Want to make cooking easier and more enjoyable? Try these fun and surprising tricks I found in my foodie travels this week, from my two favorite new (and still under-the-radar!) sites. 1. YouTube it with experts. Why cook and screw up when you can learn from the chefs themselves?  Newcomer ChefDay(A fun start-up that delivers pre-measured fresh ingredients you need to cook… Read More >>

If you want to sleep better tonight, it may pay to focus on how well you’re eating right now. While it’s no secret that sleep affects how well you eat—numerous studies have found that skimping on shut-eye may trigger hunger and cravings for high-calorie, high-fat, and high-carb foods—a new study is among the first to explore the reverse: how diet… Read More >>

What’s in a blood type? Potentially a lot, according to several recent studies that correlate different blood groups with everything from risk of heart disease to infertility. While none of these studies are conclusive about cause and effect (they can’t say X blood type causes Y disease) and any increased risks are still pretty small, the research does… Read More >>

When you hear "aphrodisiac," do you immediately think chocolate and oysters? If so, you're right--dark chocolate causes a spike in dopamine, the "pleasure chemical," and oysters contain amino acids that increase sex hormones--but there are plenty of other foods that can also do the trick. Chickpeas. Legumes, like chickpeas, contain phytoestrogens, plant compounds with estrogen-like effects. Estrogen affects sex drive and helps increase sensation. Toss… Read More >>

Celebrity couples rarely have the most realistic view of marriage. Some A-listers employ multiple six-figure nannies. Others presumably  spend more time apart than together. But if any well-known couple can offer common-sense relationship advice,  it's Samantha Bee and Jason Jones, comedians best known for their work on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. In addition to working together, the duo… Read More >>

The Westminster Dog Show has crowned its new superfabulous champ in the form of an affenpinscher named Banana Joe.  Nope, that's not him at left. Because while it's always fun to see the highfalutin' pooches on display, our hearts belong to mixed breeds—or, to state it plainly—mutts. The cutie with the cocked head is Ariel, a lab mix photographed by… Read More >>

Need surgery? It pays to shop around, though it takes diligence to do so. That’s the message from an important new study published this week in JAMA Internal Medicine, in which researchers called upon 122 different medical centers to ask how much a hip replacement would cost for a fictitious 62-year-old grandmother with no insurance. Their findings were outrageous… Read More >>

Released this weekend to general critical acclaim but soft box office numbers, Side Effectsis a film that deserves to reach a wider audience. It's a thriller in the Hitchcock tradition (albeit with modern, R-rated sensibilities) that also aims to tackle relevant issues surrounding prescription medications. Beyond a dizzying plot that leaves you guessing about the nature of main character Emily… Read More >>

Sure, the news is widely available and readily accessible thanks to social media, but how much of it are we really taking in? Pew Research Center, a nonprofit "fact tank" based in D.C., has invited the public to take the News IQ Quizit recently used to survey Americans' knowledge of current events.  The quiz consists of 13 multiple choice questions featuring photos… Read More >>

Ten years ago this week, in a presentation to the United Nations Security Council that he would later call “one of my momentous failures,”then-Secretary of State Colin Powell made the case for a U.S. invasion of Iraq. “Leaving Saddam Hussein in possession of weapons of mass destruction for a few more months or years is not an option, not in a post-September 11th world,” Powell said. Six weeks later, on March 20th, the war in Iraq… Read More >>