The Hormone Surge of Middle Childhood

VIEWED superficially, the part of youth that the psychologist Jean Piaget called middle childhood looks tame and uneventful, a quiet patch of road on the otherwise hairpin highway to adulthood.

Cauliflower and Red Onion Tacos With Cotija Cheese

Cauliflower and Red Onion Tacos With Cotija Cheese

Vegetables bathed in vinegar are typical condiments in Mexico, but you can bring them to the center of the plate as a filling for a taco. If you want spice, add the chipotle, or garnish with some salsa. If salt is an issue, use ranchero rather than cotija cheese.

Lucky Foods to Ring in the New Year

Baked Giant Limas with Winter Squash and Sage

I love the fact that beans, lentils and greens symbolize prosperity in the New Year in places as disparate as the American South and the South of France. I wonder if it’s really because lentils and beans are round like coins and swell when they cook, or if it’s because that’s about all anybody can afford to eat after the excesses of the holiday season.

How Tanning Changes the Brain

The brains of frequent tanners may be similar to those of addicts.

People who frequently use tanning beds experience changes in brain activity during their tanning sessions that mimic the patterns of drug addiction, new research shows.

The Year in Fitness

If all the Phys Ed columns published this year have a single message, it is that now is a fine time to own a body. The diverse exercise-related experiments published in 2011 and covered in this space each week suggest that it’s possible to retain your cognitive powers, muscle mass, running speed and waistline, even as you age, and that a little exercise can go a long way in terms of physiological benefit. Recent, important science even tells us that coffee, chocolate and beer enhance exercise performance, which is fortunate, since I have no plans to give up any of those. As most of us prepare our exercise resolutions for 2012, now seems an ideal time to review the past year in fitness science and the lessons it contained, both encouraging and cautionary.