CHECK IN  Kids have been confounding their parents since forever. What’s relatively new is book after book claiming to explain it all. Recently we’ve had titles-turned-sensations like Outliers, Bringing Up Bébé, Quiet and anything with the words “Tiger Mother” in it. Of course all that invites an everything-you’ve-read-is-wrong response, and the biggest has been NutureShock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman.  Read More>>

CHECK IN   Have you ever wished you could solve life’s problems the way Sherlock Holmes solves mysteries? That’s the premise of Maria Konnikova’s new book, MASTERMIND: HOW TO THINK LIKE SHERLOCK HOLMES. The Russian-born Konnikova writes the “Literally Psyched” column for Scientific American magazine while she pursues her PhD in psychology at Columbia. She’s also a big Sherlock Holmes fan — especially the recent BBC series. Read More>>

LIVING FEATURE  Look at some of the differences in the health care systems used by France, Canada, Japan, the US and others.  See what innovations, upsides and downs each has in comparison. Read More>>

LIVING FEATURE  Meet Nikki White. She’s tall and athletic, grew up middle-class in Tennessee and graduated from the University of Texas, after which she went to work in an Austin bookstore.

And she’s dead. Read More>>

PEOPLE  About 20 years ago, on the rain-forested edge of West Africa, a young doctor waited for a patient in a tiny makeshift hospital. Located 50 miles from the nearest paved road, powered by a gas generator and filled with villagers he had recruited and trained to approximate a nursing staff, it was a ramshackle operation. Still, it was all pretty impressive for a 24-year-old recent med school graduate working in the ancient village where his father was born. And when a local man arrived with his 9-year-old daughter — spiking fever, lots of pain — he saw how even his improvisation of a hospital could change a community. Read More>>