Features

• Community design can boost fitness and health, says expert May 11, 2009

  What Moves You?: Our lifestyles are killing us--and costing us--with sedentary habits being one of the biggest contributors. As epidemiologist and physical activity expert Dr. Bill Kohl puts it, we've engineered physical activity right out of our lives, and that's not natural. Read more of this story >

• A rare desert spring ecosystem considered one of Mexico's 13 natural wonders is threatened February 23, 2009

  Troubled Waters: Sprawling across a cactus-studded valley in Mexico's Chihuahuan Desert is a place like no other on the planet. It's called Cuatrocienegas, and it is a crunchy expanse of land isolated in a basin ringed by mountains like salt on the rim of a margarita glass. The seemingly dry, desert area, however, is best known for its life-giving waters--pools, wetlands and rivers filled to the brim with an amazing assortment of unique species. Read more of this story >

Previous Features

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  In Treatment In Treatment: The first day of class in "The Birth of Psychotherapy," taught by historian Dr. Robert Abzug, begins more like a group therapy session than a graduate seminar course. Seven graduate students from a variety of disciplines sit around a u-shaped arrangement of tables. After a round of introductions, Abzug, the Oliver H. Radkey Regents Professor of History and director of the Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies, grabs a marker and invites the class to participate in a brainstorm about the cultural meanings of psychotherapy.

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  Can't Help Falling in Love with You Can't Help Falling in Love with You: For Dr. Tim Loving, Valentine's Day is more than just chocolates, flowers, a nice dinner, smooches and long, loving gazes at your partner. It's also a kind of laboratory of hormones, chemicals, cultural expectations and interpersonal dynamics that raises profound questions about the biological basis of our emotions.

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  Anatomy of an Investor Anatomy of an Investor: Theories on how to play the stock market abound. Buy low, buy companies whose leadership you admire, invest in organizations that reflect your personal values. And don't count out the ever-popular strategy of throwing darts at the newspaper's financial pages. Every investor hopes he or she has figured out how to beat the system and turn a huge profit.

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  Really Extreme Science Todd Ditmire leads the way into his new laboratory below Robert Lee Moore Hall. "We're two floors underground and we're about to go one more floor down to where we're under the high bay," the physics professor says, walking down a flight of stairs. "We're underneath the plaza in front of RLM, three floors underground." He jiggles a key into a lock and swings open the door to a subterranean chamber worthy of a James Bond villain--if...