Got an aging relative in an assisted-living or long-term care facility? The best thing you can bring on your next visit might well be a houseplant. And a watering can. And a little extra potting soil.

Researchers have long assumed that inheritance plays the biggest role in visible signs of aging. If your mother or father looks youthful well into middle age, chances are you will, too. Not necessarily, a new study suggests.

At 91, Merceda Schmidt still volunteers as a school teacher and piano accompanist, and she often walks to her appointments, tallying up more than three miles a week. “It’s just in my nature–the batteries I got when I was born,” says Schmidt, who lives in Calgary, Canada. “My legs want to go.” She can thank those restless legs for her unusually sharp mind, a new study suggests.

Grumpy old men? Hollywood’s version of old age may be more fancy than fact. The older we get, a new study finds, the more positive our memories are likely to be.