Today's Globe: DNR, toxin in toyland, how buildings fall down, patient's 'visions,' digging less to know more, 'Including Samuel'

For families facing the impending death of a loved one, few topics trigger more anguish than the Do Not Resuscitate order.

Specialists on lead poisoning say toys are just one of many ways children can be exposed to lead, which also exists in the air and water and can be passed from mother to child through the umbilical cord or breast milk. And children are more likely to be injured choking on a small toy or crashing their bicycle into a car than by playing with something that contains lead, according to the Consumer Products Safety Commission.

In a dangerous era that has seen major public edifices from the US embassy in Kenya to New York's World Trade Center reduced to smoking rubble by terrorists, structural engineers believe they need a deeper understanding of how damage inflicted on one part of a building can ripple through the rest of the structure in a devastating and often mystifying phenomenon known as "progressive collapse."

Many psychiatrists like to put patients in neat categories, so while scanning the dark hills of a patients' psychopathology, the occasional, brilliant-leafed tree can be missed. It is easy to overlook the substantial gifts and strengths some of our seriously-disturbed patients possess, writes Dr. Ronald Pies, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Tufts University.

John Steinberg (left), a senior researcher at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, has been exploring archeological sites in Iceland since 1999 and for the last two years has led the Skagafjord Archaeological Settlement Survey. The problem with surveying these 1,000-year-old settlements is that you can't see them.

Also in Health/Science, why does a droplet of water dance on a really hot pan and is eating processed or red meat linked to a higher risk of cancer?

In Living/Arts, "Including Samuel" is photographer Dan Habib's 55-minute documentary about his second son, Samuel, who has cerebral palsy and will turn 8 this week. It's the story of his family's efforts to include him in his school, family, and community, and that of other families with a range of experiences with inclusion, both positive and negative.