There are many reasons to watch what you eat--nutritional value, chemical use during growth or preparation, carbon footprint, and any number of other factors related to a food's healthfulness and ecological impact.

For consumers feeling overwhelmed by all these concerns, there is good news in a recent issue of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment: A trio of American researchers has revealed that some supermarket choices allow consumers to simultaneously achieve multiple goals.

Specifically, the scientists report that seafood lovers can reap health benefits from fish while also promoting sustainable fishing.

Economics messes everything up.  Just about the time we figure out a new way to make all boats rise, the boats don't play along.

So it goes with the Mediterranean diet, which went from food fad to inclusion in the UNESCO Olympus of the World heritage list and saw lots and lots of research grant money dumped into extolling its virtues, as kind of a cure-all for obesity.  And people listened.

Drinking three to four cups of delicious coffee each day may help prevent type 2 diabetes, according to research published by the Institute for Scientific Information on Coffee (ISIC). Really, that is an actual organization dedicated to promoting the health benefits of coffee.  Some skepticism might ordinarily be warranted but since this is about coffee, it is okay to just accept the science.

Organophosphate pesticides were once commonly used in roach control and other applications but organiphosphates were originally developed as nerve-gas agents for chemical warfare. The human body converts organophosphate pesticides into altered forms called metabolites, and  organophosphates are toxic to the nervous system, known to cause memory and vision problems.

At the Excellence in Paediatrics Conference, Madrid, academics from the International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene (IFH),  a not‐for profit, non‐governmental organization which works to develop and promote home hygiene practice based on sound scientific principles, call for a radical change in how we think about cleanliness and hygiene in the home. 

If you are obese, it is reasonably well-established that you are not going to exercise and vibration machines that sound like they might be less work, like the kind developed by the Soviets for astronauts, actually can burn through 400 calories in 15 minutes, so they are not for the casual - but a recent study found that low-intensity vibrations led to improvements in the immune function of obese mice.

If the same effect can be found in people, it would have clinical benefits for obese people suffering from a wide range of immune problems related to obesity.

Work-hour caps for surgical residents designed to lessen complication rates have not accomplished that. Instead, the period after work-hour limits were introduced saw an uptick in complication rates , according to findings which raise concerns that limiting residents' work hours isn't really a benefit.

The analysis was designed to evaluate the patient safety impact of rules limiting the hours worked by residents, a measure introduced in 2003. The goal of the limits, a maximum of 88 hours per week, was to reduce the risk of errors and injury related to resident fatigue.

Sometimes when things catch the attention of the kookier segments of the public, they really take off. Fracking is a good example.  Though it's been around since the 1940s, once it got really popular people started inventing fake illnesses to get into the mainstream media Scare Journalism of the Week pieces.

But natural gas isn't the only cleaner energy activists have found a reason to hate: Solar power is blocked by lawsuits, hydropower damages the ecosystem and wind power kills birds, as Alex Berezow and I detail in Science Left Behind.

A new prostate cancer awareness survey found widespread misconceptions about the disease and says the emotional impact on men is underestimated.

The physical effects of prostate cancer are widely known but men know more myths than facts about how prevalent it is and what could happen. Janssen Biotech, Inc. has released the results of its "Mind Over Manhood: Misconceptions About Prostate Cancer" survey and it reveals a significant gap between the facts about prostate cancer and what men believe about the disease.