Whether a painless, portable device that uses electrical current rather than X-ray to look for breast cancer could be an alternative to traditional mammograms is under study at the Medical College of Georgia.

Being social is good for you. Your emotional and even physical health depends on social interaction. Social relationships can help you deal with depression, stress, and plain old loneliness.

But some people have a hard time figuring out how to be more social. Here are six ways to get started:

1. Join a club.

There is a club for almost every possible passion, from anthropology to zoology. Check out your local alternative weekly’s “events” listing; many of the ongoing events will be club meetings. If all else fails, start your own club.

2. Attend a Meetup.

Meetups are semi-informal gatherings of like-minded people, often at a bar or restaurant, who get together to just chat and get to know each other. Meetup.com is the place to go to find meetups in your area.

3. Take a class.

Taking a class is a great way to meet people – while learning something new at the same time.

4. Teach a class.

Nothing is more social than sharing your own hard-earned knowledge with people who can benefit from it most. Community colleges, adult extensions, and local government organizations (such as Parks and Recreation) are always on the lookout for people to teach either full-blown courses or shorter workshops.

5. Look up local bloggers or twitterers.

There are a number of services to find blogs by location, such as Feedmap.net, Outside.in, and PlaceBlogger. If you’re on Twitter, you can use the advanced search function to find Twitterers “Near this place”.

6. Go to conferences.

Seek out local conferences, take a stack of business cards, and go spend a day in the expo hall, which is usually free or cheap. Hand your card out to all and sundry, and collect theirs as well. At the conference itself, make a point of asking vendors what their product does.

Children whose mothers used cell phones frequently during pregnancy are more likely to have behavior problems, especially if they themselves are cell phone users.

A team of scientists looked at a group of more than 13,000 children. When the children reached age 7, mothers were asked to complete a questionnaire about their own cell phone use in pregnancy and their child’s use of cell phones, as well as their children’s behavior and health.

Children with both prenatal and postnatal cell phone exposure were 80 percent more likely to have emotional problems, conduct problems, hyperactivity, or problems with peers. Children who were only exposed prenatally also had a higher likelihood of behavior problems, but not as high as those who were also cell phone users.

All over the world, politicians and corporations are pondering banning or taxing plastic bags. A hefty surcharge in Ireland has spurred an almost complete shift to reusable cloth totes.

Plastic bags are also taxed in Italy and Belgium. Grocery shoppers must pay for the bags in Switzerland, Germany, and Holland. Spain, Norway, and the UK are considering a ban or tax as well.

The bags contribute to greenhouse gases, clog up landfills, litter streets and streams, and kill wildlife.

This fall, California voters will consider the most comprehensive farm animal rights law in the country. The measure would ban cramped metal cages for egg-laying hens, metal gestation crates for pregnant sows, and veal crates for calves, all practices in which animals are kept so confined that they can barely move.

Earlier this year, the Colorado Legislature became the first in the nation to prohibit the use of gestation crates for pregnant pigs and veal crates for calves. Florida and Oregon voters have banned gestation crates, and Arizona voters banned both gestation crates and veal crates.

California’s egg industry, which is the fifth largest in the country, is preparing an all-out campaign to defeat the measure. The United Egg Producers and the Pacific Egg & Poultry Association are arguing that the measure would threaten the health of hens and eggs, since hens allowed to roam free might contract avian diseases from exposure to the outside.