The Johns Hopkins University professor Dr. P.M. Forni, who made a name for himself as the founder of The Civility Initiative at Johns Hopkins, has now turned his talents to the subject of reflection in his new book, The Thinking Life: How to Thrive in the Age of Distraction. “If we agree that life is important, then thinking as we go through it is the basic tribute we owe it,”...

Let’s face it. Your haircut is only part of the reason you look so darn good when you leave the salon. The other part is that your stylist blow-dries your hair a lot better than you do. That’s where Hot Air comes in. The salon—owned by Joy Robinson Singer and Kate Taylor—focuses on perfecting blow outs in under an hour, with eight styles (at $35 each), ranging from straight and sleek to beachy...

Everyone saw the power of the prosthetic leg this past summer when South Africa’s Oscar Pistorius was the first amputee to compete in track at the Olympics. But what about the less prevalent prosthetic arm? “We haven’t seen anywhere near that level of functionality given to upper extremities,” says Mike McLoughlin, program manager at The Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory (...

“To sleep, perchance to dream: ay there’s the rub,” said Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Indeed, Hamlet was not alone in his struggle to sleep, according to Dr. Steve M. Scharf, director of the University of Maryland Sleep Disorders Center. “Forty to 50 percent of the American population has suffered from insomnia. Eight to nine percent of men and 10 to 12 percent of women have chronic insomnia.”...