June 2018

The Marshall Project and Mother Jones Leona Godfrey was sitting down to dinner at a TGI Fridays in Orange, Connecticut, in December 2013 when she glanced at a television and saw her little brother’s name on the local news. Davon Eldemire had tried to rob a small grocery store, shooting and injuring the owner. “I was devastated,” Godfrey recalled. “What was he thinking? I couldn’t eat.” He was 20. She was 10 years older and had helped raise him, looking on in shame as he piled up an arrest...

While traffic stop interactions with the police may be shrugged off as brief inconveniences for whites, for black Americans, they can lead to humiliation , violence , and even death . This has become clear over the last few years, as videos have surfaced, hashtags have trended, and reports have been released —opening up the black box of negative interactions between the police and drivers of color for the world to see. A forthcoming book, “ Suspect Citizen: What 20 Million Traffic Stops...

Lifting weights might also lift moods, according to an important new review of dozens of studies about strength training and depression. It finds that resistance exercise often substantially reduces people’s gloom, no matter how melancholy they feel at first, or how often — or seldom — they actually get to the gym and lift. There already is considerable evidence that exercise, in general, can help to both stave off and treat depression. A large-scale 2016 review that involved more than a...

Leading research universities have played a central role in America’s dominance of high-tech sector after high-tech sector. From software to biotech, the technology and talent streaming out of these universities have been crucial to the startups that have powered innovation and local economic growth in many regions. Silicon Valley is unimaginable without Stanford University. The innovation ecosystem of Boston and Cambridge turns on MIT. And research universities have played a key role in...

The approach to the treatment of youthful offenders has changed dramatically in the last 20 years. Systemic models that once focused on using vocational training as a means of rehabilitation have recently evolved into mental health-focused treatment programs and reentry efforts. Diversion programming and restorative justice have replaced reform schools, as a juvenile justice reformation is in full swing nationwide. Conversations among practitioners, academicians and policymakers seem to be...

Saw this great article by Jenny Anderson in Quartz this morning. Here are some excerpts (and thanks for sharing such great stuff Robin Cogan ). Read full article.

Survivors of childhood trauma deserve all the peace and security that a loving relationship can provide. But a history of abuse or neglect can make trusting another person feel terrifying. Trying to form an intimate relationship may lead to frightening missteps and confusion. How can we better understand the impact of trauma, and help survivors find the love, friendship and support they and their partner deserve? How People Cope With Unresolved Trauma Whether the trauma was physical, sexual,...

Excerpts from an excellent article by Smita Malhotra:

Photo by Terabass/ CC-SA-3.0 It was around 2010 that Dr. Angela Bymaster was seeing a disturbing pattern in the histories of her adult patients. She already knew that patients who saw her at the Valley Homeless Health Care Program in San Jose, CA, where she worked at the time, were homeless or recently homeless. What was most troubling to Bymaster was knowing that their current precarious existence could have been prevented. Dr. Angela Bymaster “Over and over and over again I was hearing the...

The problem about being a tourist in the world of endocrinology and molecular biology is that some of the finer points of the science can be beyond us. However, Echo takes great pride in being able to sift through and break down complex concepts, making them accessible to the people who need this information – and when it’s trauma-related that means just about everyone. One of the things we get excited about is cortisol. Cortisol is one of the cocktail of stress hormones that get released...

The ripple effect of childhood trauma seeps into parenthood but is not addressed, leaving the parent unprepared to identify when they are triggered, why they are triggered, or what to do about it when it happens.

When it comes to reproductive health, it’s no secret that a pregnant mother’s choices and environment can severely impact her child’s epigenetics and health—especially mothers suffering from PTSD . But it turns out fathers who have suffered significant stress early on in their life may also epigenetically impact the physical and mental health of their offspring. It was previously thought that fathers only passed DNA to the mother’s egg during fertilization, but it was recently discovered...