Women living in an illegally polluted region of Italy are more likely to have birth defects, possibly due to accelerated ageing of their cells.

The widespread use of antibiotics may permanently change our gut flora, increasing our risk of obesity and damaging our immune systems.

When it comes to health, which is more important, nature or nurture? You may well think your genes are a more important predictor of health and ill health. Not so fast. In fact, it transpires that our everyday environment outweighs our genetics, big time, when it comes to measuring our risk of disease. The genome is out - welcome the exposome.

As the world warms, will humans evolve to cope with arid conditions? Maybe, if the Yoruba people of west Africa are anything to go by.

Many of the systems intended to provide clean water for families in some of the world's poorest communities may not work. That's the conclusion of Paul Hunter, a microbiologist at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, who has assessed past studies of the effectiveness of household water treatment (HWT) systems.