A new study in Addiction finds that in England, children's exposure to second-hand smoke has declined by approximately 80% since 1998. 

Also, an emerging social norm in England has led to the adoption of smoke-free homes not only when parents are non-smokers but also when they smoke. The proportion of children living in a home reported to be smoke-free increased from 63% in 1998 to 87.3% in 2012.

Blue Bell Creameries has been battling a Listeria monocytogenes outbreak for the past five years. The potentially killer bacteria was found in ice cream served at a Kansas hospital and sold by retailers. Reports most recently are blaming plants in Alabama, Oklahoma and Texas.

Randomized controlled trials must be simplified to sustain innovation in cardiovascular diseases, which are still the biggest killer in Europe, according to the Cardiovascular Round Table (CRT), an independent forum established by the European Society of Cardiology and comprised of cardiologists and representatives of the pharmaceutical, device and equipment industries. 

The paper outlines barriers to investing in cardiovascular research and the authors recommend new ways to conduct clinical research to make investment more attractive and bring drugs to market sooner.

The ancient oceans of Jupiter's Europa and Saturn's tiny Enceladus are hidden beneath an ice sheet kilometers thick. They may have ET microbes, even multicellular swimming creatures around hydrothermal vents. Or they could have imperfectly reproducing "protocells"; a window into the first stages of evolution. 

These conditions, which make them so habitable, and interesting for astrobiology, may also make them especially vulnerable to invasive species. Cassini orbiter found geysers at the south pole of Enceladus, continually venting sea water from its ocean into space, as ice particles. This may give us a wonderful opportunity to look at ET life in our solar system without interference from Earth life.

A team of researchers from Brazil and Canada has found a South American example of interactions between a group of flies and the mushrooms they feed on as larvae. Though this group of flies has more than 1,100 species known from South and Central America, this is the first report of a species from the family being reared from, and associated with, a host fungus from the South America.

Even with the large amount of recent research on South American biodiversity, there are still large areas of study that remain unexplored. The natural history and diversity of the mushroom eating fauna (i.e., fungivores) in the region falls into this category.

The increasing use of video games is often blamed for children's lack of interest in physical activity and for obesity, but a study in the Games for Health Journal suggests that active video games may actually be a source of moderate or intense physical activity in children five to eight years old. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommends that children participate in at least 60 minutes of moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity each day. 

Adults who are following the DASH-style eating pattern to lower their blood pressure can expand their protein options to include lean, unprocessed pork, according to research from Purdue University.

'This study supports that the DASH diet can include lean, unprocessed red meats in the appropriate serving sizes,' said Wayne Campbell, a professor of nutrition science.

The study compared lean, unprocessed pork with chicken and fish as the predominant protein source in a DASH-style diet.

This study applies only to cuts of unprocessed lean pork, such as tenderloin and fresh, uncured ham trimmed of visible fat. Each serving size was three ounces. These findings should not be extrapolated to other pork products with higher fat and salt content, Campbell said.

A new study shows that, from 1500 until 2000, about a third of floods in southwestern Netherlands were deliberately caused by humans during wartimes. Some of these inundations resulted in significant changes to the landscape, being as damaging as floods caused by heavy rainfall or storm surges. 

Nutritionists take a lot of criticism - conferences that revolve around Yogic flying instructors and actresses who think their breast milk has "otherworldly power" will do that to your field, but there is at least one way to know if someone knows what they are talking about - multidisciplinary health care professionals who hold the Certified Nutrition Support Credential (CNSC) scored significantly higher on a survey about their approaches to nutrition support practice than those who do not hold the credential according to new study. Multidisciplinary may be more important than the CSNC, if it means actual knowledge of biology and medicine.