Fluoride is good but too much of anything can be bad. However, a filter system developed in India using a medicinal herb is very, very good.

The technology uses parts of the plant Tridax procumbens as a biocarbon filter for the ion.

Each year more than 40 million Americans become sick with foodborne infections. Among those who become ill, 128,000 will be hospitalized and 3,000 will die. Foodborne illness also takes a toll on our economy: Broad estimates are that the US loses $77 billion in lost productivity due to people who become sick - adding in more estimates of economic impact a foodborne illness outbreak has on the affected industry.

Usually, a great deal of effort has gone into preventing foodborne illness outbreaks. In 2010, the Obama administration got the Food Safety Management Act passed but it hasn't been funded or implemented, though they have scuttled other food testing divisions of the government that have been focused on preventing contamination of food supply.

The first evidence for an extinct giant camel in Canada's High Arctic has been revealed. The discovery is based on 30 fossil fragments of a leg bone found on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut and represents the most northerly record for early camels, whose ancestors are known to have originated in North America some 45 million years ago. 

The fossils were collected over three summer field seasons (2006, 2008 and 2010) and are about three-and-a-half million years old, dating from the mid-Pliocene Epoch. Other fossil finds at the site suggest this High Arctic camel lived in a boreal-type forest environment, during a global warm phase on the planet.

Human embryonic stem cells still get all of the attention - a company in California might be able to do a clinical trial for an applied hESC treatment and it was in the news everywhere, but researchers at the University of Minnesota's Lillehei Heart Institute have shown why the un-controversial induced pluripotent stem cell technology may deserve it more. Researchers  have combined genetic repair with cellular reprogramming to generate stem cells capable of muscle regeneration in a mouse model for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD). 

The nucleic and amino acids caught up in the infamous "selfish" segregation distorter (SD) saga may be just inanimate chemical compounds to most of us, but they have put on a soap opera for biologists since the phenomenon was discovered in fruit flies 50 years ago. 

When male flies make their sperm, the SD gene (call it "A") manages to rig meiosis — the specialized cell division that makes sex cells — so that maturing sperm that bear chromosomes with the susceptible allele (call that one "a") end up defective and discarded. They never even leave the testes. It is murder, of a sort. Similar selfish systems occur in mammals, including humans.

It's among the most ancient of questions in history, covering metaphysics, chemistry, biology and theology: What are the origins of life on Earth?

New surveys find that older adults who play video games report higher levels of emotional well-being.

Scholars asked 140 people aged 63 and older how often they played video games, if at all. The participants then took a series of psychological assessment tests to determine their emotional and social well-being. 61 percent of study participants played video games at least occasionally, with 35 percent of participants saying they played at least once per week.

The survey found that participants who played video games, including those who only played occasionally, reported higher levels of well-being. Those who did not play video games reported that they felt more negative emotions and had a tendency toward feeling higher levels of depression.