A Cochrane Library review suggests that smoking bans may reduce harms of passive smoking, unclear as they are, since there has never been evidence that second-hand smoke has harmed anyone. Yet epidemiologists have linked it to risks of heart disease and some have even claimed third-hand smoke - particulate matter residues on clothing or in a room - can cause cancer. 

But the review does correlate lower rates of cardiovascular disease with bans. 

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Pollens, the bane of allergy sufferers, could represent a boon for battery makers: Recent research has suggested their potential use as anodes in lithium-ion batteries.

"Our findings have demonstrated that renewable pollens could produce carbon architectures for anode applications in energy storage devices," said Vilas Pol, an associate professor in the School of Chemical Engineering and the School of Materials Engineering at Purdue University.

The following text, a short excerpt from the book "Anomaly!", recounts the time when the top quark was about to be discovered, in 1994-95. After the "evidence" paper that CDF had published in 1994, the CDF and DZERO experiments were both running for the first prize - a discovery of the last quark.

----

The Red Sea is known as one of the best tourist destinations for good relaxation and scuba-diving, but no one can even imagine that this place is inhabited by many sea creatures that are still waiting to be discovered. An international team of biologists, which included researchers from the Lomonosov Moscow State University and the Shemyakin-Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences, found and explored a new kind of beautiful luminous creatures. For the first time they showed that the localization of glow in certain parts of the body can help to distinguish different species of organisms that have identical structure. The collections of the MSU have been enlarged by these new fauna species and their DNA.

Driving a car is a key factor in independent living and life satisfaction for older adults. In the U.S., driving is considered an important aspect of personal freedom and gives people a sense of control over their lives. Most adults continue to drive as they age--in fact, 81 percent of people aged 65 and older hold a driver's license in this country. However, age-related declines in physical and cognitive functions make driving more difficult for older adults, and many people eventually reduce or stop driving altogether.

Two years ago, Ellen Martinsen, was collecting mosquitoes at the Smithsonian's National Zoo, looking for malaria that might infect birds--when she discovered something strange: a DNA profile, from parasites in the mosquitoes, that she couldn't identify.

By chance, she had discovered a malaria parasite, Plasmodium odocoilei--that infects white-tailed deer. It's the first-ever malaria parasite known to live in a deer species and the only native malaria parasite found in any mammal in North or South America. Though white-tailed deer diseases have been heavily studied--scientist hadn't noticed that many have malaria parasites.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Underrepresented students' first-semester GPA may be a better predictor of whether they'll graduate college than their ACT score or their family's socioeconomic status, a new study found.

Researchers at the University of Illinois tracked the academic achievement and degree status of more than 1,900 U. of I. freshmen across a six-year period, beginning when the students first enrolled at the university in 2005 or 2006. The sample was selected to focus on students who were low-income, attended underresourced high schools and/or were historically underrepresented based on race or geography, and who could have completed an undergraduate program within six years.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have discovered a molecular regulator that allows salmonella bacteria to switch from actively causing disease to lurking in a chronic but asymptomatic state called a biofilm.

Their findings are published in the online journal, eLife.

• Conversely, nations that produce most greenhouse gases less vulnerable

After evaluating content on idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis on almost 200 websites, researchers found that the information on Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis
(IPF) from these sites was often incomplete, inaccurate and outdated.