Tag Archives | Baby Boomers

Theodore Roszak Dies At 77

By on July 13, 2011 in News 0

TheodoreRoszakDr. Theodore Roszak died in his home on July 5th at the age of 77. Roszak was an expert on the ‘young generation’s drug-fueled revolt against authority’ during the 1960s and wrote the book on counterculture, literally. Best known for his writings, such as The Making of an Elder Culture: Reflections on the Future of America’s Most Audacious Generation and Where the Wasteland Ends: Politics and Transcendence in Postindustrial Society. Though he is now gone, his ideas and influences continue to affect America’s society. Via The New York Times:

Theodore Roszak, who three weeks after the Woodstock Festival in 1969 not only published a pivotal book about a young generation’s drug-fueled revolt against authority but also gave it a name — “counterculture” — died on July 5 at his home in Berkeley, Calif. He was 77.

His wife, Betty, in confirming the death, said he had been treated for liver cancer and other illnesses.

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Who’s Being Sexually Irresponsible? Baby Boomers

By on October 4, 2010 in News 18

old-people-birdIt’s time to have a talk with Grampa. A sweeping new study of Americans’ sexual behavior shows that while young people are waiting longer to have sex, and being safe about it when they finally do, hordes of baby boomers and older people are out of control — they’re engaging in risky, unprotected sex with “dates and casual acquaintances,” apparently because they don’t know any better or don’t care. TIME writes:

As far as sexual behavior goes, we may be worrying about the wrong people. The kids, it turns out, may be all right. It’s the boomers who are being all, like, irresponsible and stuff. At least that’s the finding of the largest nationally representative survey of the sexual behavior of Americans ever undertaken.

The study showed that among men over 50, 91% did not use a condom when they had sex with a date or casual acquaintance, and 70% didn’t even do so when they had sex with someone they just met.

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Brain Becomes Slower But Shrewder With Age

By on March 1, 2010 in News 2

Brain ScanEncouraging news from the boomers’ favorite news service, NPR:

For baby-boomers, there is both good news and bad news about the cognitive health of the aging brain.

Brain researcher Gary Small from UCLA conveys the bad news first: “Reaction time is slower,” he says. “It takes us longer to learn new information. Sometimes it takes us longer to retrieve information, so we have that tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon — where you almost have that word or that thought. That’s typical of the middle-age brain.”

As we age, our ability to multi-task diminishes. “We’re quick, but we’re sloppy when we’re in middle-age. We make more errors when we’re in middle age,” says Small.

The Older, But Wiser, Brain

But Small has found that it’s not all bad news. He points to a continued improvement in complex reasoning skills as we enter middle age. Small suggests that this increase may be due to a process in the brain called “myelination.” Myelin is the insulation wrapped around brain cells that increases their conductivity — the speed with which information travels from brain cell to brain cell.

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