The common-sense use of the term "addiction" is that regular consumption is irresistible and that it creates problems. Caffeine use does not fit this profile.

Technological developments have driven the obesity plague, but technological change may also be more successful at reducing obesity than attempts to change people's eating and exercising habits have been.

The ability to make cost-effective exploratory efforts is a powerful enabler of innovation. Unfortunately, drug development is far less conducive to this sort of exploration.

A new book on icons stretches the definition too far. Unlike the Coca-Cola bottle, true icons have power and stand at the border of forbidden things

With shows like Seinfeld and Lawand Order people just can't get enough, in part because NBC understood that their proliferation would make them more, not less, addictive.

OxyContin, which offers relief to patients with searing, prolonged agony due to diseases such as cancer, neurological illness and degenerative discs, is getting a bad rap.

As a threat to the nation's health, television stands far higher than alcohol, drugs, or tobacco, and the worry is that it may be too late to do anything about it, since the addiction is all but universal.

The latest bad rap for OxyContin threatens to inflict more pain on those who truly benefit from the drug.