Blog Posts by Sarah B. Weir, Yahoo! blogger

Risky nail dryers? Despite all the news about the  "Tanning Mom" and the dangers of tanning beds, little attention has been paid to another common risk that uses the same type of ultraviolet (UV) light that is associated with skin cancer: nail salon dryers. When you stick your feet or hands under the purple-blue glow of a nail dryer, your body is being subjected to radiation that may have health consequences.

VIDEO: Treating Melanoma

"Nail dryers use UVA light," Dr. D'Anne Kleinsmith, spokesperson for the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) tells Yahoo! Shine. "It doesn't cause much burning but penetrates the skin more than UVB. UVA radiation is more associated with damage to deeper levels of the skin, wrinkling, and cancer. She adds, "Without the burning, we are more are apt overdose on UVA."

Nail drying machines are unregulated so it is difficult to determine how much UVA they emit. Older machines may emit higher levels. While more studies need to be done, research published in 2009

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Tuan Huynh, Courtesy Fox29Pennsylvania father Tuan Huynh, 47, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to a misdemeanor charge of endangering the welfare of a child under 18 stemming from his arrest for abandoning his 16 year-old daughter near the Cheltenham Mall for receiving a low grade in calculus.

"She was devastated. She wandered quite a ways looking for help," Assistant District Attorney Cara McMenamin, who prosecuted Huynh told The Mecury. "Fortunately, she encountered a minister who stayed with her and called police." Reportedly, the teen, who McMenamin describes as being "soft-spoken, extremely serious young girl," was located by police with a backpack containing only a blanket, a change of clothing, and some music books. She had no cell phone or money.

While there were no charges filed against the girl's mother or any other family member, according to an arrest affidavit, she initially refused to give her name and admitted she had been told "by them not to tell the police who you are." The officers

Read More »from Pennsylvania Dad Abandons Daughter Over Poor Math Grade

What a Prince Charming[Every week, Shine finds an answer to one of life's little mysteries. If you've got a burning question you want answered, tweet it to @yahooshine #burningquestions or share it in the comments section.]

Although I am a card-carrying feminist, I still appreciate having the door opened for me, the dinner bill picked up, receiving flowers on special and some not-so-special occasions, and other niceties of traditional courtship. And I especially like my engagement ring. It's a braided platinum band set with a faceted yellow sapphire and I remember every minute of the rainy, romantic afternoon when my husband-to-be proffered it to me.

Writing for Slate.com, Meghan O'Rourke has a different point of view. "There's a powerful case to be made that in an age of equitable marriage the engagement ring is an outmoded commodity-starting with the obvious fact that only the woman gets one." She traces the engagement ring's history in the West to the 13 th Century when Christians began giving

Read More »from Burning Question: Why Don’t Men Wear Engagement Rings?

Growing up in Scotland, Harry Benson dreamed of being a soccer goalkeeper. Instead, he ended up doing freelance photography covering everything from crime scenes to weddings. In 1964, the night before he was leaving on an assignment for Africa, he got a call from The Daily Express, where George Harrison was writing a column, to accompany the The Beatles to Paris for a few weeks. At first he says he "wasn't happy about it," but soon after, he knew he had been given the job of a lifetime.

Benson recalls he wasn't pushing to be the band's best friend, so they ended up hitting it off naturally and developing a trusting relationship. The result was some of the most intimate, relaxed images of The Beatles ever captured including their famous hotel pillow fight and the "Beatlemania" that ensued during their first visit to the United States. These images and more, some of which have never been published, all with Benson's recollections, are included in a collector's limited edition

Read More »from Exclusive Beatles Photos by Harry Benson

Digital analyses show reduced damageUPDATE: According to the University of Utah, no faculty members were involved in creating "AS10." A spokesperson for AmeriScience, the company that produces the drink, clarifies that it uses the same antioxidant ingredients as found in gel caps given to astronauts but is not explicitly used by NASA.

An anti-oxidant packed juice that could turn back the clock on wrinkles, dark spots, and other sun damage? According to researchers at the University of Utah, this fountain of youth might not be science fiction.

The beverage, called AS10, was originally developed to combat the harmful effects of solar rays on astronauts who travel outside the protective layer of the Earth's atmosphere. According to the New York Daily News, AS10 was tested on 180 skin-damaged adults and showed promising results. After four months of drinking two servings daily, dark spots were reduced by 30% and wrinkles by 17%. Digital skin analyses were used to confirm the results.

Radiation particles

Read More »from NASA Space Drink Could Reverse Signs of Aging

Juicy grilled steakNothing tastes, sounds, and smells more like summer than a juicy steak sizzling on the grill. Unfortunately for meat lovers, many choice cuts like New York strip cost at least $15 a pound, which is pretty pricey for a family dinner. And forget about it if you are hosting a barbeque party.

Related: The Best Steaks in the U.S.

Shine spoke with two experts, John Stage, owner of Dinosaur BBQ, and Kari Underly, a third generation butcher and author of The Art of Beef Cutting, about their favorite budget cuts. Stage goes for chewier meat with big beefy flavor and Underly clued us in to the most tender of the cheaper steaks.

Stage's favorites:

Stage likes to use a tenderizing tool called a jaccard to break up the connective tissue in tougher cuts. You can also tenderize meat with a fork. His favorite steaks do well with dry rubs or marinades. Cook on medium to high heat until the meat fully caramelizes and releases from the grill before flipping.

Related: 10 Nerdy

Read More »from 6 Cheap, Delicious Steaks for the Grill

Source: CDC
In the mid-2000s, Cornell researcher Brain Wasink performed an experiment called the "bottomless bowl of soup." He gave unsuspecting diners self-filling bowls of tomato soup to see how they would naturally regulate how much they consumed. On average, they ate 73% more than control subjects with normal bowls. Humans aren't good at saying no to food. And that tendency to mindlessly keep eating when provided with super-sized portions has some serious health consequences.

Related: Nearly Half of All Americans Will be Obese in 2030

The Center for Disease Control's (CDC) new infographic, "The New (Ab)Normal," makes clear how the increase in portion sizes over the past 50 years has corresponded to America's ever-expanding waistline. The average American is 26 pounds heavier than in 1950. About one-third of us are overweight or obese and that number is projected to hit nearly 50% by 2030. At the same time, the size of a hamburger has tripled, a basket of fries more than doubled, and

Read More »from CDC Infographic Shows Super-sized Portions Are the New Normal

Saskia David, the mother of Samier Bush, the toddler who was videotaped being put into a commercial washing machine, told the Today Show she would press charges against the babysitter who was responsible for him at the time. "I just want to tell Sandra," David told Ann Curry, "This is not over because everybody said on the news that I wasn't pressing charges, and I am."

Related: Man Who Put Toddler in Machine Not Boy's Dad

The incident occurred on May 11, but was not widely reported until a surveillance video of the child being loaded into the machine went viral on the Internet earlier this week. The machine automatically locked and began to cycle but was disabled by a swift thinking employee of the laundromat. Initially, the people in the video were thought to be Samier's parents, but yesterday, the Camden County Prosecutor's Office identified them as a babysitter and her male friend.

Related: Man Puts Toddler in Machine and Turns it on

The

Read More »from Mom of Toddler Put in Washing Machine Says She'll Press Charges