Departure Hour

I’ve taken red-eye and early flights. But I learned for the first time what it’s like to watch the lights come on in an airport. In Chicago for a quick reporting trip, I was offered (read: recommended) to change my afternoon flight to a morning one. Summer storms in New York City are common now. They’re a wild lightning-rain dump that can close an airport in an instant. One was headed to NYC by the afternoon. I opted for the 6 am shuttle from O’Hare to LaGuardia, and given the drive to the so-called World’s Busiest Airport can take anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours (Yes, I’ve clocked that), I got picked up just before 3:30 am from my hotel. Truly: the middle of the night. By 4:10 am I was at my gate, where the only shops open sold magazines, candy, water, and hot chocolate. (Their coffee was “not ready.”) Yes, this is called stupid early. I’d had two cups of hotel coffee before leaving, so I planted myself in a chair and did a bit of work. A few people arrived, and a few more cups of hot cocoa were sold (the stand was feet from my chair). Then right at 5 am something changed: the lights came on, and everything changed focus. Our pilots appeared, then the gate agent. The kiosk finally had coffee, and the volume amplified. Airports can wake up. I spent most of the flight asleep, but woke up in time to grab some insanely cool shots of storm clouds, cumulonimbus, making their way towards NYC. We landed just in front of these.

Just Add Air

I’ve tried every orchid potting medium probably on the market. Desperate to keep my father’s orchids alive (I’ve killed so many it’s embarrassing to state), I’ve tried soil, bark, coconut husks, and even styrofoam. Then I stumbled on a post about leaving orchids in the air. I learned you can maintain orchids in glass jars with nothing around their roots. Tropical orchids, of course, grow in the wild often on trees. They’re not parasitic — they don’t take nutrients or even water from the trees. They’re air plants, grabbing moisture from the air instead. Some do grow in the soil, but my father grew a lot of dendrobiums in our trees, without soil, without bark. On a recent trip home, I found an oversized plant, with tons of new growth and roots that literally just broke off. I brought a few home and started them on this method. They’re doing extremely well, and I can actually see the roots starting to grow outward towards a small fountain I have flowing near them. I drop a bit of water in there every week, a millimeter at most, and I’d say they’re doing better than the ones I have in coconut bark: firmer leaves, roots green, and some new growth. The orchids you find at stores, Phalaenopsis, can thrive this way too. In fact, I’ll be curious to see if these spike better as winter approaches. Who knows? Maybe my orchids will be the most affordable flowers I have this year.

Brain Cells Behaving Badly

Our neurons connect through links. We call these links axons, each wrapped with a kind of insulation of fat and cholesterol called myelin. These myelin sheaths are critical: they make sure the signals sent between neurons move quickly. You want that. Diseases associated with damaged or destroyed myelin include Multiple Sclerosis, for example, where you can lose control of your muscles and experience nerve damage throughout your central nervous system.

Special cells in our brain and spinal cord help make this myelin. One of them is called oligodendrocytes. (You’re not going to be quizzed on this, I promise.) These cells are super special because they can make myelin sheaths for lots of axons, like 50 as opposed to just one. They also do other things like feed the myelin to keep it healthy. Again, a good thing. Except when it’s not. A new Nature Medicine study, I learned, showed that an examination of one area of the brain of people exhibiting worse cognitive decline actually had thicker myelin. And this extra layering was preceded, they believe, by increased numbers of oligodendrocytes. At some point, these begin to produce overmyelinated axons — not what they should do.

Now the body tends to clean up cells when they’re not acting correctly. We do this through something called autophagy — like a big garbage truck that comes through and sweeps all the bad stuff out. One way this is signaled is through a transcription factor called NRF2: when our cells are under stress, it signals this garbage truck process to start. Researchers found a decline in NRF2 in the brains with overmyelinated axons. So they tested this in mice, removing NRF2. The result? Myelin sheaths also got thicker in the mice missing NRF2. Further, these specific mice, when put through cognitive testing, didn’t improve as well as the control (or normal) mice.

An FDA-approved drug for NRF2 is already in play to help fight brain inflammation in MS patients and has even shown signs of improving cognitive function. But this study, focusing on the oligodendrocytes, opens the door to potentially more pathways for scientists to examine: whether that drug, or others that boost NRF2, could help stave off our brain’s decline as we grow older.

These Feet Are Made For Walking (And Thinking)

Back in July, a study in Neurology got a burst of coverage, comparing Super Movers, people over 80 with walking speeds at more than 90% higher than their peers on timed tests, to those who walk, well, slower. Walking is a known health boost. All exercise is a plus as we get older, and walking is gentler on the joints while still giving the bones a nice bit of stress, critical for maintaining their density and health. But walking faster may be even more protective for our brains, I learned. The data showed that super-movers had slower memory decline and non-memory-related cognitive decline than non-super movers. They also had what researchers called “preserved hippocampal volume” in certain areas of that region — in other words, the structure had not lost its size in general. The hippocampus is the horseshoe-shaped part of the brain that is core to how we form memories, and shrinkage can be linked to memory decline. Should we all pick up speed as we walk? Maybe. Does walking faster protect your brain? Possibly. And should we walk a bit more? Certainly.

(Not) Custard’s Last Stand

At Bethany Beach this past week, I couldn’t help but see the snaking lines outside a soft-serve custard spot near the boardwalk, Kohr Bros. Frozen Custard. I know the difference in ice cream recipes: Dense custard-based ice creams have egg yolks. Eggless styles, like traditional gelatos, tend to be lighter. Reportedly (according to the company itself), this chain says it’s the first to launch frozen custard, when three brothers drove around in a Model “T” hawking their homemade ice cream. They used a machine that allowed the ice cream to flow, and set up shop on Coney Island. One of the brothers, Elton, then set up his own chain, calling the company Kohr’s Frozen Custard, which pops up all over New Jersey. The others, I learned, kept a separate chain: Kohr Bros. Frozen Custard, with locations in New Jersey too, but also Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, where I spied the lines this past week. Lines don’t draw me into a place. They tend to make me avoid a spot. But it’s summer, it’s hot — and it’s ice cream. I got a vanilla and orange sherbet swirl in a cup: an Orangesicle memory hit that took me right back to my grandfather buying me a double scoop of vanilla and orange sherbet from Thrifty’s on Fairfax at Sunset. Maybe not quite as good as the cylindrical scoops Thrifty’s patented scooper served up. But the memory recall was the cherry on top.

Clingstone, Freestone, It’s Still Summer Fruit To Me

Growing up in Southern California meant baskets of stone fruit on the kitchen counter every week: apricots, peaches, plums, nectarines. Bowls of cherries typically sat in the refrigerator too. But this year, I kept seeing orchards talking about their freestone fruit. Is this some new hybrid? I wondered. Stone fruits are delineated by their hard pit — the “stone” — in the center. But a freestone fruit? This is a fruit where the pit comes away easily, far different than a clingstone fruit which holds tight to its pit for all its worth. In short: all freestone and clingstone fruit are stone fruit. All stone fruit is either freestone or clingstone. So where do my favorite summer snacks divide up? Peaches, I learned, can be both. Early summer white peaches, for example, are typically more clingstone, late summer more freestone. But as it turns out, stone fruit can be both depending on the variety. Those early stone fruits to hit the markets? Those tend to be clingstone, with freestone maturing later, arriving toward the ripe end of summer. (Right about now.) All of them are delicious, and truly the best part about this season. They deliver a sticky, nectary sweetness that helps anchor those last bits of summer firmly in our memory.

Dumpling Fever

Journalists know this edict all too well — once we write about a new trend, the coolness factor has long passed. (It hardly stops us from seeking out the next new thing every time.) That happened to me this weekend on our road trip as I heard an NPR piece about Squishy Dumplings, a, well, squishy toy shaped like a dumpling. As we listened to the piece, we pulled into a filling station in Vermont, and there in the convenience store I saw them — kismet. I bought two. We continued listening to the story on the drive, talking about what makes a toy go viral, such as a jelly object that does literally nothing. Clue: Sometimes it lies in the anticipation. Squishy Dumplings are packaged in blind boxes — you can’t know which color you get until you open it. And the anticipation is part of the joy. Squishing the thing once it’s opened is a tactile pleasure (for some), but truly, the not knowing? That’s almost better.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that people hear a lot about — it fires often, giving us a boost of pleasure. But a scientist, Wolfram Schultz, found that dopamine responds not so much to pleasure as to the potential reward and your expectation of it.

Get a blind box for a toy that everyone is talking about on TikTok. The hype? It’s big. Now tell everyone there’s only one rare color out of the bunch. There’s a low expectation of getting the rare color. So while unboxing the toy, your dopamine neurons are firing high anticipating you may get this special color. If someone just handed it to you? Your dopamine system would be fairly flat.

I didn’t open mine until a few days later, silently rooting for one specific color — then got another. Am I delighted? No. Was it fun? For a moment. Will I buy another? They do come in scented versions….

Jam Session

In Vermont, I learned about a style of music I’ve often heard, but didn’t know had a specific name: Jam Bands. Our hotel had live music the night we were there, part of a festival, and we arrived towards the end to grab a drink and catch the tail end of their session. The music sits very 1960s to me, in the style of the Grateful Dead and Cream, then picked up and carried through by Phish, Dave Matthews, and more. I never was a Deadhead, and while I appreciate the hypnotic pace and long stretches of music, it’s, well, (forgive me) not truly my jam. But glad to know what this means.

Vintage Vera

No great weekend away is complete for me without a vintage find, and this trip included a stop where I picked up a polyester blouse kitted with red smiling cars and a tag with a single name: Vera. I knew about Vera and her vintage line of scarves (I have a couple) but, I didn’t know, until I learned this week, the extent of designer Vera Neumann’s empire: her residency at The Smithsonian and her companies bringing in $100M in annual sales — in the 1970s. Her shirts are similar to the scarves: bold, often fiery in color, while the blouses tend to feature a sharp, deeply cut, dagger collar. What I love most about the piece (in addition to how fabulous the thing is) is that it was $10. Most of Vera’s blouses can be found online fairly inexpensively. (Like this beauty) She leans heavily into florals — not my thing. But her graphic designs are pretty easy to find if you dig. There’s something fantastic about picking up clothes that have been kept, treasured, and loved for decades. They’re affordable, but they’re also a chance to pick up on a bit of history: fashion and learning. Nothing better than that.

Runway Spacing

I spent a significant part of the morning last Friday at LAX. (Delays. We all know how this goes.) Some of that time was spent looking out the windows as the jets took off and landed. And some of these planes got way too close in my opinion. When I drive, I have muscle memory so I can drive stupidly fast just a few feet away from another 80+-ton vehicle. But planes? Turns out, I learned, that despite the optical illusion, they do require thousands of feet between them when on parallel runways. I hit up the FAA manual online and found that Class III planes, which include most jetliners we fly when traveling, need at least 700 feet between the centerlines of adjacent runways. That’s multistory building space. Now, even that feels creepy close to me. But that’s why I am not a pilot.

Terminal Glow

I strongly encourage hitting Terminal 1 at LAX if you have some time on your hands delay-wise. The artwork is worth the pause. First stop? The ramp between security and the food court. There I sound a light and sound installation by multimedia artists Johannes Girardoni and Harriet Girardoni called “Lumasonic Passage Blue/Green”. Blue tubes along with sensors that turn activity — such as people flooring it to make it to their flight - into a sound experience. I just appreciated the calm that the blue light imparted as I made my way down. Also worth checking out? Artist Bia Gayotto’s “Sleepers,” a photo installation of couples sleeping. The images are quiet, tender, and easy to view while wheeling your suitcase towards security.

Jet-Age Icon

I can’t imagine landing at LAX without catching a view of the flying saucer-designed building at the center of the airport. Called the Theme Building, it opened as a restaurant in 1961 — not that I ever visited the space. (And still have not.) It’s considered a pretty excellent example of Googie architecture, a Southern California style that was supposed to catch and stop drivers to visit. Think coffee shops, diners, gas stations, and drive-in movie theaters. The restaurant is now closed, but I learned that the space houses not only the USO and volunteer programs, including one called Pets Unstressing Passengers (PUPs), which is apparently what it sounds like. Said puppies apparently roam the actual terminals — not the space-age structure. Will it reopen to the public with the Olympics coming to Los Angeles in 2028? The opportunity to visit this Googie architecture building — as a restaurant — would be fantastic.

In 2000, for The Industry Standard, I spent a day with Stan Lee writing about his new (then) digital startup, Stan Lee Media. The 7th Annual World Animation Celebration was in full swing on a typically warm day in Southern California, and I hung out with him first at his glass-walled office in Encino then in the back of a town car as we ran errands, and finally at a hotel as he met with young writers and illustrators in Hollywood.

You may not be a superhero fan, or someone who has ever read a comic book. But you’ve been influenced by Stan Lee. And you’re almost certainly the better for it.

His characters are part of our global mythology. Sure, we have our historical figures, mythologies, and gods that weave archetypes into morals and ways of living. But Lee wove this messaging into pop culture — and put these gods on our streets. Some of these were blue-collar folk: a freelance news photographer, for example, living in a walkup apartment in New York. Lots of them were scientists, engineers, mechanics, people who built stuff with their hands. The common thread? Every one of them was human.

DC Comics’ Superman, Wonder Woman and Aquaman (Supergirl too!) differed widely from Stan Lee’s Marvel mythology. DC’s characters mostly arrived from other worlds, borderline deities with powers none of us could truly possess. We weren’t born on another planet, nor descended from gods. Lee’s superheroes started like us — people — then transformed after a scientific mishap or act of nature. They were hit with too many gamma rays, bitten by a genetically altered spider, consumed a radioactive plant, or laced to a fusion cell to heal a (literal) broken heart. The underlying message of Stan Lee’s superheroes was what David Bowie once beautifully wrote, “We can be heroes, just for one day.”

Lee’s heroes existed for more than one day, of course. And their powers eclipsed what most of us can do. They swung across the sky from silk threads, processed ultraviolet light to fight in pitch darkness, or smashed bad guys with a flick of a wrist. But Lee was clear about what he wanted his superheroes to represent: archetypes we might find in ourselves. One only had to hear him say his famous phrase, “Excelsior!” To know this. To Lee, the word meant onward — we can keep moving ourselves, and should, towards something greater. And what a thrill when he shouted this at me as I said goodbye to him that California evening.

If I hadn’t understood the power Lee held in inspiring people then, I only had to look at the faces of the artists, writers and illustrators who approached him throughout that day. Lee spent a few minutes with each one, which bled into hours, as he encouraged them with a few words, then signed their designs. Their faces were lit with awe as they stood next to their hero.

There’s an idea called moral emulation, and Lee embodied it. It’s where we’re inspired to do a good thing not because we’re supposed to, but because we feel it’s the right thing to do. Our stories, myths, and histories are studded with figures who do just this: they fight the bad guy and help us believe we can too. Not so we become famous — but because we are propelled to be better than ourselves.

In The Amazing Spider-Man 2, a little boy stands in a Spider-Man costume in front of Rhino, a villain kitted in a giant militarized metal suit. (Don’t get me going on why this couldn’t have been a little girl: another essay for another day.) And he’s put his hand out, this tiny, frail body in front of a human battleship. He’s going to stop this bad guy. He’s going to protect the people around him: It’s the right thing to do. Spider-Man of course, arrives, and thanks the kid and says he’ll take it from here. But there, in that toss-away scene, is Lee’s message: We can all be a hero to someone. It’s wired inside all of us. It’s inherently human, stitched into our neurons and wiring. And our brains love it.

How do we know our brains love it? Think about the last time you felt propelled to do something good. I don’t mean eat an ice cream cone. I mean, anonymously help someone you don’t know. Or give up something to make someone’s life better. In that moment you didn’t feel bad — I’m 1000% sure you felt great. There’s science there.

There are a lot of chemicals in the brain that help make you feel happy: serotonin, dopamine, and there’s oxytocin, which works as both a hormone and a neurotransmitter. (A neat feat.) Paul Zak, a scientist who discovered how oxytocin affects behavior in the brain, measured the molecule in relationship to narrative stories, the kind that provoke an emotional reaction, what we call tear-jerkers. His team found that when oxytocin rose while watching these kinds of stories, people acted more prosocially, helping strangers, even at their own cost.

When we can connect in some way to the characters, when they’re struggling financially and live in a walkup apartment too (Hello, Spider-Man), or feel fed up and fried with life (Hey, Super Girl), or are constantly underestimated (Hi, Black Panther), we’re inspired even more. Researchers across several studies found that the “more relatable,” people found a story’s moral example, the more motivated they felt to volunteer.

None of this means that superhero films instantly turn us into moral, gracious, giving people. (Wouldn’t that be a lovely trick.) But watching a superhero save a subway car from falling off its tracks, share their wealth with the world, or erase the memory of their existence from dear friends to save the universe, sparks a cascade in our brain that can promote a feeling of connection with others. We may not try to stop a villain in our pajamas, but we might buy a stranger a coffee, hold open a door, and find our better selves in the process. That not only feels good — it is good. Excelsior!

SuperAging researchers often focus on Alzheimer’s disease. There’s a reason. By studying people 80 and older with the episodic memory of those decades younger, scientists hope to uncover what may be helping them avoid cognitive loss — and potentially apply that to those with dementia.

One question long wondered by researchers: Could SuperAgers just be people with a low genetic risk for Alzheimer’s disease?

A scientist fascinated by this question is Emily Rogalski, Ph.D., the director of The Healthy Aging & Alzheimer’s Research Care (HAARC) Center at the University of Chicago who actually operationalized the term SuperAgers. What does that mean? She defined the word in hopes that all researchers in the field would apply the term the same way, instead of a basic description of older people with cognitively sharp brains. “We want to be able to compare across studies that use the same definition because then you can compare apples to apples,” she said to me a few weeks ago.

Rogalski’s work has fascinated me for a year. We’ve talked on and off as I was finishing my master’s degree in cognitive neuroscience — and completed my own research on learning. More so since I started to delve in the cognitive parameters of aging — what makes a SuperAger? And is it possible for all of us?

She’s been alluding to a study she and her team had been finishing — which dove right into that question: Do SuperAgers just have low-inherited risk for Alzheimer’s disease?

The paper from this study published this month in Alzheimer’s Research & Therapy, looking at 142 SuperAgers and 89 “cognitively average peers” from five sites in the U.S. and Canada. Their DNA was examined to look for the APOE gene. We all have two — you probably remember from early biology classes that we inherit two copies of genes, one from each of our parents.

The APOE gene also comes in variants (think of these as flavors): APOE e2, which can reduce the risk of getting Alzheimer’s, APOE e3, which is neutral when it comes to this dementia, and APOE e4, which is famous for increasing the risk for Alzheimer’s. While these variants are not definite, they do act as sign posts of possible risk. Still, you can have the high risk gene and never get Alzheimer’s disease: Genes are not always recipe books.

Researchers took in details about each person’s APOE genes plus other genetic markers to create risk scores. And the results helped them realize that the SuperAgers weren’t just those lucky enough to have a lowered risk for the dementia. Something else is in play.

“What this tells us is that you can’t identify health span or this extreme, positive memory aging phenotype just by looking at Alzheimer’s risks genes,” Rogalski explained to me. “That’s insufficient. It’s not just the inverse of, or the absence of Alzheimer’s risk because these things were all similar in the average controls and the SuperAgers.”

So what does this mean? Well for starters, it means that those who get into their 80s with exceptional cognitive memories aren’t there just because they have low risk for Alzheimer’s: There’s just more to it. As Rogalski said, “it’s pretty clear that there’s something else happening.”

What that something is scientists continue to investigate. The research helps them refine how SuperAgers come to their abilities, what authors call “exceptional memory in very late life.” Knowing these mechanisms could perhaps detangle the mysteries of dementia and its trajectory — and possibly unlock a cognitively healthy outcome for more.

Mind the Gap

On the way to the airport this week, I took the J train. As I got closer to the Air Train stop, a guy got into the car and began to roll a joint. I remember friends rolling joints in the subways in college. And New York is thumbs up on pot today. The entire operation was mesmerizing: he pulled herb from a pouch, ground it, and then carefully rolled a cigarette. You can carry up to 3 ounces of cannabis on your body in New York State: But can you legally roll a joint on the subway? Turns out, I learned, yes, you can. What you can’t do is smoke one in the train cars. You can’t really smoke anything on the subway. Of course people do. This particular bespoke roll took just three stops. Then he brushed off the loose flowers, stashed his supplies, and walked off, prepared, for his day.

Squirrely Behavior

Squirrels are scavengers. In New York they eat basically anything. In Los Angeles, the picking is riper. I’ve seen them eat satsumas and palm tree nuts (we have tons), but I learned they’ll eat the hard green unripe guavas too — and they’ll stare, taunting you to stop them. We have all these trees in the backyard where I grew up. Plus a plethora of squirrels. In the morning, Sprinkles likes to harvest the guavas then nibble away, dropping the rinds into the rose garden. He perches just a couple of feet from where I like to drink my morning coffee. He stares at me, spitting from the side of his mouth, just out of reach, chewing, never pausing, a thug in fur. In a week I’ve seen Sprinkles consume at least seven of these guava nuggets. Dozens remain on the tree. They’re not going to survive Sprinkles.

Pumped Prose

There’s a gas station at the corner of Barrington and Sunset in Los Angeles. It’s where I scraped the side panel off my first car in high school (a very used brown Datsun 240ZX), and today, it houses a florist. I learned that the gas station is actually from 1938 and is an official Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument. (No. 387, to be exact.) Yes, it’s about as picture-perfect as you can get for a gas station: Disneyesque almost. But protected perfect? A screenwriter, James Poe, lived in the top story of the tower during the 1950s when he wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for “Around the World in 80 Days.” Produced by Michael Todd, it’s an adaptation of the Jules Verne novel, and starred Shirley MacLaine and David Niven, with cameos from Frank Sinatra and Buster Keaton. Not shabby. I don’t think the tower is rentable today. But the writing energy? Has to be supreme.

Air Attack

Almost everyone lives under an AQI warning at some point. On the East Coast, these are popping up almost daily from Canadian wildfire smoke filling the skies. But I just learned how the AQI — which stands for Air Quality Index — is actually determined. I wondered first if there were standardized air filters strewn across the globe collecting particles. That’s a no. There are ground instruments, but satellites are also in play, from the European Space Agency, NASA, and NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). These collect ozone, aerosols, sulfur dioxide, dust, and wildfire smoke data and much (much) more. All of this is aggregated to create the AQI score many of us have seen recently. There’s even a chart that tells us (if we couldn’t already see with our eyes) how hazardous the air truly is that day. Green, naturally, is good with a score of 0 to 50. Currently, New York City has been living in a red or purple zone, with scores between 170 and just shy of 300, under deeply orange skies. But parts of Minnesota have been hit with AQI scores as insanely high as 1421, which places them far beyond hazardous. The common sense rule applies: if you can taste, smell or see the air, it’s not great, and mask up.

MoSA Magic

In a stairwell below a bar, lives one of the best free museums I’ve visited in years. You don’t have to buy a drink, but you’re gonna want to skip on the stilettos because the museum skips along 20 flights. Tucked into the CitizenM Hotel on Bowery, the museum, MoSA Bowery, is a love letter to street art, I learned. On the ground floor of the hotel, mention you want to visit, and they’ll swipe access on the elevator to the 20th floor. I started at the top because I know better than pretending I’m gonna causally hoof it up 20 flights on a July New York evening. (Did I mention the AQI? And no, I wouldn’t do it in the winter either.)

The interiors are very cool, each floor reflecting one or two different artists, who tagged their pieces. There are portraits of Lower East Side figures from Rosario Dawson to Lou Reed, Warhol to Basquiat. There are street scapes, abstracts and a love letter to the Bowery Boys too. And at the end, there’s an entire wall where you’re invited to leave your own tag too. The stairwell/museum is completely quiet because, frankly, it’s empty. I didn’t see one person as I made my way down. I asked the doorman how often people come to visit, “Not very,” he said. “At least once a day?” I pressed. “Sometimes not for days.” That’s a miss — but a win for anyone needing a quiet spot on a warm summer day to soak up some city color.

I Yawn, You Yawn

Yawning is infectious. We all know this. One person starts, and suddenly everyone’s mouth is open, showing off their pearly whites. It’s a problem. Crazily, this can even happen over the phone. Yes: Hearing someone yawn can trigger a yawn from you too. By the way, this isn’t a human-only phenomenon. Lions and chimpanzees can reportedly trigger a social bonding yawnathon too. But why do we yawn after we see someone else? In grad school, I learned that we don’t exactly know why. That, despite all the research showing social yawning happens — no one exactly knows the specific reason. You’ll hear about mirror neurons that get triggered in the brain, so that if you see someone yawn, you make a similar response. You’ll hear about yawning spreading to make each other more vigilant and aware. But what I learned the most about yawning is that it’s not to increase the oxygen in the blood: Dolphins have been exhibiting “yawn-like behavior” underwater, and they’re not getting oxygen this way. So why is yawning contagious? Unknown. But the mystery is cool.

Quiet Giant

Studio Ghibli’s “My Neighbor Totoro” entered my world when my daughter was still quite young. But I just took her — so many years later — to see it for the first time on the big screen, and the film felt as perfect as ever, from the gorgeous renderings of hollyhocks to the Catbus. I learned that writer and director Hayao Miyazaki intended the movie to take place in time before TVs, when children played with little more than their imagination and what they discovered outside. Mei and her older sister Satsuki run through gardens, across bridges, and chase dust bunnies hiding in the cracks of the walls. Their father never knows where they are, all the better for making friends with a giant forest spirit they name Totoro. He roars, naps, dances to make acorns bloom, and delights in raindrops crashing on his head. No one sees him but Mei and Satsuki — and of course us, the viewer, who transform for an hour or so into children too. We can turn a broken bucket into secret specs, see acorns as jewels, and keep our eye open for fairy pals — oversized or tiny — even after the movie ends.

Harm’s Ledger

Betrayal can be emblazoned in our memory and leave a mark. There may be a mechanism behind this — at least in mice — along a pathway from the hippocampus, where memories are stored, to the amygdala, the emotional processing hub, and then to the nucleus accumbens, where we decide to approach or steer clear. When something happens between you and someone you know that violates a trust, the valence assigned to that person shifts from neutral to negative. Encounter that person again, and the experience is recalled: should I continue to engage with this person or avoid them? We never forget the person, but now we have a new subscript, an update, that’s attached. Scientists were interested in knowing how we keep the memory of a person, but update this new information to that file.

A team led by researchers at the University of Tokyo worked with mice that were familiar with each other, then caused one previously peaceful cage mate, Mouse 1, to become aggressive and attack Mouse 2. Put the two back together after a period of time, and Mouse 2, as expected, specifically avoided Mouse 1. They remembered not just their pal, but the previous experience. Next, researchers weakened the synaptic links between the hippocampus and amygdala, and saw that Mouse 2 acted as if nothing had happened. Poof: the avoidance disappeared, but not the memory of Mouse 1. The study was published this past week in Science, where the authors report that the projections running from those social memory cells into the amygdala are “both necessary and sufficient” to shift the valence assigned to that individual from neutral to negative. No, we’re not shooting lights into our brains to stop avoiding previous harms, but it’s a fascinating look at how mice, certainly, but likely humans too, revise the ledger.

Offside Decoded

As the last games of the World Cup approach, I finally learned the details about being offside that have plagued me for years. (Years!) Offside is when a player involved in making a goal is closer to the opponent’s goal than the second-to-last opponent player when the ball is in play to them. Yeah, let’s go through it again. Because when I say I didn’t get this for years, I mean it. So with American football, players can just run into the end zone and score — like miles ahead of all other players on the field. But with soccer, if a teammate passed you the ball, then you attempt a goal, there must be two opposing team players closer to that goal than you WHEN THAT BALL STARTS TO BE PASSED TO YOU. And by you, that means even your pinky toe, your shoulder, and even your head. Any part of your body you can score with? It can’t cross this imaginary line. This YouTube video helped me a bit. But if you’re still confused, don’t worry. Most of the people screaming offside in the bar this weekend during the final game will be too.

Rock Art

Hustle across Broadway on Prince Street, as I admit I am prone to do, and you’re bound to miss the magic just under foot. And by magic I mean a piece of art etched into the concrete more than 30 years ago. I’ve seen on Google Maps this piece attributed to Keith Haring. That, at first, made sense. Haring had his wondrous Pop Shop tucked behind a gas station at Lafayette and Houston — just a few blocks away — from the mid-80s until 2005, where I would buy magnets and postcards (because it was all I could afford), to feel I was owning a piece of his art. Had I missed a Haring right under my Chucks all these years? I hadn’t. Because the piece in front of today’s Prada store is not a Haring. I learned it’s by Ken Hiratsuka, also known as Ken Rock, who spent nights literally carving the concrete. It’s marked wth his name “Ken” and the date — ’84 — and still there. Hiratsuka is a sculptor who, luckily, believes in street art. Why is that lucky? Because street art is defiantly free: no one can truly own it, and we can all not only experience it — we can experience it in the place the artist wanted us to be. You can see images of Hiratsuka etching this piece on his web site, and then scroll through some of his other pieces. One, River, is just a few blocks way on Bond Street, which he completed in 2008, another on Prince closer to Lafayette. You can’t find all of the addresses on his site, but there are clues enough, which creates a kind of fun scavenger hunt activity for New Yorkers. Anyone game?

Vital Videos

Social media gets a lot of blame for making us feel terrible about ourselves, especially women who get served up videos and posts telling us how to change our appearance to make us seem, well, better. Researchers however were curious: could videos also sway women to see aging as an awesome chapter in our lives — and not a cliff fall? They engaged 764 women between the ages of 18 to 27, 40 to 50, and 65 to 95 to watch TikTok’s that, by design, reinforced positive aging. These included statements like “It’s a privilege to age,” “I love aging,” and “The skin of an 80-year-old should be considered as beautiful as the skin of a 20-year-old.” The results tipped the scales in the direction they’d thought might be possible: videos with a positive messaging could help women feel better about aging in general. Even more? This feeling could lead middle-age and older women to believe that you can age successfully — and improved feelings about older adults in general.

Aging is a certainty: We age every second that passes through our life. But another certainty is we view those who bear these marks of time as less valuable, less attractive and much less capable. Worse, we treat ourselves this way. However, the study points to the idea that even a few short videos can sway us toward believing that as much as a cream can erase lines on our face (and make us more youthful — ie, “better), those lines don’t erase our ability to be vibrant and stunning. We might even believe we have value — and that others with more turns about the sun do too, as the authors noted.

Soccer Pique

The giant Brazil flag on the playground at Grand street and Essex was the loveliest touch as Brazil made it was through to the final 16 this past week. While the Lower East Side is absolutely a cultural Mecca, I learned this particular piece of pride was from a brand event in June. That’s not uncommon in our neighborhood. Seward Park, just 300 feet away, has been tapped for multiple brand shoots including Alexis Bittar and featured heavily in the movie Marty Supreme. The Brazil flag though felt different, more a hallmark of World Cup positivity than marketing. At my favorite coffee shop, my favorite barista wore his Colombian golden-yellow jersey. (They made the final 16 too.) The streets surrounding a local pizza joint on Grand Street typically echo with cheers when England scores, and of course there’s no shortage of USA supporters around (even with our recent loss.) True we’ve been hyper-focused on our nation’s 250th anniversary. But for the next couple of weeks, it’s pretty fantastic to be part of something much bigger.

We all love a bit of polite conversation. It’s comfortable, easy, and stress-free. Yet disagreement, while messy, is the agitation that allows us to crack open a potentially hardened view — and learn.

Many of us, understandably, prefer to engage with people with whom we agree. There are fewer chances to be humiliated or shown up for what we do (or don’t) know. A new robust series of studies seems to back some of these up, finding that adults and children prefer to learn from people who agree with them, even as they believe others should seek do the opposite. However, after being taught the benefit of learning from those they disagreed with, something interesting shifted.

Researchers from the University of Toronto in Canada ran four studies with both adults and children, some as young as 6 years old. To see if people’s opinions could change on whether they’d willingly engage in a little kickup, they tried two different approaches. One taught participants about the benefits of disagreements. Then, in a separate study, researchers asked people to consider someone whose views they opposed before making a decision. Both approaches worked: people grew more willing to seek out disagreements.

There’s no question we live in a time of conflict, when a neighbor may hold a worldview that we don’t, and a family member may be determined that your opinion is void of merit. It’s simpler, and frankly less exhausting, to avoid these topics at dinner parties and gatherings. Even more, if disagreements get personal and even hostile, we can feel overwhelmed and enter what’s sometimes called “threat mode,” a state that activates our amygdala, floods our body with cortisol and adrenaline, and can, as a result, override some of our prefrontal cortex, where we problem-solve and reason.

However, what we gain in placidity, we may lose in deepening our understanding. Consider debate. In middle school, high school, and college, students are required to learn multiple viewpoints on the same topic. They compete by flipping “sides” minutes before a round. Learning how to see a subject from different angles allows them to weigh different perspectives equally, activating and strengthening problem-solving networks in the brain. They don’t “choose” sides — they learn how to see all sides.

In our personal lives, of course, we tend to pick a side. We are never going to agree on all things — and that’s actually fine. But sometimes we get sidetracked by confirmation bias: we believe something, and we locate information that backs that perspective. And when challenged, we may feel attacked. But disagreement can also help shore up what we think we know and help us discover details missing from our argument. Is our house (our opinion) made of bricks or straw? Are we so ingrained in our belief that we ignore elements that show another angle? And if we’re so worried about disagreements, do we shut the door to details that we should consider?

“Understanding how interest in disagreement develops, and how it can be fostered, may help reduce barriers to social learning and foster greater openness to engaging with those who think differently,” the authors wrote.

We don’t ever have to agree with an opposing view. But challenging our own viewpoint may bring something worth the squabble. We may gain a new perspective in the process. That’s called learning. And we’re always the better for it.

Mind Tricks

Can a fake pill increase your short-term memory? I learned about a new study from Milan, which suggests yes. Participants who knowingly took a placebo ended up less stressed compared with both a group deceived into thinking their pills were multivitamin supplements and a control group that received zero treatments. The group that knew their pills were fake also outperformed controls on a short-term memory test. In fact, in several areas, those who knew they were taking the fake pill had gains at least as large as those who were deceived, and on stress, the gains were even larger. Our perceptions of aging can play a significant role in how our bodies and brains respond. In May, I wrote about renowned Yale researcher Becca Levy’s newest study. She and her co-author found more than 45 percent of adults 65 and older improved physically or cognitively over time, and that positive beliefs around aging predicted who improved. Researchers wrote that transparency may have played a role in their study. Those told they were downing fake pills “may have enhanced trust in and engagement with the intervention, thereby supporting therapeutic responsiveness.” Should we pop sugar pills in a pretend effort to boost our brains? Maybe. As the authors noted, this could be “a promising, ethically acceptable approach for supporting healthy aging.”

Pitch Perfect

If you’re watching the World Cup, you may have heard the phrase “hat-trick.” As someone who watches soccer more than occasionally, I knew the phrase but not the origin. And asking a couple of “soccer/football” experts I knew was fruitless. So I learned on my own that the phrase comes from a different sport: cricket. It referred to a bowler, the person throwing the ball, who manages to have three batters not hit the ball. Think: a pitcher striking out three batters in a row. In soccer, a hat-trick is something different: it’s when a player makes three goals in a single game. Pelé is the youngest player to ever score a hat-trick in a World Cup semi-final in 1958, when playing for Brazil against France. (Yes, Brazil won and then went on to win the entire tournament.) I learned more that there is even a perfect hat-trick. This would be one goal with a right foot, one with a left, and a header, which is, as it sounds, a goal shot from your head. As someone who has made a header once, this is as hard as it sounds — and feels.

Hot Mess

I learned this week why we do not put out candles with water. It’s not something I ever thought to do. I typically blow out a flame or cover a burning candle. This week, though, I’d dropped a few too many essential oils into a candle. (I’m partial to lime and rose.) And as I watched smoke from the oil start to rise, I walked the mini votive to the bathroom sink and turned on the tap. Woah. The steam was incredible, and the sculpture and the interaction left behind, beautiful. But — I came to find this is actually stupidly dangerous if I’d had done this with more molten wax. The physics is this: water and wax are immiscible, meaning they cannot bond. Think oil and water. Instead, you can get a combustible reaction when water and hot wax interact. The wax is actually fuel shot into the air — on fire — by water flash-boiling into steam from the heat. I love the pattern I got from my mistake. (Some artists actually do this kind of wax sculpting in their work.) But I’ll leave that work to those who don’t live in tiny apartments in the sky.

Adaptive Adversity

Most of us are more than a little familiar with stress right now. Some may be playing in the background of our lives, but still affect us. But I learned this week more about the term hormetic stress. While most of us associate stress as negative (and for good reasons), hormetic stress helps build tolerance in our bodies. You can think of it as “good stress.” The word comes from hormesis, a response to low doses of an environmental experience or even a toxin that produces a protective or beneficial response. With hormetic stress, you’re stressing your body to increase your threshold in a controlled way. Exercise, such as high-intensity interval training, can trigger hormetic stress. So too fasting and even cold showers.

By stressing ourselves in this way, our bodies undergo different reactions. With a HIIT workout, for example, we shoot off cortisol, which activates certain pathways in our body to create more mitochondria, aka our cells’ batteries. Over time, this stress can even boost the capacity of these organelles, making them more efficient. How can we trigger hormetic stress aside from a HIIT class? 30-60 seconds of a cold shower can work, even short-term (in other words, not extreme) fasting can work. Worth remembering is this moderate approach: short cold showers, short-term fasting, a couple of HIIT workouts a week. Think of yourself in stress training, bringing a measure of mental and physical fitness to your life. And a little goes a long way.

Root Awakening

I have a large planter on my window where several Phalaenopsis orchids have thrived. But this spring, several started pulling themselves out of the dirt, like they’re trying to escape — completely terrifying to see. And made me feel like a bad orchid parent. I learned this situation is called “walking,” and it’s not necessarily a bad thing. But, of course, in my case, it wasn’t great. The roots were dry and brittle, likely indicating they’re suffocating inside. I’ve been slowly repotting a ton of my orchids this year by carefully trimming old roots and gently putting repotting them with coconut husks and other mediums. I’m not always successful, but I’ve had more luck than not.

Lip Service

Earlier this year (before the World Cup took over our brains), the body that governs the rules of play for football/soccer — the International Football Association Board (IFAB) — adopted a new measure: automatic red cards to players who covered their mouths, while speaking on the field. Red cards are calls by referees that instantly eject a player from the field. Teams can’t replace them, so they’re effectively down one player for the remainder of the game. That player is also banned from their team’s next match. The decision stems from players making verbal abusive attacks on others, and by covering their mouths refs can’t play back videos and read their lips. I learned this week that the first games to use the new rule were those in the World Cup when Paraguay’s midfielder Miguel Almirón got hit with a red card for just this reason, in a confrontation with Turkey’s Mert Müldür. Red cards are intense. Paraguay still managed to win with only 10 players on the field. But this action feels like a solid step towards civility on the field. Which, let’s be frank, we could all use in our lives today.

Scent City

I first learned about Linden trees years ago when I took a foraging class in Central Park. There are two things I remember: one, you can eat plantain, which is a common weed-like plant that can also be chewed and used as a band-aid. And two, you can pick Linden flowers, dry them, and steep them as tea. But what I didn’t know — and I learned this week — is why New York plants this particular sweet-smelling flowering tree all over the city.

There are several varieties of Linden, including an American native Linden, also known as Basswood, and a European Linden. The native version is not what most of us fall in love with every June. It doesn’t play very well in the city with its heavy car exhaust and road salt runoffs during the winter, I learned. The European Linden is far hardier, and what we typically see (and smell!) This is the perfect season to catch Linden in your area. The flowers are lovely, pale yellow and as fragrant as jasmine, but with a honeyed scent, and last about a week or two. Bees love them too, so if you’re prone to picking one or two to enjoy the perfume on a walk, just watch for our flying fuzzy friends.

AI’s Attention Slip

There’s a classic test in cognitive psychology called the Stroop task. You’ve almost assuredly seen it. Words of colors are printed, but sometimes in a color different from the one the word represents: Blue might be printed in red, Orange printed in green. You’re asked to say aloud the color you see — not the word. This challenges the brain’s processing because instinctively we want to say the word we’ve read.

I learned that one of my former professors in my Master’s program, Dr. Jin Fan, recently co-authored a paper putting large language models (LLMs) to this test. He and his co-authors used Claude Opus 4.1, ChatGPT-5, and Gemini 2.5 Pro, finding that the artificial intelligence systems performed relatively similarly to humans at first with short word lists. They did better when the color made the word, and a bit worse when they didn’t. But as the word list increased, the LLM accuracy collapsed to near zero. during the incongruent portion, when the color of the ink didn’t match the word. The authors believe that for AI to improve, it needs more than just attention skills — it also needs executive functioning abilities to handle this kind of conflict. Curious how you’d do? Grab a coffee, take a deep breath, and test yourself to see if you’d handle the Stroop task better than AI.

A City of Awe

The World Cup notwithstanding, there was arguably only one sports event that unified Americans this weekend: Game 5 of the NBA Championships. Whether you’re a New Yorker or not, there was a transformative moment Saturday night as the Knicks wrote themselves into the book of legends. And in those seconds, we all were swept into a moment that scientists call collective effervescence.

First proposed more than 100 years ago by French sociologist, David Émile Durkheim, collective effervescence is a state that occurs when our emotions are in sync. It’s an emotional group experience that overwhelms, much like awe. We may clap, dance, or sing together, as crowds did, belting out, “Empire State of Mind,” on New York’s streets and avenues minutes following Saturday night’s win. There’s a synchronicity of feeling that we’re part of something bigger than ourselves.

After Game 4’s historic comeback, Brunson was asked the word he felt summed up the tournament: “Believe.” One play at a time, one point at a time, the team also helped us believe, collectively, in possibility. We cheered them on at every step and sang together when they (and, by extension, we) won.

We’re not always going to have a Knicks championship to bring us together and believe in something bigger. But we have the power to reconnect to that belief — in something, someone, and ourselves. And for now, thank you, Knicks.

Sky Watch

Once, on a visit to Chicago, I happened to time my trip with an unusual activity of the aurora borealis. Crowds gathered for several days in a row on the shores of Lake Michigan to catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights. With this spectacle on my perpetual Bucket List, I trekked through the streets of Hyde Park one night at 1 am, finding myself in the company of hundreds — excited to see the activity. By 2 am, freezing and whipped tired, I returned to my hotel. Luckily, I learned, NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) keeps tabs on the likelihood of when the Northern Lights are possible from anywhere you are. There’s even a 30-minute experimental mode. New York City is rarely in luck, and this week is no exception. But if you live in a northern portion of the country, it’s certainly worth checking out. If all else fails, you can tune into Explore.org’s web site where a live cam of the Northern lights — or a highlight from recent displays above Churchill Manitoba, in Canada — is often on view. Happy aurora hunting!

Bee Brained

I’m a big fan of the bumblebee. I even helped build a native meadow in the middle of New York City to help protect this native bee. So I was delighted to learn that the tiny brain in this fuzzy creature has the power to problem solve, a critical cognitive ability, at the level of elephants and birds. In a paper in Science, published earlier this month, researchers from the University of Oulu in Finland reported that bumblebees can come up with solutions in the moment: learning how to use a ball to help them better reach an object they associated as a flower. That’s something to (excuse me) buzz about.

‘What Did I Just See?’

Short videos are the rule on social media. One minute fragments we can scroll through are about the attention span most of us seem to possess. But if you’re hoping to glean, or learn anything from what you’re watching, longer is better. So says a new article published in Communications Psychology that indicated that short videos produced a “higher rate of forgetting” among those who were actually directed to remember what they’d seen. The researchers looked at neural patterns, and found that short videos increased activity in regions associated with our reflexive immediate attention, but quieted the coordinated responses in the areas that support deliberate, focused attention and memory. The upshot? Shorter, when we’re learning, is not better.

Mirror Mirror

Beluga Whales just entered the rarefied community of animals that can see themselves in a mirror and know it’s them, say scientists. This kind of self-recognition is unique in the animal kingdom. Humans have it, of course. But so too chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, gorillas, bottlenose dolphins, Asian elephants, and some birds: magpies, for example. But a study conducted at the New York Aquarium put four beluga whales in front of two-plexiglass mirrors and found that at least two behaved in a “self-directed” way that looked to be testing, “Is this me I’m looking at?” Researchers from CUNY even put temporary marks on the whales (they used “Wet ’n’ Wild black lipstick for the curious — which was, yes, approved by the Wildlife Conservation Society). The authors noted that one of the whales, particularly a 21-year-old whale, Natasha, moved into certain positions in the mirror to check out the marks. Mirror self-recognition is considered a sign of consciousness. And if you’re feeling this word is floating around a lot, you’re not alone. There’s thought — and work — on whether AI can ever reach a level of consciousness we humans possess: knowing we are aware of, well, being self-aware. That requires more than just mirroring, such as repeating something or responding from past knowledge. That means I am wholly internally aware of myself. Which you, definitely, are. And so too, apparently, are beluga whales.

Social Recall

Feeling lonely may affect how we age — particularly in our brains, as I’ve written about here often. Now, a new study from the University of Valencia, Spain, finds evidence of how: People who report feeling lonely perform worse on memory tests. Researchers read participants 10 words and asked them to remember each one after one and five minutes. A survey captured feelings of loneliness through questions, including “How much of the time do you feel you lack companionship?” And “How much of the time do you feel left out?” The authors found that those who reported high levels of loneliness also had lower recall of the words at the one minute and five-minute mark. The authors noted, however, that the feeling of loneliness didn’t affect the rate of long-term cognitive decline: those who felt more lonely were not worse off long-term than those who felt less lonely. Yet loneliness did affect responses to short-term recall, things like: What did I need from the grocery store? Did I take my medication? These are details worth noting, the authors say, “underscores the importance of considering the perception of loneliness as a significant factor in the context of cognitive performance in older adults without a history of dementia.”

Freeway Freeze

After finishing my self-driving taxi review on Waymo a couple of weeks ago, news broke on May 21 that Waymo had pulled its freeway service from cities, including Los Angeles. (Trust me, this wasn’t my story at work.) It sparked a memory from my experience: on my eight rides in April, not one Waymo took the freeway to get me anywhere. In Los Angeles, I live near the intersection of the 405 and Sunset Boulevard — aka the San Diego freeway. Some of my rides were never going to travel down this famous highway. But at least a couple could have. And not one did. In fact, an evening ride to Venice would have shaved time on our drive by hitting the 405 to the 10 (the Santa Monica freeway). So the news made me wonder: had Waymo already pulled the freeway option quietly from their service before their announcement? I grew up learning to drive these notorious multi-lane byways. (In one lesson, a classmate took her hands off the wheel, screaming, “Clueless” style, requiring our instructor to take control.) The freeways require a certain kind of nerve — or an emotionless AI, I would imagine. On my rides, I felt a bit disappointed we weren’t traveling the freeways. I was curious how Waymo would navigate the sudden acceleration required, lane changes, and erratic behavior exhibited at 70 mph. I hope Waymo gets the green light before my next trip.

A new study from Nature is making its way through social media: Too little or too much sleep affects our aging process. The article specifies the number of hours, too: 6.4 to 7.8 hours. There are even several U-shaped graphs (people love graphs) that provide the oomph for this message, finding faster aging associated with those on either side and above this curve for 9 out of 23 aging clocks.

The amount of sleep they’re suggesting is not surprising. Most of us know the adage that getting eight hours of sleep a night is good for us. Sleep is, of course, much more than our brains getting some dream time. Our neurons are hard at work as our eyes close, acting much like a cleaning crew, pushing toxins and even unneeded proteins — what scientists call “metabolic waste” — out of our brains. It’s a supremely critical process.

Something happens, though, as we get older, and it’s not uncommon: we can start to sleep less, and sometimes sleep more. About 50 percent of adults over the age of 60 have said they’ve suffered from insomnia. And a 2017 study from UCLA found that one bad night of sleep was causally linked to molecular activity connected to biological aging.

What the researchers at Columbia University found was not just a sweet spot for sleep — but the change in aging markers on those who were not getting that kind of shut eye. To authors used existing aging clocks for important organs in the body and their data — protein, metabolic, and imaging for the liver, for example. Because our body’s parts age at different rates (they’re not all changing at the same time), looking at a wide range is crucial. And the data came from the UK Biobank, a database with genetic, biological, and lifestyle details culled from volunteer participants.

Scientists found optimal sleeping to be between 6 and 8 hours a night, with less or more than that “short” or “long.” The effect of sleep on the brain in these short or long periods was particularly interesting — there were structural, functional, and protein changes in this organ when sleep reached these short and long extremes. Brain data from magnetic resonance imaging biological aging clocks (MRIBAG) data indicated that 6.48 hours for women and 6.42 hours for men were the optimal amount of sleep. But when they looked at plasma proteomics (protein) biological aging clock (ProtBAG) data, they found something different: women needed 7.82 hours of sleep and men needed 7.7 hours. The upshot? That the brain’s molecular aging pathways may need more sleep to recover — and the brain itself, as an organ, is particularly sensitive to sleep disruption as well.

Researchers cautioned that they could not rule out that the sleep disturbances they found were actually caused by diseases already experienced by the participants. They did run a test that found evidence pushing against that possibility, but stopped short of completely ruling that out.

Should we get more sleep? All signs point to yes. Should we be setting our alarms so we do not fall outside the range indicated in the study? That would be a hard no. But the study certainly points to the relationship between sleeping and our bodies’ ability to reset and restore our systems. That’s not something to stress over (which of course would affect your sleep). However, prioritizing sleep even before we hit our golden years is a preventative measure to consider — rather than burning the midnight oil — to help our bodies age as well as we hope.

Robotic Dance

Memorial Day Weekend is having New York to yourself, almost. And this past one I decided to tour the new wing of the New Museum on Bowery, and its latest show, “New Humans: Memories of the Future.” One of my favorites is a robotic delight, a moving squid-like creature that floats above the head in the 4th-floor gallery. It’s lovely to see it floating above, but I wanted to know how it operates. The art piece is controlled by two technologists from the New Museum who are happy to explain how Anicka Yi’s “In Love with the World,” the piece’s name, runs. Along the edge of the ceiling, which I missed, are small cameras that work to create a kind of geo-fencing, preventing the robot from leaving the room. I learned they do not, however, prevent the balloon from hitting the walls, which one of the technologists admitted. I never saw the squid do anything but move in a balloon-like swan dance, but I did get to see the robot drop down for a check-in. The tiny fans around the balloon brought it down slowly to its platform, and the tentacles, each motorized, gently braced the object as it came to land. If all robots could be that graceful.

Artificial Eye

At the end of the show, tucked into the far-back corner of the 4th floor gallery, was a photo display, of anthropomorphized robots throughout cinematic history. There was “Ex Machina,” “The Terminator,” and “Blade Runner” (the original), to name a few. I turned to read the label. I want to know why a curator thinks the work or artist is important: Why did they take the time to put this together — what do they want me to know? Here’s what I learned: This particular part of the exhibit was curated by Google Gemini, including the written explanation. Alarm bells rang. Should AI be guiding and curating for me, an idea of how to interpret something humans themselves have created for other humans? I guess, in the future, we do.

The Kindness of Pookas

Finally, this weekend I stumbled across again, as one always should, the 1950 original “Harvey.” Yes, the Jimmy Stewart one. There never was a better movie made. (And don’t come at me. I studied Eisenstein, Italian Neorealism, and the French New Wave at U.C. Berkeley, then graduated from film school at NYU. I’m telling you: It’s “Harvey.”) I’m saying this because the world today needs more Harveys, and by that I mean we need to believe that there are 6-foot-8-inch pookas floating around the world who believe in us. And no, that’s not AI. AI does not have our best interest at heart, does not sit at bars with us drinking a beer, and is most assuredly not kind. AI is what we ask it to be. And that alone should give you pause. The Pope wrote about AI this past week, too. You should pour a very strong macchiato and have a go at that. But I know AI could not have written a “Harvey,” better than Mary Chase’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, and even more: could not have imbued Stewart with the character and care to depict his half of a friendship with something he could not see, touch, nor hear. (Does this sound familiar?) I learned that Jimmy Stewart decided that Harvey, his particular pooka in a rabbit form, had to be 6 feet 8 inches because Stewart — who was himself 6 feet 3 inches tall — wanted to look up to him, literally. There’s a tenderness to this relationship: A friend who can pal around on benders, who doesn’t stop bad things from happening to you — but sits with you through the mishaps, never judging. Stewart’s famous line from the movie is steeped in Harvey’s influence on him. And feels an apt mantra for today: “In this world, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant. Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. And you may quote me.”

Ten years ago I wrote a piece, “Self Driving Cars are coming whether you’re ready or not.” Since then, I’ve been in several Tesla’s with self-driving modes engaged, and tooled around Las Vegas in autonomous testers during conferences.

A few weeks ago I rode in eight self-driving cars across Los Angeles for errands, into Venice for dinner and through the Wilshire Corridor for some thrift shopping and latte drops.

Self-driving cars aren’t coming — they’re here. And they’re scarily great.

I always assumed self-driving trucks would arrive first, as I wrote back in 2019. (And they’re starting; a pilot program with driverless trucks is evolving into a robust rollout in Texas this year.) But consumer adoption of driverless cars, to my surprise, is a bit further ahead.

The cars, all Jaguar i-Pace electric vehicles, were run by Waymo, the Google Self Driving Project offshoot, that’s already in 11 cities including Los Angeles, Houston, Atlanta, San Francisco Bay Area and more. In New York, Waymo was testing its service of about eight cars — which you could catch sightings of, like Anna Wintour, if you were lucky. But that ended after its permits expired in March. The company also says it’s running tests in 21 cities from Chicago to Philadelphia, London and Tokyo.

Waymo doesn’t say how many cars are running in Los Angeles. But in October 2025 news reports put these numbers north of 600. I’ll say that those numbers have to be substantially higher now. When I was in Los Angeles last fall, I saw one on occasion. In April, I saw at least five or six Waymos within a 10-15 minute ride.

You can almost always get a Waymo in Los Angeles right now in under 10 minutes — far faster, apparently, than a competitor’s recent rollout in Texas. Even more important for riders, the fares are cheaper than Uber or Lyft, and there’s no tipping. (That’s actually one of the downsides, to me, in this story. Because self-driving cars will replace human drivers in taxi services — again, not if, but when — and that’s going to shut the door to an income stream for several people.) But that time is in the future because people still haven’t come around to sitting comfortably in a robot car with a steering wheel that moves on its own, which happens on every ride.

My rides in a self-driving car

I took eight Waymo trips across four days in Los Angeles. I’d previously downloaded the app, linked my Google account, and uploaded a payment option. From there, the rides were simple to initiate, and each one was fairly short — like most ride-sharing trips — ranging from less than two miles to a bit more than seven miles.

I had wanted to try Waymo months earlier, but the service wasn’t covering the area where my family still lives in West Los Angeles. This time, the geofencing had expanded.

On my first trip, I rode for about 12 minutes — with an iced coffee in hand. The car, picking me up near Sawtelle, did a crazy move to get to my side of the sidewalk, but pulled over neatly and greeted me once I unlocked the door with my app and hopped into the backseat. Inside, there was what I can best describe as mood instrumentals playing, the kind I would expect to hear inside a yoga studio. It’s a solid move to put people at ease. While not my favorite style of music, I certainly created an alternate space separation from the street noise. The car took off, chiding me quite loudly: I needed to put on my seatbelt.

I was able to watch what the car saw from a console behind the two front seats, and on a screen on the dashboard. From moving vehicles to pylons, people to buildings, I could watch my entire ride by looking down. The Waymo noted traffic lights and stop signs, and could veer around a double-parked car.

The entire ride was uneventful. Unlike reports of Waymos acting slightly erratically in traffic, riding in circles, honking at other Waymos, I didn’t experience that. However, once a car decided that Westwood Blvd was not safe to pull over, and directed me to a side street, about 2 blocks away, at the last minute. I wasn’t thrilled. That was compounded when I got to the car, as its LED system up top had spelled out “Lauren’s car.”

I’m not in love with my name circling like a Vegas show act in one-foot-tall red letters on the street. There’s a benefit to not having a human driver — Waymo couldn’t tell how truly annoyed I was, nor ding me on a rating scale for my snide comment when I slipped into the backseat.

The only time I was truly worried was on a ride on Sunset, as we passed a school zone. No one slows down on Sunset, but my Waymo did. And frankly, it was terrifying to be in a car driving that slowly with people passing us. Why they were honking — as if I could do anything in the robot car — was confusing. And also stressful. But once past the zone, the Waymo fell in line with the flow of traffic.

A peek at the tech

The technology had me transfixed. I loved trying to compare the console imagery to the street and figure out what was being picked up by its cameras, radar, and lidar. The car also uses an onboard computer, and there’s a human you can call from the Console if you sense your Waymo may not be following instructions. I called twice, once when the car needed to turn right from Sunset and seemed to be heading to the 405 freeway instead. I was a bit concerned, not scared, but definitely not thrilled. And while I was speaking to the operator, the car muscled across Sunset (during rush hour) and into the correct lane.

There are 29 cameras on the cars, which are used to detect traffic lights, construction zones, and other details. But the car also pulls data from lidar, which uses near-infrared light bounced off objects to help the system determine distance. Radar picks up details like speed, and there is a computer inside each car. AI and machine learning are in play to chew through all of this data.

Waymo describes its autonomous driving technology as divided into a “Think Fast” and a “Think Slow” architecture. Think Fast uses much of the tech I mentioned above to make in-the-moment decisions: Stop when there’s a red light. Don’t make a left turn until traffic abates. Pause at the crosswalk when a pedestrian enters the street. Think Slow tapes into what the company calls “semantic reasoning.” In essence, the system is plugging into training when something unique happens. None of my rides had to manage anything unique. Once, my Waymo pulled into a very small parking lot at FedEx, and turned itself around in a ridiculously tight space, as another car was also pulling in. I found it fascinating how accurately and smoothly it handled these obstacles.

Let’s talk privacy

Waymo’s sensors are picking up data: visual cues of cars on streets, people walking, and more. That data — including recorded camera footage — helps Waymo continue to train the system. Waymo can also share information it collects with law enforcement — and says so. Waymo says a warrant is required before the company delivers this kind of detail, but authorities have requested surveillance footage from Waymo, according to Bloomberg.

When not in use

What do Waymos do when they’re not picking up rides? They don’t drive around like a taxi looking for fares — they park. And they don’t park at coffee shops so drivers can grab some caffeine during their shift. Waymos park in neighborhoods. I saw a few on some Westwood side streets. Others have been spotted hanging out near homes in Santa Monica and causing a ruckus at night in San Francisco.

Look, I live in New York City, where construction workers typically lay down new asphalt at 1 am when there’s less traffic, and deliveries to the Target across the street start about 4:30 am as trucks back in beeping in high-pitched peels that pierce through my bedroom window. Noise is part of the scenery. But I can imagine in other cities, random cars waiting at night in front of your home may not go well.

But self-driving cars are not going away. While the U.S. is far from giving up cars, the latest oil concerns are a stress. Gasoline in Los Angeles in April hit above $6.70 a gallon while I was visiting. With a 7-mile, 30- minute Waymo ride clocking in at $26.71, it’s still probably cheaper to drive yourself. But maybe not for much longer. Add in the time — and stress — to find a parking spot, especially in Los Angeles, and a self-driving service starts to sound pretty relaxing.

On my last ride of the week, I got picked up on Montana Avenue. I’d grabbed a latte, a Mother’s Day card and some gluten-free cinnamon rolls. (I’ll wait while you laugh.) My hands were full as the Waymo glided toward the sidewalk, and I juggled a couple of things as I slid, gratefully, into the backseat.

“Welcome, Lauren,” the robot voice said to me. And it was.

Attitude Adjustment

Can you think your way to cognitive health? A new study out of the Yale School of Public Health points to ways to achieve a cognitive boost by thinking positively about how we age. Following more than 11,000 people 65 and older over 12 years, researchers, including renowned scientist Rebecca Levy, found that nearly a third increased their cognitive health or their walking speed (considered a sign of vitality as we age) — with a rise in both linked to “positive age beliefs.” Levy is known for her theory that societal beliefs around aging - such as ageism - can affect us biologically. And her recent study, in the March 2026 issue of Geriatrics, not only supports this theory, but gives people something they can control that may influence their own aging experience. “Our findings suggest there is often a reserve capacity for improvement in later life,” she said. “And because age beliefs are modifiable, this opens the door to interventions at both the individual and societal level.”

New York Blooms

I love a stunning flower display — staged and wild. And one of New York’s classics is in full bloom this week: the annual Macy’s Flower Show. This year’s show celebrates different state flowers, but the blooming sun was by far my favorite: a kaleidoscope of fiery florals. The flowers are so fresh, I watched petals drop as I stood near the Valentino display. I learned there were not only 50,000 individual flowers throughout the show but also hundreds of crocheted blooms, resembling cabbage roses, cherry blossoms, and daisies. Running through May 10, the show is only on display another few days. So if you’re in town, catch it before the last bud falls.

Brain Boost in a Bottle

Our nose serves as a direct pipeline to our brain, with that passageway bypassing the critical blood-brain barrier, which protects our neural noggin. It’s one reason why newer therapeutics designed to treat strokes and other conditions have been delivered through this pathway — they hit the brain fast and more potently by not being partially metabolized by the liver. But researchers at Texas A&M have found that spraying the brains of aging mice with microRNA can reduce what’s called neuroinflammaging — inflammation associated with oxidative stress (when free radicals outnumber antioxidants) — helping them perform better on memory tasks. Scientists delivered this genetic code through vessels made from stem cells, spraying them into the nasal passages of mice. Are we spraying ourselves to better cognitive health any time soon? Nope. (Mice models do not always translate into human results.) But with oxidative stress linked to concerns like environmental toxins and sun exposure (both slightly out of our control), research on shifting this effect is hopeful, helping us reframe our thoughts on aging.