Health Tips Line

Being related to someone who came over on the Mayflower seems like one of those things that’s easy to claim but hard to back up. Or is it? When I got this assignment, I immediately picked up my phone and called my aunt, our family’s resident genealogist, who not only confirmed that we are indeed descended from people on the Mayflower but also rattled off the exact two passengers and their entire long line of rather prodigious offspring—right down to my dad and her. And we are not alone by any stretch of the imagination. The same two people who spawned my family also have their DNA tentacles in millions of Americans to this very day, from former U.S. presidents to famous actors and artists to little old nobodies like me … and maybe you. Ahead, Neil Fraser, a partner at London’s Fraser and Fraser, one of the world’s top genealogy firms, and Eva Holmes, the director of the Silver Books Project at the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, give us th...

Think you know everything about Frankenstein’s creation? Think again. Sure, you know the guy: green skin, bolts in his neck and a face that could scare the life out of you. Oh, and a vocabulary that doesn’t go much beyond a few grunts. But here’s a Halloween trick for you: Just about everything you picture when you think of Frankenstein’s creature is different from what Mary Shelley originally dreamed up. So how did we get from her famous novel to the monster we know today? Turns out, Hollywood gave the big guy a little makeover. To help us separate Hollywood’s scary version of Frankenstein’s monster from Shelley’s original creation, we spoke with Andrew Scahill, PhD, an assistant film professor at the University of Colorado Denver. As it turns out, the creature has quite the backstory. In fact, according to Scahill, “Shelley’s creature could probably hold his own in your book club.” Who would have thought? Read on to find ou...