As you no doubt know, exposure to sunlight causes vitamin D to be produced in your skin. But it is only a portion of the solar spectrum known as UVB that has this effect. Other parts of the solar spectrum can have very different results.

Malignant melanoma has been increasing at an exponential rate in indoor workers since before 1940. The reason may be indoor exposure to UVA radiation. Unlike UVB, which is blocked by glass, UVA can pass through windows.

UVA can cause cancerous mutations, and can also break down vitamin D formed after outdoor UVB exposure. And vitamin D is a potent defense against melanoma -- melanoma cells convert it to calcitriol, which causes growth inhibition and apoptotic cell death in vitro and in vivo. New research shows that increased UVA exposures and inadequately maintained cutaneous levels of vitamin D promote melanoma.

A study suggests that eating fatty foods can help boost your memory. Oleic acids from fats are converted into a memory-enhancing agent in the gut.

Evidence shows high levels of oleoylethanolamide, or OEA, can reduce appetite, produce weight loss and lower blood cholesterol as well as triglyceride levels. Researchers discovered that OEA also causes memories to be laid down by activating memory-enhancing signals in the amygdala -- the part of the brain involved with memories of emotional events.

When they gave OEA to rats, it improved their memory retention in two different tests. When they blocked OEA with a drug, their performance on the tasks declined.

According to the American Heart Association, Americans should not reduce their consumption of omega-6 fats -- and might even benefit from eating a little more.

Omega-6 and omega-3 fats are "essential fats" that your body can't produce and must obtain from food. These fatty acids play a very important role in heart and brain function, along with normal growth and development.

Most omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) in the diet come from linoleic acid, found in vegetable oils such as corn oil. There are no firm recommendations on how much omega-6 PUFAs people need, but at present U.S. adults consume about 15 grams per day of linoleic acid. But according to the Institute of Medicine, 17 grams per day and 12 grams a day are adequate for men and women, respectively.

Gapminder.org can now visualize change in life expectancy and income per person over the last two centuries. In the video above, Hans Rosling shows you how all the countries of the world have developed over the past years ago. I encourage you to look at this amazing interactive graph for details.

Extreme artist Eskil Ronningsbakken, who enjoys nothing more than precariously perching on the edge of a clifftop or walking on a tightrope between two hot-air balloons. His most recent endeavor was traveling upside-down on a bicycle 1,000 meters above an icy Norwegian fjord, with just a weight dangling below him for stability.

Eskil sees his balancing acts as expressions of art and not stunts. He is currently working with a group of 50 like-minded performers in Nairobi in Kenya.

'A stunt is something you see in movies, often done with mattresses safety lines or nets,' says Eskil. 'What I do is draw a picture with vulnerable human beings and their bodies, in the surrounding of mother earth. That's the balance between life and death, and that is where life is.'

Recent research shows that you can heal yourself with the power of a positive attitude. Professor Ellen Langer has conducted several studies into "mindfulness theory", researching just how much your attitude affects your actual body.  The answer is -- quite a lot.

In one experiment, Langer shut several septuagenarians in a hotel that had been redecorated in mid-eighties style, eliminating all evidence of the last two decades.  Subjects were instructed to act as if they'd really become younger -- and amazingly, soon their bodies actually seemed younger.

Dr Langer's theory is that all the external reminders that "you are old and broken" can convince the brain and body that it must be so.

Laundry can be one of the most stubborn forms of clutter. But there are ways to keep your laundry chaos to a minimum:

• First and foremost, establish a laundry routine. You can’t let laundry pile up or it instantly becomes chaotic.
• Exclusively use small, sturdy laundry baskets (20 gal. or smaller). Keep one in the bathroom, one in the bedroom(s), and one in the laundry room.
• Have fewer clothes. The fewer clothes you have, the fewer clothes you have to wash.
• Don’t have more clothes than you can store properly in your dresser drawers and closet. If you can’t put all of your clothes away, you’ll always have a reason to have dirty clothes.
• Only buy non-iron clothes to keep clean shirts from stacking up in a “needs ironing” pile.
• When moving, look for a place that has a laundry room on the same floor as your closet. If you’re a DIY person, consider building a closet with the washer and dryer right inside of it.
• Have a designated dry cleaner bag next to your hamper. If you keep it in your car, clothes that need to go to the dry cleaner will certainly pile up on the floor and cause clutter.
• Keep a stack of delicate bags next to your hamper. When you take off delicates, you can put them straight into a delicates bag and then just throw them into the hamper.
• Change into pajamas at least an hour before bedtime so that you have enough energy to do more than throw your dirty clothes on the floor.
• Before buying anything in a color that bleeds (like red), ask yourself if you will want to take the time to sort it out every time you launder it.
• Think about wearing only neutral colors so that you never have to sort your laundry into lights and darks.
• Get a job in an office that allows casual dress so that you stop wearing two sets of clothes on most days.
• Only have two sets of bed sheets -- one on your bed and one waiting on deck.
• By the age of 12 your children should have their own laundry routines.
• Clean out pockets when taking off clothing to avoid having to do it during sorting.
• If something is permanently stained or riddled with holes, get rid of it.
• Keep hangers in your laundry room so that you can immediately hang up the clothes that you don’t fold.
• Replace your washer and dryer with large capacity units so that you can do two to three traditional loads at a time.
• Have a table in your laundry room so that you can have a space to immediately fold clothes as they come out of the dryer. Do NOT allow it to become a clutter table -- keep it clean and only use it for folding.
• Have a designated bag or box in your laundry room to put clothes in that you want to donate to charity. When they come out of the dryer, fold them, and stick them into the bag.

The U.S. FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have warned people against eating raw alfalfa sprouts, as they may be contaminated with salmonella.

The contamination appears to be in seeds, so washing the sprouts may not help. Other types of sprouts have not been implicated at this time.

The FDA has been struggling with several high-profile outbreaks of food poisoning, including salmonella linked to peanut products. Congress is discussing the possibility of setting up a new food safety agency.

 “On The Shortness of Life” is one Lucius Seneca’s most famous letters. It’s valuable to read it whenever you feel the urge to succumb to social pressure and treat time as less valuable than income. Time is non-renewable, and “On The Shortness of Life” helps put this in a practical context, as relevant now as it was nearly 2,000 years ago.

Seneca says, “It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested.”

The full letter is contained in the link below. For a quick 4-minute overview, you can read the bolded passages. But it’s worthwhile to read the entire piece on a slow evening. Each person identifies with different passages.

A new study on rats shows that long-term exposure to the common agricultural pesticide atrazine causes weight gain in animals fed normal diets and obesity in those fed high fat diets.

Weight gain and obesity can lead to diabetes. In this case, the conditions could be triggered by damage to critical structures in cells responsible for making energy.

The results suggest a mechanism that explains prior studies which found an association between areas with heavy atrazine use and high obesity prevalence.

An herb recently found to kill pancreatic cancer cells also appears to inhibit development the of pancreatic cancer as a result of its anti-inflammatory properties.

Thymoquinone, a constituent of the oil extract from a Middle Eastern herbal seed called Nigella sativa, has anti-inflammatory properties that reduced the release of inflammatory mediators in pancreatic cancer cells. Nigella sativa seeds and oil are used in traditional medicine by many Middle Eastern and Asian countries. It is used to treat a broad array of diseases, including some immune and inflammatory disorders.

Previous studies have also shown it to have beneficial effects on prostate and colon cancers.

Recent studies have shown that the mitochondrial peptide Humanin (HN) protects against neuronal cell death, such as happens in Alzheimer's disease. Now, a study reports that a small infusion of HN is the most potent regulator of insulin metabolism that the research team had ever seen, significantly improving overall insulin sensitivity and sharply decreasing the glucose levels of diabetic rats.

This is the first evidence of a role for HN in glucose metabolism, and it provides new insight into how it may be involved in the development of age-related diseases such as Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and Alzheimer's. The finding also provides support for the growing understanding that the brain is heavily involved in glucose metabolism.

The power of HN on insulin action suggests a new therapeutic approach to diabetes. Further understanding of HN may also lead to strategies to protect against age-related dementia.

Organic apples have a 15 percent higher antioxidant capacity than conventionally produced apples, according to a new study. These findings add to the ongoing debate over whether organically grown produce is more nutritious than conventionally grown produce.

Researchers compared the polyphenol content and antioxidant capacity of Golden Delicious apples grown under organic and conventional conditions over a three year period.

In 2005 and 2006 the antioxidant capacity was 15 percent higher in the organic fruit. Organic apples grown in 2005 also had a higher polyphenol concentration.

New research provides evidence for a link between vitamin D insufficiency and asthma severity. Serum vitamin D levels in more than 600 children were inversely linked to several indicators of allergy and asthma severity.

While previous studies have suggested that vitamin D may affect how airway cells respond to treatment with inhaled steroids, this is the first study of vitamin D and disease severity in children with asthma.

Children with lower vitamin D levels were significantly more likely to have been hospitalized for asthma in the previous year, tended to have airways with increased hyperreactivity, and were likely to have used more inhaled corticosteroids -- all signifying higher asthma severity. These children were also significantly more likely to have several markers of allergy, including dust-mite sensitivity.