Feature Articles

If you are one of the 48 million Americans who haven't already completed and submitted your 2010 Census form, you may be the lucky recipient of a visit from one of your neighbors.

Kermit had a hard time being green, but we don't have to struggle. Even a frog can make a few changes to reduce waste and improve the planet.

Mark Twain once said, "The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year."

April 1st, a few years ago, my husband and I were on a plane, ready to begin our vacation, when the pilot came on the speaker and asked everyone to disembark.

People may not remember the origin of blue jeans, but no one can forget James Dean strutting across the big screen sporting jeans, a white t-shirt and black leather jacket in Rebel Without a Cause.  Other heartthrobs such as Marlon Brando and Elvis Presley wearing those sexy denims helped spawn jeans' popularity in the 1950's. After generations of being considered sturdy work clothes worn by factory workers and miners, they became part of the off-duty American wardrobe.  Considered controversial and rebellious, some establishments banned them.

Paul Sanberg may be the guy who unseats Juan Ponce de Leon when we think of the fountain of youth. His work with stem cells and cord blood is poised to revolutionize brain health and repair.

Last October I went to Palo Alto, CA for my husband Ken's business school reunion. The trip allowed me to visit two friends from Octel Communications, both of whom have children at Gunn High School. Both hit me with the same news: four children from Gunn had killed themselves since the beginning of the school year.

In this short, easily readable book T. R. Reid, a Washington Post correspondent who has lived in England and Japan and traveled widely,  compares the health care systems in several countries as he asks why the United States has so far been unable to deal with reforming our system.

I once heard someone say that she was very sorry for all the other girls who lost out on her man. Turns out she need not have worried. According to Dr. Helen Fisher, Biological Anthropologist at Rutgers University and chief advisor to the website Chemistry.com, we are not programmed to want to be with the same type of person - we all have our partner types.

Most Chinese dinners end with fortune cookies containing cryptic predictions of happiness, health and foreign travel. When Karen Noseff cracked open a cookie at a fateful dinner not long ago, her fortune might well have read "forget about a career in law; start designing jeans and happiness and success will be yours."