Hemp (Cannabis sp.) has been a fundamental plant for the development of human societies. Its fibers have long been used for textiles and rope making, which requires prior stem retting.

This process is essential for extracting fibers from the stem of the plant but can adversely affect the quality of surface waters. The history of human activities related to hemp - its domestication, spread, and processing - is frequently reconstructed from seeds and pollen detected in archaeological sites or in sedimentary archives, but this method does not always make it possible to ascertain whether retting took place.

The Muon g-2 team has completed transport of a 50-foot-wide electromagnet from Long Island to the Chicago suburbs in one piece. The move began on June 22nd at Brookhaven National Laboratory, and concluded this week at Fermilab, a 3,200 mile journey - at least the way they did it.

Why such a torturous route? They couldn't flex it. Or twist it. And it doesn't exactly travel well on highways. 

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory indoor air researchers have found hazardous levels of nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide in a surprisingly large percentage of California home kitchens.

And the most common device for mitigating this indoor air problem — range hoods — vary widely in performance.

In a study ( submitted to Environmental Health Perspectives) of southern California homes which was submitted to Environmental Health Perspectives, Brett Singer group found that a significant portion of residences exceed outdoor air quality standards for several pollutants on a weekly basis as a result of cooking with gas burners. 

Salmonella bacteria is most frequently spread to humans by infected food and as they develop a resistance to one group of antibiotics they are also less susceptible to killing by other, unrelated antibiotics and a biocide used in common household items. 

Researchers have discovered that a common mutation in Salmonella, which makes it resistant to fluoroquinolones, an important class of antibiotics, also allows survival of bacteria in the presence of other antibiotics or the biocide, triclosan. Triclosan is an antibacterial and antifungal agent found in toothpastes, deodorants and soaps. 

Acupuncture to improve fertility rates? 

The University of Maryland Center for Integrative Medicine says that acupuncture, when used as a complementary or adjuvant therapy for in vitro fertilization, may be beneficial  - depending on the baseline pregnancy rates of a fertility clinic. If the baseline success was not very high, it went up a little. For clinics with more success, acupuncture had no effect.

In vitro fertilization is a process that involves fertilizing a woman's egg with sperm outside the womb and then implanting the embryo in the woman's uterus. According to the researchers, acupuncture is the most commonly used adjuvant, complementary therapy among couples seeking treatment at fertility clinics in the United States.

There is a heated national debate about gun control.

Two mathematicians have designed parameters they say can help best prevent both one-on-one killings and mass shootings in the United States. Their findings, that properly-enforced gun laws will help, are not new. Like hockey, 'enforce the rules we already have' would seem to apply to guns. Instead, the cultural focus is on 'assault weapons', a tiny fraction of gun homicides, while ignoring the psychiatric common denominator and that the overwhelming number of gun deaths are suicides - not mass shootings.  Shooting sprees happen just as often in European countries where guns are banned as they happen in the US.