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I love running. I will happily jog for hours (and often do, during marathons). But ask me to perform a push-up, and I might cry. I truly detest strength training.Unfortunately for me, it’s extremely good for you—and for runners who want to get faster. So I decided to add in two strength-training sessions per week in preparation for running the Boston Marathon this spring. I wanted exercises designed to improve my pace, but didn’t want to spend money on a personal trainer. Unsure of how to start, I turned to ChatGPT. The chatbot did not give me the workout regimen I was hoping for—and after following its recommendations for nearly a month, I was no closer to liking strength training. But I learned some things along the way that might end up helping me become a better runner.Lesson 1: ChatGP...

After scrapping a plan several months ago to ban people born after 2008 from buying tobacco cigarettes, the New Zealand government on Wednesday announced a total ban on single-use e-cigarettes—also known as disposable vapes—and said it will increase the fines on retailers selling cigarettes and vapes to those under 18, in the country’s latest approach to discourage smoking among youth.“The rapid rise in youth vaping has been a real concern for parents, teachers, and health professionals,” Associate Health Minister Casey Costello said when announcing the changes to New Zealand’s Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Act. She added that reusable vapes would remain available for adults as they are “a key smoking cessation device” but that too many teenagers use disposable vapes becaus...

Every day, people with foot pain hobble into Dr. Priya Parthasarathy’s podiatry office, and she asks them the same three questions: “What do you do for work? Where do you work? And what do you put on your feet when you’re working?”More often than not, they work from home, barefoot. Over the past few years, there’s been a “significant increase” in people experiencing foot pain, says Parthasarathy, a podiatrist with Foot and Ankle Specialists of Mid-Atlantic in Silver Spring, Md. A rise in remote work is partly to blame, she believes. There is a solution to the aches, strains, and even stress fractures, though it’s not one patients like to hear: Start wearing shoes inside. “It makes such a big difference,” she says.Hard floors are bad for your feetThere are lots of reasons why people go bare...

As winter ends, several viruses are still continuing to rise across the U.S., according to data from WastewaterSCAN, a network of wastewater surveillance sites. Norovirus, one type of influenza, and another respiratory virus are all increasing or have recently peaked in samples from the network's 190 wastewater treatment facilities, which are located in 41 states. “What we’re seeing right now for the major viruses we are monitoring is that there are similar patterns across the country,” says Marlene Wolfe, assistant professor of environmental health at Emory University and one of WastewaterSCAN's program directors. “We’re not seeing widely divergent patterns geographically.”When people are infected, they shed viruses in their excretions, and analyzing samples from wastewater treatment plan...