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The upside to greater wealth equality than at any point in human history is that nearly everyone can afford food for the first time ever. The famines of the 1980s have been effectively eliminated by science. The downside is that cultural maturity has not kept pace with our biological mandate to eat like we may not have food next week.That is why obesity could soon overtake alcohol and even cigarettes as the top lifestyle disease source. Up to 20 percent of people could soon have fatty liver disease and a third of those may develop non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) that can progress to cirrhosis and end-stage liver disease, or even liver cancer.

A new study re-examined these “plant” fossils from the mid-20th century and found that they weren’t plants at all: they were the fossilized remains of baby turtles.

In the United States, 40 percent of births are to unmarried women, and there are nearly 13.6 million single parents raising over 21 million children. In 84 percent of cases, the single-parent homes are women. They are often low income.That doesn't mean the fathers aren't involved. Over than half of unmarried low-income couples with children have positive co-parenting relationships and those supportive relationships were linked to their children showing more empathy, less emotional insecurity and fewer behavior problems.

Though there are science and engineering hurdles to overcome, governments are keen on using food for fuel. Corn is most common right now but sugar is also a target for legislators who want to pivot away from conventional energy.Brazil is understandably interested in getting out in front of the issue. Sugarcane is one of Brazil’s main tools for ethanol from sugarcane is one of the most important renewable biofuels that can replace fossil fuels. A recent review of its importance to Brazil also discusses the history of sugarcane genetic improvement in Brazil from the arrival of the Portuguese to the currently available varieties.

While deforestation has declined rapidly in the last 60 years, clearing trees to make room for farmland was once essential. Even an island like England had farming going back thousands of years. Hundreds of dead tree trunks in the low-lying Fens of eastern England, caught in the machinery of Fenland farmers while plowing their fields, were from yew trees that populated the area between four and five thousand years ago. Yet farmers did not cut them down, Fen yew woodlands died rapidly about 4,200 years ago due to climate change, when peat expanded the trees fell and were preserved until today. It is likely that a rapid sea level rise in the North Sea flooded the area with salt water.

If you visit Japan, you may be surprised that Japanese traffic lights have blue on go rather than the green in the U.S. Actually, green is the standard there, just as red is, they just have a different definition of green.It is rather common that things which should be basically the same for everyone, like a color, have not only different words but different meanings. A new study of basic color terms found that in cultures that have remained isolated, there are a lot fewer words for the tens of millions of colors we see.

Some controversial claims by epidemiologists with links to anti-meat groups (Frank Hu, Walter Willett, et al.) suggest that a normal human diet containing meat causes inflammation, which they then link to increased risk of heart disease.A risk factor for a risk factor for a disease isn't very compelling but journalists often confuse hazard, including when epidemiologists use 10,000 doses, and risk, which is actual clinical relevance to people.

Hurricane Katrina was not dangerous until it hit land in Louisiana. But it intensified and since activists had successfully lobbied the Clinton administration to prevent the Army Corps of Engineers from making repairs, devastation occurred.Injuries and lives lost may have been reduced if there was a better way to predict when a commonplace tropical depression or tropical storm will intensify. A new paper says there’s more than one mechanism that causes rapid intensification. 

The benefits of fluoridated water are well-established but when nature rather than science is in charge it can be harmful. The dose makes the poison and over 200 million people worldwide are estimated to be exposed to high fluoride levels in their drinking water. A new study finds that long-term consumption of water with fluoride levels far above, 1000 percent more, established drinking water standards may be linked to cognitive impairments in children.

Our five senses are gathering information at all times. One way our brain sorts the abundance of information is by combining information from two or more senses, such as between smells and the smoothness of textures, or pitch, color, and musical dimensions. It may be why we began to associate higher temperatures with warmer colors, lower sound pitches with less elevated positions, or colors with the flavor of particular foods. A new paper argues that such unconscious 'crossmodal' associations with our sense of smell can even affect our perception of colors.

A new paper has given a name for long-term symptoms that test negative for COVID-19 - "long colds."Coronavirus is very similar to the common cold, so similar that coronavirus was not known to be distinct until the 1960s. Most who were infected with SARS-CoV-2 and got COVID-19 experienced symptoms like a cold, but those with co-morbidities or who had severe reactions got more like a super flu, some with devastating effect. Even after recovery, some still report lingering effects, given rise to the term 'long COVID.'

Spending on mental health for teens and younger rose by 26 percent from March 2020 to August 2022 - but it may be even higher because the analysis only saw families with employer-provided insurance from one group, Castlight Health, which managers employer-sponsored health insurance plans for about 200 companies.