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Meditation found to increase brain size Kris Snibbe/Harvard News Office Sara Lazar (center) talks to research assistant Michael Treadway and technologist Shruthi Chakrapami about the results of experiments showing that meditation can increase brain size. People who meditate grow bigger brains than those who don’t. Researchers at Harvard, Yale, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found the first evidence that meditation can alter the physical structure of our brains. In one area of gray matter, the thickening turns out to be more pronounced in older than in younger people. “Our data suggest that meditation practice can promote cortical plasticity in adults in areas important for cognitive and emotional processing and well-being,” says Sara Lazar, leader of the study and a psychologist at Harvard Medical School. The researchers compared brain scans of 20 experienced meditators with those of 15 nonmeditators. Study participants meditated an average of about 40 minutes a day. Controlling random thoughts Slowing aging?

Drug war cables: 'Burn poppies, burn' - Interactive WikiLeaks: 'Drugs, thugs and facts' around the world maps some of the recently released US cables on the 'war on drugs' Titles from some of the latest WikiLeaks cables on the "war on drugs" read like cheeky tabloid headlines rather than polished prose from international diplomats. "Coke, tokes and inept folks: Can Sierra Leone stay tough on drugs?" reads a secret 2008 cable from the US embassy in Freetown, Sierra Leone's capital. Diplomats in the West African country of Guinea-Bissau wrote: "No confidence in government, [but] high confidence in drugs." In a cable title that could have come from Hunter S Thompson's, diplomats in Mexico expressed fear and loathing for "Drugs and downturn on the border". "Preval on thugs, drugs and his health,” opened a dispatch from Haiti, in words that would impress murdered rap star Notorious B.I.G. The title of a cable written by the US consulate in Guadalajara, Mexico, even riffed on a classic Disney film. Haiti: Drug trafficking 'greatest problem'