A recent survey revealed that people who claimed to eat more fast food also had possible exposure of higher levels of phthalates.

Is that bad? In 2016, when all chemicals are scary, it certainly is, and environmental groups have raised a fortune claiming such chemicals "leach" out of containers and into food. The television show "60 Minutes", which has long promoted health scares, did a story on them and ever since groups like Natural Resources Defense Council (which manufactured one prominent scare, alar on apples, with the left-wing public relations company Fenton Communications) have claimed all kinds of effects using rat studies.

Older adults, who are Facebook's fastest growing demographic, are joining the social network to stay connected and make new connections, just like college kids who joined the site decades ago, according to Penn State researchers.

"Earlier studies suggest a positive relationship between bonding and bridging social capital and Facebook use among college students," said Eun Hwa Jung, a doctoral candidate in mass communications. "Our study extends this finding to senior citizens."

In the study, the desire to stay connected to family and keep in touch with old friends -- social bonding -- was the best predictor of Facebook adoption and use, followed closely by the desire to find and communicate with like-minded people -- social bridging.

A signaling molecule called interferon gamma could hold the key to understanding how harmful autoantibodies form in lupus patients. The finding could lead to new treatments for the chronic autoimmune disease, said researchers at Penn State College of Medicine.

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is the most common form of lupus. In patients with SLE, the immune system forms autoantibodies that attack the body's own cells, causing inflammation and tissue damage. How these rogue antibodies form is an important area of interest for lupus researchers.

A research team has unearthed more evidence that casts doubt on the traditional "heart healthy" practice of replacing butter and other saturated fats with corn oil and other vegetable oils high in linoleic acid - in unpublished raw data whose co-principal investigator was Dr. Ancel Keys, the lead warrior in the fight to get saturated fat a warning label and who brought the Mediterranean Diet into the nutritional lexicon.

Copper sulfate has been used in agriculture since the 1800s, at least. In the U.S. it is widely used as a fungicide on organic and conventional crops, and it is also found in some fertilizer products.

A new study from the Federal University of Vicosa in Brazil has found that copper sulfate, when used as a leaf fertilizer, is lethal to the native Brazilian bee known as Friesella schrottkyi. In addition, the study, which was published in the Journal of Economic Entomology, found that sublethal exposure also affected the bee's behavior.

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA - More than 40 percent of retired National Football League (NFL) players in a recent study had signs of traumatic brain injury based on sensitive MRI scans called diffusion tensor imaging, according to a study released today that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 68th Annual Meeting in Vancouver, Canada, April 15 to 21, 2016.