Feature Channels: Environmental Health

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For many, the commute to and from work is a lengthy, stressful process. According to the U.S.  Census Bureau, it takes the average American about 26½ minutes to get to work. That’s nearly an hour each day — to work and back — to face traffic snarls and congested highways. That commute can also be hazardous to your health, exposing drivers to an increased amount of air pollutants that have been linked to a whole host of medical maladies, including cardiovascular disease, respiratory issues and even lung cancer.

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Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists have discovered that exposure to environmental levels of triclocarban (TCC), an antibacterial chemical common in personal care products like soaps and lotions as well as in the medical field, can transfer from mother to offspring and interfere with lipid metabolism.

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A systematic review links extreme heat exposure to changes in gestation length, birth weight, stillbirth and neonatal stress

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The Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL) has launched the report Hidden Price Tags: How ending fossil fuel subsidies would benefit our health providing the first-ever comparison of fossil fuel subsidies and the costs to health associated with air pollution from fossil fuels.

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Citizens toppled a giant glyphosate bottle at the Schuman roundabout outside the European Commission to symbolise the demand of over 1.3 million people across Europe calling for a ban of the controversial weedkiller.

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The study, conducted in mice, found that exposure to air pollution during the equivalent of the first or second trimester in humans was linked to more negative birth outcomes than exposure later in pregnancy.

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Upstate Medical University researcher Anna Stewart Ibarra, Ph.D., M.P.A., and her colleagues have created a mathematical model that can serve as a guide to make monthly predictions on when people are at greatest risk for contracting mosquito-borne viruses, such as dengue, Zika and chikungunya, due to climate conditions.

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A new research tool to safeguard drinking water is now keeping a watchful eye on Lake Erie. This week, a robotic lake-bottom laboratory began tracking the levels of dangerous toxins produced by cyanobacteria that bloom each summer in the lake's western basin.

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Exposure to environmental pollutants during pregnancy may increase the risk of asthma for as many as three consecutive generations, according to new research.

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Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) will participate in several capacities at the International Conference on Mercury as a Global Pollutant (ICMGP), to be held at the Rhode Island Convention Center July 16-21, 2017. The ICMGP is committed to better understanding and effectively managing mercury releases and emissions to decrease human and wildlife exposure. This biennial conference brings together a diversity of participants from around the globe. The theme of this year's conference is Integrating Mercury Research and Policy in a Changing World. BRI wildlife research biologists will present current mercury research in presentations and poster sessions. BRI will also host an exhibit booth (#30) in the Exhibit Hall throughout the Conference.

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In a new report, a group of University of Nebraska experts determine that a single nuclear warhead could cause devastating climate change, resulting in widespread drought and famine that could cost a billion lives.

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Chemicals found in everyday plastics materials are linked to cardiovascular disease, type-2 diabetes and high blood pressure in men, according to Australian researchers.

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Working with Parker Hannifin, Sandia National Laboratories combined basic research on an interesting form of carbon with a unique microsensor to make an easy-to-use, table-top tool that quickly and cheaply detects disinfection byproducts in our drinking water before it reaches consumers.

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At a landmark forum co-hosted by the China Enterprise Chamber of Commerce Uganda (CECCU) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), CECCU declared that Chinese enterprises operating in Uganda would support wildlife conservation.

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New Northwestern University research underscores how environmental conditions early in development can cause inflammation in adulthood — an important risk factor for a wide range of diseases of aging, including cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, autoimmune diseases and dementia.

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New Northwestern University research underscores how environmental conditions early in development can cause inflammation in adulthood -- an important risk factor for a wide range of diseases of aging, including cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, autoimmune diseases and dementia.

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Feeding pregnant female mice a diet high in fat derived from common corn oil resulted in genetic changes that substantially increased breast cancer susceptibility in three generations of female offspring, reports a team of researchers led by scientists at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.

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Scientists from the University of Birmingham and Norwich Research Park have discovered a link between a major mechanism of antibiotic resistance and resistance to the disinfectant triclosan which is commonly found in domestic products.

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Use insect repellent and wear protective clothing when we’re outside in the evening— even when it doesn’t feel like mosquitoes are biting. It’s West Nile Virus season!

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“Are you unhappy with your environment?” asked the flyer for a Town Hall meeting at the Faith Temple Holy Church in Chester, PA, held earlier this month. Residents gathered for a Q&A with environmental scientists, Rev. Horace Stand, church pastor and founder of the Chester Environmental Partnership (CEP), and long-time Chester residents and CEP members Dolores and John Shelton.

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The Forum of International Respiratory Societies (FIRS) warns today that government agencies must not become complacent in the effort to provide clean air to all citizens.

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Despite popular conceptions as an offshoot of the environmental movement, much of the field of ecology evolved to meet the needs of the federal government during the Atomic Age. The Department of Energy’s national laboratories played a key role, from developing fundamental theories to computer models. The contributions from the institutions that became Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory still influence the field today.

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1Data is a collaborative project that establishes a new standard for analyzing human and animal health information. Researchers will create the next generation of approaches to curing or mitigating human and animal diseases.

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A new antiviral drug candidate inhibits a broad range of coronaviruses, including the SARS and MERS coronaviruses, a multi-institutional team of investigators reports this week in Science Translational Medicine. The findings support further development of the drug candidate for treating and preventing current coronavirus infections and potential future epidemic outbreaks.

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Authorities in Florida and Brazil recently released thousands of mosquitoes infected with a bacterium called Wolbachia in an effort to curb Zika outbreaks. Find out how Wolbachia neutralizes insects.

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Trace amounts of flame retardants, banned in the U.S. for more than a decade, are still being passed through umbilical cord blood from mothers to their babies, according to new Indiana University research.

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Kansas State University researchers published a study in Frontiers in Environmental Science that showed Manganese relates differently than its cancer-causing cousin, arsenic, to dissolved organic matter in groundwater. Researchers say more studies are need to understand the relationship.

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Benjamin Koch and his co-authors treated bacteria the way they would any ecosystem, using genomic "tags" to track bacterial transmission.

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The USDA Forest Service in the Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness Area (BWCWA) will continue to use controlled burns without worrying about fish health in associated watersheds.

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CEO Kenneth L. Davis, MD, and Other Leaders to be Featured Speakers, June 22 to July 1, 2017 Complementary Heart Health and Skin Cancer Screenings Provided at the Mount Sinai Health Concourse at Aspen Meadows

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After a day of cannonballs and swan dives, you may find yourself with some water in your ear when you’re drying off. While most of the time, water stuck in your ear is no more than a nuisance, other times water exposure can lead to acute otitis externa—or swimmer’s ear.

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The UC Blum Federation has released a compendium of research working toward reducing poverty and improving health for all populations.

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Several critical periods over a human life span – including before birth -- determine when individuals are the most susceptible to environmental toxicants. Researchers will gather at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania this Monday to discuss these “Windows of Susceptibility."

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Can use of hair products have an impact on breast cancer risk for women? That is a question explored by investigators from Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, Rutgers School of Public Health and other colleagues who examined use of hair dyes, hair relaxers and cholesterol-based hair products in African-American and Caucasian women.

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If you have a recipe for homemade mosquito repellent, two New Mexico State University professors want to hear about it.

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More than five trillion pieces of plastic debris are estimated to be in our oceans, though many are impossible to see with the naked eye.

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A Northwestern University-led research team has discovered an inexpensive and renewable material that rapidly removes PFOA, a highly toxic pollutant, from water. The treatment effectively eliminates the micropollutant, which has plagued several U.S. communities' water supplies last year.

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A new study finds that exposure to a widespread outdoor fungus can increase cell damage (oxidative stress) in the airways. This spike weakens the airways’ barrier defense system that, when functioning normally, removes infection- and allergy-causing organisms (mucociliary clearance).

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The American Thoracic Society is extremely disappointed that President Trump has announced his decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement to address climate change. This agreement was signed by nearly every nation on Earth in recognition of our shared responsibility to solve this global environmental and public health crisis.

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Baby teeth from children with autism contain more toxic lead and less of the essential nutrients zinc and manganese, compared to teeth from children without autism, according to a study funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health. The researchers studied twins to control genetic influences and focus on possible environmental contributors to the disease. The findings, published June 1 in the journal Nature Communications, suggest that differences in early-life exposure to metals, or more importantly how a child’s body processes them, may affect the risk of autism.

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Mount Sinai study uses a unique source—baby teeth—to reveal that both the timing and amount of exposure can affect diagnosis

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Penn State College of Medicine researchers have shown, for the first time, a possible correlation between the partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station and thyroid cancers in the counties surrounding the plant.

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New research from the University of Cincinnati (UC) reveals that residents of the Mid-Ohio River Valley had higher than normal levels of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) based on blood samples collected over a 22-year span. The exposure source was likely from drinking water contaminated by industrial discharges upriver. This is the first study of PFOA serum concentrations in U.S. residents in the 1990s.

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In an ATS 2017 International Conference first, respiratory health professionals and patients joined other conference attendees at a rally near the Capitol on Tuesday, May 23 to voice their concerns about recent policies that threaten to undermine many of the ATS’s advocacy priorities including: research funding, tobacco regulation, affordable health care, and clean air. Also participating in the rally was U.S. senators Edward Markey (D-MA) and Tom Carper (D-DE).WASHINGTON, DC – May 24, 2017 – In an ATS 2017 International Conference first, respiratory health professionals and patients joined other conference attendees at a rally near the Capitol on Tuesday, May 23 to voice their concerns about recent policies that threaten to undermine many of the ATS’s advocacy priorities including: research funding, tobacco regulation, affordable health care, and clean air. Also participating in the rally was U.S. senators Edward Markey (D-MA) and Tom Carper (D-DE). Since its inception in 1905,