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Researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder and Wayne State University asked one group of couples to engage in small talk with another couple for 45 minutes, and a second group to ask and answer more personal questions (such as: What’s the greatest accomplishment of your life?) with another couple for the same amount of time. Those who talked more intimately with another couple felt closer in their own relationships compared to those who engaged in small talk....

If you think your zodiac sign is responsible for your personality, you might not be so far off. Researchers who study birth season and temperament have long surmised that the time of year in which you’re born affects levels of various neurotransmittors, like dopamine and serotonin, both of which play a role in a person’s overall mood—and there’s research to back it up. (Looking to take back control of your health?...

A few moments from now, the research team will carefully preserve Santiago’s tissue in a liquid nitrogen tank chilled to -328°F, adding it to the thousands of other samples from people who, like Santiago, have volunteered for the TRI’s studies—studies that are contributing to a dramatic shift in how we think about muscle. For within those vibrant slivers of Santiago’s quadriceps lies precious information about her current health, as well as a forecast of what her future may hold....

[sidebar]The just-before-night sky stretched to the cliffs bordering the Delaware River. A seldom-traveled road cut a clean, flat path through the farmland. The fireflies glittered in and out of the corn stalks and, as the crescent moon began to glow in the dark, lights blinked on in distant farmhouses. A gentle breeze rustled the stalks and swept away the mosquitoes. We walked to a cluster of barns and silos, about a mile away before turning back in the darkness....

The Top Walking Cities, 1 - 100

Dried cherries (1/4 cup) Picked from orchards in the Great Lakes region, cherries have twice as many antioxidants as red grapes and may help fight arthritis. Try: Welch’s Dried Cherries, $4; supermarkets Try: Whole Foods Market Raw Brazil Nuts, $5; Whole Foods stores Dried yacon (1/4 cup) This Peruvian-grown vegetable looks and tastes like a dried Granny Smith apple. It’s high in cancer-fighting flavonoids and digestion-promoting chlorogenic acid. Try: Navitas Naturals Raw Dried Yacon Slices, $5....

We all need to hear those words from time to time. But for people with the often frustrating, sometimes frightening, and always challenging condition called fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS), it can take several years and half a dozen doctors to get a clean bill of mental health. Fibromyalgia is a ghost of an ailment; it can cause life-altering pain, but it remains invisible to conventional diagnostic tests. Without hard data to study, the medical community has been slow to admit that fibromyalgia exists, let alone to develop treatment strategies....

My bladder’s fallen and it can’t get up.Sadly, there’s no LifeCall button for your bladder when it hits the floor—the pelvic floor, that is. Bladder prolapse, a leading cause of urinary incontinence, is a failure of your pelvic floor muscles to hold your bladder in place. When that sling of muscles and ligaments gets weak and gives way, the bladder can sag into the vagina. It can even drop through it....

MORE: 11 Ways To Dress Up Frozen Veggies “While in many ways a plant-based diet is healthier than the typical American diet, vegetarians and vegans need to be vigilant when it comes to certain nutrients,” says Allison Childress, MS, RDN, CSSD, a nutrition sciences instructor at Texas Tech University. Here are 7 nutrients vegetarians need to keep an eye on: The Nutrient: Vitamin B12How much you need: 2.4 mg/day A recent position paper from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics singled out B12 as one vitamin vegetarians may lack....

The research: When the study team exposed several drug-resistant types of dangerous bacteria to a 6% solution of acetic acid for 30 minutes, the numbers of the bacteria dropped to undetectable levels. The active ingredient in vinegar may have the ability to “pass the bacteria membrane,” explains study coauthor Howard Takiff, MD, of the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research. Once inside the membrane, the vinegar component could raises the pH levels to a point where the bacteria can’t survive, Dr....

Dressing 2 Tbsp agave nectar 2 Tbsp rice vinegar 2 tsp Bragg’s Liquid Aminos or less-sodium soy sauce 1 tsp dark sesame oil Salad 3 c baby spinach 2 blood oranges, peeled and segmented 1 Bartlett pear, thinly sliced 1⁄4 c dried currants or golden raisins 1⁄2 c toasted almonds, for garnish Whisk all dressing ingredients in small bowl.2. In large bowl, combine spinach, oranges, pear, and dried fruit. Toss with light coating of dressing....

When I became a nurse in 1981, I was already on the road to obesity. I gained 80 pounds during my first pregnancy, and they stuck. With my next four children came more weight, and by 2006, I’d hit 277 pounds. I felt embarrassed on the job because I advised patients on nutrition and diet, and they always looked at me sideways as if to say, “Yeah sure, I can see how well you follow your own advice....

The pegan diet—a combination of eating vegan and paleo—is one of the latest eating plans touted as being great for your health. Created by bestselling author Mark Hyman, M.D. and detailed in his book, the pegan diet emphasizes plants over anything else: Most of each plate will be vegan, while a quarter of your diet is meat and eggs. “It’s not one of the more well-known diets that have been around for many years,” explains Selvi Rajagopal, M....

But should you allow Diet Coke a free pass? (Ditto: Housewives.) While sipping diet soda seems harmless, especially in the context of a generally healthy life, a surprising number of substantial studies show the opposite, that drinking Diet Coke and aspartame can greatly interfere with your health. As Dr. Helen Hazuda, professor of medicine at University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, found last year, “[Diet soda] may be free of calories, but not of consequences....

Researchers from Princeton University discovered that the tendency to take pleasure in someone else’s failure—known as Schadenfreude—is biological. But it’s not just any Joe Schmo that provokes us. In the study, participants felt best about negative events happening to professionals they envied. Just because it’s natural doesn’t mean we’ll cop to it, which is exactly why the researchers checked cheek muscle activity to discover any physiological indicators of envy. The results were the same: participants smiled more when negative events (like being soaked by a puddle-skimming taxi) happened to rich professionals....

Sixty-five participants were surveyed about their personality traits; then 682 “informants”—anyone from close friends to mere acquaintances who knew the participants well enough to comment on their characteristics—were asked about them as well. After comparing the outsider and self-reports, most of the participants seemed to have certain traits that they did not use to describe themselves but that a large majority of their informants agreed applied to them. Moreover, the individuals had no idea that others thought they possessed these traits....

MORE: Decoding Your Vaginal Discharge Like the wrinkles on your face, the ones on your vagina can vary widely, according to your lifestyle, age, and genetics. But unlike the ones on your face, you don’t want to treat these with a retinoid, which could end up backfiring by drying out and irritating the delicate skin, says Lynette J. Margesson, MD, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology and surgery at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College....

Today yoga lovers are finding that more time on the mat means more—and steamier—time spent reveling in their newly toned bodies. To take a walk on yoga’s carnal side, add these yoga positions for better sex to your routine. Or just do them by themselves to turn up the heat. Flex Time Is Sex Time Having more flexible muscles and joints definitely helps in assuming those compromising positions. Opening your hips in particular gives you a wider range of motion in your nether regions, allowing for more direct stimulation in just the right spots....

“As we age, skin cells turn over more slowly,” says Jessica Wu, MD, a dermatologist in Los Angeles. And because these areas are always rubbing up against something—your clothes, your desk, your kitchen counter—dead skin tends to build up and get thick, rough, and discolored, she says. Worse, a natural loss of collagen and elastic tissue can cause sagging, especially around joints, where skin is constantly being stretched and contracted....

Find out what else you can pick up from ticks—and brush up on avoidance strategies without giving up the Great Outdoors. Powassan Virus While this virus, which attacks the nervous system, used to mainly linger in a type of tick that didn’t tend to bite people, it’s now found in 5% of deer ticks. “It generally takes 24 to 36 hours for a deer tick to transmit Lyme disease, but only minutes for Powassan,” says Fish....