Mental Health & Wellbeing

Iceland ban on violent pornography

As you are probably aware, the world is standing on the precipice of enormous change for women and children. For the first time in modern history, a nation -- Iceland -- has stepped forward to write progressive legislation that limits access to hard-core violent and abusive pornography. Arguing that Iceland has a compelling interest in [...]

A pill popping culture

Alex Wodak was the director of the alcohol and drug service at St Vincent's Hospital until last July, a position he held for more than 30 years. He has seen firsthand the shift towards seeking fast comfort, saying there was much more pressure on populations now compared with 20 years ago and people were turning [...]

Study Finds Genetic Risk Factors Shared by 5 Psychiatric Disorders

The psychiatric illnesses seem very different — schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, autism, major depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Yet they share several genetic glitches that can nudge the brain along a path to mental illness, researchers report. Which disease, if any, develops is thought to depend on other genetic or environmental factors. via Study Finds [...]

40% Of High School Students Chronically Disengaged

Too often, strategies that adults use to boost student achievement — such as raising academic standards and giving high-stakes standardized exams — do not address the real reasons why students are disengaged. Even the most dedicated teachers and parents may be sending messages that leave children believing they don’t have what it takes to succeed. [...]

Diggers mimic movies and computer games in combat zone

A senior army commander has blasted the behaviour of some Australian soldiers in Afghanistan, saying they expected to be treated as ''Roman gladiators'' and had an image of war based on movies and computer games. via Blast for 'gladiator' Diggers.

Gaming in Health & Education

If you’ve read enough of my Generation Next articles, you’ll know I’m a big fan of embedding social media and other cutting edge technological advancements into the way in which schools engage kids. So I was very interested to see that Headspace and the Cotton-On Foundation have just released an app for iPhone and Android [...]

Punish them or engage them?

Researchers to share findings of major study of student behaviour Results from a major study show that the key challenge for teachers in classrooms today is to find ways to encourage active and engaged learning. A UniSA-led Behaviour at School Study (BASS) surveyed almost 1400 South Australian teachers to assess how they viewed student behaviour [...]

Scientists explain ‘beer goggles’

The area of the brain that makes us want to mate keeps functioning, no matter how much we drink, meaning that people can still assess how visually-appealing others are, says Dr Amanda Ellison. “We still see others basically as they are,” she said. “There is no imagined physical transformation - just more desire." Dr Ellison, [...]

Stress and Pregnancy

The placenta of a pregnant woman absorbs more than just nutrition and oxygen, a new study has found. Researchers, from the University of Pennsylvania, found that stress is transmitted to the placenta, altering the levels of a protein that affects brain development in the foetus. The authors of the paper, published online yesterday in the [...]

Eating Disorders In Children

Recent research suggests that up to 75% of adolescent girls view themselves as overweight or needing to lose weight and around a quarter of our teenagers are experimenting with dangerous dieting behaviour, such as taking laxatives and severely restricting their diets (Hutchings, conference). Australian research suggests that the prevalence of disordered eating behaviours have increased two-fold [...]

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