MIAMI (CBS4) – The flame in the bedroom hardly has to fizzle out as you age. Certainly Merle Weiss doesn’t think so. “I think sex is probably the greatest thing that was ever created,” Weiss told CBS4′s Cynthia Demos. This wasn’t always Merle’s sentiment. “I think if you love each other you love each other more than when you were 20.” Weiss wouldn’t reveal her exact age, but says in the 40-years she’s been with her husband… their sex life has gotten better. “As the years go by, and you know the other person more and get to know yourself more, sex just gets better and better,” Weiss explained. Comfort, confidence and familiarity are all the things that help sex get better as we age. It’s all from a study out of the University of California that says, grab those roses, maybe the candelabra and don’t forget the music. “It’s fabulous,” Weiss declared. Weiss is hardly alone in her thoughts. The study followed 800 women over 40-years old. It looked at all aspects of sex from desire to frequency and found out the majority said, sexual satisfaction increased as they age. Sex therapist Dr. Rhonda Fine at the Miami Institute insisted that these findings didn’t surprise her. “When you hit midlife you decide, I want the rest of my life to count,  and part of that is enjoying sex,” Fine said. She explained that at midlife, you are much more relaxed, not to mention, you have more time, fewer distractions and your partner is more of a priority. Dr. Fine even said her client list is made up primarily of younger people seeking help… not older people. “I think when you’re younger you don’t really know anything about sex,” said Fine. But what about hormonal changes as you age? What about disabilities or medical issues? That doesn’t mean people can’t have a joyous sex life and often times it’s better. Weiss said that is true for her, even after she went through menopause. “Don’t be afraid of menopause. It’s nothing, nothing. And your sex drive definitely doesn’t go away.” With so many things that improve as you age, why not sex too? In another five or ten years… Weiss said that flame will be burning ever brighter. “I hope it will be better and better.”

Indoor cycling is all the rage these days, but we know that setting up a stationary bike can be intimidating. Since the proper fit makes the workout so much better – and prevents injury – we tapped endurance rider Audry Adler to give us the skinny on adjusting a bike. Watch and learn! Then head to cardio cycling early to set up your bike just right and then get your sweat on.

Genome sequencing is poised to get even cheaper — perhaps costing as little as $1,000 by the end of the year, as the WSJ recently reported . But being able to bang out a patient’s genome relatively inexpensively and quickly — Life Technologies says it expects to soon be able to deliver that information in a day — is only the starting point. There are challenges “at all levels of interpreting whole genomes from measurement all the way to the final clinical report,” says Isaac Kohane , a professor of pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Boston. He is one of the organizers of the CLARITY Challenge, the hospital’s newly announced $25,000 competition to encourage scientific teams to develop standards for analyzing, interpreting and reporting relevant genomic findings to physicians and patients. Genome analysis is “an exciting technology” and has “come into practical fruition in the last couple of years, but a lot of work needs to be done to make it usable in a clinically responsible fashion,” says Kohane. Competition participants will get de-identified genome sequences (from Life Technologies and Complete Genomics, which are sponsors of the challenge) and clinical summaries covering three children and their families. The children all have a rare disease with a suspected genetic component, says Kohane. The teams will aim to get from that data to the root cause of the disease, and to present their findings in a clinically meaningful report — to “assemble all these pieces in a fairly complex process,” says Kohane. An expert panel will judge the entries. Registration is now open and ends March 1; the winner will be announced in October. Kohane says the families will be given any useful information uncovered during the competition, such as information pointing to care or treatment options. “We were as sober as we could be” in telling the families how likely that is, he says. “There is no way of knowing the odds on that.” But, he adds, “it would be very, very nice if we could help these families.” As the WSJ has reported , Children’s Hospital Boston broke with convention when it designed a genetic research project so that information gleaned from patient and family DNA could potentially benefit the study participants, not just science. Bonus: Genomics Won’t Lead to Big Health-Care Improvements ‘For Many Years’

"Did you hear what she did?" "Guess what I just found out about our new co-worker!" These could be the starts of nasty rumors, but a new study suggests the act of gossiping can also serve important purposes in maintaining social order. Researchers report their findings in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology . "Gossip gets a bad rap," said Robb Willer, social psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley. "Much of what we call gossip is driven by a sincere desire to help others." In a series of studies, Willer and colleagues explored the effect that receiving and relaying gossip has on people. Specifically they looked at rumors that involve another person being untrustworthy. One study involved 53 participants who were hooked up to heart rate monitors and learned that someone else in the laboratory had behaved in a selfish, exploitative way. They were told that the untrustworthy person would also interact with others in the room. This information elevated participants' heart rates. But once a participant passed on a note warning others not to trust that person, the participant's heart rate was tempered. A second study with 111 participants expanded on this idea. The third study, with 45 participants, added the dimension that people had to pay in order to spread gossip. Another experiment took place online, involving 399 participants engaging in games that involved cooperating with other people. It appeared that participants were more cooperative and less selfish if they believed an observer could gossip about them to other interaction partners in the game. That is, the threat of gossip served a purpose in making people work together. The in-person studies incorporated small numbers of participants, making them less compelling statistically. All four studies, moreover, had more women than men, raising the question of whether the results are more geared toward women's behavior. Future research may focus on how much gossip that people generally spread is good vs. bad, and how gossip differs across cultures globally, Willer said. His team also hasn't looked at pure catty talk – rumors spread about people that would make them feel embarrassed, but don't have anything to do with their moral character. "The kind where people are just sort of preying on others' weaknesses is probably not so useful, and may even be socially deleterious in that it gives gossip as a whole a bad name," Willer said. Filed under: Psychology Tagged: Elizabeth Landau – CNN.com Health Writer/Producer

Holy cuteness! Now I love Matt Damon even more for showing his loved ones how important it is to stay active by heading out for a family bike ride in Vancouver. When you get moving together, not only do your children learn that exercise in an important part of life, but it also encourages the grown-ups to fit exercise into their busy schedules. Aside from renting bikes and touring around a new place, there are so many other ways you and your family can get out together and burn some calories. If your kids are too young to walk, plop them in a jogging stroller, bike trailer, or backpack carrier and head out for a walk, run, ride, or hike. They’ll feel calm watching the scenery whiz by, and you’ll get in your workout. Rent kayaks or canoes and paddle along a calm lake or river. It’s a great way to avoid the, “Mom, I’m soooo hot,” comments. If you get overheated, just jump in. Put up a net in the backyard and keep volleyballs and a set of badminton rackets and birdies on hand. After dinner, head out for an impromptu game. Keep reading for more fun family fitness ideas.

Chip-Factory Cancer Cases: Samsung Electronics Co. says a report by consulting firm Environ International found no link between cancer in six workers and the chemicals they were exposed to at a semiconductor manufacturing facility, the WSJ reports . Previous reports by South Korea’s occupational health and safety agency have also found no link. But Samsung workers and others have said there were far more leukemia and lymphoma cases among chip-factory workers. Data from the latest study are not being immediately released. Reconsidering Risk: The FDA warned that when used to prevent pelvic organ prolapse, surgical mesh carries a higher risk of adverse effects like pain, bleeding and infection, without necessarily providing additional benefit over traditional surgical stitches, the Associated Press reports . The surgical mesh is used more frequently in women to treat incontinence and the agency’s warning doesn’t apply to that procedure. European Approval: Bristol-Myers Squibb says its new immunotherapy to treat melanoma, already approved by the FDA, has now been okayed by European regulators, the WSJ reports . European pricing for Yervoy, which costs about $120,000 for a standard course of treatment in the U.S., will be on a country-by-country basis. A Different Way of Paying: An alternative to traditional fee-for-service medicine improved some measures of quality of care and produced small savings in its first year of use in Massachusetts, though spending still went up, the Boston Globe’s White Coat Notes blog reports . A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found spending for patients paid under the so-called alternative quality contract, which pays physicians a set amount per patient and has financial incentives for quality improvement, rose 1.9% less than for patients in fee-for-service arrangements. Quality bonuses and incentives likely ate up that savings, the authors said. Image: iStockphoto

Pfizer’s results — and management’s rosy outlook — depended heavily on Wyeth.

Cymbalta (duloxetine), a popular antidepressant medication and its manufacturing company, Eli Lilly, recently presented its case to an FDA advisory panel for the drug to be approved for use in treating chronic lower back pain, as well as pain due to osteoarthritis. Along with depression, Cymbalta is also approved by the FDA to treat anxiety, fibromyalgia, and nerve pain from diabetes. read more

The country’s number-one seller of oral contraceptives will soon release a new pill, I learned this morning while listening to NPR, but women who switch may have to swallow greater risks. Natazia features a form of estrogen never used in birth control and comes from Bayer HealthCare, the company facing serious criticism for its last new contraceptive Yaz. The NPR story explains that Bayer sold Yaz as more than birth control, claiming it could stop moodiness, fatigue, headaches, and acne. If that sounds too good to be true, it was, and the FDA required Yaz to release a new commercial clarifying its exaggerated claims. But many of the women who switched to Yaz had more serious problems to deal with than skin that never cleared up or headaches that never went away. Yaz users, like one teenager currently suing the drug maker, experienced persistent leg pains and terrible chest pains; at one point her leg went completely numb. A blood clot, which eventually moved to her lung, was to blame. Blood clots have long been known as a side effect of the pill, but a set of researchers found those taking Yaz had 64 percent greater chance of blood clots than those taking pills that have been around for decades, a worrisome rate considering how many women take it. The NuvaRing has raised similar concerns . Even though the FDA does not significantly consider the potential for increased risks when approving these new methods, you definitely should bring them up when talking to your doctor about switching. And of course, you can also look at nonhormonal birth control options .

Dental problems, abscesses and other complications of piercing the tongue and other body parts.