The Surgeon General has reported that even one cigarette can harm you. Jennifer Ibrahim of Temple's College of Health Professions and Social Work believes America needs to keep up bans and social marketing. "There is a cost associated with a media campaign or awareness campaigns for a smoke free policy, and we know that you get a larger bang for your buck out of that. You are impacting more people with a population-level intervention, than solely a one-to-one smoking cessation interaction," she said.

A Virginia teenager leaving a store with the person who may have kidnapped her shows no signs of stress. Was she a willing companion of her abductor? Adolescents are more likely to comply with someone whom they see as an authority figure, said Temple psychologist Laurence Steinberg. They lack the decision-making skills of adults, and focus on the immediate future. "Twelve-year-olds are going to be more shortsighted, more impulsive and less likely to think of the risks involved," Steinberg said.

With the Christmas buying rush on, be sure to steer away from toys with a mere one-right-answer playing platform, stress the experts. According to Temple developmental psychologist Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, "play itself has become a four-letter word and a dying commodity, but there are still a lot of good toys out there." Children are natural discoverers. “What you don't want are passive toys that command what your child does in their play," said Hirsh-Pasek, co-director of the Temple University Infant Lab.