REALTORS® need to be masters of communication and to understand what their clients and colleagues are really trying to say. But negotiation is more than just words and tone. Real Simple takes a quick tour of what various types of body language reveal about the speaker.

Last week, we posted about recycling or selling old electronics after the holidays. But what happens after you take it to a recycling center? What actually is recycled and reused – and how? More often then not, they head overseas where lots of nasty things happen. Fresh Air had an interesting story (and audio podcast) giving the details on what happens to electronic waste in this country.

You may think you’re revealing precious little when you tell your Facebook friends that you’re dressing your pooch, Puddles, in your favorite color, red, for brunch at Grandma’s on Sunday. But you’ve actually just opened a Pandora’s box of risks. MarketWatch details What Your Facebook Profile May Be Telling ID Thieves.

“New Year, New You” is often heard this time of year. But what about your stuff? As you open your latest credit card bill, are you thinking of re-evaluating your material lifestyle? CNN suggests when trying to decide what’s important, pretend you’re moving overseas and need to get rid of most of your possessions. What would you keep? What would you junk? Living on less is not only easier, cheaper and less demanding, it also can free you from the trap of always having/wanting more:

Living this way isn’t about having nothing. It’s about everything in your life having value. It’s looking at all your belongings and knowing that you’ve given that thing permission to be there, that the item is truly adding value and beauty to your life.

Verizon announced this week that it’s getting the iPhone starting in February. Gizmodo says don’t buy it…yet. Some kind of an upgrade will probably be coming this summer. Let others be the beta testers for Verizon’s network.

Already have an iPhone? Looking to spruce up your iPhone photos on the fly? The Chicago Tribune highlights the must-haves.

Can watching a cute video of cats playing pattycake make you a better, smarter employee?  Researchers at the University of Western Ontario have studied the effect of viral videos on mood and problem solving.

The results of the study, which were published in Psychological Science, the journal of the Association for Psychological Science, showed that the participants in the happy group were vastly better at discerning the pattern than those who were put into negative or neutral moods. Ruby Nadler, one of the study researchers and a graduate student at the University of Ontario, said the takeaway from this study was that positive moods are helpful in enhancing creative problem solving, while also promoting flexible and careful thinking.

Now back to work.