Long before he began studying for a career in health care, Marlon Munoz performed one of the most sensitive roles in the field: Delivering diagnoses to patients. As an informal interpreter between English-speaking doctors and his Spanish-speaking family and friends, Marlon knew well the burden that comes with the job.

Last year, I ran the Boston Marathon, cycled most of the 150 miles from Duluth, Minn., to St. Paul and canoed 140 miles down a creek in Alaska — all while pregnant with my first child. While I strived to maintain my fitness, I also spent countless hours worrying about possible side effects. Despite current research that links healthy exercise to a healthy baby, confusion and misinformation persist.

Temma Ehrenfeld had planned a perfect writers’ retreat: a house near the ocean, plenty of downtime, and healthy meals. and a few big bowls of the ratatouille she’d prepared — Ehrenfeld was so miserable with diarrhea and stomach cramps that she didn’t dare venture out to the beach on her breaks from writing.

I’m standing in a cubicle the size of a phone booth, surrounded by a set of purple curtains, when a red laser beam starts zooming through the box. It’s recording data points of my body—about 1 million of them—from almost every possible angle. A tour group of curious University of Minnesota students peeks into the cubicle (it’s fine; I’m wearing leggings and a tunic).

They woke at 5 a.m., ate 5,000 calories a day, ran through chin-deep rivers, strapped sandbags to their backs and marched up and down steps. They even learned how to handle venomous snakes. They weren’t training for the latest obstacle course race or reality show. These were the thousands of men who enrolled in the Naval Aviation Cadet Training Program at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Half an hour into my conversation with Sisters Jane, Helen, and Bernadette Weber, I finally get around to asking their ages. We’re sitting outside the chapel at the sisters’ Benedictine monastery, next to the College of St. Benedict, in St. I’m expecting to jot down numbers in the 70s. I exchange glances with the photographer who has joined me for this visit.

J. and Mark Hager of San Antonio never thought they’d have trouble getting pregnant. Married in their 20s, both were healthy and active, with thriving careers in Washington, D.C. But after two years of going without birth control and another year of actively (and unsuccessfully) trying to conceive, they were referred to a reproductive endocrinologist (RE), a doctor who specializes in fertility issues.

Photography isn’t permitted inside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building—better known to Minnesota immigrants as deportation court. When most Minnesotans visit Fort Snelling, they’re likely heading to a soccer practice, a tennis match, a Boy Scout out

Bobbi Pritt has decorated her office at the Mayo Clinic with ticks and parasites—none currently alive, at least not that she knows—in a conspicuously cheerful style. If that characterization seems impossible, then you’ve probably never seen a football-sized plush tick—or met Bobbi Pritt. On a recent day just before tick season, she shows off the stuffie, grabbing it with a pair of tweezers the size of a fire hydrant.

Olga Viso, executive director of the Walker Art Center. Matthew Hintz for The New York Times. The wooden remnants of “Scaffold,” the gallows-like sculpture that created so much controversy at the Walker Art Center this summer, will soon be buried in symbolic fashion. But the museum, one of the nation’s top contemporary art institutions, is still reckoning with the fallout and with questions about decision making.

A 7-year-old recently found a picture of President Donald Trump on the internet and gazed at it indignantly. “Look how stupid he is!”. she said to her dad, pointing to the image. The photo showed Trump writing his inaugural speech — with his pen turned upside down. Of course, the image was not the original photograph.

Four revolutionary school programs are teaching kids how to take care of their physical, social, and emotional health. A few minutes of breathing mindfully before a test in a San Francisco high school. Studying a leaf of Swiss chard picked fresh from a school garden in Detroit. A jog around a track before the school day begins in Bowling Green, Ky.

The celebrity deaths of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain inspired weeks of tributes from friends, colleagues, and admirers. Less attention, however, followed a sobering report in June from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which underscored how much more common suicides have become across the country.

Amal Elmi suits up for basketball practice at her elementary school in Minneapolis. For the bespectacled 12-year-old girl, this process entails more than donning the standard t-shirt, shorts, socks, and sneakers ensemble. Elmi and her Muslim teammates, who account for about half the team, also wrap long headscarves around their heads and secure them with pins.

When students sign up for oceanography at San Pasqual High School in Escondido, Calif., many can’t wait to discuss mermaids and monster sharks. They are quickly chagrined to learn that neither actually exists. “People come in with hard-core misconceptions that come right off the internet or TV,” says teacher Dan Perreault.