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Daily Rounds: High On Nutmeg; Parenting Binge Drinkers; Cancer Clues; UMass Probe; Bigger Brains For Socialites

Can You Get High on Gingerbread? The Truth About Nutmeg – TIME Healthland"...a rash of recent media reports suggests that the allure of gingerbread may be due not to its rich smell and taste alone, but also to the fact that spices like nutmeg, mace, cloves and anise may act like drugs...It's true nutmeg is psychoactive." (healthland.time.com)

Parenting Style Plays Key Role In Teen Drinking : NPR "...what parents do during the high school years can also influence whether teens go on to binge drink or abuse alcohol. Researchers at Brigham Young University have found that teenagers who grow up with parents who are either too strict or too indulgent tend to binge drink more than their peers." (npr.org)

Enlisting the Dying for Clues to Save Others - NYTimes.com "The hope lies in a new breed of cancer drugs that work by blocking the particular genetic defect driving an individual tumor’s out-of-control growth — in the case of Dr. Lo’s patient, a single overactive protein. If researchers can pinpoint which new genetic alteration is driving the cancer when it evades the blockade — as it nearly always does — similarly tailored drugs may be able to hold it off for longer. The crucial evidence resides in the tumor cells of patients who, like Dr. Lo’s, have relapsed." (The New York Times)

Medicaid contracts with UMass Medical School unit scrutinized - The Boston Globe "The focus of investigators is Commonwealth Medicine, a UMass division that pays its top two executives more than $400,000 each in salaries and benefits, more than is paid to the governor and Medicaid director combined. "(Boston Globe)

Social butterflies may have bigger brain structures - Health - Behavior - msnbc.com "Do you spend time with a lot of friends? That might mean a particular part of your brain is larger than usual.It's the amygdala, which lies deep inside. Brain scans of 58 volunteers in a preliminary study indicated that the bigger the amygdala, the more friends and family the volunteers reported seeing regularly." (MSNBC)

This program aired on December 27, 2010. The audio for this program is not available.

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