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Studies that have looked at so-called Super Agers — people who stay cognitively sharp well into old age — have found these people have only one factor in common, says Sandra Weintraub, a professor of neurology, psychiatry and psychology and a neuropsychologist at Northwestern University’s Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease Center. “Some of them smoke, some of them drink, some of them are couch potatoes, some exercise every day, some eat pork bellies and some consume a Mediterranean diet,” Weintraub says. “What they do have in common is that they are very engaged and active. They’re so busy it’s hard to get them in for research visits.”

Getting natural light during the day is ideal, so your best bet is to sit near a window if possible. In fact, people with windows in their offices get better sleep and are more physically active than those without, according to a 2013 study from Northwestern University.

The need for better pediatric emergency supplies has also become more pressing as the perceived domestic risk for exposure to chemical, biologic and radiologic agents has increased, noted Dr. Steven Krug, a researcher at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago and chair of the AAP Disaster Preparedness Advisory Council. “Disasters will continue to occur,” Krug said by email. “We therefore need to be prepared and we need to be able to better weather the storm.”

It’s a well-known fact that women are more prone to insomnia, explains Kelly Glazer Baron, Ph.D, a psychologist certified in behavioral sleep medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Men, on the other hand, are more frequent snorers and sufferers of sleep apnea. “It’s not clear why,” says Baron, explaining that more women are susceptible to sleep-wrecking depression. They also wrestle with getting good sleep during pregnancy and menopause.

First, many emergency medications and other countermeasures were initially developed for the military and have therefore only been evaluated and tested in adults. “As an example, vaccines for smallpox and anthrax have been studied and tested primarily in that population,” Dr. Steven Krug,professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and chair of the AAP Disaster Preparedness Advisory Council, told CBS News.

The organizations took issue with the institutional review board (IRB) at Northwestern University in Chicago, where researchers are heading up the study, because it ruled the study did not constitute research with human subjects and so did not require the supervision typical of clinical trials. The trial’s lead investigator, Dr. Karl Bilimoria of Northwestern, said that while FIRST wasn’t classified as human research, an independent data monitoring board was established to check for safety concerns. He added that aside from programs in New York, which regulates resident hours by law, only six sites declined to participate. All sites were free to run the trial through their individual IRBs.

Local biotech researchers should be in line for roughly $50 million more in federal cash this year as a result of some little-noticed tweaks included in the big budget deal that passed Congress a few weeks ago. With the support of robust, sustained federal funding, there is no limit to what science can do to prevent, treat and cure diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s,” Durbin said at a news conference at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. “After lots of bad news, there’s some good news out of Washington.”

Next, I email Jay A. Gottfried, a neuroscientist who runs the Gottfried Laboratory at Northwestern University, which investigates the links between brain activity and sensory perception. Professor Gottfried tells me that what I describe is known in his business as “phantosmia” or “phantom smells.” The sense of smell, he says, is our most ancient, primal sense and has “intimate and direct control over emotional and behavioral states.” “This is especially true for personal, meaningful memories that tend to get stamped into our brains very robustly,” he explains. “Thus it is possible that a seemingly random trigger or thought — perhaps even outside your conscious awareness — has triggered some aspect of your mother-in-law memory.” In some ways, he says, “it is true that your mother-in-law is ‘visiting’ you, to the extent that your memory of her is strong, and that the vividness of her perfume makes it seem like she is there.”

The report, released in December by health and aging experts from Rush University Medical Center and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, examines the caregiving burdens and psychological well-being of Chinese adults within the United States — a subject with only “rudimentary understanding” due to scarce data.