There are currently two main, buzzy players in the plant-based "meat" market: Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods.

In 2013, Whole Foods gave plant-based meat start-up Beyond Meat its first shot at selling its vegan "chicken" strips at Whole Foods locations across the country. Early believers and investors in the product were billionaires Bill Gates and Twitter co-founder Biz Stone.

"We launched Beyond Meat. We were their launching pad. In fact, I think all of their new products have been introduced at Whole Foods," John Mackey, co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods, tells CNBC Make It.

Could the very air we breathe have an impact on our mental health? That's the suggestion coming out of a new international study conducted in the United States and Denmark. After analyzing long-term data sets from both countries, researchers from the University of Chicago say they have identified a possible link between exposure to environmental pollution, specifically polluted air, and an increase in the onset of psychiatric and mental health problems in a population.

According to the findings, air pollution is associated with increased rates of depression and bipolar disorder among both U.S. and Danish populations. That association was actually found to be even greater in Denmark, where poor air quality exposure during the first 10 years of a person's life was found to predict a two-fold increase in the likelihood of developing schizophrenia or a personality disorder.

"Our study shows that living in polluted areas, especially early on in life, is predictive of mental disorders in both the United States and Denmark," explains computational biologist Atif Khan, the study's first author, in a media release. "The physical environment - in particular air quality - warrants more research to better understand how our environment is contributing to neurological and psychiatric disorders."

MIT biologists have discovered an unexpected effect of a ketogenic, or fat-rich, diet: They showed that high levels of ketone bodies, molecules produced by the breakdown of fat, help the intestine to maintain a large pool of adult stem cells, which are crucial for keeping the intestinal lining healthy.

The researchers also found that intestinal stem cells produce unusually high levels of ketone bodies even in the absence of a high-fat diet. These ketone bodies activate a well-known signaling pathway called Notch, which has previously been shown to help regulate stem cell differentiation.

"Ketone bodies are one of the first examples of how a metabolite instructs stem cell fate in the intestine," says Omer Yilmaz, the Eisen and Chang Career Development Associate Professor of Biology and a member of MIT's Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. "These ketone bodies, which are normally thought to play a critical role in energy maintenance during times of nutritional stress, engage the Notch pathway to enhance stem cell function. Changes in ketone body levels in different nutritional states or diets enable stem cells to adapt to different physiologies."

Agrochemical giant Monsanto has waged a full blown lobbying war to combat cancer researchers that deem its products unsafe. New documents show the firm exploited ties to government and media to keep its chemicals on the shelves.

When Monsanto's best-selling pesticide Roundup was deemed a cancer risk in 2015 by the World Health Organization's cancer research wing, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the company kicked its lobbying efforts into overdrive, according to new documents released in one of the thousands of ongoing suits against the firm related to the controversial ingredient, glyphosate.

In the years since the IARC's review of glyphosate, Monsanto has brought immense resources to bear in pressuring the US government to take a friendlier approach to the chemical, and to disregard the IARC's more alarming conclusions about its safety.

At Harvard, there was once a University. Now that once noble campus has become a luxury asylum for the terminally feeble-minded. Walter Willett, one of the inmates (in his sadly incurable delusion he calls himself "Professor of Nutrition"), has gibbered to a well-meaning visitor from Business Insider that "eating a diet that's especially high in red meat will be undermining the sustainability of the climate."

Farewell, then, to the Roast Beef of Old England. So keen are we in the Old Country on our Sunday roast (cooked rare and sliced thickish) that the French call us les rosbifs. But the "Professor" (for we must humor him by letting him think he is qualified to talk about nutrition) wants to put a stop to all that.

As strikingly ignorant of all but the IPCC Party Line as others in that hopeless hospice for hapless halfwits, he overlooks the fact that the great plains of what is now the United States of America were once teeming with millions upon millions of eructating, halating ruminants. Notwithstanding agriculture, there are far fewer ruminants now than there were then.

The "Professor" drools on: "It's bad for the person eating it, but also really bad for our children and our grandchildren, so that's something I think we should totally, strongly advise against. It's — in fact — irresponsible."

It may be that the "Professor" - look how fetchingly he adjusts his tinfoil hat to a rakish angle - does not accept the theory of evolution. If, however, that theory is correct, the Earth is somewhat older than the 6000 years derived by the amiably barmy Bishop Ussher counting the generations since Abraham.

A Massachusetts woman has died from the rare eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) virus, making her one of four in the state to have contracted the deadly mosquito-borne virus.

Laurie Sylvia, 59, began feeling sick last Monday and by Saturday the realtor and grandmother from Bristol County had passed away, her husband of 40 years, Robert Sylvia Jr, confirmed.

Earlier this month, a Massachusetts man over 60 years old fell into a coma after contracting the disease that either comes on like a sudden, intense cold, then disappears altogether, or comes on more slowly, but severely, causing diarrhea, vomiting, headache and loss of appetite.

Between 30 and 50 percent of people that contract the rare bug-borne disease don't survive it, putting Massachusetts on high alert as Sylvia is the first death reported in the state this year.

The third locally transmitted case of dengue fever this year has been confirmed in Miami-Dade County, the Florida Department of Health announced Friday.

The first case of the mosquito-borne ailment was confirmed in March. The second came earlier this month.

The three cases don't seem to be related, the health department said in a statement. The department issued a mosquito-borne illness alert Friday after a resident of the county was diagnosed with the virus, which is spread through bites from infected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. The Aedes also spread chikungunya and Zika virus.

Five cases of dengue fever among international travelers have been reported so far this year in Florida. Thirty-one travel-associated cases of Zika fever have been reported this year, but zero local cases, according to health department data.

Smoking will no longer be allowed in cars with anyone under 18 years old in a new Illinois law.

Gov. JB Pritzker signed House Bill 2276 on Friday. Its sponsors include State Sen. Julie Morrison and State Rep. Jonathan Carroll.

The American Lung Association sent a statement in response to the bill passing. It said the law, which takes effect on Jan. 1, 2020, will "make a significant impact" on the health of minors.

"This new law will protect the health of our children. Breathing secondhand smoke causes several health issues in children, like sudden infant death syndrome, asthma, and ear infections, as well as wheezing, coughing, and getting sick more often," said Kathy Drea of the ALA. "It is essential to avoid smoking near children, especially in a small enclosed spaces like cars."

This week, the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a long-awaited report on land, climate change and agriculture.* The report's findings confirm that the agriculture and food systems on which we now depend are no longer viable.

Individual consumer choices in the global north, about what to eat, won't be enough to get rid of a bad system, nor will they be enough to build a just transition to a better one.

While much of the media coverage of the new IPCC report on land and agriculture focus on diet, the report needs to be understood as saying this: we (in protein-rich countries, at the very least), must replace our current large-scale industrialized systems of agriculture and food production with those based on agroecological and regenerative practices. Food security and agricultural resilience, in the face of a changing climate, depends on this.

Do you fear "leg day", or worse, the day after leg day? Do you struggle to hold your toothbrush the morning after a workout, or even walk down the stairs?
I feel you!

Although muscle soreness is completely normal 24 to 48 hours after working out, it can still be quite a bummer and make your day more difficult than it needs to be.

To be able to prevent and relieve muscle soreness, it helps to know where it comes from. When we perform muscle contractions in a higher intensity than our normal activity, it creates microscopic tears in the muscle tissue¹. This process is actually a good thing for your body; your muscles are going to be repaired with stronger and tougher fibers, resulting in creating bigger muscles - like the coveted six pack!