(Updated) If you’ve ever bought anything off Amazon or looked at restaurant reviews on Yelp, you’re intimately familiar with the power of word of mouth. Marketers know it too, at least as far as its persuasive effect on the …
5 Quick Tips for Dealing With Halloween Candy
What to do with all the trick-or-treating loot your kids will drag home tonight? Fear not, there are ways to let your kids enjoy it without overindulging.
Trick or Treat: L.A. Sheriff Warns of Marijuana-Laced Halloween Candy
From the department of incipient urban legends comes a press release from the L.A. County Sheriff, warning that officers have seized medical marijuana products “packaged to resemble licensed commercial candy and snacks” and that …
Family MattersParenting
Halloween Gone Sour: How Kids Are Getting Tricked Out of Their Treats
What’s happened to Halloween? The celebration of all things sugary has turned sour: dentists are colluding to pay kids for their candy. GreatSchools, an education website, has gone so far as to proclaim trick-or-treating booty an …
FDA to Approve Berlin Heart for Child Transplant Patients
A blood-pumping device commonly referred to as the Berlin Heart, which bridges children to transplant while they’re awaiting a heart, is facing imminent approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It’s already approved in …
Q&A: Two Harvard Docs Talk About Making the Best Medical Choices
(Updated) Critical medical decisions can be difficult to make — even for two Harvard doctors. But Dr. Jerome Groopman, who is also a staff writer for the New Yorker, and his wife, Dr. Pamela Hartzband, have thought a great deal …
Trick or Treat? FDA Warns Against Too Much Black Licorice
Just in time for Halloween, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning people away from eating too much black licorice.
The Healthland Podcast: Super Broccoli, Yo-Yo Dieting, and Why Toddlers Are Terrible
Welcome back! This week on the podcast: why dieters can’t seem to keep the weight off, a new breed of super broccoli that promises to lower your cholesterol, and research suggesting that kids’ aggression can be traced back to …
Family MattersParenting
Film Your Kids, Strike It Rich? Making Videos That Go Viral
First things first: I’m jealous. Katie Clem has a 6-year-old daughter. So do I. Her little girl is earning thousands of dollars for her. Mine is not. This week, The New York Times chronicled the uncanny world we live in, where a …
How Being Socially Connected May Sap Your Empathy
Feeling socially connected is good for you, both physically and mentally, but in a paradox, it may also make you less empathetic to the plight of others.
IVF Linked to Ovarian Tumors. Should Women Worry?
When TV host Giuliana Rancic was recently diagnosed with breast cancer after two rounds of in-vitro fertilization (IVF), cancer specialists were widely quoted as saying that there’s no evidence that the large hormone doses …
A GPS-Enabled Shoe to Track Wandering Alzheimer’s Patients
Now this sounds like a good idea: use GPS-enabled shoes to track the whereabouts of elderly people with Alzheimer’s who may be prone to wandering.