Sure it's possible that you'll stick to that diet or learn a second language in 2013, it's just not probable.

A report in the university's Journal of Clinical Psychology reveals that most Americans make the same resolutions, with commitments to health, self-improvement and family ranking heavily in the top 10. And most Americans fail miserably at keeping them. How miserably? The data indicates Americans have a success rate of 8 percent when it comes to being our best selves in the new year.

But don't feel too bad: 75 percent of us keep our resolutions for at least two weeks! And two weeks on the elliptical is better than nothing.

There's always next year, right?

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Scientists at Yale University have used scans of the human brain to show that fructose, a monosaccharide found in everything from fruit to chicken nuggets, can trigger brain function that leads to overeating. According to the study, research subjects given a fructose beverage were less likely to feel "full" than subjects given a glucose beverage.

As reported by the Associated Press, researchers used MRI scans to monitor blood flow in the brains of 20 young, average-weight people before and after they consumed drinks containing fructose or glucose. Brain scans revealed that drinking glucose “turns off or suppresses the activity of areas of the brain that are critical for reward and desire for food,” said Robert Sherwin, an endocrinologist who led the study. Adding that with fructose, “we don’t see those changes. As a result, the desire to eat continues — it isn’t turned off.”

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New York Times columnist Mark Bittman argues that the almost 50 million people who receive SNAP benefits (formerly known as food stamps) should not be allowed to spend the funds on soda and other junk food. The idea has “been gaining momentum in the last few years” Bittman writes, since “no one without a share in the profits can argue that [a sugary drink] plays a constructive role in any diet.”

Bittman’s column highlights a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association:

“It’s shocking,” says [Dr. David] Ludwig, [director of the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center and one of the article’s authors] “how little we consider food quality in the management of chronic diseases. And in the case of SNAP that failure costs taxpayers twice: We pay once when low-income families buy junk foods and sugary beverages with SNAP benefits, and we pay a second time when poor diet quality inevitably increases the costs of health care in general, and Medicaid and Medicare in particular.”

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Allison June and Amelia Lee Tucker, clad in animal-striped shirts and flowered headbands, were introduced during a news conference at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Both girls still have nasal tubes but appeared rosy-cheeked and alert as they were held by their parents, Shellie and Greg Tucker, of Adams, N.Y., about 300 miles north of Philadelphia near Lake Ontario.

Allison, described by doctors and her parents as the smaller but feistier twin, was discharged from the hospital Monday. Her sister Amelia, who's larger and more reserved, needs a little more recovery time and will remain in the hospital into the new year.

"We totally expect them to have full, independent lives," said pediatric surgeon Dr. Holly Hedrick, who led a 40-person medical team in the complex seven-hour operation on Nov. 7.

The twins shared a chest wall, diaphragm, liver and pericardium, the membrane around the heart.

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The 65-year-old Clinton, who's expected to leave her job soon after serving as America's top diplomat during President Barack Obama's first term, is recovering at home and being monitored by doctors, according to a statement by aide Philippe Reines.

No further details were immediately available.

The statement said Clinton was dehydrated because of the virus and that she fainted and sustained a concussion. She will continue to work from home in the week ahead and looks forward to being back in the office "soon," the statement said.

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The 65-year-old Clinton, who's expected to leave her job soon after serving as America's top diplomat during President Barack Obama's first term, is recovering at home and being monitored by doctors, according to a statement by aide Philippe Reines.

No further details were immediately available.

The statement said Clinton was dehydrated because of the virus and that she fainted and sustained a concussion. She will continue to work from home in the week ahead and looks forward to being back in the office "soon," the statement said.

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That case had the benefit of a vocal and angry person to speak on the dead woman's behalf -- her husband, Praveen. He has said she requested a termination that may have saved her life -- but was told, "This is a Catholic country." (An official inquiry by the hospital has yet to be released, and Praveen Halapannavar is appealing to the European Court of Human Rights.) But for every Savita, there are thousands of women whose names we don't know, women who aren't even counted.

The most commonly cited statistic suggests that complications from unsafe abortions led to approximately 13 percent of maternal deaths worldwide. That's a World Health Organization figure first arrived at in 2000, which hasn't been re-evaluated. Every year, when WHO says how many women have died from unsafe abortions, they're simply taking the same percentage of the global maternal mortality figure -- 56,000 in 2003, or 47,000 in 2008. But one epidemiologist, Caitlin Gerdts, wondered if that number wasn't a potentially vast understatement.

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The dips are slight: Between 2006 and 2011, the obesity rate among schoolchildren fell by about 5 percent in New York City and Philadelphia. However, health professionals viewed the results optimistically: “It’s been nothing but bad news for 30 years, so the fact that we have any good news is a big story,” said Dr. Thomas Farley, the health commissioner in New York City.

The decline in childhood obesity in some parts of the country coincides with national campaigns in recent years to bring the issue to the fore. According to the Times:

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Time magazine’s cover story (Subscription required) looks at NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s mission to maintain the game’s popularity and wild profitability despite evidence that for many players its lasting impact is immense suffering and early death. The latest freak tragedy came last weekend when Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher killed his girlfriend before committing suicide. Though Belcher’s death has not been convincingly tied to the NFL’s greater problem of tackle-related concussions, it’s not a becoming association for a sport desperate to rehabilitate its image. Belcher was the fourth player or former player to commit suicide in eight months.

Football has always been a dangerous assault but after decades the status quo is under assault. Time:

The NFL is being sued by some 4,000 ex-players, plus nearly 1,500 of their spouses and children, who allege that the league “deliberately ignored and actively concealed” information about concussions for decades.

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Yesterday, the writer gave an in-depth, uninterrupted description of her life-long struggle with the disease, which became "a crisis" for her. But what NPR's Terry Gross was most fascinated by, it seemed, was Mantel's weight.

She broached the subject awkwardly, at first:

GROSS: So correct me if I'm wrong here. But because of the steroids that you are on to help with your condition...

MANTEL: Yeah.

GROSS: ...and I think because of a thyroid condition as well, your weight just about doubled.

MANTEL: Yeah.

GROSS: And you ended up with a completely different body...

MANTEL: That's right. Yes.

GROSS: ...than the one you used to have. How did that change the sense of who you are?

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Soda and other sweetened drinks — the focus of obesity-fighting public health campaigns — are the source of about 6 percent of the calories adults consume, on average. Alcoholic beverages account for about 5 percent, the new study found.

"We've been focusing on sugar-sweetened beverages. This is something new," said Cynthia Ogden, one of the study's authors. She's an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which released its findings Thursday.

The government researchers say the findings deserve attention because, like soda, alcohol contains few nutrients but plenty of calories.

The study is based on interviews with more than 11,000 U.S. adults from 2007 through 2010. Participants were asked extensive questions about what they ate and drank over the previous 24 hours.

The study found:

—On any given day, about one-third of men and one-fifth of women consumed calories from beer, wine or liquor.

—Averaged out to all adults, the average guy drinks 150 calories from alcohol each day, or the equivalent of a can of Budweiser.

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He will put this groundbreaking "bionic" leg to the ultimate test Sunday when he attempts to climb 103 flights of stairs to the top of Chicago's Willis Tower, one of the world's tallest skyscrapers.

If all goes well, he'll make history with the bionic leg's public debut. His whirring, robotic leg will respond to electrical impulses from muscles in his hamstring. Vawter will think, "Climb stairs," and the motors, belts and chains in his leg will synchronize the movements of its ankle and knee. Vawter hopes to make it to the top in an hour, longer than it would've taken before his amputation, less time than it would take with his normal prosthetic leg — or, as he calls it, his "dumb" leg.

A team of researchers will be cheering him on and noting the smart leg's performance. When Vawter goes home to Yelm, Wash., where he lives with his wife and two children, the experimental leg will stay behind in Chicago. Researchers will continue to refine its steering. Taking it to the market is still years away.

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Ah, ibogaine. It just so happens that ibogaine and I have a long history: though I never took it, I knew Howard Lotsof, the former heroin addict whose own recovery began in 1962, when he accidentally discovered that ibogaine can relieve heroin withdrawal. I wrote about ibogaine as a potential “alternative treatment” detox drug, in fact, in my first book, Recovery Options. As a fan of psychedelics who finds their therapeutic potential intriguing—and as someone who likes to see people in recovery advance the field—I’ve followed its highs and lows with great interest.

Ibogaine is the product of the rootbark of an African rainforest shrub, Tabernanthe iboga, and is used ceremonially by the Bwiti tribe of Western and Central Africa to induce visions and shamanic experience. (In 2000, Gabon declared this controversial source of Bwiti spirituality a “national treasure.”) While it has been categorized as a psychedelic, it is more intense and longer lasting than LSD or mushrooms; it also has dissociative effects and effects on motor control, similar to those of the anesthetic ketamine. In the brain, it affects multiple neurotransmitter receptors, making it difficult to discern which effects are most significant.

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The deaths are among the 247 people in 15 states sickened in the outbreak. They all received shots of an apparently contaminated steroid medication made by a Massachusetts specialty pharmacy.

Most of the patients contracted a rare fungal form of meningitis, after getting the shots for back pain over the past few months. Two developed infections from joint injections.

Of the latest deaths, two were in Tennessee and one each was reported in Florida and in Virginia, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Wednesday. That brings deaths to eight in Tennessee; three in Florida and Michigan, two in Indiana and Virginia, and one in Maryland.

Test results so far show infections with three kinds of fungus, most of them a form of black mold, the CDC said. Of 42 patients, 40 were infected with Exserohilum fungus. The others were infected with Aspergillus or Cladosporium. All are treated with the same anti-fungal medications.

Three lots of the suspect steroid were recalled last month by the New England Compounding Center of Framingham, Mass. All the illnesses have been traced to one of those lots.

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As the New York Times reported, "Looking at a sample of nearly 1,400 girls, the researchers found no evidence that those who were vaccinated beginning around age 11 went on to engage in more sexual activity than girls who were not vaccinated."

HPV -- in its main thousand strains -- is the most common sexually transmitted virus in the U.S.; one-third of 14- to 19-year-olds are carriers. "Federal health officials began recommending in 2006 that girls be vaccinated as early as age 11 and last year made a similar recommendation for preadolescent boys. The idea is to immunize boys and girls before they become sexually active to maximize the vaccine’s protective effects," the Times reported.

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I love reading your columns and am very grateful for your insights gained through hard experience. These past three years have been extremely difficult as well as incredibly illuminating for me. I graduated college, had my heart broken by the man I love, saw the breakdown of my parents' marriage, left to work with refugees in a conflict zone, and saw so much excruciatingly painful suffering. I had large patches of my hair fall out, was diagnosed with hepatitis B, was incredibly fatigued, and had major depression. I'm glossing over these experiences just to give you the context for my question. The protective shell of my innocence about the world and my own morality has been broken. I've also been drifting in these past years, searching for meaning, for some firm ground to get stronger. I have traveled extensively, meditated and talked to some very inspiring people. I also met a man that I love very much and who has been with me through the worst year of my depression. Slowly, and through the tremendous support of my family and friends, I've emerged from the ashes and overcome my depression.

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The pair, molecular biologist Pierre Desprez and researcher Sean McAllister, mixed CBD and cells with high levels of ID-1, the gene that spreads cancer, in a petri dish. What happened next was a bit of a miracle: ID-1 cells stopped spreading and returned to normal.

"What we found was that his cannabidiol could essentially 'turn off' the ID-1," Desprez told the Huffington Post.

The duo have been studying CBD's effects on cancer for years, and they first published a paper about the finding in 2007. The results just keep getting better.

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