Word: adults
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...much of my adult life, I have studied, taught, and written about those whom my dear friend and colleague John Stauffer calls “passionate outsiders”—those despised misfits on the margins of society who happen to look or love or act differently than those at the centers of power and privilege. Perhaps I’ve been drawn to these people because I am one of them. Indeed, we share a sacred bond, one born of exclusion and yet nurtured by the desire not just to be included but to be respected equally...
Construction Ahead One reason scientists have been surprised by the ferment in the teenage brain is that the brain grows very little over the course of childhood. By the time a child is 6, it is 90% to 95% of its adult size. As a matter of fact, we are born equipped with most of the neurons our brain will ever have - and that's fewer than we have in utero. Humans achieve their maximum brain-cell density between the third and sixth month of gestation - the culmination of an explosive period of prenatal neural growth. During the final months...
...areas that coordinate those functions: the part of the brain that helps you know where the light switch is in your bathroom even if you can't see it in the middle of the night. The very last part of the brain to be pruned and shaped to its adult dimensions is the prefrontal cortex, home of the so-called executive functions - planning, setting priorities, organizing thoughts, suppressing impulses, weighing the consequences of one's actions. In other words, the final part of the brain to grow up is the part capable of deciding, I'll finish my homework...
...onslaught. And new research adds fresh support. At puberty, the ovaries and testes begin to pour estrogen and testosterone into the bloodstream, spurring the development of the reproductive system, causing hair to sprout in the armpits and groin, wreaking havoc with the skin, and shaping the body to its adult contours. At the same time, testosterone-like hormones released by the adrenal glands, located near the kidneys, begin to circulate. Recent discoveries show that these adrenal sex hormones are extremely active in the brain, attaching to receptors everywhere and exerting a direct influence on serotonin and other neurochemicals that regulate...
...sense of mean. So far, 2008 is looking like a career year for Bushnell, what with the success of the Sex and the City movie and the success--or, at any rate, the renewal--of her NBC series Lipstick Jungle. She also just announced a deal to write young-adult novels about the teen years of Carrie Bradshaw. One Fifth Avenue should round all that out nicely. It's certainly a page turner of practically Germanic efficiency. But it also reminds us of a weird truth about its author, which is that Bushnell on the page is a far darker...