Bacteria on babies depends on delivery

Los Angeles Times, print edition Concern about a newborn’s bacterial flora is not a topic you’re likely to hear discussed in the waiting room of the maternity ward — but that may change. A new study has found that the way in which babies are delivered exposes them to...

read more
Effect of call-based counseling rings true

Los Angeles Times The therapist-patient relationship is crucial to people battling depression, addiction, weight gain and diabetes. But that relationship might not always have to be in person to be effective. Over the last decade, numerous hospitals and clinics have...

read more
Virtual Book Clubs Are Getting Us Through Our Time at Home

Eventbrite By the time quarantine is over — whenever that may be — would you rather be able to brag about watching all five seasons of Outlander or finishing all 1,079 pages of David Foster Wallace’s notoriously lengthy and complex tome, Infinite Jest?...

read more
Derrick Knight’s Grand Plan to Perform on the Moon

LA Weekly On a Friday night in May, a smattering of people hangs around outside the Moon Pad, a peach-colored house-turned-hostel in Boyle Heights. I have been invited to a party here by Derrick Knight, the Moon Pad's 28-year-old founder and manager. He promised a...

read more
Snooping Around Nicolas Cage’s San Francisco House

Could I learn more about my favorite actor by poking around his old Victorian mansion? OK Whatever I know a lot about Nicolas Cage. I know, for example, that he has a fondness for flamboyant jackets. He’s worn zebra-striped blazers on dinner dates and gold leather...

read more
The Drug That Makes You Spend All Your Money

Abilify treats depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia, but it can also lead to compulsive gambling, shopping, eating, and sex.  OK Whatever Last week, Fareed Khalil* bought a figurine for $150. The week before that, he spent a similar amount on a...

read more
Visiting Dead Relatives on Google Street View

Google Maps is meant to look up addresses, but it can also provide a window into the lives of the recently deceased. OK Whatever Three years after her grandparents’ deaths, 19-year-old Luisa Hoenle looked up their old house on Google Maps. Feeling nostalgic if not a...

read more