Feature Channels: Food and Water Safety

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University of Utah geoscientist William Johnson studies how contaminants – including bacteria and viruses – move through groundwater. After years of working on this problem, Johnson has found an answer that could help water managers better prepare for and respond to outbreaks caused by rain and floods. The answer involves chemistry, physics. . . and a little bit of decorative nanoscience.

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Foodborne illness is a serious and preventable public health problem, affecting one in six Americans and costing an estimated $50 billion annually. As local health departments adopt new tools that monitor Twitter for tweets about food poisoning, a study from Washington University in St. Louis is the first to examine practitioner perceptions of this technology.

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The latest research and features in cell biology in the Cell Biology News Source

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Contaminants in storm runoff can negatively impact water quality in rivers and streams, but filtering the water through steel chips may remove 85 to 95 percent of the E. coli.

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Few parents are using some simple strategies to protect kids from food poisoning outside the home, such as at a potluck or restaurant, according to a new report from C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health.

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Scientists from The Ohio State University compared three popular pitcher brands’ ability to clear dangerous microcystins from tap water. They found that while one did an excellent job, other pitchers allowed the toxins – which appear during harmful algal blooms (HABs) – to escape the filter and drop into the drinking water.

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Texas A&M AgriLife research will collaborate with the Texas Department of Agriculture and the University of California at Davis on a project to help agricultural producers and consumers through improving nitrogen use efficiency and food safety in spinach

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According to Notre Dame researchers, global applications are significant when considering those populations without suitable drinking water and limited resources.

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New research out of the University of Wisconsin–Madison has, for the first time, detected prions responsible for chronic wasting disease (CWD) in samples taken from sites where deer congregate.

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Some potentially toxic chemicals in water may be created, ironically, during the water treatment process itself.

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Aquaporins are proteins that serve as water channels to regulate the flow of water across biological cell membranes. They also remove excess salt and impurities in the body, and it is this aspect that has led to much interest in recent years in how to mimic the biochemical processes of aquaporins potentially for water desalination systems.

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Through their research in the Penn State Department of Mechanical and Engineering, the team has created a liquid-entrenched smooth surface (LESS) coating, an innovative spray-able, anti-fouling coating that dramatically decreases the amount of water needed when flushing a toilet.

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How can dietary changes shape a person’s gut bacteria, and then how do those bacteria shape health and diseases, like obesity, diabetes, and susceptibility to infection diseases?

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During a University of Virginia Global Water Initiative event held at the Darden School of Business, participants at different stages of the water investing ecosystem spoke before a capacity crowd on the opportunities for cultivating both meaningful environmental and humanitarian impact as well as return on investment in the still nascent space.

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Christopher Gorski, assistant professor of environmental engineering at Penn State, will develop devices that use electricity to desalinate water and can also generate their own electricity, thanks to an esteemed National Science Foundation (NSF) Early Career (CAREER) award.

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By working directly with consumers and citizen scientists, the project is designed to increase public awareness of lead in water and plumbing on a national scale.

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The latest research and experts on Wildfires in the Wildlife News Source

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University of Georgia food scientist Xiangyu Deng has created a system that can identify foodborne pathogens in a fraction of the time taken by traditional methods.

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Researchers have found that increasing land clearing for logging in Solomon Islands–even with best management strategies in place – will lead to unsustainable levels of soil erosion and significant impacts to downstream water quality.

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Shared fates and experiences in a community can help it withstand changes to water availability due to climate change, a recent study by Sandia National Laboratories researchers found.The work, part of Sandia’s energy-water nexus program to help safeguard resilient and sustainable energy-water systems in the interest of national and global security, was recently published in a special socio-hydrology issue of Water Resources Research. The research paired a dynamic systems model of an acequia community and its water system with a hydrology model of an upland water source to study how the community responds to changes in water availability and flow.

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Click here to go to the Food Science News Source

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Researchers at Penn State have developed a water filtration system that removes contaminants and reduces toxicity in hospital wastewater.

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Choosing the right fertilizer or pesticide for your needs can be overwhelming. The April 7th Sustainable, Secure Food blog explains how to make the right choice, and why following label directions is important.

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McMaster researchers have developed a test to bring certainty to the delicate but critical question of whether meat and other foods are safe to eat or need to be thrown out.

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The guidelines cover everything from planning, design and construction of the courses to water quality and quantity used. They also cover nutrition, integrated pest management, pollinator protection and energy management, said Bryan Unruh, a UF/IFAS professor of environmental horticulture.

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Click here for the latest research and features on Children's Health.

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A slippery rough surface (SRS) inspired by both pitcher plants and rice leaves outperforms state-of-the-art liquid-repellent surfaces in water harvesting applications, according to a team of researchers at Penn State and University of Texas at Dallas.

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Dining out more at restaurants, cafeterias and fast-food outlets may boost total levels of potentially health-harming chemicals called phthalates in the body, according to a study out today.

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Flint children’s blood lead levels were nearly three times higher almost a decade before the year of the Flint water crisis, new research shows.

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Click here to go directly to Newswise's Obesity News Source

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Experiments testing a hybrid method of disposing of animal carcasses following animal health emergencies could point the way toward safer and more efficient carcass burial. The results of the experiments were published recently in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

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As Maple Weekend 2018 welcomes visitors to maple farms across the state March 24 and 25, Cornell University experts are assessing how fluctuating temperatures have impacted production this year. For sap to flow well, temperatures ideally need to dip below freezing at night and rise above it during the day. Despite 2018 having the fifth warmest February in New York’s recorded history with an average of 29.6 degrees, March has been unseasonably cool, which has stalled the state’s maple syrup production.

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Professors Bruce Rittmann and Mark van Loosdrecht are named the 2018 Stockholm Water Prize Laureates for revolutionizing water and wastewater treatment. By revolutionizing microbiological-based technologies in water and wastewater treatment, Professors Mark van Loosdrecht and Bruce Rittmann have demonstrated the possibilities to remove harmful contaminants from water, cut wastewater treatment costs, reduce energy consumption, and even recover chemicals and nutrients for recycling.

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The recent Thomas Fire in California was the largest wildfire in the state’s modern history. It scorched nearly 282,000 acres between December 2017 and January 2018, and serves as a reminder of how devastating such events can be. Now, researchers report that wildfires in forested watersheds can have a variable but predictable impact on the substances that are released from soils and flow into drinking water sources.

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A new study shows that pregnant women and new moms aware of the 2017 guidelines on early introduction of peanuts to prevent allergy are still hesitant to put them in place. And not everyone has heard about them.

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Clever, fundamental engineering could go a long way toward preventing waterborne illness and exposure to carcinogenic substances in water.

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A major study led by Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine researchers reveals for the first time that water troughs on farms are a conduit for the spread of toxic E. coli in cattle, which can then spread the pathogen to people through bacteria in feces.

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The Science for Nature and People Partnership (SNAPP) announced the launch of five new multi-disciplinary teams aimed at tackling global issues including water quantity, poverty, sanitation, livestock disease, and drought.

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Better targeting at the district and neighborhood level could make anti-cholera efforts much more effective and dramatically reduce the burden of this disease, according to two new studies led by scientists at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

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A tiny snail could be a big help to researchers measuring water quality along the U.S. and Canadian Atlantic coast.

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Now that the American Association for the Advancement of Science has selected Roger Kjelgren as a Leshner Fellow, he hopes to increase participation in urban food and water security.

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Three University of Arkansas at Little Rock students attended the Clinton Global Initiative University Oct. 13-15 at Northeastern University in Boston to discuss their design of a water pump to provide clean drinking water to a rural village in Haiti.

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While serious violations like those in the Flint, Michigan, crisis are rare, ensuring reliable access to safe drinking water poses challenges for communities across the country, according to a recent study led by the University of California, Irvine.

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Based on a detailed statistical analysis of multiple datasets, the Flint Area Community Health and Environment Partnership (FACHEP) research team found that the majority of Legionnaires’ disease cases that occurred during the 2014-15 outbreak in Genesee County, Michigan

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A study by University of Minnesota researchers provides new insights to demonstrate that multiple wetlands or ‘wetland complexes’ within a watershed are extremely effective at reducing harmful nitrate in rivers and streams. These wetlands can be up to five times more efficient per unit area at reducing nitrate than the best land-based nitrogen mitigation strategies.

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By studying wild rice in lakes and streams, a team of researchers led by the University of Minnesota has discovered that sulfate in waterways is converted into toxic levels of sulfide and increases other harmful elements.

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The struggle to get enough nutritious food could be far worse than previously understood, according to a new study examining the intersection between hunger and the types of foods found at nearby stores.