The curse of the Halloween baby: women avoid giving birth on ‘evil day’

Halloween's associations with death, evil and skeletons may subconsciously put women off giving birth, claim scientists

Dale Carnegie’s self-help bible gets a new life for the digital age

How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age includes advice for bloggers but keeps rules of the 1936 original

Reebok EasyTone: the shoe that undermines all fitness advertising

Want to be fit without doing exercise? Hadley Freeman dons her special shoes to examine some of the finest products on the market

Coffee may help prevent depression in women

A large study has shown that the risk of clinical depression is lower among women who drink coffee

David Servan-Schreiber obituary

French-born author of a bestselling guide to the treatment of cancer

This American confession is an insult to Guatemala

Hugh O'Shaughnessy: The attitude of the US establishment to central America has barely changed since the syphilitic atrocity of 1946-8

Om in the army: the US military gets yoga

Stewart J Lawrence: Meditation may help with PTSD, but some yogis are dismayed that their peace-loving practice is now turned to combat training

Fast-food study finds calories count for little for most customers

Labelling on food deters only a minority of people from the more fattening choices on the menu, research finds

The NFL star and the brain injuries that destroyed him

Before the former American football player Dave Duerson killed himself, he asked that his brain be left to researchers studying head injuries among athletes. What it revealed shocked the scientists

Sedentary lifestyle can lead to pulmonary embolism, study finds

Survey of 70,000 nurses shows those who choose sofa over exercise after work more likely to get blood clots on lungs