Category: Science policy
My previous post drew notice to Malcolm Gladwell's recent article and blog posts about the competitive disadvantage our employer-based health-insurance system (and retirement system) inflicts on many American industries. Only hours passed before a commenter offered the (well-worn) argument that providing the obvious solution to this problem -- a national single-payer system providing universal health care -- "would be disastrous ...[if done] before tackling the cost issue."
This "but what about the costs?" argument against single-payer is a canard, and ignores that our system is already a disaster when it comes to costs
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Posted by David Dobbs at 2:05 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Medicine
In his recent New Yorker article, "The Risk Pool," as well as a blog post, Malcolm Gladwell has drawn attention...
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Posted by David Dobbs at 4:28 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Brains and minds
"Errant Behaviors," a video and sound installation by Shawn Decker and Anne Wilson. In response to my post on...
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Posted by David Dobbs at 1:21 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Brains and minds
I've been interested in music and science since taking a physics of music class back in college (20 years later, amazingly, I discovered my violin teacher of 2000, Kevin Bushee, was married to the daughter of the professor who taught that class), so I was intrigued to find this Wired piece in which neuroscientist Daniel Levitin, formerly a rock producer, talks about the neuroscience of music.
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Posted by David Dobbs at 6:33 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture of science
It's good to see NASA hasn't completely abandoned its mandate to look after the home planet. As its Earth Observatory...
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Posted by David Dobbs at 7:57 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Brains and minds
Among the many wonders of neuroscience -- and central to the discipline -- is the brain's plasticity, its ability to...
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Posted by David Dobbs at 5:27 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Brains and minds
My profile of Emory neurologist Helen Mayberg is out now in Scientific American Mind. You can read either a text-only...
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Posted by David Dobbs at 12:47 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Brains and minds
No sooner had I noted that mouse pups seem to handle stress better when near their mothers than I found...
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Posted by David Dobbs at 7:28 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I write on science, medicine, nature, culture and other matters for the New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Slate, National Geographic, Scientific American Mind, and other publications. (Find 
