A new British Medical Journal editorial claims that banning trans fats would protect the public and save lives by preventing thousands of heart attacks and deaths every year.

The policy recommendation follows calls by public health specialists to eliminate the consumption of industrially-produced trans fats in the UK by next year. Action by the UK might also produce larger benefits by inspiring other developed and developing countries to take similar measures to protect their citizens' health, the authors conclude.

Trans fats (trans fatty acids) are solid fats found in margarine, biscuits, cakes, and fast food. Many studies demonstrate harmful effects of trans fats on cardiovascular risk factors.

Electronic readers allow children to interact with texts in ways they don't interact with the printed word, encouraging them to read, according to Kansas State University professor of Education Lotta Larson.

Since fall 2009, Larson has been using the Amazon Kindle in her work with a pair of second-graders. The e-reader has features that make the text audible, increase or decrease font size and let readers make notes about the book.

"It's interesting to see the kinds of things these kids have been able to do," Larson said.

Sometimes they make comments summarizing the plot, therefore reinforcing their understanding of the book. Other times they ponder character development, jotting down things like "If I were him, I'd say no way!"

The world's water cycle has already intensified and the changes are consistent with predictions made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, according to  new research in the Journal of Climate.

The stronger water cycle means arid regions have become drier and high rainfall regions wetter as atmospheric temperature increases.

The study shows the surface ocean beneath rainfall-dominated regions has freshened, whereas ocean regions dominated by evaporation are saltier. The paper also confirms that surface warming of the world's oceans over the past 50 years has penetrated into the oceans' interior changing deep-ocean salinity patterns.

Scientists cannot account for roughly half of the heat that is believed to have built up on Earth in recent years, according to a new article in Science.

While we may have been spared some of the warming that inevitably results from our reckless C02 emissions, "the heat will come back to haunt us sooner or later," says NCAR scientist Kevin Trenberth, the article's lead author.

The researchers warn that satellite sensors, ocean floats, and other instruments are inadequate to track this "missing" heat, which may be building up in the deep oceans or elsewhere in the climate system.

Through the study of a popular Martian meteorite's age, University of Houston researchers have uncovered important details about the history of volcanic activity on Mars.

ALH84001 is a thoroughly studied, well-known Martian meteorite, unique among Mars rocks available for study on Earth. Since its formation age is more than 2.5 billion years older than any other recognized Martian meteorite, it offers scientists the only view of Mars' early history. Data from this rock may also help geologists better understand, through analogy, the processes of early Earth evolution.

The new analysis of ALH84001 is published in Science
                

Life and health insurance companies are greedy, for-profit enterprises that do not care about public health, according to Harvard researchers writing in the American Journal of Public Health.

Why such scorn for the insurance industry? The authors of the study found that U.S., Canadian and European-based insurance firms hold at least $1.88 billion of investments in fast-food companies.

Although there is normally nothing wrong with investing in fast food companies, the busy bodies at Harvard are irritated because the health care legislation just enacted in the U.S. essentially guarantees business for these insurance companies, and they are invested in the industry that is supposedly making us unhealthy.