Feature Channels: Environmental Health

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A detailed plan to transform product packaging and significantly cut plastic production and pollution has been developed by researchers.

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Seaside residents and holidaymakers have felt it for centuries, but scientists have only recently started to investigate possible health benefits of the coast. Using data from 15 countries, new research led by Sandra Geiger from the Environmental Psychology Group at the University of Vienna confirms public intuition: Living near, but especially visiting, the seaside is associated with better health regardless of country or personal income.

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The weather is warming up which means it's time to watch out for ticks. One way to protect yourself from tick-borne illnesses is to rethink landscaping choices, from the municipal level down to individual yards, according to a Virginia Tech medical geography expert who studies how Lyme cases are associated with certain land cover characteristics and configurations.

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With the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season officially starting on June 1 and ending Nov. 30, several Florida Atlantic University faculty experts are available to discuss various issues surrounding hurricane preparedness, evacuation and aftermath.

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Experts from Indiana University are available to comment on trending news topics for the week of May 22, including many safety topics during the Memorial Day weekend.

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Tracing volatile organic compounds is important for public safety and all “smell” related issues. To this end, in Applied Physics Reviews, Liu et al. introduce a fluid mechanics-based chamber design for an electronic nose that consistently detects VOCs at low concentrations. The strategy, which includes using a shuntlike device to control the behavior of fluid flow, is a step forward in e-nose technology development.

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A new study led by climate researchers at Columbia Engineering and the University of Exeter demonstrates that the treaty’s impact reaches all the way into the Arctic: its implementation is delaying the occurrence of the first ice-free Arctic by as much as 15 years.

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A large proportion of Australian rental properties are in such poor condition that they are putting residents’ health and wellbeing at risk, according to new research from the University of South Australia.

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A fully replicated human airway system is a new experimental tool that is overcoming limitations in studying aerosol deposition in lungs at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health.The cutting-edge Mobile Aerosol Deposition Apparatus (MALDA), designed and 3D-printed by Wei-Chung Su, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology, human genetics, and environmental sciences, consists of a head airway, tracheobronchial airways, and a representative section of the alveoli, the tiny air sacs of the lungs that handle gaseous exchange.

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The never-ending demand for carbon-rich fuels to drive the economy keeps adding more and more carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere.

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Sociologists delve into the question of how national military systems impact carbon emissions

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Little is known about the ecological relationship of Vibrio bacteria with Sargassum. Evidence also is sparse as to whether vibrios colonizing plastic marine debris and Sargassum could potentially infect humans. As summer kicks off and efforts are underway to find solutions to repurpose Sargassum, could these substrates pose a triple threat to public health? Results of a study representing the first Vibrio spp. genome assembled from plastic finds Vibrio pathogens have the unique ability to “stick” to microplastics, harboring potent opportunistic pathogens.

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In suburban backyards and at family picnic gatherings across the United States, mosquitoes are a common pest. People are most likely to get bitten by mosquitoes during the warm and lazy summer months, says Katie Westby, vector and disease ecologist at Tyson Research Center, Washington University in St. Louis’ environmental field station in Eureka, Mo.

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A new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) shows that the world’s average temperature could breach a record 1.5 Celsius of warming compared to pre-Industrial Revolution levels. News reports call the WMO announcement a critical warning of an average world temperature limit in the face of climate. Researchers indicate the threshold could be broken as early as 2027.

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A new computer modeling technique developed by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) offers the potential to generate months-ahead summertime drought forecasts across the Western United States with the capability of differentiating between dry conditions at locations just a couple of miles apart.

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By: Bill Wellock | Published: May 17, 2023 | 3:32 pm | SHARE: From the atmospheric disturbances that generate them to the insurance market that helps in their aftermath, there is much to understand about hurricanes.Florida State University faculty are world leaders in the study of hurricanes, the effects of these destructive storms and solutions for mitigating their impacts.

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Through a novel pairing of epidemiology and toxicity screening, UCLA and Harvard researchers were able to identify 10 pesticides that were directly toxic to key neurons.

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The spread of drug-resistant microbes has become a global health concern that threatens our ability to treat infections. The widespread use of antimicrobials in livestock, such as swine farms, exacerbates this problem.

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Skin cancer is the most prevalent form of cancer in the United States, with over 5 million cases diagnosed annually. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that melanoma alone accounts for more than 8,000 deaths each year. Thankfully, skin cancer is highly preventable, making it crucial to prioritize protection. Below are some of the latest headlines in the Dermatology channel.

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Giving people at high risk of PFAS exposure the opportunity to easily self-test could improve access to testing for these “forever chemicals” and lead to the early detection of detrimental health conditions, according to a new Michigan State University study. The study tested an improved approach for people to collect their own blood samples to test for PFAS without being part of an academic research study.

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New research shows that smartphone activity actually increases during visits outdoors to city parks—a finding that contradicts popular notions. Thanks to two years of unparalleled access to 700 study participants' smartphone data, the study is the first to show that young adults now spend far more time on their smartphone screens than in nature. The study finds that people who visit forests or nature preserves experience significant declines in screen time, compared to visits to urban locations for the same duration.

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To give the authorities a cross-sectoral view of a city’s nutrient sink status, the researchers identified and analysed a range of waste flows. Their approach distinguished four nested spatial levels: the urban area; the potential territorial recycling system; the country and the international level. Based on that analysis, the researchers focused on the origin and fate of those nutrient-containing waste flows.

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Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently published a study in the journal PLOS Water that focuses on the Sudbury-Assabet and Concord watershed in eastern Massachusetts, and which links hydrological changes, including floods, drought and runoff, to changing patterns of land use.

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As the northern hemisphere heads into summer, we may be in for a COVID-19 reprieve. Not because the pandemic is over; the Omicron subvariant ‘Arcturus’ is still creeping upward and causing new symptoms. But two new studies from the University of Illinois add evidence supporting a seasonal pattern in the behavior of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

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Today, the EPA announced its proposed rule to regulate greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from power plants. Power plants, account for a quarter of all U.S. GHG emissions and is the largest stationary point source of such pollutants.

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Researchers from the University of California, Irvine have found that exposure to traffic-related air pollution in Irvine led to memory loss and cognitive decline and triggered neurological pathways associated with the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.

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Northwestern University engineers have developed a new sponge that can remove metals — including toxic heavy metals like lead and critical metals like cobalt — from contaminated water, leaving safe, drinkable water behind.

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May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Get your mental health news here.

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Humans smell. Each and every person has a unique body odor. People have been using commercial products to alter their scent for generations. From soaps to perfumes, people gravitate to floral and fruity smells. Whether we think these smells are good or bad is of little consequence to mosquitoes, transmitters of diseases that kill hundreds of thousands of people each year.

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The coqui frog, one of Puerto Rico’s most iconic animals, gets its name from its distinctive two-note call, “co-qui,” which can be heard throughout the island every night. The males produce these calls to mark their territory and ward away rivals, but scientists can use them to study the changing climate. At the 184th ASA Meeting, Peter Narins of the University of California, Los Angeles will describe changes in the coqui calls over a 23-year period. Every frog call had grown higher in pitch, indicating a mini-migration that corresponds with the temperature shift induced by climate change.

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Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related deaths in North America. Although cigarette smoking remains the main risk factor for lung cancer development, the importance of environmental factors such as pollution and poor air quality is becoming increasingly recognized.