A growing number of local legislatures in cities across the country want to put an end to drive-thru windows.

In August, Minneapolis became the latest city to pass an ordinance banning the construction of new restaurant drive-thrus. Officials say the ban will help curb pollution, make the city more walkable and improve health problems pertaining to obesity. Other places that have enacted similar measures say they are aiming to combat traffic, cut carbon monoxide emissions and litter.

But fear not, Chick-fil-A fiends, the zoning changes currently in effect only affect new construction. Thus far, cities in California, Missouri and New Jersey have implemented similar bans.

Still, many consumers are worried about one of their favorite conveniences being taken away. Some have pointed out how important drive-thrus are for customers who are disabled, the elderly and parents who may not easily be able to get their kids out of the car for a quick bite.

Other folks say they think the bans won't help decrease CO2 emissions because people may just leave their cars running while they wait for someone else to pick up the food.

There is, however, increasing support for the bans. Some say curbing access to even faster fast food may help aid in reversing urban obesity rates, while also helping to improve road traffic accidents.

According to the National Restaurant Association, 25% of restaurant visits in the U.S. occur at a drive-thru window. So would limiting the number of new ones just drive folks inside or actually change American dining habits?

One of the first municipalities to prohibit new and expanded drive-thrus was South Los Angeles in 2008. They also banned the construction of new stand-alone fast-food restaurants. In 2015, a non-profit research organization called RAND published a study examining the ban's impact on diet and obesity in L.A. County from 2007 to 2012. Its researchers found obesity actually increased among residents in the area.

"The South Los Angeles fast-food ban may have symbolic value, but it has had no measurable impact in improving diets or reducing obesity," said Roland Sturm, the lead author of the study.

Sturm and his team found that the ban had little effect on preventing people from getting their meals while driving since there were still plenty of places where consumers could find a window. The number of sugary soft drinks consumed per person another target in the fight against obesity did see a drop.

However, America's neighbors to the north saw different results when a similar ban was enacted in several provinces.

A 2018 study analyzing drive-thru bans in 27 Canadian cities found that "fast food drive-through service bans may play a role in promoting healthier food environments." The researchers noted that more studies must be done to determine whether these bans have any long-term effects on preventing chronic diseases.

Erica Chayes Wida is a New York City-area based journalist and food writer obsessed with culture, poetry and travel. Follow her work onContently.

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Why are so many American cities banning fast-food drive-thrus? - TODAY

After Wally Sutt started golfing, he noticed his weight was holding him back. Bending over to pick up balls involved too much straining.

Over the years, Sutt used every excuse to skip exercise and healthy eating. He wasnt surprised that his weight had ballooned. But in 2017 when he read his weight at 330 pounds, he decided to start eating better and working out. The weight began to come off slowly.

More than a year later and more than a hundred pounds lighter, the 5'10" inch tall Sutt said he felt good at 224 pounds.

Then, unexpectedly, he started gaining some of the weight back. He was still eating healthy foods and exercising, but the weight crept up. He thought maybe he'd overindulged during the holidays. But, something felt off. The way his stomach bulged seemed different than just extra weight.

My stomach was really, really tight and it just didnt feel right, Sutt, 45, a salesperson in Holland, Indiana, told TODAY. There was no pain, nothing like that. This was strictly just going off how I felt and how my belly protruded.

Sutt visited the doctor, who noticed that fluid had accumulated in his abdomen. After an ultrasound and blood tests, Sutt said, he was diagnosed with non-alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver.

Doctors believed the cirrhosis had caused the fluid buildup and bloating, which is called ascites, in Sutt's stomach. They removed 15 liters of fluid, which weighed about 34 pounds, and Sutt modified his diet even more, eliminating most sodium and alcohol.

I took everything they said seriously, he said.

Panicked, he went to extremes. He started lifting weights and eating an extremely strict diet that included a meal replacement shake for breakfast and lunch and plain fish without salt for dinner. His said his weight dropped to 174 pounds. Still, Sutt wanted to do more to reduce the impact of liver disease, so he called the Mayo Clinic for an appointment in June, hoping to join a clinical trial for experimental treatment.

Doctors ran tests and found something unusual: Both Sutts kidney and liver functions were normal, but the fluid was still accumulating in his belly. They decided to test the fluid itself and drained 10 liters, weighing about 20 pounds, and sent it to the lab.

Three days later, Sutt was in the middle of a card game with friends when the phone rang. It was his doctor explaining the test results: Sutt had an extremely rare form of cancer called pseudomyxoma peritonei, more commonly referred to as appendix cancer.

That was scary, of course, Sutt said. I wasnt thinking clearly.

PMP is a soft tissue cancer that affects organs in the abdomen and produces mucin, a gelatin-like liquid that can cause the kind of protrusion Scott experienced, what's called "jelly belly."

"People just think they're gaining weight," Dr. Travis Grotz, a surgical oncologist at Mayo Clinic who treated Sutt, told TODAY. "It's hard for people to figure out the symptoms."

Only about 2,000 cases of PMP are reported every year and doctors know little about the symptoms or causes, but think it's similar to colon cancer, Grotz added. Tumors often start in the appendix and can rupture, which then spreads cancerous cells that can attach to the lining of the organs, called the peritoneum, where they continue to produce the fluid. Sutt has stage 4 PMP (only stages 1 and 4 exist).

In August, Grotz performed surgery on Sutt to remove as many of his tumors as he could, but some were stuck to organs. He administered 90 minutes of chemotherapy to kill some of the remaining cancerous cells.

We have truly done everything we can do," Sutt said. "Now we have to wait and see how fast it progresses."

The hardest part of recovery for him? He could only walk on a treadmill at first.

Now, seven weeks after surgery, Sutt started his weight-lifting and tougher workouts again. Exercising, riding his motorcycle and his faith help him cope with the uncertainty of his future.

I am pretty positive, [but] some days get to me, Sutt said. Things do happen for a reason, we just dont know what it is yet.

If he hadn't lost the weight, doctors might not have discovered the cancer as soon as they did. Grotz said it's harder to feel and see abdominal tumors in overweight people.

Sutt said he's spent too long making excuses for being unhealthy and he hopes his experience encourages others to take initiative.

If I would have never lost weight, I wouldnt have recognized the fluid buildup," he said. "If I would have went another year or two because I had no other symptoms there would be nothing (doctors) could do."

Focusing on his health and keeping a positive attitude are helping him recover, Sutt said. In the future, he also hopes to participate in a trial for new therapies.

"It is a big operation and people who are not healthy struggle more," Grotz said. "Staying positive and not getting depressed and getting beat down certainly it is hard ... He has done a remarkable job."

Sutt said sharing his story has helped him grapple with the diagnosis, but he also hopes it will help others.

If I can help someone else in some way, or some fashion, I am doing something right, he said.

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Man lost 100 pounds diagnosed with liver disease, had cancer - TODAY

The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children

Sharkkarah Harrison, a 32-year-old single mother with an easy smile, reunited with her children in 2015.

Her son and daughter had been in foster care for about four years while Ms. Harrison was living in shelters. By the time they came home, they were showing signs of troubling behavior intense temper tantrums, leaving her side in public places that took Ms. Harrison by surprise.

A friend recommended the Trauma Recovery Program at the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, a child welfare organization. The program, which received a grant from The Neediest Cases Fund endowment, supports children and young adults from low-income families who have experienced interfamilial trauma or who have lived in neighborhoods where violence is common. The goal is to help them recognize trauma triggers and cope with their emotions.

In 2018, Ms. Harrison enrolled her children in the program. The experience has been eye-opening. Ms. Harrison learned that when children act out or misbehave, they are often doing so in response to emotional triggers. Seeing a bathroom, taking a bath, walking past a park, she said. Anything is a trigger.

Her daughter, now 10, and son, 11, do a range of activities with their therapists. (She loves to sing and dance; he likes to play board games.) Paola Amaya, one of the programs trauma therapists, said it was essential to build trust with the children and make them feel comfortable before diving into sensitive issues. Having fun eases that process.

Unlike previous therapists, the programs staff members have been able to make a connection with her children, Ms. Harrison said, because they have gotten to know them. It was just horrible experiences prior to coming here, she said. Now the children are more communicative, opening up on their own.

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Lending a Hand, in New York and Beyond - The New York Times

JOHNNY Vegas has been forced to reassure his fans he's OK after sharing a cryptic tweet that left them worried.

The comedian, 49, posted "See you in the next life x Night all" on his Twitter account at 1.54am today, leaving many desperate to know if he was alright.

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One wrote: "How to panic the whole country in one tweet."

While another was unable to sleep, writing: "Was just going to bed. Now Im probably not going to get a wink worrying about what this means xxx."

However, a number of followers recognised the quote from 1988 crime/thriller Midnight Run, and did their best to reassure their fellow Vegas fans.

Realising that he'd panicked a few, Johnny cleared things up later in the morning, posting: "I'm absolutely fine. Apologies to anyone who hadnt read my earlier twitter thread, I was merely quoting the end of a favourite movie Midnight Run."

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Last month Johnny showed off his five stone weight loss as he made a very dapper appearance at the TV Choice Awards.

The star, who weighed 18 stone at his heaviest, was spotted taking selfies and making a series of women laugh as he enjoyed a cigarette break at the bash.

The actor, who first revealed his new look in the summer of 2018, was very smart in a black suit with waist coat and baker boy hat.

Johnny whose real name is Michael Pennington previously revealed his slimmed down figure was down to overhauling his lifestyle.

He said: I am very careful about coming on and celebrating weight loss because it makes other people feel bad.

I have not done a diet in any way whatsoever. I have cut out things, its a lifestyle change - and not a drastic diet.

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Then you can live with it and you dont feel like you are denying yourself anything - apart from cheese!

Meanwhile Johnnys wife Maia Dunphy recently opened up about their unconventional relationship following their brief split in 2018.

The couple announced they were going their separate ways last year but reunited shortly afterwards.

Maia, who raises the couples son Tom in DublinwhileJohnnyis based in the UK, told how their relationship is simply different to what people accept as the norm.

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Maia said: Things are the way they always were. Life is complicated. People dont understand it and try to put a label on it.

Its work. Myself and Tom were just over in London for two weeks as Johnny was filming Open All Hours in a studio there and its rare hes in one place for that amount of time.

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Johnny Vegas forced to apologise after scaring fans with cryptic message about the next life - The Sun

This waspis an equal-opportunity head-chewer

To deposit its eggs, the parasitic oak gall wasp pierces a leaf or stem with its ovipositor, a tubelike organ. The plant swells, forming tumorlike growths called galls. These serve as nursery domes, or crypts. Within each crypt, a wasp egg develops until it is large enough to chew a hole into the galls skin and emerge an adult. That is, unless the crypt-keeper wasp Euderus set, a parasite in its own right arrives.

The wasp locates smooth, dome-shaped galls created by the other wasps. Then, puncturing the gall, it injects its eggs beside or inside the young oak gall wasp, Bassettia pallida. As both eggs develop inside the crypt, the baby crypt-keeper feeds off the body of baby Bassettia.

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Just as theBassettia beginchewing an escape hatch into the gall skin, Euderus stops it. Now the unfinished hole is too small to allow exit. Bassettias head becomes caught, and a few days later, Euderus will crawl into the head and chew its way out, the victor: a parasites parasite. Astudy led by Scott Egan, at Rice University, indicates that the crypt-keeper used many different species of hosts, and all the hosts had one key thing in common: the galls they occupied were small, smooth, non-woody, lacking fuzz or sharp spines defenceless.

Chitons roll into a ball to help them to get to places without losing their footing (NYT)

Pondering a molluscwith acrobatic skills

Why did the chiton roll into a ball? To get to the other side, says Julia Sigwart, an evolutionary biologist at Queens University Belfast in Northern Ireland.

About 500 million years ago, a couple of species of now-extinct trilobites became the first animals to roll themselves into a ball for protection. The trilobites living doppelgnger is the chiton. This marine molluscsplated shell drapes over a soft body and mucousy foot, giving it the appearance of a flattened piece of shrimp nigiri.

Like trilobites, three-banded armadillos, pill bugs, hedgehogs and other animals, the chiton can roll itself into a ball. Many scientists had assumed this acrobatic manoeuvre, known as conglobation, defends the animals, most of which are smaller than an inch or two, against predators. But Sigwart, who studies chitons, never really bought that explanation: if a predator can swallow you whole, she reasoned, rolling into a Tic Tac probably would not save you.

In a series of lab experiments, Sigwart showed that rolling into balls has more to do with helping chitons get to places where they can reattach after losing their footing. She hopes that these findings, published in Biology Letters, add evidence to a novel argument: that chitons are capable of making decisions.

Chitons do sometimes roll defensively, for instance, if they perceive a need to protect their soft bodies when poked. But, usually, they do not do much more than stick to habitable surfaces. And occasionally they move. When they detach, they may curl into balls, which can help them fall and roll more safely to a new location.

The critical problem for chitons is that they are top-heavy but not flexible enough to twist and have no appendages. So when they accidentally land on their backs, they cannot flip back. All they can do is arch and thrust out their foot. With luck, they will touch something they can push off to right themselves or a place to stick and stay safe. Their foot glue is so strong that if you were to lift a chiton off a rock too strongly, its body and shell would rip off, leaving the foot behind. And that makes the foot an important element of their defence against hungry predators, Sigwart says.

In each experimental trial, the researchers placed a chiton upside down in the middle of a test tank. Then, they added water from a tank with more chitons or a tank with an ochre sea star. Chitons can detect this natural predators scent. The researchers found that the chitons exposed to it were three times less likely to spend time rolled up than those that were not. These threatened chitons opted to arch and reach. Its an energy-intensive defence that can risk exposing its soft body, but it can also reward a chiton by helping it find a safe place to survive.

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Cavemen ate an early form of canned soup by preserving bones in animal hides 400,000 years ago (DrRuth Blasco/AFTAU /SWNS.COM)

Original paleodiet recipe: cave-aged bone marrow

Sealed for millenniums, Qesem Cave in central Israel is a limestone time capsule of the lives and diets of palaeolithic people from 420,000 to 200,000 years ago. Inside, ancient humans once butchered fresh kills with stone blades and barbecued meat on campfires. It was believed that early hominins were consuming everything they could put their hands on immediately, without storing or preserving or keeping things for later, says Ran Barkai, an archaeologist at Tel Aviv University in Israel.

But not every meal was scarfed down right after a hunt. Barkai and his colleagues have found the caves earliest inhabitants may have also stored animal bones filled with tasty marrow that they feasted on for up to nine weeks after the kill, sort of like a stone age canned soup.

The finding may be the earliest example of prehistoric humans saving food for later consumption and may also offer insight into the abilities of ancient humans to plan for their future needs. The study was published inScience Advances. Barkais team examined cut marks on nearly 82,000 animal fragments from Qesem Cave, most belonging to fallow deer. The researchers noticed unusual, heavy chop marks on the ends of some leg bones known as the metapodials.

Usually, stripping the hide from a fresh bone requires minimal force, he says. But the heavy chops indicated that the processing used more force than should have been necessary. We had a hypothesis that these unusual chop marks at the end of the meatless bones had to do with the removal of dry skin, he says. But why were they doing that?

The team concluded the ancient hominins, who shared features with Homo sapiens and Neanderthals but were probably neither, were removing dry skin on the bones to get to the marrow. That presented another question: If they were after marrow, why not just remove it from the bone when it was fresh? The researchers hypothesised that the chop marks were an indication that the early humans stored the bones so they could eat the marrow later.

To test their idea, the team collected freshly killed deer leg bones and then stored them for several weeks in conditions similar to those inside the cave. After every week, they would break open a bone and analyse the marrow to see how nutritious it still was. Every time, a researcher would remove the dried skin using a flint flake and then hammer open the bone with a quartzite tool, similar to what the ancient people would have had used. The researcher wasnt given instructions on how to open the bone.

The team found that the researchers chop marks on the older leg bones with dried skin were similar to what they saw in Qesem Cave. Their chemical test showed that after nine weeks, the fat in the bone marrow degraded only a little and was still nutritious.

Eight arms, 40 winks and who knows how many dreams?

Heidi the octopus is sleeping. Her body is still, eight arms tucked neatly away. But her skin is restless. She turns from ghostly white to yellow, flashes deep red, then goes mottled green and bumpy like plant life. Her muscles clench and relax.

From the outside, the cephalopod looks like a person twitching and muttering during a dream or like a napping dog chasing dream squirrels. But an octopus is almost nothing like a person. So how much can anyone really say with accuracy about what Heidi was doing?

It is only conjecture to say the octopus is dreaming without more data, says University of Cambridge psychologist Nicola Clayton. Does the sequence of Heidis colour changes match an experience she had while awake? Clayton points out that a human sleeper might flush red because she is overheated.

A fatberg blocks a sewer in Sidmouth (AP)

The mysterious blob that didnt come from outer space

When a giant fatberg was discovered in the sewer of a small coastal town in southwestern England last year, the company that manages the pipes was so mystified by the greasy mass of solidified fats and waste materials that it enlisted the help of scientists to discover what it was made of.

The grisly results of an autopsy held some surprises. Stuck within the stomach-churning lump were wet wipes, oils, sanitary products and even a set of false teeth.

Fatbergs are commonly associated with big cities such as London and New York. Their contents can become a taxonomy of the habits of the inhabitants of nearby towns or cities.

New York Times

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Science news in brief: From head-chewing parasitic wasps to palaeolithic bone marrow - The Independent