Tapping the region may prove important in rehabilitation Watch and learn. Experience says it works, but how? University of Oregon researchers have seen the light, by imaging the brain, while test subjects watched films of others building objects with Tinker Toys. As detailed in the Dec. 20 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, researchers, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), found that when a person watches someone else perform a task with the intention of ... [full story]

Q: Although we do not know exactly why, our high school daughter has never wavered from wanting to be a veterinarian since she was about 5 years old. She has had many pets and has brought many orphaned wild birds, turtles and other small animals home to nurse. She has had very little experience actually working for or observing a veterinarian. Her friends have told our daughter that is very difficult to get admitted to ... [full story]

THE LEE BROS. Matt Lee and Ted Lee were in a New York funk. Holed up in a tiny tenement on the Lower East Side during a 1994 blizzard, the Ivy League graduates were unhappy with their mundane jobs and homesick for Charleston, S.C. So they decided to make a batch of boiled peanuts - a snack pretty much unknown out of the South.   TED AND MATT LEE - Ted and Matt Lee are the ... [full story]

Our friend, Joanne, went to see a movie with her friend in Washington, D.C., the other day. Joanne bought her ticket first and paid full price: $10. Her friend asked for a ticket, too, and then added, "senior price, please." Her ticket cost $7. That experience bears out Joan Rattner Heilman's contention that people over 50 should always "make a practice of asking if there are breaks to which you are entitled." She is a ... [full story]

Last January 2006, an estimated 45 million Americans, or approximately one in five adults, set an average of three New Year resolutions each, according to the results of a nationwide phone survey conducted in December by LifeTango.com. Battle of the 'Bulge' and 'Budget' Top the List Of those setting resolutions, nearly three in four set a resolution related to diet, weight loss, or exercise -- not surprising when you consider that two-thirds of American adults ... [full story]

On the wall of my home office is a poster that proclaims me as "The Official U.S. Blabbermouth." The poster was presented to me at a party a few days before being sworn in as the first White House director of communications. Most prominent among the signatures on the poster of government officials and newspersons is that of Jerry Ford, then the Republican minority leader of the House of Representatives. Ford was that type of ... [full story]

Another defense secretary is sworn into office. His brief acceptance remarks contain just one solid promise. "I will go to Iraq," he says. Most Americans - indeed, 72 percent of us by the last polling count - may have hoped to hear something more than this from the new guy. Going on four embattled years, now, Iraq has suffered from no lack of U.S. visitations. It has hosted an endless succession of diplomatic personnel, private ... [full story]

Alan Simpson, a Republican who represented Wyoming in the United States Senate from 1979 to 1997, was one of 10 members of the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel established at the urging of Congress to provide an independent analysis of the war in Iraq and to recommend possible strategic changes in U.S. involvement in the war. The panel presented its report to President Bush, the Congress and the public earlier in December. He also ... [full story]

'Tis the season to go shopping - which means that the "most wonderful time of the year" is likely to bring some additional stress to your already busy life. To limit your stress and maximize holiday bliss, here are some smart and savvy shopping tips. * Make your list and check it twice. Decide who you will be buying for and how much you are willing to spend before jumping online. Finding the gifts you ... [full story]

THE CHEF At Harrison and Greenwich streets in Tribeca, a few brave souls hurried down streets heavy with the glow of klieg lights and the smell of burning electrical wires. At checkpoints, military police demanded identification from those who wanted to enter this no man's land a few blocks from where the World Trade Center had stood days before.   JIMMY BRADLEY - Chef Jimmy Bradley is co-owner of The Red Cat, an American restaurant in ... [full story]