Health Tips Line

If I have a fatal flaw , it is that I need to be right—especially when someone else is wrong. As a child, I was an absolute menace about correcting people, and in case you’re wondering whether that’s a great way to make friends, I can confirm it is not. So as I got older, I learned to bite my tongue. Sometimes literally. Tasting a little blood and having friends is preferable to the alternative, because quite often, being right is not worth the social cost. Take a recent dinner party where a friend confidently announced that we only use 10% of our brains. Just said it, like it’s a fact. It is not a fact. As a science writer who has covered this topic, I could feel my eye beginning to twitch. This is one of the most thoroughly debunked health myths—brain scans show activity across virtually the entire brain—and yet here it was, being delivered with complete confidence over dessert. I managed to stay quiet for approximately 45 seconds before I could...

Sports memorabilia is big business. Can you think of another market where someone’s sweaty old gym shorts could fetch thousands, even millions, of dollars? It happens all the time, and now there’s news of another big-ticket item that’s hitting the auction block. Nope, it’s not an Air Jordan sneaker or an NFL star’s Super Bowl ring. This piece of sports history is even bigger. What’s up for sale this month is a jersey that belonged to an absolute legend—not just of his game, but of all sports and all time. When I was a kid, my buddy had a poster of him on his bedroom wall. As an athlete myself (albeit a little lacking in the discipline, let alone talent, to make it to the bigs), I looked at it all the time, wondering how someone so young could be such a huge star. Who is this mystery person, what did he accomplish and why is his jersey expected to fetch that astronomical price at auction ? Read on to find out all the details, and get that checkb...

I have buttoned thousands of shirts in my life. Maybe tens of thousands. (I am a mom of five.) I am a grown adult with multiple degrees and a functioning brain, and yet the first time I grabbed my husband’s flannel to throw on before walking the dog, I stood there for a full 30 seconds, brow furrowed, hands fumbling like I’d never encountered a button before. Why did it feel so strange? Was I having a stroke? No. I was just experiencing one of the most common and most casually accepted little fashion quirks : the fact that buttons and zippers are on opposite sides depending on whether the clothing is designed for men or women. I don’t know how, in all my years of dressing myself, I’d never noticed it before. Men’s buttons and zippers go on the right side; women’s go on the left. It’s so standard that we rarely think to ask why or even notice it, and yet once you start pulling on that thread, you end up in a surprisingly interesting tangle of his...

Raise your hand if you raced home from school in the 1980s to watch Little House on the Prairie reruns. Or plopped on the living room rug before bed to watch the original series, which ran on NBC from 1974 to 1983. If you’re like me, you did both, but the real draw of the Ingalls family, for me anyway, came from the books . I still reread them every few years, and when I moved to Minnesota 25 years ago, one of the first things I did was sign up for a 10-mile race through the Big Woods near Pepin, Wisconsin. As fans know, that’s where Laura and her family lived before the sounds of too many ax swings prompted them to push off in search of a new life. Well, Half-Pint fans, the long-awaited Netflix reboot of the celebrated classic is finally here, and the trailer just dropped. I admit I felt a twinge of sadness that sweet Michael Landon is no longer with us, and Melissa Gilbert’s feisty little Laura exists only in my memory, but you guys, this reboot looks good! Read on...

If there’s one thing we love to see, it’s Prince William shouting with joy as he cheers on his football ( aka soccer ) team from the stands. And it’s clear this is his favorite kind of royal role, by far. As both the Prince of Wales and patron of the U.K.’s Football Association (FA), William gets pitch-perfect tickets to all the best games. He even occasionally gets to do a Ted Lasso–style motivational talk with the players and coaches. That’s what he did recently on a surprise visit to England’s soccer headquarters before the team departed for the World Cup . Football’s biggest competition kicks off on June 11 and runs through July 19 in North America—England’s first qualifying game is against Croatia on June 17, in Dallas—so it was the perfect time to give the crew a boost. So how did William give them a royal rev-up? Read on to find out. Get  Reader’s Digest ’s  Read Up newsletter for more royals...