Weekly food rail, with tips on soaking dry beans, an easy recipe for Dorito casserole, the latest from The Beer Nut, and more.

Most of us take speaking skills for granted. For some, learning to communicate is hard-earned. In his nine years, Cole Bennett hasn’t been able to verbalize his thoughts. But he is learning now, thanks to a speech-generating device. He is learning to communicate with Tobii Assistive Technology.

Tori Michaels' work in life is often misunderstood, feared even. "There were people who actually grabbed their children and ran away. They said I was working with the devil," said Michaels, a feng shui consultant who moved to the Peoria, Ill., area from St. Louis a couple years ago.

In Port-au-Prince, the common Haitian practice of constantly singing and praying out loud sounded so strange to the two nurses from Massachusetts. It was stranger still to discover, amid terrible destruction, that Haitians sang songs of thanks.

Weekly health rail, with items on Diabetes Alert Day, the most obese metropolitan areas, tips for storing vitamins, and more.

According to a NASA scientist, the Chilean earthquake has moved the Earth’s axis and shortened our day.

On one side, a collection of health-conscious renegades say aspartame is bad and should be banned. They blame it for causing leukemias, lymphomas and other cancers. They claim it exacerbates problems with lupus, multiple sclerosis and diabetes and may even be responsible for the epidemic of diabetes. That's just the beginning. Web sites with names like sweetpoison.com and aspartamekills.com leave no doubt about their position.

Dog Lady offers advice on picky pooches, and why a man's late dog doesn't show up in his dreams.

Southern sun and dousing rains, a diet of alcohol, drugs, cigarettes and a lot of life ahead, often with no clue as to where they’re headed, bear down on Justin Taylor’s characters, giving them time to brood, act out, connect some of the dots.

“What should I eat?” asks Michael Pollan in his book, “Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual.” He answers parenthetically. “(Eat food.)”

Weekly religion rail, with items on a pornography-for-Bibles exchange, a Ten Commandments dispute, getting to know evangelist Luis Palau, and more.

A spine surgeon hopes his 10-year study into reducing infections in complicated back procedures can help solve one of medicine’s thorniest dilemmas — how to fight methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus infections.

You may feel guilty about serving your family steak, but it’s impossible to satisfy beef appetites on a budget. This has happened before, in depressions, in meat rationing during wars, and on and on. One of the things we must cut is the food budget, and beef goes first.

Empower yourself with books or videos on how to train your child to sleep. Talk to your pediatrician. Reach out to friends who have successfully trained their children to sleep.

The little girl with the umbrella has competition. Pink rocks mined in the Himalayan mountains, black flakes from the Hawaiian shores and gray Celtic sea salt are cropping up in restaurants and on supermarket shelves that were once dominated by Morton’s iconic youngster.