>> What happens to a suicide deferred? A look at the whys and hows of suicide from the NY Times Mag. “The man was grabbed on the eastern promenade of the bridge after passers-by noticed him pacing and growing increasingly despondent. The reason? He had picked out a spot on the western promenade that he wanted to jump from, but separated by six lanes of traffic, he was afraid of getting hit by a car on his way there.” (via fimoculous)

>> Reimagining depression as the effects of an atrophied brain, as opposed to a chemical imbalance. “The effectiveness of Prozac, these scientists say, has little to do with the amount of serotonin in the brain. Rather, the drug works because it helps heal our neurons, allowing them to grow and thrive again.” (via 3qd)

>> Abortion and crime. Freakonomics asks: “Could China’s one-child policy be having the opposite effect today? … What happens when unwantedness hits a generation of men as they get older?”:

In The New Republic, Mara Hvistendahl reports that as the first generation of one-child boys have reached adolescence, the youth crime rate in China has more than doubled, as idle and frustrated boys turn to crime “without specific motives, often without forethought.”

>> The Phone Sex project. Phillip Toledano puts together intimate photo portraits of phone sex workers alongside their own thoughts about their line of work. (via Utne)

>> Fight like a girl. “Girls are no less competitive than boys, they simply employ more subtle tactics, a study of pre-schoolers suggests. While boys use head-on aggression to get what they want, girls rely on the pain of social exclusion.”

Photo by Brett L.

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