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Mike Segar/Reuters Slimming Down Alone, Together
Weight loss is often framed as a personal endeavor, but the best outcomes stem from group efforts.
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AI Project / Reuters The Private Lives of Public Bathrooms
How psychology, gender roles, and design explain the distinctive way we behave in the world's stalls
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Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Vladimir Putin, Narcissist?
How the psychology of narcissism might offer insight on the Russian leader
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AP 'I Never Told Anyone Not to Vaccinate'
Vaccination is among the few definitive tenets of disease prevention, but because of rampant misinformation, fear, and scientific illiteracy, rare infections have come back to life.
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Munkyeong Kim/Dreame The Ways to Control Dreaming
The science of lucid dreaming—in which the sleeper is aware she is dreaming—and how it could affect waking life
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Reuters Why Music Sounds Better When You Know the Artist Is Eccentric
Our brains associate eccentricity and creativity in musicians, painters, writers, and other artists—as long as weirdness doesn't feel like a gimmick.
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Yuriko Nakao/Reuters Study: Exercise Helps Aging Brains Grow Larger
Doing aerobic exercise twice a week for 26 weeks significantly increased the volume of older women's hippocampi—the region of the brain associated with memory.
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Damian Gadal/flickr Effort Is Not the Enemy of Compassion
My time acting the part of a patient to teach medical students, and then becoming a real patient myself, taught me the nature of learning empathy.
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Shutterstock New Studies Show Promise for Brain Training in Improving Fluid Intelligence
Though not definitive, new research points to short- and long-term real-world benefits of playing brain-training games.
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Ben Curtis/AP This Is Resilience
One of history's darkest spasms of inhumanity began 20 years ago this week. Remembering unfathomable tragedy and celebrating unprecedented health progress in Rwanda.
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One Man's Story of Eating-Disorder Recovery
Brian Cuban, younger brother of relentless billionaire Mark Cuban, on a life of shame and rejection—and what turned it around
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joeflintham/flickr Hospice for My Mother, as an Addict
Caring for my dying parents reintroduced substances into my life.
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laurenprofeta/flickr The Alcoholic Stockbroker and the Forgotten Alcoholic Doctor
The relationship between Bill Wilson and his Alcoholics Anonymous cofounder, the unsung Dr. Bob Smith, shows that fellowship—not dogma—is at the heart of the 12 Steps.
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<i>The Atlantic Monthly</i> 1922: Strength and Vigor Depend on What You Eat
Some have long known the perils of faulty eating. A prescient vintage Atlantic Monthly ad for yeast.
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Why Selfies Sometimes Look Weird to Their Subjects
It's not your face; it's how your brain works.
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geraintandkim/flickr The Surprising Failures of 12 Steps
How a pseudoscientific, religious organization birthed the most trusted method of addiction treatment
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Stephen Lovekin/Getty Youth, Maturity, and Physicality in New Classical Ballet
One dancer has been at the forefront of the field's aesthetic and demographic shifts. Misty Copeland on immaturity at the peak of one's physical abilities.
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Dean Fosdick/AP Science Compared Every Diet, and the Winner Is Real Food
Researchers asked if one diet could be crowned best in terms of health outcomes. If diet is a set of rigid principles, the answer is a decisive no. In terms of broader guidelines, it's a decisive yes.
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Ahmad Masood/Reuters How Spring Opens the Mind
People who spend more time outside in the springtime feel better, smarter, and more open-minded. Those who spend the time indoors, though, experience the opposite effect.
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Carlos Barria/Reuters How to Not Try
Trying too hard can be counterproductive and unattractive. Use your brain's cognitive control regions to shut down your brain's cognitive control regions.
