Running seems to require a greater amount of high-level thinking than most of us might imagine. The sport seems to change how the brain works in surprising ways, according to a new report. The study, published this month in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, found that the brains of competitive distance runners had different connections in…
A new study shows how cities with separated cycling infrastructure saw big safety improvements and higher ridership numbers. Several weeks ago, painted lines and flexible plastic lane dividers began materializing on Maryland Avenue, one of the major north-south arteries that connect downtown Baltimore to the residential neighborhoods above the city. The resulting 2.6-mile route is…
One Toronto neighborhood serves as an example of the limitations in drawing links between happier residents and the amount of green space they have access to. It’s 10 a.m. on a warm August morning in Regent Park, a neighborhood in the east end of downtown Toronto that has historically been defined by its public housing…
The best way to prevent the bad health consequences of work stress is exercise Stress can be detrimental to your health, contributing to everything from higher blood pressure to nausea. Now, a new study zeroes in one of the the biggest sources of stress—our jobs—and suggests that exercise may be an effective way to ease…
First there was the single-geared ‘fixie’ bike, then there was the unicycle, and then the electric unicycle. But hipsters could be ready to one-up themselves again with a new take on wheeled transport, which uses a treadmill instead of pedals. For riders of the Lopifit, getting from A to B is as easy as putting…
Cycling is my passion. I love to ride my bike on my way to work, when going shopping or in my spare time. I definitely love cycling while in vacation too. Unfortunately, not all the cities in the world can be defined as bike friendly. In the attempt to discover which are the most bike…
Are we fighting thousands of years of evolutionary history and the best interests of our bodies when we sit all day? That question is at the core of a fascinating new study of the daily lives and cardiovascular health of a modern tribe of hunter-gatherers. The findings strongly suggest that we are born to be…
Franz Hessel’s ‘Walking in Berlin: A Flaneur in the Capital’ documents the city in the late 1920s “Walking down bustling streets is a particular pleasure,” begins “The Suspect”, the first piece in Franz Hessel’s Walking in Berlin, elegantly translated by Amanda DeMarco. “But my dear fellow citizens of Berlin don’t make it easy, no matter how…
These days, we spend so much time trying to figure out what to do next, how to get as far as we can in all aspects of life, and how to make the best impact on the world or our immediate surroundings. We sit there analyzing situations, figuring out game plans, and reading endlessly to learn…
If you design a city to get people walking, then people will do more physical activity. A new global study has found that a well-designed neighborhood not only keeps people fit but can reduce obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. The correlation between walkability and public health has been made before, but this study, published in…
