Blog Posts by Lylah M. Alphonse, Senior Editor, Yahoo! Shine

A Finnish study found that having many boys shaves months off a mom's life. (Photo: Getty Images)Parents often quip that their kids—especially their rambunctious little boys—are "going to be the death of me," and new research shows that they may be right: Having sons can shave an average of eight and a half months off of a mom's life.

(The affect on dads? None, apparently.)

Also on Shine: A Dad's Time-Lapse Video of his Son, from Birth to Age 21

The study, by evolutionary ecologist Dr. Samuli Helle of the University of Turku in Finland and Dr. Virpi Lummaa of the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom, was published this week in the journal Biology Letters. He and his team looked at the post-childbirth survival rates of 11,166 mothers and 6,360 fathers in pre-industrial Finland, using records kept by the Lutheran Church there.

"Irrespective of access to resources, mothers, but not fathers, with many sons suffered from reduced post-reproductive survival," they wrote in the study.

The subjects were born in eight different parts of Finland during the 17th to 20th

Read More »from Study: Having Boys Can Take Months Off Your Life

25-year-old college student and photographer Callie Mitchell documented her decision to give her baby up for adoption in a photo essay for The Daily Iowan. (Photo: Callie Mitchell/The Daily Iowan)

Callie Mitchell was a 25-year-old photography student with plans "to wander the world to capture the minuscule moments of my surroundings" when something happened that changed her life forever.

She got pregnant.

Also on Shine: Wisconsin Bill Claims Single Moms Cause Child Abuse by Not Being Married

In an essay for college newspaper The Daily Iowan, where she works as a photographer, Mitchell described her experiences as "A spontaneous moment leading to an unplanned life change. Not a mistake. Definitely a surprise." Her photo-essay and videos have had a powerful impact around the world. (You can see her entire slideshow here.)

According to the essay, she found out she was pregnant on March 25, 2012. She and her boyfriend decided to have the child and begin a new chapter in their life together.

"I was excited at the thought of being a mom and loving my own child," she writes in the essay, which reads like a series of intimate journal entries. "I had the perfect boyfriend who I was

Read More »from Young Mom Photographs Her Baby's Adoption Process

Although women are shattering glass ceilings faster than ever before, they're still woefully underrepresented at the highest levels of the corporate world.

"Women are held back by many things. We're held back by bias, by lack of flexibility, by lack of opportunity," Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg says in the new trailer for her book, "Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead" (March 2013). "We also hold ourselves back. We don't sit at the table, we don't raise our hands, we don't let our voices be loud enough."

Also on Shine: The Most-Common Job for Women in 2013? Secretary (Just Like in the 1950s!)

It's time for women to take charge of themselves, so that they can take charge of their lives. In "Lean In", Sandberg issues a call to action for women, using anecdotes from her own life story and plenty of hard data and recent research to urge them to change the dialogue from what women can't do to what they can. In the book, Sandberg encourages women to "sit at the

Read More »from Sheryl Sandberg on Women, Work, and the Need to 'Lean In'

The food industry is awash in calorie-controlled packs of cookies, chips, and other snacks, but what does a 200-calorie portion of food really look like? The folks at WiseGeek.com decided to find out, measuring plates of veggies against slices of smoked turkey and bowls full of ketchup. News to us: a 10.25-inch wide plate full of broccoli -- about 1.3 pounds of the green stuff -- has the same number of calories as three hard-boiled eggs, eight Hershey's kisses, or 17 gummy bears. Take a look at how some other typical foods stack up. -- By Lylah M. Alphonse, Senior Editor, Yahoo! Shine

Read More »from 200 Calories? Here's What that Looks Like

The first lady tells Rachael Ray that the bangs were part of her mid-life crisis. (Photo: CBS)

When First Lady Michelle Obama stepped out in January sporting chic bangs, fashion insiders called them "flattering and youthful" and declared bangs the new "it" hairstyle. But now the fashion-forward first lady says that she blames her cut on a "mid-life crisis."

"This is my mid-life crisis, the bangs," she says during a Skype interview with cookbook author and talk show host Rachael Ray. The first lady turned 49 on January 17.

"I couldn't get a sports car," she explains. "They won't let me bungee jump. So instead, I cut my bangs."

Opportunities for self expression are few and far between when you're First Lady of the United States. When every minor decision causes a major uproar -- witness the reaction to her clandestine trips to Target in 2011 -- it's no wonder that "normalcy" is one of the things Mrs. Obama has said she misses most about life before the White House.

"It's the ability to walk out through a door and go for a walk on any given day," she told Yahoo! Shine in a

Read More »from Michelle Obama: Bangs Were "My Mid-Life Crisis"

(Photo: Getty Images)The articles on Shine only tell part of the story; the rest can usually be found in the comments, where Shine readers weigh in with clever quips, stinging sarcasm, and smart discussions. Here are five of our favorite comments from readers this week.

The one that wins for sarcasm
Bob weighed in on the controversy over a Utah teen who got kicked out of class for dyeing her hair auburn. "Dye your hair? That's debauchery among our youth! Why can't she be a normal pregnant lesbian, with a handgun in her purse, like the other girls in school?"

The one that nailed it
Greenman clears up the confusion around Indiana's anti-gay prom plan: "Hooray! Let's talk about Free Speech again. Here is comes... Ready? Free Speech means you can tell the President to go F himself and they can't arrest you. That's Free Speech. But if you tell your boss to go F himself, he can totally fire your butt."

The one your mom didn't want you to see
Do you have a favorite kid? Lippy's mom did. "My mother always told

Read More »from Comments of the Week: School Rules, Huge Burgers, and Free Speech

Heart healthy? Maybe, but it also increases your risk of cancer, a new study shows. (Photo: Getty Images)New research shows that even a single alcoholic drink per day can increase your risk of developing certain types of cancer, including breast cancer in women.

Though people have long believed that a glass or two of wine can be good for your heart, the new study, conducted in conjunction with researchers in the U.S., Canada, and France, shows that the cancer risks far outweigh any heart-healthy benefits.

Related: What the Author of "Drinking With Men" Has to Say About Boys, Bars, and Drinking Alone

"Alcohol has long been known and recognized as a human carcinogen, so even some alcohol consumption raises your risks," Dr. Timothy Naimi, an alcohol researcher at Boston University's School of Public Health and a physician at the Boston University Medical Center who helped design and direct the study, told Yahoo! Shine in an interview. "On the balance of all people who begin drinking, many more people are killed by alcohol than helped by it."

Related: Heavy Drinking Raises Risk of Divorce

Read More »from Even Moderate Drinking Linked to Increased Cancer Risk

This photo is a fake: That's Rep. Earnest Smith's head, but it's definitely not his body. (Photo: Andre Walker/Georgia Politics Unfiltered)Inspired by the plight of a teenage girl who was being cyber bullied last year, Georgia state representative Earnest Smith proposed legislation that would make it make it illegal to digitally add an "unknowing person" to a photograph showing nudity or sexual conduct. People who do so would be charged with "offense against public order" including defamation, and would have to pay a $1,000 fine.

Related: Where's the Line Between Free Speech and Hate Speech?

His proposal, House Bill 39 (cosponsored by fellow Democratic Representative Pam Dickerson), was challenged almost immediately by Georgia blogger Andre Walker, who pasted a digital photo of Smith's head onto the body of a male porn star and then published the image on his blog.

"I did exactly what Rep. Smith wants to make illegal," Walker wrote at Georgia Politics Unfiltered.

There's a pretty big difference between parody -- which is what we think Walker's obviously fake photo of Smith is -- and cyber bullying,

Read More »from Should Posting Fake Naked Photos Be Illegal? Proposed Ban Stirs Up Controversy, More Lewd Photos