Risky Behavior

When teenagers engage in dangerous behavior, adults usually chalk it up to some innate fondness for risk - the thrill of an unsafe situation. But in fact, adolescents may be more risk-averse than adults, a new study has found.  Their willingness to engage in risky behavior may have less to do with thrill-seeking per se than with a higher tolerance for uncertain consequences, researchers reported Monday. “Teenagers enter unsafe situations not because they are drawn to dangerous or risky situations, but rather because they aren't informed enough about the odds of the consequences of their actions,” said Agnieszka Tymula, a postdoctoral researcher at New York University and coauthor of a report detailing the study, in a statement.

African American adults who were counseled to eat more produce and get more exercise as ways to reduce their chances of getting cancer and heart disease ate more fruit over the course of a month, researchers said. But they didn't exercise or up their consumption of vegetables, according to the work presented Wednesday at the American Assn. for Cancer Research meeting in Anaheim. The work was looking at the notion that a greater effect could be achieved if people understood that one risky behavior - a poor diet, for instance - is associated with the chance of developing multiple diseases, said Melanie Jefferson of the Medical University of South Carolina, the lead researcher.

One of the women Rep. Anthony Weiner pursued over the Internet didn’t understand how the married New York congressman could take as many chances as he did by sending compromising photos of himself, ones that clearly identified who he was. At first, 26-year-old Meagan Broussard “didn’t think it was him. I thought, for sure, why would someone in that position be doing this?” According to an interview with ABC News, Broussard asked him for proof. Weiner quickly responded by sending her a photo of him holding a piece of paper with the word “me” written on it. Photos: A decade of D.C. sex scandals That was followed by more scandalous shots, one that featured Weiner’s bare torso, with photos of him clearly identifiable in the background, including ones with Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and former President Clinton.

When teenagers engage in dangerous behavior, adults usually chalk it up to some innate fondness for risk - the thrill of an unsafe situation. But in fact, adolescents may be more risk-averse than adults, a new study has found.  Their willingness to engage in risky behavior may have less to do with thrill-seeking per se than with a higher tolerance for uncertain consequences, researchers reported Monday. “Teenagers enter unsafe situations not because they are drawn to dangerous or risky situations, but rather because they aren't informed enough about the odds of the consequences of their actions,” said Agnieszka Tymula, a postdoctoral researcher at New York University and coauthor of a report detailing the study, in a statement.

Risky behavior among teenage boys--involving sex, drug use and violence--may be far more prevalent than youths admit in standard paper-and-pencil questionnaires, according to the first national survey to test a computer-assisted interviewing approach. The findings, reported today in the journal Science, present a "disturbing picture of the biological and social risks that confront young males in the United States at the end of the 20th century," the researchers wrote.

Since its inception in 1991, the largest and longest-running study of American child-care has generated plenty of controversial — and to many working parents, infuriating — conclusions about the effects on kids of early care outside the family. The latest findings of the federally funded Early Child Care Research Network are certain to be no exception. At age 15, according to a study being published Friday in the journal Child Development, those who spent long hours in day care as preschoolers are more impulsive and more prone to take risks than are teens whose toddler years were spent largely at home.

A Spanish bullfighter was badly gored last week, the Associated Press reports, when the bull he was fighting rammed its left horn into his lower jaw, making his eyeball protrude. After being gored, 39-year-old bullfighter Juan Jose Padilla stood up, blood gushing from his face, and was helped from the arena. After a five-hour operation he may be left with facial paralysis and blindness in one eye. While Internet commenters are busy arguing the pros and cons of bullfighting (we'll let you guess which side 99% of the comments are on)

That gay teens are more likely to consider suicide is a well-known and tragic fact . But now research indicates that gay and bisexual teens are also more likely to engage in a wide range of risky behavior -- such as using drugs, alcohol and tobacco; having unprotected sex; and trying to lose weight through diet pills or vomiting.  The news comes from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analysis released Monday of survey responses...

Forget about rock 'n' roll: When rats are administered the highly addictive stimulant methamphetamine and allowed to engage in sexual behavior while high, all they want is more of both. That's the raw finding of a study published Tuesday by the Journal of Neuroscience. It's important because many who use methamphetamine report that it enhances their sexual experience. But because it also reduces their inhibitions , those abusers are more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior , including unprotected sex and anal intercourse.

The banking industry has such a bad rep, its leaders now vie for the honor of being the country's "least-hated" banker. That's the takeaway from a New York Times story that says Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein may have snatched least-hated honors from JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon after the latter trudged to Capitol Hill this week to apologize for losing a pile of money. It's a nice angle on a dry story, but it also highlights the astonishingly low expectations we have for the money club -- the men and women who ostensibly serve as the spark plugs for America's economic engine.

It might not come as a surprise to any parent who has caught their teen-age child red-handed and red-faced while sending a sexually explicit text message, but a new study is suggesting that “sexting” is prevalent among adolescents.    A report published online Monday in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine suggests that the sending and receiving of sexual photos and messages via cellphone and computer, or sexting, is common among teens and may be linked to their sexual behaviors.

The banking industry has such a bad rep, its leaders now vie for the honor of being the country's "least-hated" banker. That's the takeaway from a New York Times story that says Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein may have snatched least-hated honors from JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon after the latter trudged to Capitol Hill this week to apologize for losing a pile of money. It's a nice angle on a dry story, but it also highlights the astonishingly low expectations we have for the money club -- the men and women who ostensibly serve as the spark plugs for America's economic engine.

Roughly one teen in 100 has personally engaged in so-called sexting, the sending of sexually explicit pictures of oneself via digital media, in the last year. But the senders intended the images to be an intimate message for one special recipient may be surprised: 7.1% of Internet-using teenagers told the authors of a study released Monday they had received at least one such image on their phone or computer in the last year. The study , published Monday in the journal Pediatrics , is the first to make an educated guess at how common the practice of sexting is among teens.

Kids who show aggression could have worse health as adults, a study finds. Lifestyle choices -- what you eat, how much you exercise -- may not be the only forecaster of health later in life. A study in the Canadian Medical Assn. Journal finds that behavior in childhood, such as aggression and social withdrawal, could predict more sickness in adulthood. The study, released Monday, followed 3,913 children from 1976 to 1978 when they were in grades one, four and seven, through 1992 to 2006.

Forget about rock 'n' roll: When rats are administered the highly addictive stimulant methamphetamine and allowed to engage in sexual behavior while high, all they want is more of both. That's the raw finding of a study published Tuesday by the Journal of Neuroscience. It's important because many who use methamphetamine report that it enhances their sexual experience. But because it also reduces their inhibitions , those abusers are more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior , including unprotected sex and anal intercourse.

A Spanish bullfighter was badly gored last week, the Associated Press reports, when the bull he was fighting rammed its left horn into his lower jaw, making his eyeball protrude. After being gored, 39-year-old bullfighter Juan Jose Padilla stood up, blood gushing from his face, and was helped from the arena. After a five-hour operation he may be left with facial paralysis and blindness in one eye. While Internet commenters are busy arguing the pros and cons of bullfighting (we'll let you guess which side 99% of the comments are on)

Contact tracing--the practice of notifying the sexual contacts of people with AIDS--is playing a growing role in national AIDS-control efforts. But there is little proof that it does more than fulfill the political needs of public officials, several researchers reported. Edmund F.

"Derailing Illusions That Kill" says that scientists say crossing accidents can be laid to quirks of human perception, and to such things as people having their sound systems turned up so that they can't hear outside sounds (the same thing that bedevils drivers of emergency vehicles). In spite of all the theories and explanations, this is still a simple issue of personal responsibility. I will never be hit by a train, because when I see one coming, I wait until it passes, especially if the gates are down; and if my sound system is so loud I can't hear sounds that may be important to my safety, I turn the thing down.

One of the women Rep. Anthony Weiner pursued over the Internet didn’t understand how the married New York congressman could take as many chances as he did by sending compromising photos of himself, ones that clearly identified who he was. At first, 26-year-old Meagan Broussard “didn’t think it was him. I thought, for sure, why would someone in that position be doing this?” According to an interview with ABC News, Broussard asked him for proof. Weiner quickly responded by sending her a photo of him holding a piece of paper with the word “me” written on it. Photos: A decade of D.C. sex scandals That was followed by more scandalous shots, one that featured Weiner’s bare torso, with photos of him clearly identifiable in the background, including ones with Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and former President Clinton.

That gay teens are more likely to consider suicide is a well-known and tragic fact . But now research indicates that gay and bisexual teens are also more likely to engage in a wide range of risky behavior -- such as using drugs, alcohol and tobacco; having unprotected sex; and trying to lose weight through diet pills or vomiting.  The news comes from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analysis released Monday of survey responses...