Oh my goodness! Would you ever suspect that even seafood is bad for you now? One year after the BP oil spill, nearly half of all surveyed restaurant patrons gave unfavorable reviews of seafood from the Gulf. CBS News' Mark Strassmann reports on the lasting effects oil in the Gulf has had on seafood and the people consuming it. Many restaurant owners won't even buy seafood anymore.

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The city of Auburn, Maine, which has a population of 24,000, continues to lead the country in terms of educational technology, according to Good Magazine.  Their most recent move was to approve the proposal to buy an iPad for all 285 kindergarteners and their teachers. 

This investment will cost around $200,000, but Superintendent Tom Morrill claims they will be even more valuable than books for improving literacy. He plans to pay for the equipment with private donations, but if that falls through, then he will look to taxpayers’ money, according to Good.

Science is empirical and quantifiable, and art is subjective. They are opposites, right? Not so for NASA, which has been mixing art and science for decades, at least since the time when Neal Armstrong waxed poetic on the surface of the moon.

In Alaska, lawmakers are considering a bill that would allow active service members under the age of 21, to drink alcohol if they show an armed forces identification card, according to NPR News. 

The bill was introduced by Republican Bob Lynn (R-Anchorage), who said, "It's not fair that one guy in a fox hole can go home and have a beer while another guy in the fox hole can't... It's not about drinking, it's not about smoking, it's about equality. If you get shot at, you can have a shot."

As of now, service members under the age of 21 are not to consume alcohol, even when deployed to other countries.  Armed forces commanders think it should stay this way because they suspect taking away the age restriction could lead to unhealthy drinking habits, and more drunk driving accidents.

If the bill passes, NPR reports that Alaska would lose $17 million in federal funding because the state would be in violation of the national minimum drinking age statute.

If students could have it their way, they would be allowed to bring their own technological devices to school and have unfiltered Internet access via school computers, according to the Speak Up 2010 survey conducted by Project Tomorrow.

300,000 students took the survey, along with 43,000 parents, 35,000 teachers, 2,000 librarians, and 3,500 administrators. The survey asked how they currently use and how they want to use technology in school. 

Many schools ban mobile devices because they distract students from the lesson, and may get stolen.  In addition, the Children's Internet Protection Act does require schools to block certian obscene websites.  However, high school students surveyed listed several reasons that having phones in the classroom would be helpful, including checking grades, conducting research, taking notes in class, collaborating and communicating with friends, keeping a calendar, accessing online textbooks, sending emails, learning about school activities and creating / sharing documents and videos.

According to the survey results, 67 percent of parents said they would buy their children a mobile device if the school allowed it.

Over 60 percent of middle and high school students said that they would like to access the websites they need. Often YouTube and social networking sites are blocked on school computers, and students feel this is an obstacle to certain projects. 

Obesity, and especially childhood obesity, is a hot topic in the U.S. these days. Schools and communities are pushing for healthier diets and more exercise.  But according to David Kessler, MD, former Food and Drug Commissioner, obesity is not caused because we’re lazy, and neither is it caused by genetics. According to a review of Kessler’s new book called, "The End of Overeating," Kessler says that there are biological factors that lead to losing control around food.

Kessler explains, “Your brain is wired to crave sugars, salt, and fats. Dopamine levels increase when you eat something desirable and repeatedly eating desirable stimuli—carrot cake, carrot cake, carrot cake—strengthens the neural circuits. The result: over-eating.” 

Once the neural circuitry is laid down, Kessler says that we can’t expect people to be able to turn it off, especially when we’re bombarded by images of food on buses, billboards, and advertisements on television. The solution is to eat more "real foods" and build healthier habits.

Check out the full review here.

The following was originally published on L.A. Youth.

When we talked to the Air Quality Management District about writing about air pollution, we wanted to know how teens could help reduce pollution. We were excited to learn that there’s a lot that teens can do. Driving less is the biggest thing you can do because exhaust from cars and other vehicles is responsible for more than half of the smog in our region. There are other steps you can take, too. Using less energy helps because some of the energy used to power electronics, turn on lights and heat water comes from air-polluting power plants. Another thing you can do is unplug TVs, computers and phone chargers when you’re not using them because electronics that are turned off but plugged in still use a little energy. So we challenged our staff to drive less and use less energy for one week. They all said that they think they can keep it up.

Quinten Harrison

On Monday I walked to school instead of driving. It was an epic fail. I was 20 minutes late to first period and got detention. After that I asked my mom if I could carpool with her. She said sure, but that I’d have to wake up earlier so she wouldn’t be late to work.

After school on Tuesday I took a shower. Usually, I take a 15-minute shower because I shower with the radio on and sing along. I wanted to limit my time to five minutes so I would save energy by using less hot water. I turned the radio off and my shower felt really short, but when I got out I looked at the clock—it had been 10 minutes.

By Thursday, I was finally getting the hang of turning off the lights when I left a room, but with the lights out, everything seemed so empty. When I was in the living room and the rest of the lights were off, I felt like the next victim in a horror film. Maybe the reason why most people leave the lights on is because we’re still afraid of the dark.

Although I didn’t meet my expectations, I changed habits and I feel good about it. If I reduce the energy I use, there will be less pollution and everyone benefits from that.
Quinten Harrison, 17, Marshall Fundamental HS (Pasadena)

In hindsight, and with mounting evidence that wind-blown radioactive dust poses no public health risk on this side of the Pacific, it’s easy to mock the paranoia of those fellow Americans who immediately after hearing about Japan’s nuclear crisis ran to their nearest pharmacies and snatched up entire supplies of potassium iodide. Um, overacting much? And did you hear the one about the Great Chinese Salt Panic? Read more...

There are a lot of animal rights laws out there, but a lot of people want separate rules and laws for marine animals. This part is very tricky because rules and regulations for fishing either does not exist, or is actually very weak and not enforced very well.

As a UC Berkeley Ph.D. candidate studying theoretical chemistry, Yael Elmatad studies phenomona like the quantum translation-rotation dynamics of confined molecules. And if your eyes start to glaze over just reading the end of that sentence, try to keep them open a few seconds more. Because it's the application of that kind of theoretical work that allows engineers to build things like robotic hands.

In this episode of Brains & Beakers, we're going to show you how to build one yourself. And, hey, why not -- we'll throw in some of the theory behind it too.

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