You should not smoke cigarettes and if you already do, you should stop. Though the U.S. FDA has damaged the smoking cessation possibilities for current users, and California has outright subsidized cigarette companies with punitive taxes on vaping, there may still be ways to limit the destructive potential of cigarettes: Red wine.

A new test with molluscs - freshwater mudsnails (Potamopyrgus antipodarum) - may enable manufacturers of chemicals and drugs to check their products for harmful effects on reproduction, and avoid the hype and scaremongering of environmental groups. 

Though any potential benefits of marijuana are unknown - claims are anecdotal and no different than the claims about kratom or acupuncture - a group is contending that it can nonetheless help with the other popular buzz term of 2016: Opioid addiction. 

But there is a caveat. The determination in Clinical Psychology Review was made by a systematic review. If homeopaths want to show that homeopathy works, they simply do a review of homeopathy papers. That doesn't mean it works and so another review won't do much to assuage fears that marijuana addiction is trading one problem for another - in this case, toxic chemicals inhaled in smoke for pain relief that may not be evident.

Enter the concept of slight autism. We can define slight autism as a state of autistic perception that is noticeably but not diagnosably autistic. Here is how we can begin to explain it and understand it.

Though DSM-5 is considered nothing more than a glossary by the National Institute of Mental Health, it continues to be used as a diagnostic tool by clinical practitioners. As a result, Psychiatric disturbances are all too often diagnosed as schizophrenia. ‘Personalized medicine’ may offer the solution.

The symptoms that we define as ‘schizophrenia’ are among the most serious that can befall a person. In the international literature schizophrenia is no longer regarded as a single illness, but as a group of separate conditions, some of which have yet to be defined. A public debate has grown up on this issue, and there are a number of people who support the statement that 'schizophrenia' doesn't actually exist.'

In the criminal justice community, the community supervision approach known as Honest Opportunity Probation with Enforcement (HOPE) has generated widespread enthusiasm when it comes to substance use, violations, new arrests, and revocations to prison, but a new study casts doubt that HOPE versus probation as usual (PAU) is doing anything but saving money.

Psychology studies the individual, and sociology studies the group. Social psychology studies the relation between the individual and the group, and for me that’s where all the action is. I study perception and the subjective organization of meaning ...

Back to my office in Padova, I am looking back at last week's travel around the US and the two talks I delivered at SLAC (the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center) and Northwestern University. 

The event at SLAC was an experimental seminar. Due to a clash with a "Higgs coupling" workshop that was taking place at the same time, it did not attract a very large audience. Still, it was quite nice to meet a few of the SLAC scientists there, and in particular to chat with Stan Brodsky, a well-known theorist whom I had met in Valparaiso earlier this year. I am also grateful to Brandon Eberly, my host at SLAC, who took care of welcoming me there and introducing the seminar.