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I've always shied away from those Internet quizzes that make you answer questions to determine how old you are, not chronologically but healthwise.  Some of my half-century friends get in the 30s but I still stay away. Now how would you like to know when you'll die?  I can't imagine anything more gruesome! I've always lived my life based on serendipity -- you know, the things you never expect to happen but do, like meeting my husband after talking to a woman on a boat in the Bahamas who happened to live near me and going out on singles' weekends with her, then up to the Catskills to meet a husband for her, only I met mine. Those kinds of things. But a new study purports that a computer can tell you how old you will be when you die. I'd kind of like it to be a surprise. Maybe because I've fought cancer twice, death doesn't scare me so much (okay, maybe it's that I've been cancer-free for almost 10 years that does it).  But statisticia...

Okay.  So if you read my blog yesterday, you learned that stress erodes our memories. So now a new study is saying, using a computer and social activity helps our memory.  Huh? Keeping the brain active with social activities and using a computer may help older adults reduce their risk of developing memory and thinking problems, newswise.com reports.  Now we've known this for some time.  That's why you see people in nursing homes doing puzzles and crossword puzzles (and grabbing the nurse's skirt, do they wear skirts anymore? -- but that's for another time). The bottom line is, these kinds of activities keep the mind healthier, longer. For the study, researchers followed 1,929 people, age 70 and older, who were part of the larger Mayo Clinic Study of Aging in Rochester, Minn. The participants had normal memory and thinking abilities at recruitment to the study. They were then followed for an average of four years until they developed mild cognitive impai...

Now this may shock you, as it did me.  When you're in love, experts say, it's better to email than to leave a voicemail. Huh? According to a new research study from Indiana University, people might be more successful in finding love if they get an email rather than a message. The research suggests that, in this digital age, an email can be more effective in expressing romantic feelings than leaving a voicemail message, newswise.com reports. Previous research and conventional wisdom suggested the opposite, that a voicemail message is a more intimate way to connect with others, but that may not be true, particularly among millennials. “The bottom line is that email is much better when you want to convey some information that you want someone to think about,” says one of the authors, Alan R. Dennis, the John T. Chambers Chair of Internet Systems in IU’s Kelley School of Business.  Now keep in mind -- you can't take things back on email.  It's always th...