You’re no eco-dummy. You don’t need to do a lick of research to know that a product that comes in every hue of the rainbow — and then some — is anything but natural. What makes that glossy nail polish so eye-catching-ly shiny and able to stick to your nails for days? A slew of chemicals, of course. We know you’re pretty eco-savvy, but do you know just how much bad stuff that one teeny nail polish bottle holds?

Up until recently, most conventional nail polishes found on store shelves offered up a noxious ingredient list of substances including the “toxic trio,” formaldehyde, toluene and dibutyl phthalate, or DBP. Formaldehyde, yes the same stuff used to preserve dead things, is a known human carcinogen and can also cause eye, throat, nose and skin irritation. DBP is a known reproductive and developmental toxin, while toluene is a possible reproductive and developmental toxin and can also cause headaches, dizziness and fatigue. All of these chemicals can be absorbed into the body through the nail bed. Feel like swiping on a coat of polish now?

Thanks to some serious prodding from the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics in 2006 and 2007, several mainstream nail polish brands including OPI, Sally Hansen and Orly phased out all (or one or two) of those three nasty chemicals from their formulas. Unlike the European Union, which banned companies from using DBP in 2005, the United States doesn’t restrict this chemical in beauty products. These toxic substances may be more limited than in the past, but they still sneak into nail polishes — so check your labels! Plus, just because a nail polish doesn’t contain the toxic trio, doesn’t mean it’s all good. Conventional nail polishes often contain other potentially dangerous chemicals including ethyl acetate, isopropyl alcohol, fragrances, dyes and more.

The harmful compounds in nail polishes put more than your health at risk. When tossed into the trash they can leech their toxicity into the soil and groundwater. That’s quite an environmental price for stylish nails. Think about it. You wouldn’t throw house paint into the garbage. And conventional nail polishes are just paint after all. Many cities’ household hazardous waste departments list nail polishes as one of the, well, hazardous waste products accepted at their facilities. That means nail polishes sit right up there on the same unfriendly scale as car batteries and insecticides. Pretty scary, huh?

So, what’s an eco-beauty queen with a love for colorful digits to do? Look for companies that offer nail polishes formulated without harmful chemicals by checking to see if they have signed a compact with the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. You can search for options on the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep database.

Or, keep your hands off the polish altogether. Going au natural doesn’t mean you have to forgo pampering. Check out our simple steps for a DIY natural pedicure for inspiration. By Kirsten Hudson, Huffington Post

Politeness has a place, but not in high-stakes situations, according to researchers.

Whether a pilot is making an emergency flight or a doctor is trying to help a patient make a surgical decision, the sort of vague, evasive responses that help us avoid hurting someone’s feelings can have disastrous consequences, according to a team of scientists, including Jean-François Bonnefon and Wim de Neys of the National Center for Scientific Research and the University of Toulouse in France, and Aidan Feeney of Queen’s University in the United Kingdom.

The more sensitive an issue, the more polite we tend to become, according to the researchers. [10 Most Destructive Human Behaviors]

But, because it can require us to become evasive and vague, politeness can have a downside: It can lead to uncertainty about what the polite person is actually saying. As a result, we have to spend more mental resources trying to parse the actual meaning, the researchers write in their review of past studies on politeness in the October issue of the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science.

This can have negative consequences for safety and security in high-stakes situations. The authors note a chapter in Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Outliers: The Story of Sucess” (Little, Brown and Co., 2008) devoted to the idea that politeness crashes planes, because crew members sacrifice clarity for politeness. In one of his examples, a first officer attempts to tell the captain about a dangerous amount of ice on the aircraft’s wings, “Look how the ice is just hanging on his, ah, back there, see that?” the officer reportedly said, followed by a second and third attempt that are just as unclear and polite. By this time, the plane is about to take off and will crash a short while later, the researchers write.

Of course, politeness can wreak havoc within corporate settings, when workers don’t want to embarrass their bosses or co-workers.

There are solutions, including assertiveness training — though it’s not yet clear how well it works. It may also be possible to identify signals associated with politeness, such as tone, and train people to react to them as warning signs, according to Bonnefon. By Wynne Parry, Yahoo Daily News

Gum disease could significantly delay the chances of conceiving, fertility specialists have found.

In the first study of its kind, researchers found women with gum disease took an extra two months to get pregnant compared with those who had healthy teeth and gums.

Gum disease – or periodontal disease in its severe form – is caused by a build-up of plaque. It leads to bad breath and bleeding gums and, if untreated, causes cavities, receding gums and tooth loss.

It is not clear how gum disease may trigger problems with conceiving, but infected gums may release chemicals which activate the immune system and inflame the womb lining. This could affect implantation of a fertilised egg.

Experts at the University of Western Australia in Perth carried out the study.

Lead researcher Professor Roger Hart said: “Women should be encouraged to see their dentist to have any gum disease treated before trying for a baby.”

The researchers questioned almost 4 000 women who were 12 weeks pregnant. A total of 26 percent were confirmed to have gum disease.

They found delays in conceiving among those aged 35 and over, smokers and obese women. But there was a higher level of gum disease – one in three – among the women who took more than a year to get pregnant. Of those who had healthy gums, only one in four took longer than a year.

Hart said there was also evidence gum disease in men impaired their sperm quality. Independent Online

Not only does past research show that circumcised men are 32 to 35 percent less likely to contract HPV, but a new study published in the Lancet Thursday shows that women whose partners are circumcised are 28 percent less likely to become infected with HPV.

This finding has particular weight considering that persistent infections with high-risk strains of HPV in women can lead to cervical cancer. Cervical cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths internationally for women.

Over the past five years, randomized controlled trials have shown that circumcision decreases the risk of HIV, HPV, and herpes. In women it reduces the risk of bacterial vaginosis, trichomoniasis, and now HPV. Though these studies have been done in African countries, their findings, including Thursday’s, support observational studies already performed in the U.S., says study author Dr. Aaron Tobian of Johns Hopkins University.

“Many will argue that these findings are in Africa and they do not represent the U.S., however almost all of the supporting observational studies for this area were performed on U.S. populations,” he says. “We believe the cumulative scientific evidence supporting circumcision is now overwhelming.”

Given this evidence, Tobian says it’s disquieting to see the rate of circumcision in the U.S. decline as it has in recent decades. Though estimates vary between data sources, one CDC presentation put in-hospital neonatal circumcisions (which leaves those done in the Jewish ritual circumcisions) at 32.5 percent in 2009, compared to 56 percent in 2006 and somewhere around 65 percent in the 1980s.

The debate over whether or not to circumcise newborn boys has been a passionate one in the U.S., with some anti-circumcision “inactivists,” such as San Franciscan Lloyd Schofield, proposing to ban the practice. Though proponents often cite cleanliness and lowered risk of infection as reasons to favor circumcision, the practice has not yet become one of public health import in the U.S. as it has for certain developing nations.

The question, in light of growing concerns over HPV and increasing evidence of its moderately infection-protective effect, is whether it should be.

Circumcise Men, Benefit Women

In the study, HIV-negative Ugandan men and women who were in monogamous relationships were randomized into a treatment group, where the men were circumcised, or a control group, where men were left uncircumcised. After two years, 28 percent of the women whose partners had been circumcised had high risk HPV infection compared to 39 percent of those whose partners had remained uncut. This constitutes a 28 percent increased risk of infection for those women who were sexually active with uncircumcised partners.

So what is going on here? There are several possible explanations for why the foreskin may be promoting infection and transmission of infection to female partners, Tobian says. There may be micro-tears in the skin that lead to higher viral infection. Perhaps the quality of foreskin allows for easier infection of epithelial cells. It’s also possible that the moist environment beneath the foreskin may be favorable to infection.

“Once you remove that area,” Tobian says, “it’s harder for the virus to enter and infect.”

And when the infection rate is lower for men, they are less likely to transmit this infection to their female partners. This is especially important, Tobian says, because an HPV infection — unlike HIV can clear and become non-active.

“Viruses are permanent, but the activity of the virus is what we’re more concerned with,” says director of Gynecology at Albert Einstein Medical School Dr. Erika Banks. “It’s not really HPV that’s the problem, it’s the persistence of infections with high-risk strains.”

Study authors cautioned, however, that while circumcision reduced the risk of infection, it did not eliminate the need for other forms of protection from sexually transmitted diseases. They said men should still use condoms and women should get the HPV vaccine.

Circumcise Men, Benefit Women

In the study, HIV-negative Ugandan men and women who were in monogamous relationships were randomized into a treatment group, where the men were circumcised, or a control group, where men were left uncircumcised. After two years, 28 percent of the women whose partners had been circumcised had high risk HPV infection compared to 39 percent of those whose partners had remained uncut. This constitutes a 28 percent increased risk of infection for those women who were sexually active with uncircumcised partners.

So what is going on here? There are several possible explanations for why the foreskin may be promoting infection and transmission of infection to female partners, Tobian says. There may be micro-tears in the skin that lead to higher viral infection. Perhaps the quality of foreskin allows for easier infection of epithelial cells. It’s also possible that the moist environment beneath the foreskin may be favorable to infection.

“Once you remove that area,” Tobian says, “it’s harder for the virus to enter and infect.”

And when the infection rate is lower for men, they are less likely to transmit this infection to their female partners. This is especially important, Tobian says, because an HPV infection — unlike HIV can clear and become non-active.

“Viruses are permanent, but the activity of the virus is what we’re more concerned with,” says director of Gynecology at Albert Einstein Medical School Dr. Erika Banks. “It’s not really HPV that’s the problem, it’s the persistence of infections with high-risk strains.”

Study authors cautioned, however, that while circumcision reduced the risk of infection, it did not eliminate the need for other forms of protection from sexually transmitted diseases. They said men should still use condoms and women should get the HPV vaccine. By Courtney Hutchison,  ABC News