This is an interesting result. Does fried food not matter to heart disease risk? Or does the impact vary a lot between frying in different oils?

Consumption of fried foods and risk of coronary heart disease: Spanish cohort of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition study | BMJ

In a Mediterranean country where olive and sunflower oils are the most commonly used fats for frying, and where large amounts of fried foods are consumed both at and away from home, no association was observed between fried food consumption and the risk of coronary heart disease or death.

Our results are directly applicable only to Mediterranean countries with frying methods similar to those in Spain. Firstly, oil (mainly olive and sunflower) rather than solid fat is used for frying in Spain. It is well established that olive oil is less prone to oxidation than other edible oils or fats. Secondly, consumption of fried foods in Spain is not a proxy for fast food intake.

This certainly doesn't improve my confidence in the medical system. From Yahoo! News
AP IMPACT: Med tech's arrest shows flaws in system (Yahoo! News)

Radiology technician David Kwiatkowski was a few weeks into a temporary job at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center-Presbyterian in 2008 when a co-worker accused him of lifting a syringe containing an addictive painkiller from an operating room and sticking it down his pants....Neither the hospital nor the medical staffing agency that placed him in the job informed the national accreditation organization for radiological technicians.So just days after being fired, he was able to start a new job at a Baltimore hospital. And from there, he went from one hospital to another — 10 hospitals altogether in the four years after he was fired in Pittsburgh

Several bits of good advice for strength training here, from the NYT's "Well" blog.
A Safer Shoulder Workout (Well)

Poor form or technique can turn shoulder workouts into a fast track to physical therapy.

A paper published in BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine looks at how shiatsu practitioners help promote healthier lifestyle choices to their clients:
The potential of complementary and alternative medicine in promoting well-being and critical health literacy: a prospective, observational study of shiatsu

Examining these findings from a health literacy perspective suggests a valuable role for shiatsu in promoting healthier behaviours. At a basic, functional level, developing awareness and knowledge arose within advice-giving (diet, exercise, how to use your body and self-care) occurring in the baseline treatment session. It raised the possibility for the client to utilise this information in their everyday life. Such advice-giving occurred in the context of a client-practitioner consultation which was positively perceived by clients as involving 'listening' and 'accepting' the client and treatment by a skilful, warm and trusted practitioner. The fact that, six months later, around four-fifths of clients reported making substantial changes in their lifestyle 'as a result of having the shiatsu treatments' is indicative of their acting on the knowledge (interactive health literacy) and onto critical health literacy. Clients reported changes in exercise and diet, enhanced confidence about their health, being 'more able to help myself' and having a changed understanding and experience of their body. Overall, the lifestyle changes were suggestive of a tendency to adopt a more relaxed, healthier and more balanced approach to life.

Yahoo! News
Study: Junk food laws may help curb kids' obesity (Yahoo! News)

Laws strictly curbing school sales of junk food and sweetened drinks may play a role in slowing childhood obesity, according to a study that seems to offer the first evidence such efforts could pay off.

LiveScience.com reports on research into how a transcription factor called GATA1 may be involved in depression. The usual disclaimers about animal research (ethically problematic, and always of questionable relevance to humans) apply, but the idea that some epigenetic factors could be at play in some forms of depression makes sense.

A series of genes linked to the function of synapses, or the gaps between brain cells crucial for cell-to-cell communication, can be controlled by a single genetic "switch" that appears to be overproduced in the brains of people with depression, a new study finds.

"We show that circuits normally involved in emotion, as well as cognition, are disrupted when this single transcription factor is activated," study researcher Ronald Duman, a professor of psychiatry at Yale University, said in a statement.

Randall Munroe, of xkcd fame, once noted that "The role of gender in society is the most complicated thing I've ever spent a lot of time learning about, and I've spent a lot of time learning about quantum mechanics." The LA Times reports on the role of gender in the Olympics: Olympic Games and the tricky science of telling men from women (Los Angeles Times Articles)

Once it's agreed that men and women should compete separately, how should officials divide them up?

It's not a rhetorical question. Though most people fall neatly into "male" and "female" categories, some do not. The fact that there are people with physical or genetic traits of both sexes prompted the IOC to rethink its gender test.

From NutritionFacts.org: why everyone, vegan or carnivore, should supplement B12 or eat fortified foods.
Safest Source of B12 (NutritionFacts.org)

Since foods are effectively a package deal, what is the best way to get vitamin B12 (cobalamin)?

NPR.org's "The Salt" has more on the ongoing saga of BPA : Legal Battle Erupts Over Whose Plastic Consumers Should Trust

NPR.org's "The Salt" describes research into how to market fruit to kids. The junk food merchants are certainly studying this, those of us who want people to eat healthfully need to, too.

Cheap Marketing Techniques Help Kids Choose More Fruit