These are the five most popular majors at California colleges: business administration, psychology, sociology, communications and registered nursing. And where you go to college to pursue those majors can make a big difference in future earnings, according to an analysis of federal data.

During the fall college application season, as high ...Read more

CHICAGO -- Robots demonstrating dance moves made popular by the late entertainer Michael Jackson, mini-catapults sending plastic gourds soaring toward a cauldron, paper airplane competitions and ice cream frozen by liquid nitrogen were among the demonstrations on offer at the fifth annual University of Chicago South Side Science Festival.

...Read more

CHICAGO -- In hushed voices in a darkened room, John and James Kountz stared intently at what looked to any unsuspecting person like a computer screen inside a metal suitcase. The identical twins in matching forest-green shirts leaned in and watched as two frequencies created hills and valleys on the screen of the Quantenkoffer, a $250,000 ...Read more

There is an annual bedding plant that dazzles in the shade or the sun. It is among the last plants planted each year, as if it were placed at the back of the line. But from the hottest days of summer to the cool days of fall, your eyes are drawn to its beauty. It is the ColorBlaze Sedona Sunset coleus.

If you have ever been to Sedona, Arizona, ...Read more

Dear Anna,

My boyfriend and I have been together for a little over three years now. We recently argued over a work gala I’m attending this Saturday. I want him there for the whole evening, but he doesn’t see why he should give up a whole night for people he barely knows. He offered to come for the last hour or two, but not the full event.

...Read more

I got this email last week from a new client of mine. She is in her 60s, widowed and this is her first foray into online dating:

“Alan has texted me three times and has not suggested getting together. Of course I have done the same. I’m losing interest in continuing this back and forth. I have the sense that he prefers intellectual banter...Read more

CHICAGO — As students settle into the school year and “new normal,” parents take the journey with them — lending support and guidance as the back-to-school season unfolds amid the surprises and challenges everyday school interactions bring. Sometimes navigating the school year feels like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book, where one ...Read more

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Steve Alexy walked carefully and pigeon-toed toward the dumbbells and mirror at the back of the gym, one arm held tight against his body, the other dangling, twitching and swinging out of sync with his gait.

His longtime partner Arlyn Smith walked duck-footed toward a pullup bar, going slow too but with short, quick, ...Read more

We all want our kids to become mature. We take this word so much for granted that many of us have probably failed to fully consider what the word really means.

I think that the word “maturity” comes from one’s developed ability to bring value to the world.

Philosopher Aristotle's idea of human flourishing ("eudaimonia" in Greek) involves...Read more

Q. My 8-year-old daughter told me that she wants to dress up for Halloween with her mother, her mother’s boyfriend and his two children. They are all going as characters from the same movie. I’ll admit it bothers me. It looks like they’re pretending to be one big happy family and I’m being replaced. I told my daughter that I thought she ...Read more

I have come to the conclusion that aging is simply a different version of Pin the Tail on the Donkey, only this one is Pin the Aches and Pains on the Old People. In Pin the Tail on the Donkey, there is only one winner, but in this game everybody wins. No matter where you put the pin, you’ll tag something.

More and more, when we are together ...Read more

CHICAGO -- Sports betting is legal, and therefore everywhere right now. But from the 1940s through the 1970s, it was a different diversion altogether that had people knitting their brows over gambling concerns: Pinball games.

In fact, pinball was banned in Chicago during this period.

“Initially I thought, well, that’s ridiculous,” said ...Read more

CHICAGO — As students settle into the school year and “new normal,” parents take the journey with them — lending support and guidance as the back-to-school season unfolds amid the surprises and challenges everyday school interactions bring. Sometimes navigating the school year feels like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book, where one ...Read more

A dog may be a man’s best friend — except when the man has to take the dog out in snow, rain, heat or gloom of night — but as a man whose best friends have all been female, I hadn’t had a male bonding experience in a dog’s age.

That is, until recently, when a cute little guy named Jackson was our houseguest.

Since Jackson is a puppy,...Read more

MIAMI — It’s a bit like going through the secret portal in the back of the wardrobe to the magical land of Narnia.

In the tiny village of El Portal just north of the Miami city line, in the lush and tree-shadowed Sherwood Forest section on a bend in the Little River, the door to a storybook 1930 cottage opens to an utterly unexpected world:...Read more

I have long said that before I fell in love with journalism, I fell in love with journalists.

It started at my college newspaper at Eastern Illinois University, where I walked in as a freshman and asked for a writing assignment and immediately, happily, found a kind and merry band of misfits, pranksters, contrarians, question-askers, fact-...Read more

The summer plant trials are famous not only for introducing new plants to whip us into a frenzy but also new recipes, mixes or combinations to try not only in the landscape but in hanging baskets and planters too! One such recipe is called Pebble Beach and each selection or variety in the mix is an award winner.

The first variety is Superbena ...Read more

CHICAGO -- At least once a month, Rita Leary incorporates food into a science lesson at Ashburn Community Elementary School. On a recent Thursday, it was all about honey. Sticky, sweet, viscous, varied in hues of light to dark amber.

“Do you guys think it will taste like it smells?” Leary asked her mixed class of sixth, seventh and eighth ...Read more

LOS ANGELES -- Click-clock. Click-clock.

The rhythmic sound of a metronome fills a 12,000-square-foot warehouse-turned-wellness space in Marina del Rey. The room is dimly lighted but for yellow and red string lights that produce radiant, shimmying splotches on the concrete floor.

About 55 women stand in a circle, hands crisscrossed on their ...Read more