache this is. Maybe I'll look on WebMD, to see if they have any helpful tips."

So you click on the little symptom checker guy and you enter in (truthfully) your sex and age range, and then prepare to give the WebDoc your symptoms. You click on your head and then the top of your head, and then the Doc asks you to check which of 85 options matches your symptoms. Hmm....Agitation, Anxiety, Apathy...no, more like a headache. Blackouts...wow, that sounds bad. Broken bones....COMA???? THEY'RE ASKING ME IF I'M IN A COMA???

No, I am not in a coma, but now I am suffering a little anxiety as well. I'll click on "headache" and give a little more information on where it is and how much it hurts and wait excitedly for my diagnoses. The results narrow it down a bit: I could possibly have a sunburn, caffeine withdrawal, or a stroke.

Ya gotta love the internet.