I have often marvelled at the "news" media's tendency to "break" stories that most people "in the know" have known for years. A wonderful example of this is the trans fat acid "scoop" of a few years back, a "scoop" that any of us who have read Andrew Weil's works were aware of years earlier.

The newest example of this is the "news" that smoking (and secondhand smoking) can affect fertility. The fact that smoking affects fertility has been bantered about for most of my lifetime (though years ago with the "proof" that none of the Marlboro men ever had children); the fact that secondhand smoke is the same thing, unfiltered, should lead us to be completely UNsurprised at this revelation. And yet the media foists it upon us as if it was a new breakthrough (something like "most women love chocolate" or something). It sorta reminds me of the scene from "Dumb and Dumber" when Lloyd leanr that we landed on the moon....