Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Today's Globe: rock stars, stents, learning to think

Living fast and dying young has long been part of rock 'n' roll lore. And now there are statistics that affirm the image, according to a study released yesterday. Researchers studied a sample of
North American and British rock and pop stars, including Jimi Hendrix (left) and Janis Joplin (right) and concluded they are more than twice as likely to die a premature death as ordinary citizens of the same age.

Drug-coated stents were linked to a higher death rate when given to people with a certain type of heart attack, a finding that may limit doctors' use of the mesh tubes to prop open arteries.

Literacy is so much entwined in our lives that we often fail to realize that the act of reading is a miracle that is evolving under our fingertips, neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf of Tufts University writes on the op-ed page. The reading brain is slowly becoming endangered -- the unforeseen consequences of the transition to a digital epoch that is affecting every aspect of our lives, including the intellectual development of each new reader.

Posted by Elizabeth Cooney at 06:35 AM

Print | E-mail to a friend | Permalink | Subscribe via rss