Perhaps I'm reading it wrong, but it looked to me like the 10% number was for attempts among an age group, not successes. That doesn't sound right to me, either, but it's better than it looks.

Being born and raised in Brazil, I'd call Xuxa Brazilian, even if ethnically she's a European mix. Brazil is a huge melting pot.

I have to ask the question: is there any case of young children being allowed (or required!) to live with their *father* behind bars?

The policy seems beyond wacky to me; why can't grandparents (or an un-incarcerated father) care for these children outside of prison?

Definitely pay down CC debt.

As an Englishman teaching in a US public school, I'm shocked how complete that separation is. You can't teach the Crusades, you have to talk in vague terms about 'European tyranny' as the reason for emigration to America, you can't even teach something like Hamlet without ignoring great chunks of the play.

I'm curious where this public school is. I admit I've been out of school for quite some time, but we did address religion in history courses.

I think rational people can debate the merits of single-sex education and come to some kind of compromise, but Dr. Sax seems to be taking this way farther than the science and research suggest.

Different colored lighting?

Talking "shoulder to shoulder" to boys?

The more we learn, the more it seems that there is a (proven) biological basis for gender differences, but treating boys and girls like two different species doesn't feel like the answer. I wonder what will happen when children who are taught under these specific gender-based conditions are released into the Real World, or into a Co-Ed college environment?

this stuff was Voodoo Magic. I was surprised to see my mother had bought a bottle of the stuff. She told me it really works. Apparently she took it after she went on a flight and she didn't get sick!

Then I told her you're supposed to take it before getting on the plane.

Gotta love the Placebo effect!

I was a little surprised when I saw the responses to this article jump from 19 to 93... and then I started reading some of the new letters.

Inventor guy might be real and is just upset that someone in a similar position to his got caught in an overly aggressive marketing campaign, but most of the others seem like paid shills. I love the identical letters from airborneuser and paintmechocolate.

I'm glad the point was made that "unregulated by the FDA != effective". It's so easy to make money with these dietary supplements, and the overhead is a microscopic fraction of what it would take to develop a real drug. The very reason Big Pharma has to jump through hoops to bring a drug to market is because they have real effects, some good, some not so good. More people have been killed or harmed by drugs than the herbal remedies, so the companies have to be incredibly careful. Imagine the case of a great drug that works for 10,000 people, but for one person it will give them a heart attack.

Honestly, I'd feel better about the supplements if there was some kind of FDA Lite watching over them. How do I know those 1000mg Vitamin C pills aren't just compressed sawdust? Does anyone do any tests on them? If herbal remedies really are as effective as their proponents claim, they should be held to a similar standard as pharmaceuticals.

SSRI anti-depressants are mostly no better than placebo.

If true, I'm surprised it didn't come to light earlier. Isn't a double-blind clinical trial designed to filter out the placebo effect? What about the earlier, more "primitive" anti-depressants?

I've liked xkcd for a while now, but I had no idea Randall was an ex-Roboticist for NASA (and at 23, no less!).

He had a great memorial strip for Gary Gygax: http://www.xkcd.com/393/

Midlife crisis doesn't still work.

I don't understand it, and hardly believe the stories are true.

Why not give it back? If a man proposed and the woman says "no", does she take the ring? This seems like a similar situation. I guess the argument is if the guy is a slimy jerk you get to take two months of his salary? What if the woman breaks off the engagement/is cheating? Does she get to keep the ring as well?

This kind of logic plays into BS65's mindset.

From that article:

Later, Perminov was asked about the presence of two women on the Soyuz, and referred to a naval superstition that having women aboard a ship was bad luck.

"You know in Russia, there are certain bad omens about this sort of thing, but thank God that everything worked out successfully,'' he said. "Of course in the future, we will work somehow to ensure that the number of women will not surpass'' the number of men.

Challenged by a reporter, Perminov responded: "This isn't discrimination. I'm just saying that when a majority (of the crew) is female, sometimes certain kinds of unsanctioned behaviour or something else occurs, that's what I'm talking about.''

He did not elaborate.

"unsanctioned behavior?"

So which is it? Bad luck or nooky in the capsule?

My wife didn't have cravings or morning sickness during her pregnancy. Although I like to take credit for it, I really have no idea what she had such a smooth pregnancy.

I imagine the increased reporting of cravings (setting aside the pica issue) is due to how cravings are played up in the media, as Sarah suggests.