Going on a beer run: the debate continues
The debate over the health impact of booze, and beer in particular, flows on. On one hand, as we’ve noted before, there are multiple risks and benefits associated with alcohol. And “a woman might find the risks and benefits shift over time, with the cancer risks of drinking dictating abstinence in a woman’s youth...
Why does the South hate cyclists?
Walk Score has published its list of the Most Bikeable Large U.S. cities, based on a methodology that includes infrastructure, hills, connectivity and “mode share”—meaning how many fellow bikers are on the road. No surprises here. You know who wins this: Portland, San Francisco, Denver. But dig a little deeper into the site’s...
Before they’re gone: A different kind of bucket list
Normally, a bucket list is litany of things you want to see or experiences you want to have before you are no longer of this earth. Or, more precisely, before you are too much of this earth. Now the Weather Channel has given us a list of things you want to see before they...
Failure to crunch
It might not be your fault. If you don’t like to exercise, or if the exercise you do doesn’t seem to count for much, there are reasons that have nothing to do with your discipline, your will, or your moral fiber. You are not a puss. It’s your DNA. The Wall Street Journal recently...
Travel notes: Do not try to leap over volcanic steam cracks
This ought to be an unnecessary warning, along with “Don’t pet the bison.” But it remains true that what is obvious to you and me might not be clear to someone else. In this case, a 15-year-old visiting Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Said teen thought it would make an excellent story if he were to...
Fauja Singh, the Harold Stassen of road racing
Fauja Singh, the baddest 101-year-old vegetarian marathoner on the planet, has maybe possibly (but not really) retired from competitive racing. Singh, who turns 102 on April 1, finished last weekend’s Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon’s 10-kilometer (6.25-mile) race in 1 hour, 32 minutes, 28 seconds—half a minute faster than he ran it last year...
Someone wants to send you up the river
If everything you know about river cruising comes from Mark Twain (or Davey Crockett), you haven’t been paying attention. (You also haven’t been watching Downton Abbey, which is sponsored by Viking River Cruises.) Right now might be a good time to start taking note. Here’s why: River cruises are booming, especially for Boomers. Booming...
Old Brit wrestles shark, saves children
Oh, you can say it isn’t Jaws. You can point out that the poor animal was probably sickly, possibly dying. But it doesn’t diminish the fact that 62-year-old Welsh grandfather Paul Marshallsea, along with a couple of other old dudes, walked into the ocean off Queensland and harassed a shark until it swam off, apparently...
Go south, old (broke) man
Retiring abroad! It’s like tacking a dragon’s tail onto the withered hindquarters of that 9-to-5 life you led for 40 years. See, you say to your kids, I still thirst for adventure. See, I’m willing to negotiate back alleys in a tropical city where no one speaks my language, just to eat at a...
>60 R2R2R
Darkest January. You have been indoors too much. You’ve counted the fireplace bricks. You know how many paces it is from wall to wall. The terrible and terrifying stories of cabin-fevered trappers suddenly seem plausible. You’re not capable of dismembering anyone. But you can understand how it could happen. Not should. Not yet....
Looking for SWF with DRD4 7R allele?
Let’s say you are single. You’re reading over the entries on Match.com and thinking about a partner for life’s Second or Third Act. Are you looking for a profile that says, “Get with me. I’m likely to die quick, but our time together will feel long because I am dull”? No, you are not. You...
We weren’t going to do a New Year’s list
It is a not particularly esteemed journalistic reflex to concoct lists around January 1. I’ll take a risk and say that it started with doing recaps of the past year: the best of, the worst of, the most this or that. Since then it has spread, mostly because it is a lazy kind of way...
