For those of you who have ever wondered, would Darwin take Xanax? - and I know that you're out there - there's finally an answer: no, because depression is a sign of strong evolutionary adaptation. Or something. Maybe.According to a report discussed this week in Newsweek, depression may be an "adaptation" in human beings - and, oddly, rats - that provides for selection of stronger, fitter humans:

Last week, I wrote about a mother losing her unborn child to swine flu. This week, I'm going to write about the death of a thirteen year old boy. Am I trying to scare you? Hell, yeah.I wrote yesterday at Their Bad Mother about Evan Frustaglio, the thirteen year old Toronto boy who died suddenly from H1N1 this week:

You have to look out for the flu, do you hear me? You, and everyone you know. That may or may not mean getting a flu shot - more on that below - but either way, watch for it, cover your mouth, wash your hands, see the doctor... do whatever it takes to contain it. Especially if you are pregnant, or know someone pregnant, or might possibly one of these days sneeze on someone who is pregnant. Because those someones? Their lives - and the lives of their babies - depend on it.

It might sound counter-intuitive to say that abortion rights are a maternal health issue - after all, abortion does, in a (contestable) manner of speaking, prevent motherhood.

When my daughter was an infant, I was terrified to leave her alone to sleep. I'd heard the stories, seen the warnings, read all the statistics: young babies sometimes die. In their sleep. Inexplicably. And no known means of prevention.