A recent study from French government researchers reported new results on the exposure of pregnant women to more than 100 substances that might be a concern for the health of a developing fetus.  The study examined exposure to various metals (e.g., lead, mercury, arsenic) and many common organic compounds that we might encounter in our daily lives.

There is no clear cut-off age to stop breast cancer screening, according to a new analysis which adds support for guidelines that encourage screening decisions based on individual patients and their health status. But which puts doctors, hospitals and insurance companies at risk in a defensive medicine environment where there are unlimited potential damages if an attorney gets a cancer patient in front of a jury.

Neanderthals modified their survival strategies even without external influences like environmental or climate changes, according to an analysis using carbonate isotopy in fossilized teeth that 250,000 years ago, the ancestors of modern man were more advanced in their development than previously thought.

The fossils were from the excavation site at Payre in southeastern France. Carbonate is an essential mineral component of the hard tissue in bones and teeth. Among other things, the isotope composition in the carbonate reflects an organism’s drinking and feeding habits.

If the climate becomes cooler or warmer, species are forced to adapt their survival strategies – this also holds true for our ancestors, the extinct Neanderthals. 

Across Europe, town and city councils are becoming increasingly interested in energy decentralization, i.e. in producing power closer to where it is consumed, which could reduce energy costs for citizens who already feel their economic backs being broken by political beliefs about alternative energy that doesn't involve nuclear.

Heidelberg is a city in Germany with a long-running energy company that has managed to keep costs lower than centralized schemes. The city-owned company is responsible for managing gas, heating, and the water and sewage systems. They even have a plan to migrate more to renewables in the future.

The war on fat is back, thanks to an aggressive campaign by food pundits related to sugar, GMOs and corporations.

For a while, it looked like all thin people were going to be placed into mandatory body image counseling, the Kardashians had made plump the new natural, but doctors have overruled activists like Michael Pollan and Marion Nestle and their beliefs about nutrition and affirmed that it's calories that matter, not the scary story of the week.

If there was one theme that qualified the new politically correct definition of morality in higher education it was the idea that the new Affirmative Action professoriate wanted to do away with everything about civilization that white men had created. If a white man had made it or done it, then they wanted to get rid of it. They actually became extremely vocal about the premise of doing away with the white man’s civilization and replacing it.

We know that there is sound on planets and moons in the solar system – places where there’s a medium through which sound waves can be transmitted, such as an atmosphere or an ocean. But what about empty space? You may have been told definitively that space is silent, maybe by your teacher or through the marketing of the movie Alien – “In space no one can hear you scream”. The common explanation for this is that space is a vacuum and so there’s no medium for sound to travel through.

But that isn’t exactly right. Space is never completely empty – there are a few particles and sound waves floating around. In fact, sound waves in the space around the Earth are very important to our continued technological existence. They also they sound pretty weird!

After one of the most divisive presidential elections in American history, many of us may be anxious about dinner-table dialogue with family and friends this Thanksgiving. There is no denying that the way we communicate about politics has fundamentally changed with the proliferation of technology and social media. Twitter bots, fake news and echo chambers are just a few of the highlights from this election season. Much of how we’re conversing online can’t – and shouldn’t – be replicated around the family table. We are getting out of practice at conducting meaningful, respectful conversation.

Stereoscopes entertained every Victorian home with their ability to produce three-dimensional pictures. Typewriters and later fax machines were once essential for business practices. Photo printers and video rentals came and went from high streets.

When innovative technologies like these come to the end of their lives, we have various ways of remembering them. It might be through rediscovery – hipster subculture popularizing retro technologies like valve radios or vinyl, for example. Or it might be by fitting the technology into a narrative of progress, such as the way we laugh at the brick-sized mobile phones of 30 years ago next to the sleek smartphones of today. 

According to a Delta Dental survey out today, American adults overwhelmingly want a little pumpkin at Thanksgiving, it has 36 percent favorability, more than double that of American's next favorite Thanksgiving pie, pecan, which ekes out only 15 percent.  

The Delta Dental Plans Association Fall 2016 Survey was conducted between October 18 and October 25, 2016 among a nationally representative sample of 1,009 Americans 18+. The margin of error is +/- 3.1 percent. Pumpkin pie is most popular in the West (46 percent) but that drops to 30 percent for people in the South. Additionally, 39 percent of Midwesterners prefer it, and 33 percent of Northeasterners.