Between 2001 and 2010, there were dramatic increases in Emergency Room prescriptions of opioid analgesics, such as Percocet, Vicodin, oxycodone and Dilaudid.

No surprise there, America is increasingly over-medicated, be it on supplements, homeopathy or legitimate treatments.

And it's going to get worse. If current trends under the Affordable Care Act persist, fewer and fewer doctors will accept government plans, and that means even more people will go to the ER, at far higher cost. ER doctors have to treat a lot of people and 'pain' is an entirely subjective claim, one of the last vestiges remaining of symptom-based diagnosis in the field.

Gluten-free foods are all the rage.

What was once the plight of celiac patients has become the latest health fad and a $5 billion annual industry. Companies like General Mills and others have taken advantage of the 200 percent higher prices people are willing to pay for the illusion of health and have released lots of new products.

It was only a matter of time before gluten-free functional foods rode that wave. The food processing industry has lots of left-over garbage and those antioxidants, phenols, fibers and proteins are all functional ingredients, which means they can be sold for profit and even claim it helps with global sustainability.

It's difficult to be certain yet but, based on information obtained on the Voyager and Galileo missions, scientists suspect that inside Europa, one of the icy moons of Jupiter, there exist reservoirs of liquid.

The Voyager and Galileo missions also registered fractures and `chaotic´ terrains associated to reddish materials, which contrast with the glacial white of the dominant water ice of the surface.

No one wants to tell someone they can't drive. America was founded on the pioneer spirit and unless we cramp everyone into urban concrete jungles, which are implicated in any number of health, pollution and crime issues, America's vast expanses mean we are a car culture.

But a diagnosis of hemianopia, blindness in one half of the visual field in both eyes, usually as the result of strokes, tumors or trauma, often means the end of driving. But it isn't required in countries like Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK, Switzerland and Canada if people can pass a specialized road test.

A survey conducted by researchers from the University of Chicago's Program on Medicine and Religion delves into the relationship between attitudes toward organ donation and the Islamic faith.

Previous surveys have found that Muslims are less likely than other religious groups to believe in organ donation and that religious values may be the obstacle. 

The American Muslims surveyed who interpret negative events in life as punishment from God are less likely to be organ donors than those with a more positive outlook. Overall levels of religiosity among American Muslims did not influence attitudes toward organ donation.  

New technology developed by Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne allows them to detect facial expressions and identify which of the seven universal emotions a person is feeling: fear, anger, joy, sadness, disgust, surprise, or suspicion.

This could be useful for marketing and video game development, of course, but obviously in driver safety. Fatigue is a risk factor but so is the emotional state of the driver. 

Irritation, in particular, can make drivers more aggressive and less attentive. EPFL researchers, in collaboration with PSA Peugeot Citroën, have developed an on-board emotion detector based on the analysis of facial expressions. Tests carried out using a prototype indicate that the idea could have promising applications.