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

President Obama's long-form birth certificateToday, President Barack Obama offered up for the nation's consideration the controversial long-form of his birth certificate. (Click here to see it as a PDF)

"Over the last two and a half years I have watched with bemusement, I've been puzzled at the degree to which this thing just kept on going," Obama said during a press conference today.

He said that he decided to request the long-form of his birth certificate and make it public because the controversy-which gained new traction thanks to Donald Trump's private investigation and a renewed focus on Sarah Palin's last pregnancy-has been drawing attention away from more important issues.

While debating the budget, discussing the deficit, and working to prevent a government shutdown earlier this month, "during that entire week the dominant news story wasn't about these huge, monumental choices that we're going to have to make as a nation," the president pointed out. "It was about my birth certificate."

"We've got some enormous

Read More »from Obama releases his long-form birth certificate. Is the controversy over?

We've all been there: You're having a so-so day (or worse) and someone bounds up to you with a cheerful, "Hi! How are you?" And you're stuck. Do you tell a little white lie? Or do you tell them the whole sordid story?

"Usually, the answer to this old standby is short and sweet," says image consultant Marla Tomazin. "In fact, we generally expect a reply along the lines of, 'Very well, thank you.'" And when someone starts in with a rant as their response, things can get awkward for everyone involved.

"What most people fail to realize is that your answer to this very simple question will either draw people in or scare them away," Tomazin points out. So, how can you keep it real and honest without turning into Debbie Downer?

"Use that conversation as an opportunity to further a connection rather than as a chance to dump your own personal problems on someone else," suggests Tomazin. Keep in mind that "How are you?" is a casual question, not necessarily an invitation for a heart-to-heart.

Read More »from 'How are you?' What to say if you don't want to say too much.

It's no secret that sleep deprivation does bad things to your brain and your body. But how many Zzzz's do we really need to get by-and how much more would we require in order to be at our best every day?

A recent study by David Dinges, the head of the Sleep and Chronobiology Laboratory at the Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania, says that the magic number is eight. Test subjects who logged a solid eight hours of sleep per night had very few any attention lapses and no cognitive declines over the course of Dinges' two-week study, but subjects who got just six hours of slumber "were as impaired as those who, in another Dinges study, had been sleep-deprived for 24 hours straight - the cognitive equivalent of being legally drunk," The New York Times reported.

With plenty of stimulation (coffee, anyone?) we do cope, of course. And even Dignes acknowledges that not every sleeper is the same; about 5 percent of the population, he estimates, are fine with five or fewer hours of sleep

Read More »from Expert says you need 8 hours of sleep. How much do you really get each night?

In the United States, the fight against childhood obesity has focused mainly on kids' diet and exercise levels. But a new international study is delving deeper, and has found that moms who minimize their carbohydrate intake during the early part of their pregnancies are more likely to have kids who become obese.

Researcher think that the developing baby may adjust its DNA in order to adapt to the environment into which it will be born. A lack of carbohydrates (sugars and starches) early on in its development may signal a need to be able to store energy in the form of fat before adolescence.

"We have shown for the first time that susceptibility to obesity cannot simply be attributed to the combination of our genes and our lifestyle, but can be triggered by influences on a baby's development in the womb, including what the mother ate," the study's leader, University of Southampton professor Keith Godfrey, said in a statement. "A mother's nutrition while pregnant can cause important

Read More »from Study: Not eating enough carbs while pregnant may increase your baby's obesity risk

Also on Shine:

• My baby keeps pooping in the bathtub!

• Breastfeeding baby doll: Educational or freaky?

• The diaper-free baby movement

• Let your tot pee in the ocean?

• What were they thinking? 5 most ridiculous baby products ever

Read More »from The grossest things babies and kids do (we love them anyway)

Student loan debt reached an all-time high in 2010, outpacing credit card debt for the first time and leading economists to wonder if we should look at loans as a "healthy investment" rather than a financial burden.

Last year, the average student left college with $24,000 in student loan debt, and the amount is higher for those graduating from pricey private colleges, where tuition can cost as much as $50,000 a year.

"When you think about what's good debt and what's bad debt, student loans fall into the realm of good debt, like mortgages," Susan Dynarski, a professor of education and public policy at the University of Michigan, told the New York Times recently. "It's an investment that pays off over the whole life cycle."

Other experts disagree, pointing out that a lot depends on the kind of job you land after you graduate. With unemployment for recent college graduates on rise-8.7 percent in 2009, up from 5.8 percent in 2009-that student loan debt can linger for a long time.

"In

Read More »from Student loan debt: 3 tips for tackling it

Pit bulls have a reputation for being ferocious beasts, but deep down inside, many of them are just beefy sweethearts-and a good owner can bring out the best in them. Here's a gentle giant giving a little love to a baby cottontail rabbit, who seems to be tolerating the wash down pretty well.

I half expected the video to end with a Monty Python-esque homage to the killer rabbit and Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, but no. But in case you were hoping for that, too, here's the clip:

Now that rabbit's got a vicious streak a mile wide.

Read More »from Pit bull gives baby bunny a bath. The cuteness! (Video)

I had planned for a natural birth when I was pregnant with my first child. "Crunchy granola," my friends called it. My parents were alarmed (they pictured me laboring outdoors under a tree wearing beads and doused with patchouli, I think) but I was certain that my body already "knew" how to give birth-that's what it was designed to do, right?-and that all would be fine.

Still, I'm a pragmatic, don't-believe-everything-you-hear journalist who's always looking for the other side of the story, and so is my husband. And so we picked a birthing center that partnered with a well-equipped hospital right across the street. Just in case.

I practiced my breathing and attended the prenatal classes and wrote out my birthing plan and got ready for what I was sure would be a wonderful, albeit painful, life-affirming experience. I brushed off the uneasy feeling I got when the prenatal instructor chirped, "That rarely happens!" after I asked her about danger signs and complications. I'd soak in a

Read More »from Home birth vs. hospital birth: The debate rages on