Family

Chinese research says cuddling does way more than we thought

A long-term experiment in hugs just checked in on teenagers.

There’s something about a baby that just says, “Hold me.” And I do not just mean the screaming when you put them down. My boy hasn’t been a baby for a long time, but I still love a good snug. New science out of China says it’s good for him, so like broccoli, I’m going to make him put up with it.

As Erik Barnes reports in this story, researchers wanted to know whether early maternal touch does more than calm babies in the moment. They followed more than 500 teenagers and asked them to look way back. Were they held? Cuddled? Patted to sleep? Then they compared those memories with how the teens behaved socially years later.

What they found was hard to ignore. Teens who reported more physical affection early on tended to be more empathetic, more cooperative, and more comfortable connecting with others.

Researchers say more work is needed. Still, the idea is simple and beautiful. The stuff that feels small at the time might actually be laying emotional groundwork we do not see until much later.

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Health

What to do after reaching your goal weight with GLP-1 medications

GLP-1s are a new road to an old place.

Remember Olestra? The fat-free chips that promised weight loss with just one tiny, monstrous, unspeakable side effect. For years, that was the pattern. Big promises. Weird science. Bodies that absolutely refused to cooperate.

Humans are, ironically, hungry for a weight loss miracle. And after decades of false starts and wrong turns, science may have finally hit one out of the park. GLP-1 drugs quiet hunger, move the scale, and deliver results.

As Amy J. Sheer reports in this story, for many people, the miracle part is real. The weight comes off. The needle on the scale moves. The body feels, briefly, like it’s playing along.

And then you reach the end of the journey and discover something familiar. You are still living in a human body. One that adapts. One that wants food. One that slows down. One that remembers where it started and quietly tries to go back.

The hardest question isn’t whether GLP-1s work. It’s what happens after they do.

And what did we learn?

Yesterday, we learned that a well-timed treat can be the trick to developing a healthy new habit. I learned that fewer GOOD readers are fans of Parks and Recreation than I expected. Still, those who showed up to answer the question of which resident of Pawnee they’d most like to work out with made an unexpected choice.

• Chris Traeger | He would literally be the best. (5.9%)

• Leslie Knope | That positive energy would carry me through. (47.1%)

• Ron Swanson | Stoic, supportive, no time for nonsense. (26.5%)

• Tom Haverford | He'd know the best gym in town, and it would be a spa. (8.8%)

I LITERALLY thought Chris would run away with it. He’s very nearly a perfect human specimen.

Culture

Life in an HOA can be a pain sometimes, but we’ve got tips for making it work

Know your rights and keep your records.

HOAs have a reputation for being the killjoys of cul-de-sacs. No, you can’t paint your door that color, no, you can’t put up that privacy hedge, and no, you can’t have an eco-conscious insect sanctuary. When that last one happened to one Reddit user, they channeled their best King Théoden: “You have no power here!*”

Since they have the potential to have so much power over your home, Mark Wales came up with a list of seven tips and things to know that will make your life in an HOA neighborhood much, much better, including what’s worth going to war over, and what isn’t.

* - I know it’s actually Saruman speaking through Théoden, no need to summon the Rohirrim.

On February 5, 1974, NASA’s deep-space probe Mariner 10 skimmed past Venus and became the first spacecraft to use a planned gravity assist. For the first time, a spacecraft borrowed a planet’s momentum to reach another world.

Before that maneuver bent Mariner 10 inward toward Mercury, the probe snapped detailed images of Venus. Ultraviolet photos revealed banded cloud decks and a fast-moving, Y-shaped feature that hinted at the planet’s super-rotating atmosphere. The gravity assist itself conserved fuel and expanded what deep-space missions could attempt.

Over the next year, Mariner 10 executed three close flybys of Mercury, mapping much of its cratered surface, detecting a global magnetic field, and sampling its thin exosphere. The technique it proved, trading fuel for momentum, became standard practice for Voyager, Galileo, Cassini, and nearly every interplanetary mission since.

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