Hot Topics: Hookah popularity in college towns worries health officials

What many fans of this increasingly popular method of smoking tobacco do not know is that one 25-minute hookah session is equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes, health officials said.

• Students smoke a hookah pipe

Report: Some Minn. babies born with high mercury levels

MINNEAPOLIS – One in 10 babies along Minnesota’s border with Lake Superior is born with unhealthy levels of mercury, according to a new report.

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Hot topics: Lack of sunlight may increase stroke risk

With our short winter days, a new study form the American Stroke Association should have us on notice for increased risk of strokes.

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Hot Topics: Positive reinforcement may boost kids’ brains

If your child forgets his lunch or struggles with school work, a little more loving might turn things around.

• One year-old Jamarion greets his mom

Hot topics: Nurseries urged to look for drug-addicted babies

The surge in addictions to prescription painkillers that has swept the country in recent years is also showing up in maternity wards.

• Addiction

Hot topics: Casual daters need not apply to this dating site

There is certainly no shortage of online dating sites out there helping people find a date. But one new site is leaving no question as to how they differentiate themselves from those sites and services.

• Marrymealready.com

Hot topics: Stakes for entrance into top universities continues to intensify

Scoring perfect SATs, landing class valedictorian and mastering the violin don’t cut it anymore.

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Hot topics: You’ll buy less junk food if you pay with cash

Who doesn’t know that junk food is bad for you? It’s empty calories, puts on the pounds and is awfully, terribly, almost impossibly hard to resist.

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Hot Topic: For some families, choosing to dine out may actually cut costs

Is cooking at home cheaper than eating out? For an increasing number, the answer will be on a restaurant menu rather than in their kitchen, according to a report released late last year by Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Hot topic: Seaweed in the tank? Company turns to aquaculture for ethanol

Imagine driving up to a gas station for ethanol made not from corn farms in the heartland but from seaweed farms on the coasts.

• Seaweed

Hot topic: Study shows wedded bliss, materialism usually don’t make a good pair

When both spouses focus solely on the “for richer” part of their marriage vows, there could be trouble.

Hot topics: IVF treatment using single sperm successful

Everyone knows it takes just one sperm and one egg to make a baby, but nature usually provides extra, just to be sure.

• Jennifer Schiraldi

Hot Topics: Journal suggests parents of obese kids should lose custody

Should parents of extremely obese children lose custody for not controlling their kids’ weight? A provocative commentary in one of the nation’s most distinguished medical journals argues yes.

• Stormy Bradley, left, and her daughter Maya

Hot Topics: Risky abortions on the increase, new report says

The numbers of abortions performed annually worldwide has held steady in recent years, but the proportion of abortions that are considered unsafe is rising, according to a new report from the Guttmacher Institute and the World Health Organization.

Hot topics: Scientists to study dissolvable tobacco’s role in kicking habit

The Food and Drug Administration has gathered a group of scientists and other experts to study flavored melt-in-your-mouth tobacco products.

• Orbs is a dissolvable tobacco product