A new study has found that concentrations of arsenic, selenium, and mercury in bighead and silver carp from the lower Illinois River aren't a health concern.

Importantly, inorganic arsenic concentrations were undetectable and concentrations of selenium in carp fillets were well below the 1.5 mg/kg threshold for restricting the number of meals, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. The distinction between naturally occurring arsenic and arsenic from the external environment has been a problem for popular media outlets like The Dr. Oz Show, which fail to note natural sources. 

Under-use of fertilizers in Africa currently contributes to a growing yield gap; the difference between how much crops could produce in ideal circumstances compared to actual yields. 

Better yields mean more food and sustainable food leads to wealth and culture and a better life.

But fertilizer has to be smartly applied, with both phosphorous and nitrogen, and the difference between them is substantial for subsistence farmers. While nitrogen-based fertilizers can be produced by a process that extracts the element from the air, phosphorus must be mined from rock—and reserves are limited. That makes phosphorus fertilizers expensive, especially in the longer term. 

With any pesticide, over-use can have harmful effects on the environment. 

DDT has not been used in America for over four decades but Rutgers scholars say that exposure to DDT may also increase the risk and severity of Alzheimer's disease in some people, particularly those over the age of 60. 

There are efforts to label obesity as a mental illness and a physical addiction. While that's good for psychologists who want get eating therapy paid by insurance claims, it may undermine healthy behaviors, according to a paper in Psychological Science.

Two of the world's most devastating plagues, the Justinian Plague and the famous Black Death hundreds of years later, were each responsible for killing as many as half the people in Europe.

A new study finds that they were caused by distinct strains of the same pathogen - one that faded out on its own, but the other spreading worldwide and then re-emerging in the late 1800s.  A form of that plague still kills thousands every year and these findings suggest a new strain of plague could emerge again in humans in the future.

When we open our eyes, visual information floods the brain and it interprets what we're seeing. Researchers recently non-invasively mapped this flow of information in the human brain by combining two existing technologies, which allowed them to identify both the location and timing of human brain activity.

They scanned individuals' brains as they looked at different images and were able to pinpoint, to the millisecond, when the brain recognizes and categorizes an object, and where these processes occur. 

When and where