Author: Lance Garrison

The immediate impact of the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore on Tuesday was viscerally clear: In minutes, the Baltimore Harbor went from a humming logistics hub to a chaotic search and rescue operation. Two construction workers who had been fixing potholes on the bridge were pulled from the water, with six more missing and presumed dead.As a native of Maryland, I grew up driving through the Baltimore Beltway with my family to see the Orioles play at Camden Yards, which is near Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. Seeing container ships sail through the port was one of my…

Masturbation is a very natural and healthy part of childhood. And it can start at a younger age than you might think.”It’s the beginning of a lifelong learning experience about their bodies and, later, about sex and sexuality,” says David Swanson, PsyD, a child and family psychologist practicing in Los Angelesand author of HELP — My Kid Is Driving Me Crazy: The 17 Ways Kids Manipulate Their Parents, and What You Can Do About It.Young kids touch themselves primarily for two reasons. The first is for pleasure. “In the beginning stages starting between ages 3 and 5, kids are exploring their bodies.…

A man with a squeegee cleans your windshield while your car is stopped and then asks for money. Do you owe him anything? Most people would say no. Now you get your hair cut. Do you owe the barber anything? Just about everyone would say yes.These two cases aren’t entirely different. In both cases a service was rendered without an express agreement between the parties. The difference is mostly a matter of custom. Society expects that when we sit down in a barber chair, we’re implicitly agreeing to exchange money for a shearing. There’s no such expectation about windshield cleaning,…

You’ve probably heard things like this: Men get turned on at the slightest provocation and are ready to have sex anytime, anywhere, while women tend to want sex less often and have to be “in the mood.” For years, that’s been the widespread belief: Men just have higher sex drives than women.Research has often been cited to back up the idea that, perhaps because of their higher testosterone levels, men think more about sex, seek it more actively, and get turned on more easily. Men’s sexuality is like an on-off switch, while women’s sexuality is a complicated network of connections.…

To the Editor:Re “How ‘Professionalism’ in the Medical World Can Be a Minefield” (Science Times, March 19):Doctors and nurses have answered a calling to care — specifically, in healing the sick. They don’t think about whether their off-duty attire meets traditional definitions of appropriateness, even though some people think that is what defines or constitutes “professionalism.”But larger questions remain. How do we train medical professionals to be leaders in their field — to commence difficult conversations about death, to manage C-suite demands and requests, to work as a team with others, or to assuage patients’ concerns in a way that…

Losing your hearing can be an inconvenience — sometimes a major one that makes you worry.While some forms of hearing loss aren’t reversible, many are. But how does it stack up?Earwax helps clean and protect the ears. Normally, your ears will clear it out on their own. If you use cotton swabs to clean them, you may be pushing the wax in deeper. This can make it gather and get stuck. That’ll make it hard for you to hear.It’s not hard to treat that buildup and get your hearing back. Home treatments work well in most cases. Put a few…

He was speaking as an Argentine, contorting his country’s economic history into a neat ideological narrative. But he was at Davos, he said, to offer the same prescription to the rest of the world, projecting a global vision combining entrepreneurial heroism and the end of the state as we know it — or, as he put it, “to invite the Western world to get back on the path to prosperity.”And he was applauded — not by everyone but by many. The Wall Street Journal published an excerpt from the speech and gushed, “Milei gives the Davos crowd a spine transplant.”…

Families, almost from their start, face forces that could pull them apart. When a family begins to mature, that potential loss of connection, that feeling of something changing, is difficult to confront.And it makes communication even more important.“This idea of feeling connected becomes very reinforcing, to all of us, and it contributes to happiness, it contributes to mental health and it does contribute also to physical health,” says John Northman, a psychologist from Buffalo, NY.“It’s well known that when people feel better connected, that they feel better physically, they’re certainly less likely to feel depressed — or if they do,…

Fiber helps you lose weight, and here’s why. “It fills your belly, it acts like a sponge, it’s slower to be digested and absorbed, so it makes you feel full,” says WebMD Weight Loss Clinic Dietitian Kathleen Zelman, MPH, RD, LD. “It also provides bulk, which aids elimination, and it helps lower blood cholesterol.”So where’s the fiber?1. Beans. Think three-bean salad, bean burritos, chili, soup.2. Whole grains. That means whole-wheat bread, pasta, etc.3. Brown rice. White rice doesn’t offer much fiber.4. Popcorn. It’s a great source of fiber.5. Nuts. Almonds, pecans, and walnuts have more fiber than other nuts.6. Baked…

It’s easy to dismiss competitive language, also known as trash talk, as boastful, aggressive and rude. But Rafi Kohan, the author of a recent book on the subject, wants to change your mind about that starting with baseball.Opening day is tomorrow, and in this audio essay, Kohan argues that trash talk would not only bring some sorely needed excitement to the game but also could improve performance and create healthier relationships among sports teams — and maybe even in your own teams and workplaces.(A full transcript of this audio essay will be available within 24 hours of publication in the…