CHRONIC STRESS CHANGES THE BRAIN: But relaxation can change it back.

GASOLINE and ice cream.

REASON TV: Richard Vedder, author of Going Broke By Degree: Why College Costs Too Much, talks about — you guessed it — why college costs too much. Say, if college costs are rising faster than medical costs, isn’t that a crisis?

FASTER, PLEASE: New DNA Test Uses Nanotechnology To Find Early Signs Of Cancer. “Using tiny crystals called quantum dots, Johns Hopkins researchers have developed a highly sensitive test to look for DNA attachments that often are early warning signs of cancer. This test, which detects both the presence and the quantity of certain DNA changes, could alert people who are at risk of developing the disease and could tell doctors how well a particular cancer treatment is working.”

ENERGY WORKERS rally against climate legislation.

HMM: “To put it plainly: The Arctic Sea was carrying some sort of anti-aircraft or nuclear contraption intended for a nice, peaceful country like Syria, and they were caught with it.”

EVOLVING ROBOTS learn to lie to each other.

BILL NYE THE SCIENCE GUY loves electric cars.

THE SPIRIT ROVER: 2,000 days of work on Mars.

THE TRUCK IS “meant to be obnoxious and cause shame.” Can we park it in front of politicians’ houses?

UPDATE: Bill Allison writes: “Forget their homes — let’s park it in front of the Capitol.” Heh.

IN THE MAIL: From Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson, The Battle for America 2008: The Story of an Extraordinary Election.

LINE-BY-LINE: Some Obama iconography.

Bill Whittle would be proud.

THOUGHTS ON healthcare and the banality of evil.

J.D. JOHANNES travels with Afghanistan’s jet set.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: “Gosh, what a surprise: A committee of their fellow senators has decided that Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad did nothing unethical when they took out loans from Countrywide Financial on the kind of favorable terms not available to us mere mortals without their financial or political standing – or a personal connection to the head of Countrywide. . . . The senators on the committee have a point: This VIP program – called Friends of Angelo after Angelo Mozilo, the head of Countrywide at the time – wasn’t restricted to U.S. senators; it seems to have been open to a wide, bipartisan range of politicians with pull as well as anybody Angelo Mozilo took a liking to. . . . Something else seems to have escaped these two U. S. senators – namely, that they are U.S. senators. Which means their getting a loan at a preferential rate through the head of a corporation like Countrywide, which was very much dependent on favorable treatment by the government before it came crashing down at great expense to the taxpayers, is quite different from a private citizen’s getting a mortgage at the same preferential rate.”

FABIUS MAXIMUS: A revolution is not a dinner party. Thoughts about the future of China.

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE: From the Horse’s Mouth: They Plan On A Slippery Slope.

ANN ALTHOUSE AND BOB WRIGHT: On Bloggingheads TV.

THE GOAL: Eliminate private insurance altogether.

BYRON YORK: What Happened to the Antiwar Movement? Cindy Sheehan Responds. Sheehan writes: “The ‘anti-war’ ‘left’ was used by the Democratic Party. I like to call it the ‘anti-Republican War’ movement.” Some of us, of course, figured this out a long time ago. But it’s nice that she’s figured it out now . . . .

RUSS CARNAHAN makes a new hire.

EUGENE VOLOKH: Yale University Press Buys Into the Blame-the-Speaker Approach.

NAT HENTOFF: I am finally scared of a White House administration.

TAXPROF: Is Obama’s Tax Reform Panel Fizzling Out? Sounds like nobody ever lit the fuse. Was Paul Volcker just for show?

RYAN SAGER IN THE NEW YORK TIMES: Don’t Call It Astroturf. “Here’s a rule: Organizing isn’t cheating. Doing everything in your power to get your people to show up is basic politics. If they believe what they’re saying, no matter who helped organize them, they’re citizens and activists. The language at the town halls may get ugly and rough. But it’s not Astroturf.”