Table of contents for August 2014 in Reader's Digest

EVERY MORNING, at 7:30 sharp, I read the most important e-mails of my day, the ones I receive from you. I’ve developed a name for some of them: lessons in kindness. After we ran “Plane Crash in the Wilderness” (January 2014), a woman wrote to me. She noted that parents Donald and Rosemarie Evans had been unable to work due to their grievous injuries, and she wanted to donate $500 to “brighten their spirits.” How could she get a check to the family? In “The Caring Janitor” (May 2014), we told of everyday hero Miguel Alvarez, who stayed and tended to 19 elderly patients who were abandoned after their nursing home was forced to close. Four readers asked us where they could send a check for Miguel, a father of…

ONE FEBRUARY afternoon, Jesus Delgado was on break behind T2 Tacos, where he works as a line cook, when he heard a commotion. He ran to the front of the Los Angeles taco stand and saw a man and a woman arguing. She was screaming for help and had two young boys at her side. All of a sudden, the man punched her in the mouth, grabbed the smaller boy, and ran down the street. “I followed my instincts and chased him,” Jesus, 35, told the Argonaut newspaper. The older boy ran in the other direction to get help. A group of teenagers who had witnessed the assault assisted the woman and called 911. She told them that she was the boys’ nanny. Within a few blocks, Jesus caught up…

THE VAST MAJORITY of our nation’s people can buy pretty much anything they need. Not anything they want, necessarily, but anything they need to achieve a satisfactory degree of creature comfort: clothing, water, shoes, shelter, food. Beer, throwing stars, charcoal, Doritos, iPhone apps. The staples. Once upon a time for me, a Michael Pollan book would have been the prize of my year, were I to find it waiting under my Christmas tree or unwrap it upon my birthday. Now I can preorder from Amazon before the ink is even dry on the pages there in the book machine. I also used to thrill at receiving necessary items as presents, like simple socks or work gloves. Nowadays I have too many gloves. I purchase leather gloves online that appear to…

BIOLOGIST Janine Benyus likes to tell stories about using nature to solve our problems. For instance, a company called Arnold Glas was concerned about all the birds killed when they fly into windows. The company’s scientists asked, How has nature solved this kind of problem? The answer, Benyus says, is spiders. “Spiders build webs for bugs,” she explains. “But birds obviously would destroy the webs, so spiders weave in strands of silk that reflect UV light. Birds can see it, but bugs and humans can’t.” So the company includes UV-reflective material in its Ornilux glass. “Now it sells bird-safe windows,” says Benyus. With that, she illustrates the big idea behind “biomimicry” (the term she coined in 1997): that humans can borrow the best ideas from the natural world. Her consulting…

IT WAS SEPTEMBER 1990. I stood in front of 300 visitors, staff, and students at the Naval Special Warfare Center for graduation, on the verge of becoming a bona fide rootin’-tootin’, parachutin’, deep-diving, demo-jiving, running, gunning Navy SEAL frogman. Only months earlier, I’d been in New York City, the perfect overachieving guy living the prototypical American dream. After college, I had blithely entered the corporate world of accounting and consulting, where I’d racked up credentials and set my sights on a moneyed future. But after some years, I found myself unhappy with the daily grind, feeling more at peace during intense workouts at the dojo or running through the early-morning streets. Moment of Reckoning During one of my runs, I noticed a poster for the SEALs outside a Navy recruitment…

CYDNEY MILLSTEIN knew moving would be stressful. But she didn’t foresee the emotional land mines buried in the belongings she had to sift through, like the possessions of her husband, John Gutowski, a photographer who had died about three years prior, after surgery for brain cancer. Millstein reread his journals and numerous sympathy cards. She cried a lot. It felt too hard to press on. “I was grieving all over again,” she says. Emotional roadblocks can blindside people as they’re moving, says Harriet Barrish, a Leawood, Kansas–based psychologist. “There’s a lot of emphasis on losses when you move,” Barrish says. “As much as we don’t think we get attached to things, we do.” To get through the tough transition, enlist friends to help you decide which items to get rid…

I AM TRAINED to be a critic. The summer after graduation, I had a temporary job teaching. I lectured my writing students on the power of words: “Beware the thoughtless adjective, the vague pronoun.” I drew X’s over entire paragraphs. I pointed at their pages and said, “Imagine you’re the editor who pulled this from the slush pile. Is there a glaring typo in the first paragraph? Bam! Rejected.” The students, a motley collection of high school juniors, stared back at me blankly. They enjoyed writing and saw no need for histrionics. One week, I rescheduled my classes to attend a friend’s wedding in Hawaii. After a three-hour bus ride, I had tangled hair but no brush, so I ran my fingers through the worst of the knots and walked…

WHENEVER I HEAR a recording of John Denver singing “Sunshine on My Shoulders,” I find myself smiling, drawn to a love of the sun and outdoors I’ve had for decades as a Michigan native. My backyard is piled with kayaks, canoes, and long boards. Walking barefoot to the lake, playing shirtless in the sunlight, and breathing fresh air feel good. As a preventive cardiologist, I can tell you they are also very good for your heart. Stroll in the Sun Studies have found higher rates of high blood pressure among people with the lowest sun exposure. One reason may be due to nitric oxide, a gas whose production is stimulated when your skin is exposed to the sun’s rays. Nitric oxide makes arteries resist contraction, plaque, and blood clotting, reducing…

A Better Blood Pressure Measure Your doctor likely checks your blood pressure in one arm, but a Framingham Heart Study suggests that taking readings in both arms may help better identify patients at higher risk of heart disease. When researchers analyzed data on nearly 3,400 patients over 13 years, they found that about 10 percent of participants showed higher systolic readings (the upper number) in one arm. Those with arm-to-arm discrepancies of ten points or more were 38 percent more likely to have a heart attack, stroke, or other coronary event. Such imbalances may indicate plaque in major arteries. Milk Does Your Knees Good Low-fat or fat-free milk may help slow the progression of arthritis in the knee, found a Brigham and Women’s Hospital study. Researchers asked 1,260 women with…

IT’S A WELL-CONCEIVED first date for lifelong surfer Chase Newsom and scuba dive master Cynthia Hatfield: The two Southern Californians will spend an afternoon honing Cynthia’s novice surfing skills on the waters of Orange County’s Aliso Beach. Unfortunately, their Saturday afternoon date comes on the heels of the worst Pacific storm to hit the area in years, and by the time they put on their wet suits, the water is too rough. The surfing lesson is out of the question. The two agree to splash around in the shallow water just a few feet from shore instead. But within seconds, they realize their mistake. An eightfoot wave comes in with startling force. Chase, the surfer, lets the water push him toward shore, where he stands and collects himself. But when…

PROSECUTOR: How fast was the car coming toward you? WITNESS: I am not a thermometer, so I can’t tell you the speed limit. ATTORNEY: What did the doctor tell you was the condition of the body when he performed the autopsy? WITNESS: He described it as dead. PROSECUTOR: Do you see the defendant in court today? WITNESS: Yes, I do. PROSECUTOR: How is he dressed? WITNESS: He looks pretty sharp. PROSECUTOR (addressing the court): The People have evidence that the life of the witness is in jeopardy, and it is reasonable to apprehend he will not be able to attend the trial if he is not alive at that time. ATTORNEY: Can you explain what “state-dependent memory” refers to? WITNESS: Yes. If a law student is drinking while studying for…

When Kevin Richardson steps through the gate and onto a stretch of pristine South African grassland, time appears to ripple. The disturbance causes a momentary abatement in the roar of the cicadas; the only sound is the crunch of dry grass under his boots. Then the air shivers, and half a metric ton of flesh and muscle bursts from the veld: an adult lion and lioness, their movements so fluid, they seem poured from the bush. Before Richardson can prepare himself, the cats paw his head and bring him down. “Bobcat! Gabby!” he coos. “Come here, my babies!” The lions flop on top of him like kittens at play. Over the past 17 years, millions have watched similar encounters on news segments and nature-channel shows: Richardson, whose fans call him…

I REMEMBER HIM on his first day in sixth grade, standing alone in the corner of the classroom as we picked out our desks. He was the new kid and the only black face in a sea of white. More than that, he was an outsider, literally. He lived in pre-gentrified Harlem, whereas most of us lived on the tony West Side of Manhattan or the even tonier East Side. He had to have been petrified. A few days later, and he had yet to connect with anyone. Our teacher asked me to talk to him, draw him out. At the time, I was wondering who would draw me out. But I dutifully got up from my desk, went over to where he was sitting, and said, “Hi.” He replied,…

EVEN SUCCESSFUL telemarketers have an estimated 96 percent chance of being turned down, says one company. What does that mean for you? With odds so low, out of sheer desperation, we will be relentless in trying to keep you on the phone. Surprise number one: You can’t just screen my calls using caller ID. If you don’t pick up, I mark your lead (our lingo for file) as “no answer,” and the system programs another call for a few days later. If my company does not have a large lead pool, you may get called as soon as 12 hours later. If you’re dealing with this kind of aggressive campaign, it’s actually better to answer than to let the phone keep ringing. When you answer, I’ll try to sell the…

SAVING MONEY Garage Sale Savvy Tips from the pros: If you’re eyeing a big item, pounce at the end of the day, when sellers are motivated to drop the price to get that dining table off their lawn. Also, watch for office supplies (always handy) or ugly art that’s well mounted—frames are pricey! For jewelry, snatch up pretty brooches, which are out of vogue right now, and upgrade these bargains into necklaces or holiday decorations. MOST POPULAR ON FACEBOOK PHOTOS Dive In Photographer Clark Little captures otherworldly waves from an unbelievable perspective, as in this shot from his book Shorebreak. MOST RETWEETS ON TWITTER QUOTES Motivation From Winston Churchill “You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.” EVERYDAY WELLNESS How Doctors…

My father always said, “Never trust anyone whose TV is bigger than their bookshelf.” EMILIA CLARKE, actress People is more important than anything, even grammar. DAN HARMON, TV writer AIRPORTS SEE MORE SINCERE KISSES THAN WEDDING HALLS. THE WALLS OF HOSPITALS HAVE HEARD MORE PRAYERS THAN THE WALLS OF CHURCHES. ANONYMOUS The man who forgets to be grateful has fallen asleep in life. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON You show people what you’re willing to fight for when you fight your friends. HILLARY CLINTON True heroism ... is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost but the urge to serve others at whatever cost. ARTHUR ASHE WORK BEGINS WHEN THE FEAR OF DOING NOTHING AT ALL FINALLY TRUMPS THE TERROR OF DOING IT BADLY. ALAIN DE BOTTON, author…

A World Without Meds Just two months ago, I was unable to get my pain meds due to a manufacturer shortage, and I had to use another drug that didn’t work nearly as well. I wish this problem on no one. CAROL FANNALY, Denham Springs, Louisiana How can drug companies justify extremely high executive wages and million-dollar ad campaigns while not producing desperately needed medications? What a travesty! PHILLIP W. MORGAN, Astoria, Oregon The Ones They Saved As a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau, I am very grateful that every so often, you remind the world of the Holocaust. I did appreciate the picture of the tree at the entrance to Auschwitz (“What the Tree Saw,” April 2013) and now this heartwarming story of the brave couple Gil and Eleanor Kraus. We…

FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES I WENT ON A ROAD TRIP with my mother in Northern California a few years back. If you were heading down the mountain on Route 101, you probably remember us. Cars were lined up behind us for at least three miles. Once in a while, a driver would become so unhinged driving 35 miles per hour for 40 miles that he would hit the gas hard in a no-pass zone, risking death in a ravine—an option, after being on the road for four days with my mother, I was wistfully considering myself. My mother wasn’t doing anything as heavy-handed as saying, “You’re going too fast.” She just read the road signs out loud for a few hours, as if they were something she had just…

BY THE TIME Tracy DeBrigida arrived at the field, her 13-year-old son’s baseball game had already started. There were no bleachers and not a lot of open places to sit, so she laid out her blanket against a fence behind the first base line. The fields near Palmer Elementary School in Easton, Pennsylvania, were packed on this July 2009 morning. At least six games were already under way in the first round of a Little League tournament organized by the Lehigh Valley Stealth baseball team. Just as Tracy arrived, the teams began warming up for the second inning, and she chatted with her husband, John, both then 39, who was first base coach. Suddenly, John heard a ball slam against something. He figured it had hit the fence—until he turned…

THE SOLUTION TO THE gender divide in housework generally is just that simple: Don’t bother. Leave the stairs untidy. Don’t fix the garden gate … Never make the bed. A clean house is the sign of a wasted life, truly. STEPHEN MARCHE, novelist, in the New York Times WOMEN’S MAGAZINES aren’t really about what women want at all but about what men want of women and therefore what women should want. According to these magazines, women are expected to be strong yet soft, intelligent, but not more so than the man, wild yet domestic. KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR, retired NBA player, in Esquire WE HAVE BECOME a nation of promiscuous punctuators … When a single point denotes basic human warmth, more points are needed to convey enthusiasm (!!), even more to convey…

FROM NUTRITION ACTION HEALTHLETTER Unwashed Bagged Greens Aren’t Safe DON’T WORRY U.S. companies recalled bagged salad greens at least eight times in 2012, usually because of contamination from listeria bacteria (luckily, there were no reported illnesses). But washing bagged greens that say washed on the label doesn’t help … and may hurt. “Once disease-causing bacteria become attached to leafy greens, it’s difficult to remove them by rinsing with water,” says Food and Drug Administration producesafety expert Michelle Smith. “The greater likelihood is that you’ll make a safe product unsafe because of cross-contamination with bacteria from your fingers, cutting boards, countertops, or the sink,” adds Smith. Do watch out for spoilage, though—produce is more susceptible to pathogens when its surface starts breaking down. THE BOTTOM LINE: Don’t rewash bagged, prewashed greens.…

SMARTPHONES HAVE great cameras built in, yet their design can leave something to be desired. For example, if a camera moves mid-shot, of course the picture is going to be blurry. So why is it customary to take smartphone pictures by tapping a button on the screen, thereby sending a small quake through your device? The good news is that there are plenty of easy ways to get around frustrating quirks and take great photographs with your smartphone. Here are some winning ideas to help you nail that shot. Use a Superior App Your phone comes with a basic camera app, which generally provides a no-frills point-and-shoot experience with limited ability to edit photos. You can do better. Look for options that allow you to eliminate camera shakiness and to…

I BRAGGED to my boss that I didn’t need painkillers after a major surgery. His response: “This time, your evil superpowers came in handy.” PATRICIA SPEILBURG, Port Huron, Michigan I’M PRETTY SURE the dinosaurs died out when they stopped gathering food and started having meetings to discuss gathering food. From meetingboy.com “SO WHAT’S THAT brush for?” the new hire asked. “It’s used to clean toilet bowls in the lobby,” said the first manager. “Actually, it’s for scrubbing deep fryers,” said the second manager. “Well, I’ve been cleaning toilets with it,” said the first manager. “Um, I’m putting in for a new brush,” said the second manager. From notalwaysworking.com THE ONLY QUALIFICATION for working at an airline is making a confused face at a monitor. Comedian JULIUS SHARPE WE WERE READING…

FROM POPULAR SCIENCE 1 UTENSILS Spoons made from copper or zinc enhance a food’s apparent saltiness. 2 LANGUAGE People praise food that has a descriptive name more than the same food with a lackluster one. For example: Herb-Crusted Citrus-Laced Fillet of Tilapia versus Seafood Fillet. 3 TEMPERATURE Often a warm beer tastes more bitter than a cool one, and ham tastes saltier when it’s cold. This “thermal taste” occurs because taste buds have tiny channels that interpret flavors differently at various temperatures. 4 COLOR Forty-eight percent of participants in a French study rated soda in a blue glass as more thirstquenching than soda in glasses of other colors, likely because they associated blue with cold. 5 ENVIRONMENT British researchers asked people to describe the qualities of the same Scotch whiskey…

1. SHARK ATTACK! The clear blue water of the Pacific Ocean looks so inviting. Sitting by the campfire, Denis Udovenko strums his guitar impatiently. He wants to go for an early-evening swim, but his wife, Polina, is fussing with pots and pans at their beach campsite in tiny Telyakovsky Bay on Russia’s far east coast. IT IS MID-AUGUST 2011, and after two gray days, the sun has finally come out. The peninsula that hides the bay looms large and distant. Their home in Vladivostok, 143 miles away, seems like another world. “I’m going swimming by myself,” Denis, a computer programmer, finally announces, setting the guitar aside. Tall, dark, and serious, he has dimples that surprise because he smiles so rarely. He flexes his fingers, strong and calloused from plucking guitar…

THE PARODY Twitter account @boredElonMusk figured that if Musk could cofound PayPal and also develop the Tesla electric automobile, he might invent these next: A TV that gets louder to compensate for when you are chewing. An indoor trash bin that keeps getting taller until someone finally decides to take the garbage out. Eye-tracking software that will not allow you to share a link on Twitter or Facebook until you’ve read 70 percent of the article. A MAN VACATIONS on a tropical island, and the first thing he hears is drums. He goes to the beach and hears the drums; he eats lunch, he hears the drums; he tries to sleep, he can’t—drums. Finally he storms over to the manager. “I’ve had it! Can’t you stop those drums?” he begs.…

“WHEN IT COMES TO spending your money, Washington tends to see no waste, speak no waste, and cut no waste,” wrote Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) in the most recent Wastebook, his annual compendium of government profligacy. From bloated military projects to over-the-top congressional earmarks, government waste comes in all shapes and sizes. So how much is there? That depends on what you call waste. Besides, as Richard W. Miller, a professor of ethics and public life at Cornell University, points out, “a complete inquiry would take so much time and energy and lead to so much disruption and so many mistakes that it would end up being … a waste.” Which doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty of fiscal fat to be trimmed. It just means it won’t be easy. And…

Of course all childhoods are happy from a worry-burdened, regret-nagged, past-50, skinless-chicken-breast-fordinner perspective. Or after three drinks. Then being a kid is a beautifully drawn scene suffused with bright primary colors and drenched in cheer, and I’ve gotten childhood mixed up with the illustrations in my old Dick and Jane reader. But we in the baby boom were lucky. Children had once been put to work, if not in factories and farmyards then in the kitchens, cellars, and sculleries of their own homes. We were expected to clear our plates. Now children have been put to work again. Homework started coming home with my children in kindergarten. Weekend assignment: Learn to read. They work at private lessons in every sort of thing, while I drive them around in a confusion…

The only people who don’t click Skip on ads before YouTube videos are people who died during that ad. @DAMIENFAHEY I used to find buying books from Amazon slow and inconvenient, until one day the receptionist suggested I use their website. PETER SERAFINOWICZ Give a man a fish, and he’ll Instagram it; teach a man to fish, and he’ll still Instagram it. @HIPSTERMERMAID Before LinkedIn, I didn’t know any strangers. @JOSHMALINA I wish people were like Internet videos and you could tap them lightly to see a clock of how much longer they’re going to be talking. @JULIUSSHARPE I bet cats have a secret website where they upload clips of cute humans trying to open DVD packaging and jump-start cars. @ROLLDIGGITY…

Eleven and Twelve Why not oneteen and twoteen? The reason behind the shift in number naming is that eleven comes from the Germanic term ainlif, which translates to “one left,” or in this case, “one left over” after you count out ten of something. Twelve follows the same rule. It comes from twalif—“two left.” Why we switched from lif to teen (which itself means “ten more than”) for 13 through 19 is something that is sadly lost to antiquity. 2,000 Calories a Day This number wasn’t plucked out of thin air—the FDA based this suggestion on science. The average person requires about 2,350 calories a day, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture survey. But there’s a big caveat: That word average could encourage plenty of people to overeat. Most…

1. waffle (’wah-ful) v.—A: flip-flop in opinion. B: press a point firmly. C: invent a wild story. 2. conjecture (con-’jek-cher) n.—A: group agreement. B: guess. C: optimistic outlook. 3. equivocal (ih-’kwi-veh-kel) adj.— A: open to interpretations. B: firmly settled. C: in the form of a question. 4. corroborate (kuh-’rah-beh-rayt) v.—A: support with evidence. B: steal another’s ideas. C: pretend to be sure. 5. allegation (a-lih-’gay-shun) n.—A: proof. B: suspicion. C: claim. 6. precarious (pri-’kar-ee-us) adj.—A: false. B: depending on uncertain circumstances. C: having foreknowledge. 7. expound (ik-’spownd) v.— A: take back. B: carefully state. C: contradict. 8. intuition (in-too-’ih-shun) n.— A: instinctive knowledge. B: formal teaching. C: logical paradox. 9. indubitably (in-’doo-beh-teh-blee) adv.—A: certainly. B: doubtfully. C: deceitfully. 10. bona fide (’boh-neh fiyd) adj.— A: with high hopes. B: genuine.…

CARA JUMPER LOVES the giant saltwater pond on her grandparents’ Swansea, South Carolina, property. When her grandfather Coy Jumper bought the land 15 years earlier, he stocked the pond with bass, bream, and catfish, hauled down a little rowboat for fishing, and built a dock from which the grandkids could dangle their legs in summer. Even in winter, Coy would visit the 5.5-acre pond to feed the fish and check his beaver traps. One January afternoon, with the temperature in the 50s, he piled ten-year-old Cara and her sisters, Claire, six, and Emma, five, into his Pontiac Sunfire and took them down to the pond. He and the girls—who lived with Coy and his wife, Esca, most of the time—tramped happily through the pines, checking traps. No luck—they were empty.…

AT THE SUPERMARKET checkout, the cashier was having trouble finding the price for my cucumber. “Maybe the list is alphabetical,” I offered. So he started searching from the bottom of the list: “Q … Q … Q …” CHARITY MCTARSNEY, Deltona, Florida TODAY, MY 808 area code phone number has yet again been mistaken for a 1-800 number. I’ve been getting phone calls at three in the morning from people on the East Coast trying to return their shoes. Even worse, they end up wanting to speak to my supervisor because I “don’t sound professional enough.” From fmylife.com I NEVER FEEL more privileged than when I get angry about a website design. Comedian KELLY OXFORD SCENE: SUNDAY MASS. I turned to greet an older woman. Woman: My! You have the…

…Disney and vacation. HALI BAHNS …serendipity and bacon. TRISAUNIA LUKACH …luminescent and harmony. SARAH MARGARET …cancer free. BETHINA SAMPSON …children and grandchildren. CYNTHIA HELZER …you’re hired. JULIE HERMS …cold beer. JOE FLORES Go to facebook.com/readersdigest for the chance to finish the next sentence. …flourish and passion. JOSH SMITH …fiftieth anniversary. JEFF NELSON …peace and love. ANDREA SANTELLA …precipice and befuddlement. DAN GARMAN …inalienable rights. MIKE PACEK …you’re forgiven. SALLY POND …opening night. SHERRY COHEN MARKOWITZ…

I SAY HELLO There she was. Beautiful, gentle, funny, and kind. Hands shaking, voice cracking, I say hello. Now we are married, with a house, a dog, and an amazing two-year-old son. Piles of laundry, piles of diapers, piles of dishes, and piles of laughter are all around us. Do we really want another? Yes, we do. My wife, tired and uncomfortable from this second pregnancy, says it’s time. Hand in hand, we make it to the hospital. A little while later, I see her. There she was. Beautiful, gentle, a miracle. Hands shaking, voice cracking, tears streaming, I say hello. PATRICK WRIGHT, Powder Springs, Georgia RACCOON STEW “We’re having raccoon stew. I scraped it off the road.” He’d laugh. As a little girl, I’d run screaming from him. As…

GLASS CLEANER Combine 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, 1 tablespoon of white vinegar, and 1 cup of hot water in a spray bottle. Shake and then start spritzing. DISHWASHER DETERGENT Mix 1 cup of borax, 1 cup of baking soda, ½ cup of kosher salt, and ¼ cup of unsweetened lemonade-flavored Kool-Aid (for a dose of citric acid) in an airtight container, and shake. Add 1 tablespoon per load to get dishes shiny. SPRAY MOP SOLUTION Pour 4 cups of hot water, 1 cup of lemon juice, 3 cups of vinegar, and ¼ cup of liquid dish soap into a bucket. Mix thoroughly, then pour the liquid into the spray mop’s container. FOAMING HAND WASH The secret is in the pump—not the soap—so never throw out an empty foam dispenser.…

LAST YEAR’S LARGE-SCALE hacks at Target and Neiman Marcus are a reminder that our credit cards are increasingly vulnerable. In these cases, hackers found a way to install malware on point-of-sale devices and then sat back as the credit and debit card numbers streamed in. But who are those hackers, and what happens to the numbers? Here’s a breakdown of what comes next, in four easy steps. THEY BUILD A CRIMINAL NETWORK The basic idea is that people use stolen credit cards to buy stuff. But if the same person stole the card numbers and bought the stuff, he would easily be caught. Instead, baddies create rings: There are the people who buy and sell card numbers in online markets, sometimes called carding forums or card malls. There are the…

MOST PEOPLE DON’T worry about diabetes until a doctor tells them their blood sugar is too high. But even if you get a “normal” blood sugar reading at your next exam, you might not be totally in the clear. According to cutting-edge research, blood sugar levels on the high end of the normal range may still raise your risk of illness, leading some doctors to take such results more seriously—particularly if patients have other diabetes risk factors, such as obesity or family history. The somewhat arbitrary cutoff between normal blood sugar levels and higher ones associated with diabetes may give a false sense of security to millions of people, notes brain researcher Nicolas Cherbuin of Australian National University. His research published in 2013 found that middle-aged people with high-normal fasting…

GERMS AREN’T THE only things you have to worry about “catching.” Emotions are also infectious, according to research on social contagions: moods and behaviors that spread from person to person. We like to think we’re in control of our well-being, but this research shows that traits and choices of our friends—and even our friends’ friends—have a powerful effect on ours. Here are some unexpected infections and our advice on how to inoculate yourself. STRESS The brain is hardwired to detect stress in other people, such as increases in breathing rate. This triggers a cascade of our own stress hormones, Heidi Hanna, executive coach and author of Stressaholic, told us. And you don’t need to be in the same room to catch someone else’s stress, which is transmittable via e-mail, texts,…

THE TWO LITTLE BOYS follow their fathers up the sand dune, scrambling under and through a little cable fence that marks the path. Minutes ago, they were down on the beach enjoying a July afternoon on Lake Michigan. But this is the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, the two families are on vacation together, and the big draw is the massive, barren sand dunes that the waves and winds have deposited on the Great Lake’s eastern shore. Beckoning most strongly is the steep, impressive, 126-foot Mount Baldy, just a stone’s throw from the beach. Greg Woessner and his six-year-old son, Nathan, have decided on an impromptu ramble with Keith Karrow and his little boy Colin, age seven, family friends. Leaving siblings and spouses on the beach, they frolic their way toward…

I’M NOT A RELIGIOUS PERSON, by any stretch of the word. I am, however, incredibly spiritual, and if I had to label my beliefs, I would say that kindness is my religion. I have experienced and witnessed many acts of kindness throughout my life; many have affected me so deeply that they’ve helped shape who I am. This is one. I was three weeks away from turning 11 as I sat at the desk watching the hands on the clock measure the same second over and over, and that’s how I felt—frozen in time. Normally, I would read the book opened on my desk, answer the questions the teacher had, but not on that day. Both Mrs. Clarence, my teacher, and I were waiting for the office attendant to walk…

“I was retired for 30 years, until at the age of 90, I got involved in this commercial bit,” Morty Kaufman said. Morty is referring to the popular TV spots for Swiffer, the maker of householdcleaning products, which he stars in with his wife, Lee. In a series of unscripted 30-second ads, the couple discuss their blissful 45-year union and their division of household labor (Mrs. Kaufman does the cleaning; Mr. Kaufman, the napping) and marvel at the Swiffer supplies that have been left on their doorstep. In one spot, Mr. Kaufman addresses the camera, saying, “There’s only two of us. How much dirt can we manufacture?” He and Mrs. Kaufman answer in unison—“Very little” and “More than you think”—in a perfect encapsulation of a cleaning divide that has no…

I WAS BORN IN ENGLAND with perfect hearing. In 1990, when I was five, my family moved to the United States. I started getting ear infections every three months or so. We didn’t have health insurance at the time, and when I got a third infection, my parents couldn’t pay for the treatment. I went deaf in my right ear and was left with 50 percent hearing in my left. Over time, my remaining hearing dropped to 20 percent, where it is today. My doctors predicted that I would be completely deaf by now, so I think I’m doing pretty well. There was always music on in my house when I was little. I loved listening to Metallica, Led Zeppelin, Bob Marley, Michael Jackson. My dad was a DJ, so…

1 The main difference between designer cosmetics and their drugstore counterparts? Fancy packaging. In fact, some manufacturers make both high-end and drugstore products—using similar formulas! 2 One of the governmental agencies responsible for the cosmetics industry is the FDA, but it doesn’t review cosmetics before they go on the market, it can’t recall a product if there’s a problem, and it has banned only about a dozen toxic chemicals from beauty products, compared with the more than 1,300 that are banned in the European Union. 3 Your foundation has SPF? That’s great—but you still need sunscreen. Experts say most people don’t use enough makeup to fully protect their skin, and they end up missing important areas such as their ears, neck, and the back of their hands. 4 Want to…

FIRST THINGS FIRST: No matter how much it may sound like rolling waves, you’re not hearing the ocean in a shell. You’re picking up ambient noise that’s being produced all around you, which you normally don’t really acknowledge or pay attention to. To amplify this ambient noise so you can hear it clearly, you need a resonator. Want to make one on the cheap? Form an O shape with your mouth and flick your finger against your cheek. You should hear a note. Make a smaller or larger O, and you’ll get different notes. You’re letting your mouth fulfill its potential as a Helmholtz resonator, in which sound is produced by air vibrating in a cavity with one opening. The seashell you’re listening to—the inside of which has many hard,…

A MILITARY LAB has developed a pizza that boasts a shelf life of three years without being frozen, and now the Week has asked its readers to name this durable dish. Here’s what they came up with: Semper Pie The Lasting Supper In-dough-structible Pizza de Resistance DeFrigNo! Auld Lang Slice Eternal Piece Grandpapa John’s Pizza THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT on our trip was handing out plastic pilot wings to some kids. As I stepped forward, she jokingly offered me one, but I passed. Pointing to the Airborne wings on my Army uniform, I explained, “The last time someone gave me wings, I had to jump out of the airplane.” COL. DAVID JESSOP (RET.), Rineyville, Kentucky You can buy lots of pizza with the $$$ you’ll get if we run your funny…