Maureen Ker portfolio

24hr Spa in New York (from amNY)

On a Saturday night when many New Yorkers can be found drinking and dancing the night away, Bob Johnson is sweating in a stone igloo.

"I am here for the couples massage," said Johnson, who was celebrating his 40th birthday with his fiancée at Juvenex, a 24-hour spa on West 32nd Street. "And also for the extremely hot igloo sauna."

Multimedia Project

Competitive Eating

Accupuncture and Infertility (from Newsday)

Katia Frishman tried for four years to get pregnant and finally underwent in vitro fertilization, only to miscarry after three weeks.

The 37-year-old Upper East Side woman and her husband didn't give up, but decided to supplement their efforts with a method rarely mentioned in Western fertility clinics: Acupuncture.

Sticking needles into a woman to help her conceive may sound like quackery, but a recently published study backs what acupuncturists have long claimed: the ancient Chinese practice may help women undergoing in vitro fertilization become pregnant. The study, published in the British Medical Journal, found that acupuncture before and after embryo transfer increased the chances of pregnancy.