Even though most people don’t know much about chemicals in general or poisons in particular, virtually everyone knows that arsenic is bad. In the first century, arsenic was already known to be a deadly poison .
Almost every product we purchase, use in our homes or give to our children contains tens, if not hundreds, of chemicals. The United States chemical industry alone produced US$769.4 billion worth of chemicals in 2012.
The calls and e-mails arrive as often as several times a week from people with concerns about drinking water. Some of the callers — who include homeowners, architects and builders — want to know why their water smells like gasoline.
Even after taking into account residents' wealth, age, sex, and other neighborhood factors, the study found that having a view of the ocean was associated with improved mental health.
The mice in the enriched environment, where they exercised more, lived anywhere from 16 to 22 percent longer than those in a deprived environment, depending on the level of gene expression.
- By AJ Earley
A good night’s sleep is a crucial aspect to overall health and well-being, yet so many Americans are lacking in that department. A 2013 Gallup poll found that 40% of American adults get less than the recommended amount of sleep.
"This is a global issue rather than one that's simply isolated in China; multidrug resistance is just a plane ride away," says James Tiedje.
People in developed countries turn on the tap and safe drinking water flows, a dramatic health benefit they tend to take for granted. That complacency was dramatically disrupted last year when children in Flint, Michigan, started testing positive for lead poisoning and the source was traced to tap water.
The Dutch famine of 1944 was a terrible time for many in the Netherlands – with around 4.5m people affected and reliant on soup kitchens after food supplies were stopped from getting into the area by German blockades. As many as 22,000 people were thought to have died, and those who survived would find...
The industrial chemical Bisphenol A (BPA) is an ingredient in dozens of everyday products – baby and water bottles, sports equipment, medical and dental devices, dental filling sealants, CDs and DVDs, household electronics, eyeglass lenses, foundry castings and the lining of water pipes. Manufacturers worldwide use at least 3.6 billion kilograms (8
The debate about whether or not talcum powder causes ovarian cancer has rumbled on for decades. However, it recently reached fever pitch after a US court awarded damages to the family of a woman who died of ovarian cancer, allegedly as a result of having used talc as a feminine hygiene product for many years. Does that mean women should avoid using talcum powder?
A new water filter can remove toxic heavy metal ions and radioactive substances in just one pass.
The ongoing water crisis in Flint, Michigan has highlighted just how harmful lead contamination is. What you may not realize, however, is that lead exposure is a problem throughout the U.S.
What do you know about your endocrine system? Possibly not as much as you should, seeing as how almost every organ and cell in the body is affected by it. This under-appreciated collection of glands selects and removes materials from the blood, processes them and secretes the finished chemical products, or hormones, back into the bloodstream.
Alongside the day’s high and low temperatures, weather reports generally contain a UV alert for a particular time. But what does it actually mean – and what should you do about it?
Researchers report that the children of mothers who experienced higher levels of exposure to perfluorooctanoic acid while pregnant had higher body fat and faster weight gain through age 8. The participants live downstream from a chemical plant that used PFOA.
"It's kind of ironic. In our laboratory, working with carbon nanotubes, we wear facemasks to prevent exactly what we're seeing in these samples, yet everyone walking around out there in the world probably has at least a small concentration of carbon nanotubes in their lungs," says Lon Wilson.
Mercury pollution is one of the most insidious problems in our environment. Today my colleagues and I at Flinders University have unveiled a new material than can scrub mercury from the environment, as a result of research to be published this week.
We all know about the obvious dangers of DIY and construction work – smashed thumbs, stubbed toes and so on. Even hanging wallpaper results in 1,500 British people going to hospital every year.
Over the past ten years in the United States, unconventional gas and oil drilling using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has experienced a meteoric increase. Since well drilling requires an influx of water, materials and workers into yotherwise rural and remote areas, the question has been: could air, water and noise pollution negatively impact on the health of nearby residents?
Recent research has reignited concerns that exposure to chemicals from plastics might be to blame for low sperm counts in young men. I share the concerns about the high prevalence of low sperm counts (one in six young men), and my research is directed at trying to identify what causes it. But whether plastics are to blame isn’t a simple matter.
Exposure to air pollutants during pregnancy may contribute to childhood abnormalities in the brain, a new study suggests. The research, from the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, measured the exposure of the mothers to PAH air pollution and used brain imaging to look at the effects on their children’s brains.