Our homes are supposed to be safe havens from the outside world. However, studies have shown that household air is more polluted than either office or school air, exposing children and home workers to higher levels of carcinogens than the general population. Now, researchers have made a genetically modified houseplant that can efficiently remove at least two toxins from the air. They report their results in ACS’ journal Environmental Science & Technology.
Researchers at McMaster University have identified trends linking health and lifestyle factors like access to public transit, the variety of fresh fruits and vegetables in grocery stores, the prices of popular foods, the availability and prices of cigarettes and alcohol, and the promotion, or lack thereof, of healthy foods in restaurants.
The study findings are based on detailed data collected across Canada’s 10 provinces.
This week at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) fall meeting in Washington, D.C, a team of scientists from The Ohio State University shared early results from a trio of studies that aim to improve models designed to guide agricultural practices for reducing the risk of nitrogen and phosphorous farm runoff. Such runoff leads to the growth of toxic algae in waterways.
Face masks appear to provide important protection against drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria for hog farm workers and for household members to whom they might otherwise transmit the bacteria, according to a study led by scientists at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
In a letter to EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler members of the scientific community expressed concern about the agency’s decision to dissolve pollutant-specific advisory panels, including one charged with setting the National Ambient Air Quality Standard or NAAQS for airborne particulate matter or PM.
The Health Effects Institute (HEI) convened an Energy Research Committee to help ensure the protection of public health during such development. A symposium at the 2018 Society for Risk Analysis (SRA) Annual Meeting will summarize the Committee’s review approach and preliminary findings and provide initial options for future research intended to fill knowledge gaps.
While it’s an important part of our diets, new research shows that rice plants can be used in a different way, too: to clean runoff from farms before it gets into rivers, lakes, and streams.
New Mexico contains hundreds of historic uranium mines. Although active uranium mining in the state has ceased, rates of cardiovascular and metabolic disease remain high in the population residing close to mines within the Navajo Nation. According to a new study in ACS’ journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters, inhaled uranium in dusts from the mines could be a factor.
TORONTO, ON (Canada) - Cell phones - much has been written about their detrimental effects on attention spans, stress levels and dinner table conversations. People are in constant contact with their cell phones at all hours of the day. New research from the University of Toronto (U of T) suggests they could also be a source of toxic chemicals, or at least an indicator of the chemicals to which people are exposed.
New research shows that mussels readily take in microplastic pollution fibers from the ocean but quickly flush most of them out again, according to a study by researchers from Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences. The findings were published in December's Marine Pollution Bulletin.
Conditions encountered in the womb - when the embryo consists of only about 100 cells - can have life-long impact on health. Scientists previously assumed that this is because embryos respond to adverse conditions by programming their gene expression. Now an international team of researchers at the Leiden University Medical Center, Wageningen University and Research, Lund University, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York propose a radically different alternative. Rather than being programmed by the environment, random differences in gene expression may provide some embryos with a survival advantage, in particular when conditions are harsh. By studying DNA methylation, an important mechanism to control gene activity, the researchers found that a specific part of the DNA methylation pattern was missing among famine-exposed individuals. The findings are published in the journal Cell Reports.
New research published in The Lancet medical journal today shows that emissions, climate change and rising temperatures are already exposing people everywhere to an unacceptably high health risk.
Pinellas County residents and visitors who are susceptible to the respiratory impacts of Florida's red tide -- especially people with asthma and other chronic lung diseases -- now have a new tool that will help them know their risks before they visit area beaches during red tides.
The Australian report is part of a joint global initiative between The Medical Journal of Australia and The Lancet to track progress on health and climate change and inform policy makers of political actions needed.
Sometimes, there is no “tragedy” in the tragedy of the commons, according to a new analysis that challenges a widely accepted theory. In an analysis of eight case studies from around the world, researchers found that people can successfully share and sustainably use resources, under certain conditions.
Rutgers scientists have developed catalysts that can convert carbon dioxide – the main cause of global warming – into plastics, fabrics, resins and other products. The electrocatalysts are the first materials, aside from enzymes, that can turn carbon dioxide and water into carbon building blocks containing one, two, three or four carbon atoms with more than 99 percent efficiency.
Researchers with the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences used the yellow fever mosquito -- known scientifically as Aedes aegypti -- to see how the nutrition of parents influences their young.
Researchers team up with residents to provide scientific evidence that heavy truck traffic impacted a neighborhood’s air quality and compromised health
NSU joins a short list of institutions of higher learning taking the step to eliminate use of plastic straws - other ways to reduce plastics on campus are being reviewed
Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and international collaborators have evidence that Kawasaki Disease (KD) does not have a single cause. By studying weather patterns and geographical distributions of patients in San Diego, the research team determined that this inflammatory disease likely has multiple environmental triggers influenced by a combination of temperature, precipitation and wind patterns.
How can we remove toxic contaminants like TNT from groundwater? Jack Istok and Mandy Michalsen are using pioneering bioremediation and bioaugmentation methods developed here at Oregon State to restore the groundwater at the Umatilla Chemical Depot.
The Endocrine Society expressed concerns that the European Commission’s communication on endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) released Wednesday fails to address the urgent need to protect children and other vulnerable populations from EDC exposure.
New research by Lijun Song suggests that knowing high-status people may not always be good for your health--but it depends on how economically unequal your country is.
The results of a three-year study offer some support for the long-held belief that much of the nitrogen in the wastewater from cheese-making and vegetable processing leaves the soil and harmlessly enters the atmosphere.
Infants born at home have more diverse bacteria in their guts and feces, which may affect their developing immunity and metabolism, according to a study in Scientific Reports.
Dan Renfrew studies the factors that created a lead epidemic in Uruguay. He investigates the social impacts of lead contamination, examining how the government responded to the crisis, why the crisis happened in the first place and how residents responded, such as through social activism.
Beet juice deicer, a natural alternative to road salt that is considered to be an eco-friendlier winter road management solution, may not be ecologically friendly to nearby aquatic species. The findings—the first to explore the physiological effects of beet juice deicer in freshwater animals—were presented at the American Physiological Society’s (APS) Comparative Physiology: Complexity and Integration conference in New Orleans.
University of Michigan researchers are part of a new, federally funded effort to understand and prevent toxic algal blooms that plague portions of the Great Lakes and impact freshwater sources around the world.
In the first study of its kind, researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Karlstad University in Sweden have found an elevated rate of language delay in children at 30 months old who were born to mothers exposed to phthalates, synthetic chemicals found in common household items and personal care products.
Oil spills spell disaster for affected wildlife, leading to a number of detrimental outcomes, including suffocation, poisoning and longer-term problems related to exposure to crude oil and its components. New research out of the University of Guelph in Canada takes a closer look at the potential effects on regional salmon populations as Canada eyes expansion of its crude oil export capacity. The findings will be presented today at the American Physiological Society’s (APS) Comparative Physiology: Complexity and Integration conference in New Orleans.
Climate change-associated severe weather events may cause flooding that threatens the survival of the Olympia oyster, new research suggests. The findings will be presented today at the American Physiological Society’s (APS) Comparative Physiology: Complexity and Integration conference in New Orleans.
How long will the world’s supply of clean fresh water last? Just the fact that we have to ask that question is enough to start worrying, as threats from pollution, climate change, and overpopulation continue to get worse. Fortunately, researchers like Tyler Radniecki are at the vanguard of the search for solutions to revive and restore this precious resource.
In a report published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, West Virginia University researcher Michael McCawley and his colleagues pinpoint shortcomings in how miners’ exposure to respirable coal-mine dust is monitored. Inhaling this dust over time leads to black lung disease.
According to a study recently published in the Journal of Cellular Physiology, even low, allowable levels of arsenic may be enough to cause kidney disease. The good news, however, is there may be a way to treat such kidney disease using a drug already approved by the FDA – just not for this purpose.
A growing body of research indicates bisphenol A (BPA) levels in food containers present a public health risk. Despite this evidence, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) continues to assert that BPA is safe for use in food packaging, based on an initial report conducted as part of the Consortium Linking Academic and Regulatory Insights on BPA Toxicity (CLARITY-BPA).
Researchers from the University of Georgia have discovered that timing of exposure is a key factor in how certain contaminants affect the reproductive system—information that may help scientists understand the causes of reproductive disorders in wildlife and women.
Reducing food waste has already been a source of attention at one of UD's main dining halls. Now work is being done to see if those efforts can be scaled up to work across the state.
Sbarro Health Research Organization, on the occasion of the medical conference “The impact of environment and healthy lifestyles in human health,” honoured Nathalie Dompé, CEO Dompé Holdings, with a special Award for Societal Impact in Business & Biotechnology, for her work and effort in promoting social responsibility.
A new "metal-coordinated" drug-delivery technology potentially could be used to supplement the standard therapy for hypothyroidism, which affects nearly 10 million Americans, and many more patients worldwide, according to results of a study published in the journal Thyroid this month.
Researchers have developed designer molecules that may one day be able to seek out and trap deadly nerve agents and other toxic compounds in the environment – and possibly in humans.
MANHATTAN — African swine fever virus threatens to devastate the swine industry and is positioned to spread throughout Asia. The virus has spread throughout the Caucuses region of Eastern Europe and was reported in China in August. It recently was detected in wild boar in Belgium.Kansas State University researchers and the Biosecurity Research Institute have several projects focused on African swine fever.
The Household & Commercial Products Association (HCPA) is pleased to announce that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Acting Administrator, Andrew Wheeler, signed the finalized Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) User Fees Rule into law at EPA headquarters.
Antar Jutla, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at West Virginia University, will partner with researchers at the University of Maryland, led by Professor of Microbiology Anwar Huq, to look at ways in which the frequency, intensity, and duration of extreme weather events are likely to affect the ecology of pathogenic Vibrio bacteria in the Chesapeake Bay, which is already experiencing twice the global average rate of sea-level rise.
The medical conference is organized by the Sbarro Health Research Organization (SHRO), in collaboration with Temple University’s College of Science and Technology, the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF), and the Giovan Giacomo Giordano Foundation
Severe weather events, such as summer hurricanes, tornadoes, and winter snow storms often result in widespread and prolonged power outages, interrupting essential household functions, including home heating. In such a scenario, people may use generators and risk carbon monoxide poisoning.
To chase down a disease that threatens eelgrass – critical seaside meadows that support commercial fishing and promote coastal health – the National Science Foundation has awarded researchers from Cornell University, the Smithsonian Institution, University of California, Davis and the University of Central Florida with a three-year, $1.3 million grant.
Engineers from the University of Utah have studied the effects of controlling home heating and air conditioning systems based on a home’s indoor air quality instead of temperature. They have discovered that programming your air conditioner and furnace to turn on and off based on the indoor air quality as well as the temperature doesn’t waste a lot of additional energy but keeps the air much cleaner
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