Science News

Dear EarthTalk: I see a lot of “healthy snacks” being marketed for kids that list “natural flavors” but don’t identify them. Should I use these products? --John Stein, Methuen, Mass.

Jaimee Alkinani and her husband had just bought their first home in a quiet suburb of Salt Lake City, Utah. The three-bedroom house was in a nice neighborhood: tree-lined street, kids riding their bikes down the sidewalk, and friendly neighbors who waved when they passed. The family was on their way -- they'd also just opened a small business near their home, had an 11-month-old child, and Jaimee was eight months pregnant. Life had officially started for the Alkinanis. But soon things turned for the worse.

A few days after they had moved in, a neighbor welcomed them with disturbing news. "Your house used to be a meth lab," he said--a fact that the seller had never disclosed. So they called their realtor. He told them not to worry, that the house had been decontaminated. He even produced a certificate from the local health department to prove it.

By Chris Baltimore

After spending years fighting claims that cell phone use can cause brain tumors, industry reps may be getting some welcome news. A new study suggests cell phone radiation may actually have a beneficial biological effect--two hours of exposure a day staved off Alzheimer’s disease in mice.

Scientists at the University of South Florida studied mice that are genetically predisposed to develop Alzheimer’s and its accompanying memory problems. Based on previous research, the researchers hypothesized that radiation from phones would accelerate progression of the disease be­cause other types of radiation cause free radical damage. The team used an antenna to expose some of the mice to electromagnetic waves that approximated two hours of daily cell phone use. To the scientists’ surprise, the mice that were dosed with cell phone radiation did not suffer from memory impairments as they aged--unlike their radiation-free counterparts. The mice exposed to phone waves retained their youthful ability to navigate a once familiar maze after time spent in different mazes.

The statistic is hard to swallow: in the U.S., nearly one in three children under the age of 18 is overweight or obese, making being overweight the most common childhood medical condition. These youngsters are likely to become heavy adults, putting them at increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and other chronic ailments. In February, First Lady Michelle Obama announced a campaign to fight childhood obesity. Helping parents and schools to instill healthier habits in kids is an important strategy in this battle. But the government must take further steps to solve the problem.

In an ideal world, adults would teach children how to eat healthily and would lead by example. But in reality, two thirds of U.S. adults are themselves overweight or obese. Moreover, the food and beverage industry markets sugar- and fat-laden goods to kids directly--through commercials on television, product placement in movies and video games, and other media. Its considerable efforts--nearly $1.7 billion worth in 2007--have met with sickening success: a recent study conducted by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that children who see more television ads tend to become fatter. You might expect that watching TV, being a sedentary activity, is responsible for obesity, but the study found that obesity is correlated not with television per se but with advertising. The more commercial programming children watched, the fatter they got compared with those who watched a comparable amount of public television or DVDs. The majority of products marketed during children’s programming are foods.

Any school kid can tell you that comets are made of ice. That frozen water burning off is what gives comets their characteristic tails. But asteroids were generally thought to be dry. Or at least frost-free. Now two studies published in the journal Nature [Andrew Rivkin and Joshua Emery, http://bit.ly/bkL3DU and Humberto Campins et al, http://bit.ly/bI8Eqa ] suggest that notion may be all wet. Because at least one asteroid appears to be coated by a thin layer of ice. And just that kind of asteroidal frosting could have been the source of our water here on Earth. [More]