Feature Channels: Environmental Health

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Exposure to metals such as nickel, arsenic, cobalt and lead may disrupt a woman’s hormones during pregnancy, according to a Rutgers study.

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In urban environments, allergic diseases are more common among dogs and their owners compared to those living in rural areas. Simultaneous allergic traits appear to be associated with the microbes found in the environment, but microbes relevant to health differ between dogs and humans.

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Wildfire smoke contains microbes, infectious agents that might cause diseases. In a perspective piece published in Science, researchers at UC Davis Health and the University of Idaho proposed a multidisciplinary approach to study the health impacts of microbes carried by wildfire smokes.

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What does it take to get some people to go outside and experience nature? For some urban dwellers, it took the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers say. The new study finds that 26% of people visiting parks during early months of the COVID-19 pandemic had rarely – or never – visited nature in the previous year. The study is one of the first to explore how COVID-19 has changed Americans’ relationship with nature. The research will appear in PLOS ONE journal.

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In an effort to understand the potential risks associated with exposure to micro/nanoplastics, the Emerging Risks of Micro/nanoplastics: Perspectives From Diverse Sectors symposia at the 2020 Society for Risk Analysis virtual Annual Meeting, December 13-17, 2020, aims to highlight the current state of knowledge associated with physical and chemical transformation, hazard characterization, environmental effects, social implications and policy limitations.  

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One of the first studies on Americans' relationship with nature during COVID finds significant increases in outdoor activity, especially among women. Women were 1.7 (gardening) to 2.9 (walking) times more likely to report increasing their activity compared to men. In general, outdoor activities seeing the largest increases were: watching wildlife, gardening, photos or art in nature, relaxing alone outside, and walking.

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Researchers from Tel Aviv University (TAU) have proven that the coronavirus can be killed efficiently, quickly, and cheaply using ultraviolet (UV) light-emitting diodes (UV-LEDs). They believe that the UV-LED technology will soon be available for private and commercial use.

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Several studies that aim to characterize and quantify the release and composition, particle size, and residence time in the indoor environment will be presented in the Exposure and Risk Assessment of 3D Printing and Emerging Materials symposium on December 15, from 12:00-1:30 p.m. ET at the 2020 Society for Risk Analysis virtual Annual Meeting held December 13-17, 2020.

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The Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences researchers have successfully developed “PhytFoon”, a spray compound to deal with the PM 2.5 dust particles, which have become an annual plague that hinders the air quality and health of Thai people. The Dust Fighting Spray works by trapping the PM 2.5 dust particles suspended in the air and then weighing them down to the ground. The compound will be launched to the market by S.T. Protex Co. Ltd. at a conference on December 16, 2020, at the Renaissance Ratchaprasong Hotel. The company has received production rights from Chulalongkorn University to produce the PM 2.5 dust–fighting spray, “PhytFoon“.

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The landmark Clean Air Act (CAA) turns 50 this month, and its impact has been dramatic: Ambient measures of pollutants have fallen more than 90% in some areas, and cleaner air is credited with preventing hundreds of thousands of premature deaths. Despite this success, the debate rages on over whether the costs to industry of further pollution reductions are too high. After five decades, has the CAA accomplished its mission?

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University of South Australia thermal energy researcher Professor Frank Bruno has been awarded almost $1 million by the Federal Government to find a solution to agricultural pollution in Australia and India.

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A team of researchers from Manhattan College in collaboration with Evolved By Nature published this week in the International Journal of Cosmetic Science that natural silk may play a role in reducing our dependence on petroleum-derived surfactants.

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Despite many occurrences of red tide and blue green algae in Florida waters, the understanding of the health effects of exposure to these blooms is limited. Researchers will evaluate short- and long-term health effects of exposure to harmful algal blooms (HABS) in Florida to capture key areas of human exposure and a wide demographic population profile. They also will evaluate the potential effect of exposure to COVID-19 on susceptibility to HABs and health outcomes in this study population.

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The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory received two national awards for its sustainability efforts, including a DOE Sustainability Award for instituting a water treatment method that is safer for wildlife and a gold EPEAT Award for purchasing 97 percent EPEAT-certified electronics.

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Anyone who wants to protect themselves and others from a COVID-19 infection wears a mask these days. But what about the environmental impact of this mass product, which is used millions of times over? Which factors are relevant for sustainable design? Empa researchers have examined these questions by means of life cycle assessment analyses, using cotton masks and disposable masks as an example.

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A new study published in the Environmental Health Perspectives connects insulin resistance and repetitive ozone exposure to the development of interstitial lung disease.

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Restoring science in the White House is the topic of the presidential roundtable discussion at that the Society for Risk Analysis’ (SRA) Virtual Annual Meeting, on Thursday, December 17 from 12:00 – 1:30 p.m. ET.

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Researchers from NUS have discovered a new strain of bacterium that can remove both nitrogen and phosphorous from sewage wastewater. Their findings offer a simpler, cheaper and greener method of wastewater treatment.

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Researchers reporting in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology have discovered that measuring SARS-CoV-2 in settled solids from sewage treatment plants could be a more sensitive approach than measuring the virus in wastewater flowing into the facilities.

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UC San Diego’s nationally recognized, evidence-based Return to Learn program employs a comprehensive suite of education, monitoring, testing, intervention and notification tools that no other university is using. And the program continues to expand—including a recent introduction of weekly self-administered student testing kits, growth of the campus’s wastewater viral monitoring program and widespread use of the cellphone-based CA COVID Notify exposure notification system.

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A team led by researchers at the University of Washington Tacoma, UW and Washington State University Puyallup have discovered a chemical that kills coho salmon in urban streams before the fish can spawn.

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More frequent exposure to air pollution spikes were associated with reduced test scores for third graders in Salt Lake County. Schools with a higher proportion of students of color and from households experiencing poverty were exposed to more peak pollution days than were schools serving middle- to upper- class and predominately white students.

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A new study led by researchers at UC San Francisco has found that among older Americans with cognitive impairment, the greater the air pollution in their neighborhood, the higher the likelihood of amyloid plaques - a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease.

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U.S. pollution regulations meant to protect humans from dirty air are also saving birds. So concludes a new continentwide study published today in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Study authors found that improved air quality under a federal program to reduce ozone pollution may have averted the loss of 1.5 billion birds during the past 40 years.

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Dr. Yang Wang, assistant professor of environmental engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology, advises homeowners to replace their furnace filter to help protect families from COVID-19 over the holidays.

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Biodiversity Research Institute announced that a series of scientific studies that assessed the impact of mercury on air, water, fish, and wildlife in New York State was published in the journal Ecotoxicology, an international journal devoted to presenting critical research on the effects of toxic chemicals on people and the environment.

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Triclosan, an antimicrobial found in many soaps and other household items, worsens fatty liver disease in mice fed a high-fat diet.

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Thailand will get help mitigating air pollution from a new satellite data application co-developed by The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), a part of the University of Alabama System.

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DHS S&T's Master Question List is updated every week with the latest trustworthy COVID-19 information and data relevant to weathering the pandemic.

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Researchers monitored antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in three Puerto Rican watersheds after Hurricane Maria, finding that the abundance and diversity of ARGs were highest downstream of WWTPs. They report their results in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology.

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CSAC’s Jack Rabbit project research findings to be published in special edition of the prestigious peer-reviewed Journal of Atmospheric Environment.

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Researchers from the University of Utah document the effect of air pollution on people experiencing homelessness, finding that nearly all notice and are impacted by air pollution, whether or not they reside in shelters.

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The United States may have set itself up for the spread of a pandemic without even knowing it.According to new research from the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, pollution may bear part of the blame for the rapid proliferation in the United States of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the spread of COVID-19.

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A team of researchers for the first time has found a correlation between the levels of bacteria and fungi in the gastrointestinal tract of children and the amount of common chemicals found in their home environment.

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In April 2020, as remote work and social distancing policies were in place in Delaware and a number of other states, there was a sense the skies were clearer and less polluted with fewer people on the road. But new research from a team led by University of Delaware, Penn State and Columbia University researchers found a murkier picture.

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In a mouse study aimed at modeling human exposure to the toxic metal cadmium, researchers found that female offspring of mice exposed to cadmium during pregnancy became obese in adulthood, developed fatty livers and could not process glucose normally. Male offspring were not affected in the same way.

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Businesses can learn how to be proactive in reducing the spread of COVID-19 by improving indoor ventilation and mitigation strategies through South Dakota State University’s Economic Development Administration Center.

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A new UC Riverside study shows flame retardants found in nearly every American home cause mice to give birth to offspring that become diabetic.

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The biggest study yet of West Coast wildfire plumes shows how a smoke plume’s chemistry changes over time. Results suggest current models may not accurately predict the air quality downwind of a wildfire.

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The first ultra-high-resolution analysis of an oil sample from Mauritius shows that the material is a complex and unusual mix of hydrocarbons—and even though some of the components in it may have already degraded or evaporated, what remains still gives it the ability to persist in the environment.

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S&T NBACC research finds that sunlight is the strongest environmental factor that inactivates COVID-19.

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A new North Carolina based company has been formed specifically dedicated to protecting North Carolina's coast in an environmentally superior manner.

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To mask or not to mask - and which mask to use? With public health guidance about masks in the United States confused by political hedging, clarity around mask use is increasingly important, especially as the western U.S. battles the twin crises of wildfire smoke and COVID-19.

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The University of New Hampshire has gone underground to flush out cases of the coronavirus by testing wastewater on campus. The sewage sampling is being used as a secondary surveillance method to the already required twice a week individual nasal test to track and detect SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

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The importance of maintaining high quality air flow to restrict transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in confined workspaces has been strongly indicated by the investigation of an outbreak of the virus at a German meat processing plant during May and June 2020.

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Researchers reporting in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology have used a combination of laboratory experiments and computer modeling to reveal that PFASs can interact with the estrogen receptor in different ways to influence estrogen-controlled gene expression.

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Using a variety of public records—including assessed market value, sales, foreclosure and tax history, code violations, building permits and rental registry data—the researchers examined every rental property in Cleveland from 2016-18 on factors related to the likelihood that the property could have lead-safety problems.