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The New York Times on food deserts Much obesity policy has been centered on food deserts -- neighborhoods, generally poorer, where fruits and vegetables are difficult to obtain -- but is that focus misplaced? A pair of new studies suggest that it is. "Such neighborhoods not only have more fast food restaurants and convenience stores than more affluent ones, but more grocery stores, supermarkets and full-service restaurants, too," writes Gina Kolata for The Times. "And there is no relationship between the type of food being sold in a neighborhood and obesity among its children and adolescents."
Al Jazeera on the deformities of Gulf's critters The ecological distaster that was the oil spill has outdone even The Simpsons. At its two-year anniversary, there's renewed media focus on the BP oil spill this month. And today, Al Jazeera files a stomach-churner on the oil-induced mutations the Gulf crawling and swimming creatures are undergoing. "Along with collapsing fisheries, signs of malignant impact on the regional ecosystem are ominous: horribly mutated shrimp, fish with oozing sores, underdeveloped blue crabs lacking claws, eyeless crabs and shrimp." And that's the news network's Dahr Jamail just getting started. Shrimps gills' are oil-clogged (above) while others are laden with tumors; crabs' shells have holes in them... No reports yet on three-eye fish, which would just make the likeness to Blinky too perfect. Scientists find fault in a host of toxins introduced into the ocean not only from the Deepwater Horizon oil, but also in the solvent used to clean it up.