I've added a number of new pages to my website: on education, and Alzheimer's. See my latest newsletter for details. If you had trouble using the new jump menus previously, try again -- I've fixed them.

There's an interesting study just reported in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research suggesting that pathological gamblers and alcoholics have distinctive personality traits that affect their cravings. It may be that people who are especially vulnerable to negative emotions are the ones who miss alcohol the most when trying to abstain, while pathological gamblers tend to be people who naturally lack positive emotions and require intense stimuli to experience elation. Gambling, it seems, is more of a stimulant and anti-depression measure; alcohol is more about avoiding anxiety.

A study appearing in the current issue of Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition suggests people aren't bad at evaluating health risks as long as they stick to their own personal experience (that is, use prevalence among people they know, or know of). However, they're less accurate when they rely on media coverage, which tends to cause an over-estimation of infrequent health problems and an under-estimation of common problems.