Feature Channels: Food and Water Safety

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Researchers at UC San Diego and MIT linked theory and experiment to move closer to developing materials that address global water scarcity.

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In their first attempt to quantify stormwater ponds, researchers with the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences found about 76,000 such ponds statewide. Many master-planned communities, especially in Florida, rely on stormwater ponds for flood control and water treatment. But the ponds also can be homes to many invasive plant species, which are costly to control.

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An extraordinary scientific collection of archived fish, as well as fish and water quality data taken from the Hudson River over more than five decades, has been gifted by Entergy Corporation (Entergy), to the Stony Brook University School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS).

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When it comes to food technology, the information shared on social media often trumps the facts put out by the scientific community and food experts, leading to the dissemination of disinformation, “fake news” and conspiracy theories. Nowhere is this more evident than consumers’ mistrust of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), despite assurances from the scientific community and food experts. Several studies covering this widespread risk perception of food technologies will be presented during the Visual Cues and Perceptions of Risk: Modern Agriculture in the Era of Social Media symposium on Wednesday, Dec. 11 from 8:30-10:00 a.m. at the 2019 Society for Risk Analysis (SRA) Annual Meeting at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, Virginia

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Each year, millions of people contract serious diarrheal illnesses typically from contaminated food and water. Among the biggest causes of diarrheal diseases are the bacteria Shigella and enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC), and researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine are testing a vaccine designed to offer protection against these serious pathogens.

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A new survey released by the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future finds that the majority of registered voters support greater oversight of industrial animal farms. The Center for a Livable Future is based at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

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Naturally occurring chemicals in the global food supply are known to pose a burden on worldwide health. New studies have found that a certain foodborne toxin, in addition to its known health effects,, is also linked to vaccine resistance, and for the first time the global burden of disease from foodborne arsenic, lead, cadmium, and methyl mercury has been quantified.. The Society for Risk Analysis (SRA) will present new studies as part of its Global Disease Burden Caused by Foodborne Chemicals and Toxins symposium on Monday, Dec. 9 from 1:30-3:00 p.m. as part of its 2019 Annual Meeting at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, Virginia. This symposium will provide updates to a 2015 World Health Organization (WHO) publication which analyzed the disease burdens caused by these toxins.

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University of Washington researchers have found that warmer temperatures, at levels expected under most climate change projections, can lead to higher concentrations of arsenic in rice grains.

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Hundreds of environmental health professionals across the nation report challenges and research needs in six areas — drinking water quality, wastewater management, healthy homes, food safety, public health pests and emerging issues such as disaster risk reduction and new facility types for body art and cannabis-infused products — in research from Baylor University and national health partners.

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Study investigates effects of irrigation management on yield and profit

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The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) expressed its support after the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions voted today to approve the nomination of radiation oncologist Stephen Hahn, MD, FASTRO, as the next Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

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New research reported in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology on one of the permitted neonicotinoids indicates it effectively controls pests and might even help bees.

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According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), each year an estimated 48 million people, about one in six, contract a foodborne illness. Approximately 128,000 require hospitalization, and 3,000 cases are fatal.

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A new study conducted by the Center for Injury Research and Policy and the Central Ohio Poison Center at Nationwide Children’s Hospital found there were more than 67,300 calls to U.S. Poison Control Centers regarding exposures to natural psychoactive substances. The study looked at calls from January 2000 through December 2017, which totaled an average of 3,743 exposures each year, or approximately 10 calls every day.

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Experts from the University of Chicago Medicine Center for Esophageal Diseases share their tips on how to celebrate Thanksgiving without feeling the sting of acid reflux.

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Majorities of Americans say the federal government is doing too little for key aspects of the environment. And most believe the U.S. should focus on development of alternative sources of energy over expansion of fossil fuels, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

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Spark conversation with fun facts about Thanksgiving foods!

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Whether it be arguments about the merits of pumpkin spice or who makes the best chicken sandwich, food is an ever-popular subject on social media. Michigan Medicine researchers turned to Twitter to see what this online culinary discussion reveals about the people behind the posts, and whether the platform could serve as a real-time tool for assessing information valuable to public health researchers.

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From Florida to Virginia, farmers are enjoying the fruits of Sanjay Shukla’s labor. His compact-bed geometry system allows growers to plant crops in tall soil beds, and the result is thousands of dollars in annual savings.

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A Rutgers New Jersey Poison Control Center expert discusses how children and adults can reduce risks of poisoning

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Artificial light at night negatively impacts thousands of species: beetles, moths, wasps and other insects that have evolved to use light levels as cues for courtship, foraging and navigation. Writing in Biological Conservation, Brett Seymoure, the Grossman Family Postdoctoral Fellow of the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in St.

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RealEats, a Geneva, New York-based company that delivers freshly made meals using locally sourced ingredients, has been named winner of the $1 million grand prize in the inaugural Grow-NY business competition. RealEats was one of seven finalists to take home prize money during the Grow-NY Food and Ag Summit, held Nov. 12-13 at the Joseph A. Floreano Riverside Convention Center in Rochester. The competition, which will also be held in 2020 and 2021, was administered by Cornell University’s Center for Regional Economic Advancement.

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Last spring’s historic flooding along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers may have distributed toxic contaminants along wide flood routes. Researchers know little about how these materials may affect public health and safety in rural and urban areas. But a group of geologists and geological engineers from Missouri University of Science and Technology is working to find out.

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Highlights about University Hospitals 2018 community benefit report.

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The study analyzes availability of non-nutritious food in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic in the years after the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) was signed between those countries and the U.S.

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Last year DHS S&T intensified vaccine research efforts in collaboration with USDA by creating an African Swine Fever Task Force, based out of the S&T PIADC in New York state. The Task Force’s primary focus is on developing a vaccine and improving the diagnostics for African swine fever.

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Is sea salt healthier than table salt? Does late-night snacking really cause you to weight gain?

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Cornell University is co-leading a $9.95 million, five-year U.S. Department of Agriculture grant that aims to transform nutrition and water use in the poultry industry in order to improve its environmental impact and enhance human health.

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According to a new study published today [Nov. 4, 2019] in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 40 years of reduced mercury use, emissions, and loading in the Great Lakes region have largely not produced equivalent declines in the amount of mercury accumulating in large game fish.

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University of Delaware environmental engineer Chin-Pao Huang has been studying ways to remove perchlorate from drinking water for nearly a decade. He and a former doctoral student have patented a novel membrane that can selectively filter perchlorate from drinking water.

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An international team has discovered a cheap and efficient way to identify transmission hotspots for schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease that is second only to malaria in its global health impact. The research uses rigorous field sampling and aerial images to precisely map communities that are at greatest risk for infection.

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About 41.1 million children in the United States trick-or-treat on Halloween night. Bruce Ruck, managing director of the New Jersey Poison Control Center at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School’s Department of Emergency Medicine, offers advice to avoid the risks of poisoning and allergic reactions.

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Small, centuries-old dams are of no use to humans. But researchers will use NSF grants to examine whether removing them will harm water quality. Blocking the water makes soil upstream richer in carbon, which acts as an important filter of nitrogen, a key pollutant in our nation's waterways.

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A team at the Morgridge Institute for Research has characterized a natural chemical that paralyzes the parasite that causes schistosomiasis, offering a new pathway to fight the catastrophic neglected disease.

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The University of Illinois at Chicago received $1.7 million in research funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to study lead and other household health hazards. The funds will support two different projects in Illinois communities.

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What does the presence of 1,000 year old water mean for the future of water supplies under the desert regions of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Oman, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates? New research has sought to identify how much good water is available in the Arabian Peninsula, where water is stored in what are known as "fossil aquifers."

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A new study published in nature Sustainability proposes alternative hunger eradication strategies that will not compromise environmental protection.

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The crop has many uses as plant-based food and fiber

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A 2019 Airline Water Study released by DietDetective.com and the Hunter College NYC Food Policy Center reveals that the quality of drinking water varies by airline, and many airlines have possibly provided passengers with unhealthy water.

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A new paper by researchers at the Boston University School of Social Work and American University’s School of Public Affairs confirms the negative impact of food insecurity on child health, suggesting the urgent need for policies to combat this problem.

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Chinese and Rutgers scientists have discovered how aquatic plants cope with water pollution, a major ecological question that could help boost their use in wastewater treatment, biofuels, antibiotics and other applications.

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Americans throw out a lot more food than they expect they will, food waste that is likely driven in part by ambiguous date labels on packages, a new study has found.

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Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Stanford University researchers have developed a technology that can remove nitrate from water selectively

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The World Health Organization (WHO) and UN-Water today sounded the alarm for an urgent increase in investment in strong drinking-water and sanitation systems.

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In addition to their role in plant fertilization and reproduction, pollens and spores have another, hidden talent: With a simple treatment, these cheap, abundant and renewable grains can be converted into tiny sponge-like particles that can grab on to pollutants and remove them from water, scientists report.