Recent research on ocean health has found large predator abundance to be a key element of ocean condition. Fisheries can impact large predator abundance directly through targeted capture and indirectly through incidental capture of nontarget species or bycatch. However, measures of the global nature of bycatch are lacking for air-breathing megafauna. We fill this knowledge gap and present a synoptic global assessment of the distribution and intensity of bycatch of seabirds, marine mammals, and sea turtles based on empirical data from the three most commonly used types of fishing gears worldwide. We identify taxa-specific hotspots of bycatch intensity and find evidence of cumulative impacts across fishing fleets and gears. This global map of bycatch illustrates where data are particularly scarce-in coastal and small-scale fisheries and ocean regions that support developed industrial fisheries and millions of small-scale fishers-and identifies fishing areas where, given the evidence of cumulative hotspots across gear and taxa, traditional species or gear-specific bycatch management and mitigation efforts may be necessary but not sufficient. Given the global distribution of bycatch and the mitigation success achieved by some fleets, the reduction of air-breathing megafauna bycatch is both an urgent and achievable conservation priority.fisheries bycatch | trophic downgrading | longlines | gillnets | trawls

Objective: To measure the short term impact on hospital admissions for myocardial infarction of the introduction of smoke-free legislation in England on 1 July 2007. Design: An interrupted time series design with routinely collected hospital episode statistics data. Analysis of admissions from July 2002 to September 2008 (providing five years' data from before the legislation and 15 months' data from after) using segmented Poisson regression. Setting: England. Population: All patients aged 18 or older living in England with an emergency admission coded with a primary diagnosis of myocardial infarction. Main outcome measures: Weekly number of completed hospital admissions. Results: After adjustment for secular and seasonal trends and variation in population size, there was a small but significant reduction in the number of emergency admissions for myocardial infarction after the implementation of smoke-free legislation (-2.4%, 95% confidence interval -4.06% to -0.66%, P=0.007). This equates to 1200 fewer emergency admissions for myocardial infarction (1600 including readmissions) in the first year after legislation. The reduction in admissions was significant in men (3.1%, P=0.001) and women (3.8%, P=0.007) aged 60 and over, and men (3.5%, P less than 0.01) but not women (2.5% P=0.38) aged under 60. Conclusion: This study adds to a growing body of evidence that smoke-free legislation leads to reductions in myocardial infarctions. It builds on previous work by showing that such declines are observed even when underlying reductions in admissions and potential confounders are controlled for. The considerably smaller decline in admissions observed in England compared with many other jurisdictions probably reflects aspects of the study design and the relatively low levels of exposure to secondhand smoke in England before the legislation

The Massive Auditory Lexical Decision (MALD) database is an end-to-end, freely available auditory and production data set for speech and psycholinguistic research, providing time-aligned stimulus recordings for 26,793 words and 9592 pseudowords, and response data for 227,179 auditory lexical decisions from 231 unique monolingual English listeners. In addition to the experimental data, we provide many precompiled listener- and item-level descriptor variables. This data set makes it easy to explore responses, build and test theories, and compare a wide range of models. We present summary statistics and analyses.

ObjectiveTo examine the impact of the ban on smoking in enclosed public places implemented in England in July 2007 on children's exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke.DesignRepeated cross-sectional surveys of the general population in England.SettingThe Health Survey for England.ParticipantsConfirmed non-smoking children aged 4–15 with measured saliva cotinine participating in surveys from 1998 to 2008, a total of 10 825 children across years.Main outcome measuresThe proportion of children living in homes reported to be smoke-free; the proportion of children with undetectable concentrations of cotinine; geometric mean cotinine as an objective indicator of overall exposure.ResultsSignificantly more children with smoking parents lived in smoke-free homes in 2008 (48.1%, 95% CI 43.0% to 53.1%) than in either 2006 (35.5%, 95% CI 29.7% to 41.7%) or the first 6 months of 2007, immediately before the ban came into effect (30.5%, 95% CI 19.7% to 43.9%). A total of 41.1% (95% CI 38.9% to 43.4%) of children had undetectable cotinine in 2008, up from 34.0% (95% CI 30.8% to 37.3%) in 2006. Geometric mean cotinine in all children combined was 0.21 ng/ml (95% CI 0.20 to 0.23) in 2008, slightly lower than in 2006, 0.24 ng/ml (95% CI 0.21 to 0.26).ConclusionsPredictions that the 2007 legislative ban on smoking in enclosed public places would adversely affect children's exposure to tobacco smoke were not confirmed. While overall exposure in children has not been greatly affected by the ban, the trend towards the adoption of smoke-free homes by parents who themselves smoke has received fresh impetus.