The brains of people who grow up speaking two languages are wired differently, and those differences protect them from dementia as they age.
That's the news from two studies out this month from a scientist in Canada who has spent decades trying to figure out whether being bilingual is bad or good. "I've been doing this for 25 years," Ellen Bialystok, a distinguished research professor of psychology at York University in Toronto, tells Shots. "Suddenly people are interested. I figure it's because everybody's scared about dementia."
Former Child Star Fatigue. Many of us have suffered it, given the drug problems, the meltdowns, the awful nude photos.
But then there's Fred Savage, who starred in the ABC show The Wonder Years from 1988 through 1993. Now he's a successful, slightly offbeat 35-five-year-old television producer and director. He works on wicked, slightly warped comedies including Party Down, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia and as of today, Best Friends Forever. His first network sitcom premieres tonight on NBC.
A worker monitors the loading of containers on to a ship at a harbor in China's Shandong province. Under a new U.S. law, Chinese food exporters will now have to share more food safety information with American food importers.
Locavores, a word with you. Local food may be gaining traction in all kinds of ways, but a report out today from the Institute of Medicine serves as a stark reminder of just how globalized our food system truly is.
"Political fundraiser" has a fancy ring to it — tuxedos, famous singers, billionaires. In fact, most political fundraisers aren't that glamorous.
Think instead of a dozen lobbyists eating breakfast with a Congressman in a side room at some DC restaurant. Off in a corner, someone who works for the Congressman is holding the checks the lobbyists brought to get in the door.
Kaniehtakeron Martin's work site at 54th Street and 8th Avenue in Manhattan, which will someday be an office building.
Credit Stephen Nessen for NPR
Today, Martin is one of about 200 Mohawk workers building New York City skyscrapers. He lives in Brooklyn during the workweek and commutes home to Canada on weekends.
Credit Stephen Nessen for NPR
Kahnawake means "by the rapids." It's just south of Montreal, across the St. Lawrence River.
Credit Stephen Nessen for NPR
Steel beams erected in Kahnawake are a reminder of the century-long tradition of ironworking. The beams were used in competitions — participants climb to the top, assemble steel pieces, ring a bell and race down.
Credit Stephen Nessen for NPR
Back in Kahnawake, stickers show the link between the reserve and New York City. Mohawk workers helped build the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center.
Credit Stephen Nessen for NPR
Kahnawake Grand Chief Mike Delisle comes from an ironworking family. He keeps plans from the original World Trade Center and his father's wrenches in his basement.
Credit Stephen Nessen for NPR
The three spirit animals — the bear, the eagle and the wolf — adorn a fence in Kahnawake.
Credit Stephen Nessen for NPR
Martin takes a break on what will be the 27th floor of a Manhattan office building.
Credit Stephen Nessen for NPR
Kaniehtakeron "Geggs" Martin is a fourth-generation ironworker from Kahnawake, a Mohawk reservation south of Montreal.
Credit Stephen Nessen for NPR
Kaniehtakeron Martin takes a break from working on what will be the 27th floor of an office building in New York City.
Another batch of phony cancer drugs has made its way into the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration says.
U.S.-based medical practices purchased vials of counterfeit medicine labeled as Altuzan from a foreign supplier, FDA spokesperson Shelly Burgess tells Shots. She said the agency doesn't have any reports of patients having received the counterfeit drugs.
Altuzan is the Turkish brand name for Avastin, the FDA-approved blockbuster cancer drug from Swiss drugmaker Roche's Genentech unit. Altuzan is approved for use in Turkey — but not in the U.S.
The peace plan brokered by international envoy Kofi Annan and backed the United Nations has yet to curb the violence in Syria.
Reuters reports that even though a U.N. team of peacekeepers is scheduled to arrive in Damascus, today or tomorrow, opposition activists said government forces continued their attack. They said about 80 people have been killed since Tuesday.
Members of the Italian metalworkers trade union Fiom-CGIL hold a placard reading "Enough now!" during a protest in Rome on March 9.
Credit Filippo Monteforte / AFP/Getty Images
Members of the Italian metalworkers trade union Fiom-CGIL march during a protest in Rome on March 9. Thousands of trade unionists protested on a day of strikes against auto giant Fiat and the government's plans to overhaul labor laws to make it easier to fire workers.
Credit Geert Vanden Wijngaert / AP
Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, shown here during an EU summit in Brussels on March 2, is facing his biggest challenge yet over proposed changes to the country's labor laws.
Italy's technocrat prime minister, Mario Monti, came to office less than five months ago as the country's finances were in a tailspin. And now he could be facing his toughest challenge yet — pushing through changes to labor regulations.
Italian labor rules ensure job security for older workers but can condemn the younger generation to a series of insecure, temporary jobs.
Since taking office, Monti has pushed through a round of tough austerity measures, budget cuts, pension reform and some deregulation.
When 93-year-old Rachel Veitch picked up the newspaper on March 10 and realized that the macular degeneration in her eyes had developed to the point where she couldn't read the print, she knew it was time to stop driving.
But there's much more to the Orlando, Fla., woman's story.
The decision meant she would no longer be getting behind the wheel of her beloved 1964 Mercury Comet Caliente, a car she calls "The Chariot." Veitch has pampered her ride for nearly five decades and 567,000 miles.
Imagine you've scored hard-to-get tickets to the Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Ga. Now, imagine you're so excited that you make big a deal out of this: You buy plane tickets, you schedule some golfing of your own, you invite three buddies. And then, one day you get home to find only chewed pieces of the tickets attached to the strings that came with them.
Suddenly, it dawns on you: "The dog ate my tickets."
