Feature Channels: Environmental Health

• share
• favorite_border

In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers have determined that natural sunlight triggers the release of smog-forming nitrogen oxide compounds from the grime that typically coats buildings, statues and other outdoor surfaces in urban areas. The finding confirms previous laboratory work using simulated sunlight and upends the long-held notion that nitrates in urban grime are “locked” in place. The scientists will present their findings at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.

• share
• favorite_border

Cross contamination in commercial processing facilities that prepare spinach and other leafy greens for the market can make people sick. But researchers are reporting a new, easy-to-implement method that could eliminate or reduce such incidences. The scientists will present their work at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

• share
• favorite_border

Insecticides that are sprayed in orchards and fields across North America may be more toxic to spiders than scientists previously believed.

• share
• favorite_border

Modern living could be responsible for an ‘almost epidemic’ increase in neurological brain disease, according to new research from Bournemouth University. Published in the USA journal Surgical Neurology International.

• share
• favorite_border

In households with kids — or grown-up klutzes — a durable set of melamine plates and bowls is a must. But studies suggest that heat and acid can cause melamine from dinnerware to seep into food and potentially cause harmful health effects. Now scientists show that substituting stainless steel containers for melamine ones when serving hot food could reduce the amount of the substance in people's bodies. Their report appears in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology.

• share
• favorite_border

Article spotlights latest science showing transgenerational health impact of environmental stressors

• share
• favorite_border

Soils provide nutrients, biodiversity and physical support, all crucial to healthy living

• share
• favorite_border

Occupational and environmental health nursing is the specialty practice that provides for and delivers health and safety programs and services to workers, worker populations and community groups.

• share
• favorite_border

Using a climate model that can tag sources of soot and track where it lands, researchers have determined which areas around the Tibetan Plateau contribute the most soot -- and where. The model can also suggest the most effective way to reduce soot on the plateau, easing the amount of warming the region undergoes. The study, which appeared in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics in June, might help policy makers target pollution reduction efforts.

• share
• favorite_border

According to the Sandy Child and Family Health Study, a major report on NJ residents living in Superstorm Sandy’s path, over 100,000 experienced significant structural damage to their primary homes. Conducted by Rutgers University, New York University (NYU), Columbia University and Colorado State University, research finds that tens of thousands still live with unfinished repairs, disputed claims and recurrent mold, all associated with increased odds of mental health distress, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and depression.

• share
• favorite_border

Other topics include ethnic disparities in pain treatment, colon cancer and IBD, halting Liver cancer, and more...

• share
• favorite_border

Is it possible that too much iron in infant formula may potentially increase risk for neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s in adulthood -- and are teeth the window into the past that can help us tell?

• share
• favorite_border

BPA’s popularity soared after the 1950s, but evidence suggests that even low doses might be harmful to human and environmental health. Many manufacturers are now phasing out BPA, but it doesn't break down easily, making safe disposal difficult. Now, researchers have developed a hybrid photocatalyst that can break down BPA using visible light. Their findings could eventually be used to treat water supplies and to more safely dispose of BPA and materials like it.

• share
• favorite_border

"No swimming" signs have already popped up this summer along coastlines where fecal bacteria have invaded otherwise inviting waters. Some vacationers ignore the signs while others resign themselves to tanning and playing on the beach. But should those avoiding the water be wary of the sand, too? New research in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology investigates reasons why the answer could be "yes."

• share
• favorite_border

Hospitalizations for heart conditions, neurological illness, and other conditions were higher among people who live near unconventional gas and oil drilling (hydraulic fracturing), according to new research.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers from the University of Georgia have determined that various freshwater sources in Georgia, such as rivers and lakes, could feature levels of salmonella that pose a risk to humans. The study is featured in the July edition of PLOS One.

• share
• favorite_border

University of Michigan researchers and their colleagues predict that the 2015 western Lake Erie harmful algal bloom season will be among the most severe in recent years and could become the second-most severe behind the record-setting 2011 bloom.

• share
• favorite_border

According to a new series of studies out of NYU Langone Medical Center, two chemicals increasingly used during manufacturing to strengthen plastic wrap, soap, cosmetics, and processed food containers have been linked to a rise in risk of high blood pressure and diabetes in children and adolescents.

• share
• favorite_border

Other topics include; do x-rays really cause cancer? And more.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

Berkeley Lab scientists are developing a cell culture that could help researchers better identify chemicals that increase breast cancer susceptibility. The scientists will grow the culture using adult stem cells obtained from breast tissue. Their test will show if a chemical causes a breakdown in cell-to-cell communication, which is a fundamental defect of cancer.

• share
• favorite_border

Trending news releases with the most views in a single day. Topics include: A nutrition expert's take on the trans fat ban, Prenatal DDT exposure tied breast cancer risk, new anesthesia monitoring technology.

• share
• favorite_border

Trending news releases with the most views in a single day. Topics include: An anonymous donor for cancer research, solar storms and incidences of rheumatoid arthritis, vulnerabilities in genome’s ‘Dimmer Switches’, new treatments for Alzheimer's, How people make decisions for or against flu vaccinations.

• share
• favorite_border

Women who were exposed to higher levels of the pesticide DDT in utero were nearly four times more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer as adults than women who were exposed to lower levels before birth, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).

• share
• favorite_border

A six-year study indicates that crops grown in contaminated urban soils present little to no risk for people eating those crops when gardeners have followed best practices.

• share
• favorite_border

Children and pets often play on wood decks, and when that wood gets wet, arsenic gets out, posing a potential danger. Wet wood loses three times more arsenic than dry wood, UF/IFAS scientists found.

• share
• favorite_border

A new Cornell study of New York state apple orchards finds that pesticides harm wild bees, and fungicides labeled “safe for bees” also indirectly may threaten native pollinators.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that death rates among people over 65 are higher in zip codes with more fine particulate air pollution (PM2.5) than in those with lower levels of PM2.5.

• share
• favorite_border

Trending news releases with the most views in a single day. Topics include: neurology, cancer, immunotherapy, Alan Alda present science award, genetics, vision, lung cancer, prostate cancer, environmental health.

• share
• favorite_border

At today’s EU Conference on Endocrine Disruptors, invited Society spokesperson, R. Thomas Zoeller, PhD, told the European Commission that current approaches to identify EDCs are not effective because they do not take into account critical endocrine principles.

• share
• favorite_border

Follow the "four Ds" to prevent infection and decrease the spread of West Nile Virus this summer.

• share
• favorite_border

In the face of many myths, the Academy for Eating Disorders (AED) releases “Nine Truths About Eating Disorders” in order to clarify public understanding. Produced in collaboration with Dr. Cynthia Bulik, PhD, FAED, who serves as distinguished Professor of Eating Disorders in the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, “Nine Truths” is based on Dr. Bulik’s 2014 “9 Eating Disorders Myths Busted” talk at the National Institute of Mental Health. Leading associations in the field of eating disorders also contributed their valuable input.

• share
• favorite_border

Over nearly 15 years spent studying ticks, Indiana University's Keith Clay has found southern Indiana to be an oasis free from Lyme disease, the condition most associated with these arachnids that are the second most common parasitic disease vector on Earth. He has also seen signs that this low-risk environment is changing, both in Indiana and in other regions of the U.S.

• share
• favorite_border

Trending news releases with the most views in a single day. Topics include: Bruce Jenner and transgender health, agriculture and pesticide alternatives, new tick-borne disease, internal dissent in Iran over nuclear deal, listeria ice cream recalls, changing mammography recommendations, immunology, materials science, and healthcare education.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists may have uncovered a natural way of avoiding the use of pesticides and help save plants from attack by recreating a natural insect repellent.

• share
• favorite_border

BOSTON – Air pollution, even at moderate levels, has long been recognized as a factor in raising the risk of stroke. A new study led by scientists from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Boston University School of Medicine suggests that long-term exposure can cause damage to brain structures and impair cognitive function in middle-aged and older adults.

• share
• favorite_border

Use of clean fuels and updated pollution control measures in the school buses 25 million children ride every day could result in 14 million fewer absences from school a year, based on a study by the University of Michigan and the University of Washington.

• share
• favorite_border

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researchers say that while a large majority of newborns are exposed in their earliest days to bisphenol A (BPA), a much-studied chemical used in plastics and in food and soda can linings, they can chemically alter and rid their bodies of it.

• share
• favorite_border

Trending news releases with the most views in a single day. Topics include: neurology, environment, crowdfunding, engineering, smoking, pharmaceuticals, medical research, cardiology and diabetes

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

Five years after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, researchers at the National Institutes of Health are actively working with Gulf region community partners, to learn if any human health problems resulted from the disaster and establish a new research response plan to be better prepared for future disasters.

• share
• favorite_border

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researchers say that levels of radon in Pennsylvania homes – where 42 percent of readings surpass what the U.S. government considers safe – have been on the rise since 2004, around the time that the fracking industry began drilling natural gas wells in the state.

• share
• favorite_border

Pesticide exposure, not obesity alone, can contribute to increased cardiovascular disease risk and inflammation in premenopausal women, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

• share
• favorite_border

A two-year epidemiological study found that people on insulin living next to roads with heavy traffic had markedly increased concentration of C-reactive protein, a marker of inflammation, compared to those living in lower traffic areas. Individuals taking oral diabetes medications did not experience increases in CRP concentration.

• share
• favorite_border

New research from UAB suggests that Corexit EC9500A, an oil-dispersal agentl, contributes to damage to epithelium cells within the lungs of humans and gills of marine creatures. The study also identifies an enzyme that is expressed in epithelial cells across species that has protective properties against Corexit-induced damage.

• share
• favorite_border

Exposure to the endocrine-disrupting chemical bisphenol A during pregnancy may raise a mother’s susceptibility to weight gain and diabetes later in life, according to a new animal study published in the Endocrine Society’s journal Endocrinology.

• share
• favorite_border

New research demonstrates how a web-based tool developed by the American Cleaning Institute (ACI) can more precisely forecast levels of down-the-drain chemicals in streams and rivers.

• share
• favorite_border

Johns Hopkins environmental scientists are collaborating with researchers from Dolphin Island at Resorts World Sentosa, Singapore, to learn more about how and where mercury accumulates in the bodies of Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins.

• share
• favorite_border

A pair of air pollutants linked to climate change could also be major contributors to the unparalleled rise in the number of people sneezing, sniffling and wheezing during allergy season. The gases, nitrogen dioxide and ground-level ozone, appear to provoke chemical changes in certain airborne allergens that may increase their potency. That, in combination with changes in global climate could help explain why allergies are becoming more common.