When Being a Good Girl is Bad

Following up her bestselling book Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls with The Curse of the Good Girl: Raising Authentic Girls with Courage and Confidence, author Rachel Simmons argues that girls are taught early on to suppress their emotions and not to live as loudly as they might be inclined to. TIME talked with Simmons about how to raise girls who aren’t afraid to be assertive and even a little less than perfect

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Inside the Busy Mind of a Baby

Sure, they may while away their days eating, sleeping and soiling diapers. But Alison Gopnik says it’s high time that babies got some respect. In her new book, The Philosophical Baby, the University of California, Berkeley, psychologist argues that modern research is revolutionizing our understanding of the first years of life, revealing early childhood to be a frenzied period of intellectual, emotional and moral development

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Why MRIs Don’t Lead to Better Cancer Survival

Women diagnosed with early stage breast cancer are faced with a tough choice — either to have parts of the affected breast removed, followed by several weeks of potentially toxic radiation therapy; or opt for mastectomy, removing the entire breast and contending with the disfigurement that entails. The decision typically rests on where and how widespread the tumors are. It’s no wonder, then, that more and more women are relying on high-tech MRI scans to help them examine their cancer and choose the right treatment

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Taliban still a major threat 8 years later

It has been nearly eight years since U.S. forces overthrew the Taliban leaders of Afghanistan, but the war against the Taliban insurgency is bloodier than ever. The number of Afghan civilians killed in the wake of the war has increased 24 percent in the first six months of this year compared with the same time period last year, according to the United Nations.

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Manson’s lasting legacy: ‘Live freaky, die freaky’

Forty years ago, a group of young people led by a charismatic, 5-foot-2-inch ex-con named Charles Manson set out on a murderous spree in Los Angeles, California. They planned to spark an apocalyptic race war that Manson called "Helter Skelter," after a song by the Beatles. Over two nights in August 1969, the killers took the lives of seven people, inflicting 169 stab wounds and seven .22-caliber gunshot wounds.

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Three detained U.S. hikers share love of travel, learning

One is a freelance journalist who intended to cover elections in Iraq’s Kurdistan region. Another also has been trying her hand at reporting, and the third is a friend who shared their love of travel. Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Joshua Fattal — three University of California-Berkeley graduates believed to have been arrested Friday after crossing from Iraq into Iran during a hike — are seasoned travelers with an appetite for interaction with other cultures, friends and associates said

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