Feature Channels: Environmental Health

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Staphylococcus aureus, Clostridioides difficile, Candida auris, Drug-resistant Shigella. These bacteria not only have difficult names to pronounce, but they are also difficult to fight off. These bacteria may infect humans and animals, and the infections they cause are harder to treat than those caused by non-resistant bacteria. Antimicrobial resistance is an urgent global public health threat.

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New research shows that as wildfires are increasing in frequency, intensity and extent, and affecting air quality across the U.S., they are having a detrimental effect on people with and without skin conditions.

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Can your joints predict the weather? Well, actually, maybe, explains a bone specialist at Michigan Medicine.

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A new study is providing an unprecedented examination of oxygen loss on coral reefs around the globe under ocean warming. Led by researchers at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and a large team of national and international colleagues, the study captures the current state of hypoxia—or low oxygen levels—at 32 different sites, and reveals that hypoxia is already pervasive on many reefs.

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It's sleep awareness week, according to the National Sleep Foundation. It’s important to understand how sleep deprivation can impact your health. Most people recognize that if they don’t get enough sleep, their mood and memory will suffer the next day.

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When wildfire strikes a community, it can leave a path of destruction, and a chance for renewal. During the fire and in the immediate aftermath, residents and officials focus on protection and stabilization efforts. However, the availability of resources to support community recovery and promote resilience to future fires over the longer-term is less certain.

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Sandia National Laboratories engineers have developed a standardized screening method to determine the most important radioactive isotopes produced by an advanced nuclear reactor in the unlikely event of an incident.

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Scientists converted post-consumer high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic products into fully recyclable and potentially biodegradable material with the same desirable properties of the starting single-use plastic.

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Tibet is known as the “Water Tower of Asia,” providing water to about 2 billion people and supporting critical ecosystems in High Mountain Asia and the Tibetan Plateau, where many of the largest Asian river systems originate. This region is also one of the areas most vulnerable to the compounding effects of climate change and human activities. Michigan State University researchers are identifying policy changes that need to happen now to prepare for the future impacts projected by climate models.

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Johns Hopkins University has been selected by the U.S. Department of Transportation to lead a new University Transportation Center focused on solutions aimed at preserving the environment.

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Research shows connection between hospitalization rates for cardiovascular disease and proximity to fracking, providing evidence that exposure to airborne pollutants from unconventional natural gas development may impact human health

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Most studies on the effects of heavy metals on bacteria living in these environments have only focused on one metal at a time. In this study, researchers found that exposing bacteria to a mixture of metals caused their metabolism to change and led them to act as if they were starved for iron.

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Conifers are generally better than broadleaved trees at purifying air from pollutants.

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A Rutgers-led team of scientists studying virus-host interactions of a globally abundant, armor-plated marine algae, Emiliania huxleyi, has found that the circular, chalk plates the algae produce can act as catalysts for viral infection, which has vast consequences for trillions of microscopic oceanic creatures and the global carbon cycle.

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Sea level rise this century may disproportionately affect certain Asian megacities as well as western tropical Pacific islands and the western Indian Ocean, according to new research that looks at the effects of natural sea level fluctuations on the projected rise due to climate change.

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The research team of Dr. Yong-sang Ryu at the Brain Research Institute of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) used an electro-photonic tweezer along with metal nanoparticles to concentrate ultrafine nanoplastics within a short period, and they reported the development of a real-time detection system using light.

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Led by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), with funding from the Global Environment Facility, and executed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI), the Eliminating mercury skin lightening products project will work to reduce the risk of exposure to mercury-added skin lightening products, raising awareness of the health risks associated with their use, developing model regulations to reduce their circulation, and halting production, trade, and distribution across domestic and international markets.

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The Red Tide Respiratory Forecast — www.RedTideForecast.com — is a beach-level risk forecast activated during red tide conditions that tells beachgoers what red tide impacts are expected to be at individual beaches at different times of the day. The Forecast is also available in Spanish at www.PronosticoMareaRoja.com.

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Sewage can provide information on potentially harmful compounds, such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), that get released into the environment. Now, researchers in Environmental Science & Technology Letters report an unexpected source of these substances in wastewater — toilet paper.

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UC Davis researchers have been awarded $1.35 million from the Environmental Protection Agency to study the health impacts of wildfire smoke on pregnant people and children.

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Not all pollution comes from people. When global temperatures increase by 4 degrees Celsius, harmful plant emissions and dust will also increase by as much as 14 percent, according to new UC Riverside research.

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What are scientists learning about long COVID? Does climate change affect our physiology? These questions and more will be addressed during eight exciting game-changer sessions at the American Physiology Summit.

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Three years into a five-year pledge to completely phase out lead shot in UK game hunting, a Cambridge study finds that 94% of pheasants on sale for human consumption were killed using lead.

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New research shows that a warming world is increasing human-wildlife conflicts globally: Climate shifts can drive conflicts by altering animal habitats, the timing of events, wildlife behaviors and resource availability. It also showed that people are changing their behaviors and locations in response to climate change in ways that increase conflicts.

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By: Mark Blackwell Thomas | Published: February 27, 2023 | 9:33 am | SHARE: It’s been three weeks since a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio sparked an environmental disaster that is still unfolding.  A federal investigators’ Feb. 22 announcement that the accident was 100% preventable, came on the same day the Ohio Department of Natural Resources announced that the deaths of 43,700 aquatic animals were tied to the disaster.

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Rebecca Bart, PhD, member at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, and her colleagues from Washington University in St. Louis will be featured on a global stage at South by Southwest (SXSW) on March 11 at 2:30 PM at the JW Marriott, Austin Texas.  SXSW is one of the most sought-after annual conferences in the world, attended by leaders and innovators in business, entertainment, and culture.

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Artificial intelligence has made a giant leap into our rubbish bins, with smart bin sensors now providing useful information that can be fed into a neural model, helping authorities to make waste collection more efficient, sustainable, and healthier.

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The project will host 125 field trips, which will educate as many as 3,125 socially disadvantaged middle and high school students about Florida’s natural resources and the importance of conserving them.

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A new study calculated the economic cost of cancers around the world, helping policymakers allocate resources appropriately and enact policies to curb the increase in cancer-related death and disability.

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Living in areas of the United States with higher levels of air pollution is associated with an increased risk of Parkinson’s disease, according to a preliminary study released today, February 23, 2023, that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 75th Annual Meeting being held in person in Boston and live online from April 22-27, 2023.

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Endangered great apes get malaria, just like humans. New evidence from wild bonobos shows us the infection harms them, too.

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Irvine, Calif., Feb. 23, 2023 – People often associate Escherichia coli with contaminated food, but E. coli has long been a workhorse in biotechnology. Scientists at the University of California, Irvine have demonstrated that the bacterium has further value as part of a system to detect heavy metal contamination in water. E.

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The latest research examining proper test methods to measure levels of the manufacturing by-product 1,4-dioxane in consumer products will be highlighted in a free webinar hosted by the American Oil Chemists’ Society (AOCS) and the American Cleaning Institute (ACI).

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A Yale-led study examines the potential environmental benefits of more carefully selecting patients for prostate biopsy in a way that can also spare low-yield and potentially harmful procedures

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A new study shows that a 2018 California bill banning routine antibiotic use in livestock is linked with reduction in some antibiotic-resistant infections

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Enhanced disinfectant is two-to-four times more effective in neutralizing pathogen threat

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A compound found in cigarette and industrial smoke, benzo(a)pyrene (BaP), is known to damage DNA. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Central Science have mapped these effects for the first time in human lung cells after BaP exposure, which could help predict exposures that lead to cancers.