Mandy Oaklander | August 24, 2026

Lettuce has been in the headlines all summer for all the wrong reasons. How has the Cyclospora outbreak affected people whose careers depend on the rest of us eating lettuce?

"It's disastrous," one plant breeder, Bill Waycott, told my colleague Veronique Greenwood in a recent Q&A. Waycott, who lives in California, is currently growing the "lettuce of the future," which will have more nutrition than iceberg.

Their conversation was fascinating—and a bit alarming. "I have to say, I am just flabbergasted by the number of diseases that have come in in the last five to 10 years,” Waycott said, “and the rapidity with which they're mutating and forming new races.”

TODAY’S TOPICS

Worry less, live more
A vice on the rise
Got a health question for us?
When will the woolly mammoth walk again?

QUICK CHAT

Worrying is a waste of time

While reporting a recent story about what we can learn from older women, I called Karl Pillemer, a gerontologist at Cornell University who’s spent years asking more than 1,000 older people to share what they’ve learned about living well.

One regret came up repeatedly: They wished they’d worried less. As a world-class worrier myself, I needed to learn more. —Angela Haupt, Editor, Health & Wellness

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Carol Yepes/Getty Images

You’ve asked more than 1,000 older people what they regret. What surprised you most about their answers?

I expected big-ticket items—shady business deals, major mistakes. I was not prepared for how many people said, “I wish I hadn’t spent so much time worrying about things I couldn’t control.” Over and over, they told me that worry really wastes your life.

Was there one story about worrying that really stuck with you?

One woman told me there were going to be layoffs at her company, and she spent three months doing nothing but worrying that she would be laid off. She paused and said, “I now wish I had those three months back.” That’s the kind of thing you hear again and again.

But some worrying feels useful. Where’s the line between worrying and preparing?

Planning is fine. Older people are planners. But so many told me, “Many of the things I worried about never happened, and some of the bad things that did happen, I never saw coming.” Any time spent just mindlessly worrying is time you may regret later.

Are you good at following that advice yourself?

I’m a compulsive worrier! I could have a day planner that says: “Worry about daughter. Worry about grandchild. Worry about global warming. Worry about Iraq. Worry about Iran.” So I have to imagine this room of 1,000 grandparents yelling at me: “You’re just wasting your time worrying about it!” These are people who grew up in the shadow of the Great Depression, World War II, the Holocaust. If they’re going to tell you that, you should listen.

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TODAY I LEARNED

The latest vice of choice

Gina Pricope—Getty Images

I wrote last week about how Americans are drinking less alcohol than ever before. It turns out Americans’ smoking habits are changing significantly, too.

According to a new Gallup poll, U.S. adults are smoking more marijuana and fewer cigarettes than ever before. In the survey, 17% of people said they smoke marijuana—tying Gallup’s record high—while 11% said they smoke cigarettes, a record low.

Traci Toomey, a public-health policy expert at the University of Minnesota who studies alcohol and cannabis, told me recently that it’s not clear whether people are substituting marijuana for alcohol. “We have to acknowledge that as alcohol rates have gone down, cannabis use has increased,” she said. “We don’t know if it’s a substitution, but that’s a question we need to answer.” —Dominique Mosbergen, Health Correspondent

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PLEASE ADVISE

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WHAT WE’RE READING

Colossal Biosciences’ plans to de-extinct the woolly mammoth are proceeding more slowly than anticipated, but the reasons why are fascinating, Jeffrey Kluger writes for TIME.
What does postpartum psychosis actually look like, and can you recover from it? Laura Ungar at the Associated Press shares one mother’s frightening but hopeful experience.
Can getting up off the floor really tell you how long you’ll live? Devi Shastri at the AP explains what viral mobility tests can—and can’t—tell you about healthy aging.