As the use of e-cigarettes has risen dramatically in the United States in recent years, so have calls to poison centers about them, yet most parents are unaware of potential dangers.

The devices are used like cigarettes but instead of tobacco, they vaporize a liquid mixture of nicotine, glycerin and glycol ethers. If ingested, a teaspoon of this "e-liquid" can be lethal to a child, and smaller amounts can cause nausea and vomiting that may necessitate a trip to the  emergency room. In a few cases, exposure to skin has also sickened children.

Tomato lovers rejoice: Adding or rearranging a few simple steps in commercial processing could dramatically improve the flavor of this popular fruit sold in the grocery store, according to researchers.

"Ideally, tomatoes should be picked ripe and then sold immediately, as they are at farm stands," says Jinhe Bai, Ph.D. But this isn't always possible for commercially sold tomatoes, which are often stored and then shipped over long distances.

To prevent tomatoes from becoming too ripe before they reach the store, growers pick them when they are still green. Packers then use a gas called ethylene to trigger fruit ripening, and after that the tomatoes are stored and shipped at low temperatures.

Shorter mothers have shorter pregnancies, smaller babies, and higher risk for a preterm birth. New research has found that a mother's height directly influences her risk for preterm birth.

Investigators at the March of Dimes Prematurity Research Center Ohio Collaborative looked at 3,485 Nordic women and their babies, and found that maternal height, which is determined by genetic factors, helped shape the fetal environment, influencing the length of pregnancy and frequency of prematurity. In contrast, birth length and birth weight are mainly influenced by transmitted genes. Preterm birth is the number one killer of newborns in the United States and serious gaps exist between racial and ethnic groups.

A recalculation of the dates at which boulders were uncovered by melting glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age has conclusively shown that the glacial retreat was due to rising levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, as opposed to other types of forces.

Carbon dioxide levels are now significantly higher than they were at that time, as a result of the Industrial Revolution and other human activities since then. Because of that, the study confirms predictions of future glacial retreat, and that most of the world's glaciers may disappear in the next few centuries.

The explosion in coffee consumption in the past two decades has generally not benefited farmers of coffee beans in poorer nations along the equator, it has mostly just helped corporations, including those marketing "fair trade" as some sort of ethical improvement..

Do you want a better sex life and a better relationship to go with it? Sociologists say surveys show that if men take up more of the child-care duties, splitting them equally with their female partners, heterosexual couples have more satisfaction with their relationships and their sex lives, according to new research by Georgia State University sociologists.

Daniel L. Carlson, along with graduate students Sarah Hanson and Andrea Fitzroy, all of Georgia State University, used data from more than 900 heterosexual couples' responses in the 2006 Marital Relationship Study (MARS). 

They found that when women were responsible for most or all of the child care, both parties reported both the lowest quality relationships and sex lives.