What’s the best remedy for an aching back? According to results from a new study funded by the National Institutes of Health, most chronic back pain sufferers don’t know the answer–in large part because their doctors aren’t telling them.

Call her Bessie. Call her Daisy. Call her Buttercup. Just call that cow something. A new study by researchers at Newcastle University’s School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development finds that cows given pet names produce more milk–up to an extra 500 pints a year!–than cows that are just anonymous members of the herd.

The nation’s efforts to clear the air of pollution are paying off big time, according to new research published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Americans today live an extra five months, thanks to improvements in air quality achieved over the past few decades, the study found. In the cities that made the biggest improvement in air quality, life expectancies climbed a full ten months.

An update on our warning about products containing peanut butter: Five hundred people have now become ill after eating products containing peanut butter contaminated with salmonella–including more than 100 children under the age of five. And, it now turns out, the plant that produced the peanut butter knew it had a salmonella problem and went on selling the contaminated products anyway.

Music soothes the savage beast, they say. And there’s evidence it eases stress and may even promote healing. Surgeons often listen to recorded music while operating. Jorge Camara, MD, an eye surgeon at Hawaii Medical Center East, went a whole step further, installing a piano in the operating room–and playing it himself.

Americans on the whole are no happier than they were three decades ago, according to new findings from the University of Pennsylvania. But happiness inequality–the gap between the happy and the unhappy–has narrowed dramatically. “For every unhappy person who became happier,” explains economist Betsey Stevenson, co-author of the study along with economist Justin Wolfers, “there’s someone on the other side coming down.”

Who’s up? Who’s down? The answers might surprise you.

Federal health experts report a disturbing four-fold increase in infant deaths from accidental strangulation and suffocation. To blame, they say: parents sleeping in bed with their babies.

Last week we reported that coffee can cause hallucinations. This week we have better news for javaholics: a cup of joe may offer powerful protection against age-related mental deterioration.

I started yoga a year ago, when we brought a yoga instructor here to the workplace for a lunch-hour class. I have done aerobics and strength training in the past, but yoga was new to me. I really enjoy it, even though I’m still very much a beginner. The class is very low-key and I’m not pressured to do anything more than what I’m comfortable with.

Within just a few class periods I could tell my balance was better and my flexibility had increased. And they’ve continued to improve. Another benefit to yoga – and any other type of exercise – is stress reduction. I find I am able to control my hunger better when I control my stress level, and that happens far more often on the yoga days. I plan to continue both yoga class and the walking I am doing with my co-workers.

I’m also managing to control my weight.

This week the Ms.Fits ramped up their efforts, with an average of 56 minutes of activity per person every day. That’s an extra 17 minutes more than last week. Good work! One common pitfall of any healthy lifestyle program is unrealistic expectations. Fortunately, the Ms.Fits seem to have the right attitude. As Sue, one of the team members, wrote in a comment this week: “even though I’m participating in this 100 Day Challenge, and my goal is to lose weight (along with being healthier), I’m really trying to keep things in …