Nanotechnology is a powerful platform technology for taking apart and reconstructing nature at the atomic and molecular level. Just as the size and chemical characteristics of manufactured nanomaterials give them unique properties, those same properties - tiny size, vastly increased surface area to volume ratio, and high reactivity - can also create unique and unpredictable health and environmental risks.

The prostate is an organ that sits snuggled up under the bladder. Its biological purpose is to produce semen. As time goes on, however, many men have an enlargement of their prostates, causing annoying and sometimes painful urinary problems. The prostate is also the number-one cancer spot in a man’s body.

These problems are not inevitable. They depend in part on what men eat. Like so many other parts of our biology, the mixture of nutrients we choose every day can encourage prostate cells to grow into an aggravating mass or can help them stay put.

Ever wonder why you seem to drink more and eat faster at a noisy restaurant? George Prochnik, author of In Pursuit of Silence, has the fascinating science behind this everyday phenomenon.

Not long ago, I found myself in a new barbecue restaurant in Manhattan. Though it was barely cocktail hour, the noise level was punishing. Music raged. Patrons howled. Obviously, the place was happening.

Garden on the Go is bringing fresh, affordable fruits and vegetables to neighborhoods in Marion County, Indiana

Indiana University Health's Garden on the Go is an effort to improve access to affordable fruits and vegetables in "food deserts" throughout Marion County. A "food desert" is defined as "an area that lacks access to affordable, healthy foods."

What if a mother could pre­dispose her child to like broccoli or Brussels sprouts — or at least to not make a face and spit it out — by what she ate during pregnancy?

Some health-care practitioners are suggesting that if mothers include a wide range of foods in their diet during pregnancy, they can shape their children’s food preferences. Those choices, researchers say, have the potential to reduce the risks of diabetes and obesity.

The concept is called prenatal flavor learning.

Surprising Supplement Can Cut Your Risk of Dying by FIFTY PERCENT 

Taking vitamin D supplements in order to overcome a deficiency in the vitamin could cut your risk of dying by more than half. An analysis of more than 10,000 patients found that 70 percent were deficient in vitamin D -- and those who were, were three times more likely to die from any cause.

The leading orange juice companies such as Tropicana (owned by PepsiCo), Minute Maid and Simply Orange (owned by Coca-Cola), and Florida’s Natural tell us many stories about orange juice: it’s natural, it’s pure and simple, it’s squeezed from oranges grown on pristine looking trees in Florida. But they leave out the details about how most commercial orange juice is produced and processed. Considering roughly two thirds of US households buy orange juice, Americans have a right to the whole story.

Worry over vaccine risks continue to be an issue, even becoming fodder for the Presidential candidates.  A just released analysis, by the Institute of Medicine, of more than 1,000 research articles claims that few health problems are caused by or clearly associated with vaccines. 

Scientists are investigating a possible link between tiny particles of pollution found in diesel fumes and the global collapse of honey bee colonies.

Professor Guy Poppy, an ecologist, Dr Tracey Newman, a neuroscientist, and their team from the University of Southampton, believe that minuscule particles, or ‘nanoparticles’, emitted from diesel engines could be affecting bees’ brains and damaging their inbuilt ‘sat-navs’. They believe this may stop worker bees finding their way back to the hive.

In one of the largest genomics studies ever, an international research consortium that includes the National Institutes of Health has identified 29 genetic variations across 28 regions of the human genome that influence blood pressure. This unprecedented effort brought together more than 230 researchers across six continents and scanned the genomes of over 200,000 people. The results will appear in the Sept. 11 edition of Nature Genetics.