[The Project]
[The ApocaDocs]
[Equal Share]
[Species Collapse]
[Infectious Disease]
[Climate Chaos]
[Resource Depletion]
[Biology Breach]
[Recovery]
It's weekly, funny, and free!
|
|
|
About: [The Project] [The ApocaDocs] [Equal Share] |
The Six Scenarios: [Species Collapse] [Infectious Disease] [Climate Chaos] [Resource Depletion] [Biology Breach] [Recovery] |
Explore: |
Play: It's weekly, funny, and free! |
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Recent News:
from Associated Press: US coal town above mine fire claims massive fraud Residents of a coal mining town in the state of Pennsylvania have long believed the government's demolition of it was part of a plot to swipe the mineral rights to anthracite coal worth hundreds of millions of dollars - and not, as officials said, the solution to an out-of-control underground mine fire that menaced the town with toxic gases. Centralia was all but wiped off the map as the slow-burning mine fire that began in 1962 at the town dump spread to the network of mines beneath the town, threatening residents with poisonous gases and dangerous sinkholes. A $42 million government relocation program was largely completed by 1993, when officials forced dozens of holdouts to leave. Now, in a last-ditch effort to save their homes from the wrecking ball, the few holdouts who remain in the Pennsylvania town are taking their claims of a conspiracy to court.
from Environmental Health News: PCBs alter key brain chemical that stops nerve-to-nerve signals. Certain types of PCBs can affect the way a brain chemical responsible for halting brain signals sends its chemical messages from nerve to nerve, according to research conducted on frog egg cells. These results further tease apart PCBs' complex effects on brain chemicals and better explain how these interactions can result in abnormal brain function. PCBs are known to affect behavior, memory and learning in animals and people. Exactly how they do this still eludes researchers, although the persistent contaminants have been shown to affect several key cell chemical pathways that are essential for normal brain activity. Prior studies have focused on how PCBs interfere with the brain chemicals that allow the brain's nerve cells -- called neurons -- to communicate. Yet, little is known about how PCBs impact the opposing -- yet equally important -- chemical signals that inhibit and stop nerve messages from crossing the gaps -- or synapses -- between nerve endings. This study from the Netherlands finds that some types of PCBs can affect the main inhibitory neurochemical GABA.
from AP, via PhysOrg.com: GE: Limit PCB contamination during Hudson dredging General Electric Co. on Monday proposed a halting further dredging of the Hudson River if PCBs churned up by the work spread too much pollution downriver during the second phase of an ongoing cleanup. GE made the proposal as the company and the federal Environmental Protection Agency were set to release separate reports assessing the dredging in 2009 of PCB "hot spots" north of Albany. The EPA had yet to release its report Monday afternoon, but the agency has been much more upbeat in its assessments of the dredging than GE, which is paying for the cleanup.... Crews working the river last summer found contamination of the river bed was deeper than expected and the work took longer. GE said PCBs kicked up into the water during dredging presented a serious problem. So the company proposed setting a "hard cap" on the amount of PCBs that would be allowed to flow downstream during Phase 2. Crews would start by targeting the contaminated areas that otherwise would be most likely to pollute fish downriver. "(T)o send more PCBs downriver than would happen without dredging eliminates the benefits of the remedy identified by EPA," the GE report said.... PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, are considered probable carcinogens. GE plants in Fort Edward and neighboring Hudson Falls discharged wastewater containing PCBs for decades before the lubricant and coolant was banned in 1977.
from Otago Daily Times (NZ): Tide of acid-ocean fear rolls over oyster industry The collapse began rather unspectacularly. In 2005, when most of the millions of Pacific oysters in this tree-lined estuary failed to reproduce, the shellfish growers of Willapa Bay, Washington state largely shrugged it off. In a region that provides one-sixth of the nation's oysters -- the epicentre of the West Coast's $US111 million ... oyster industry -- everyone knows nature can be fickle. But then the failure was repeated in 2006, 2007 and 2008. It spread to an Oregon hatchery that supplies baby oysters to shellfish nurseries from Puget Sound to Los Angeles. Eighty percent of that hatchery's oyster larvae died, too. Now, as the US oyster industry heads into the fifth summer of its most unnerving crisis in decades, scientists are pondering a disturbing theory. They suspect water that rises from deep in the Pacific Ocean -- icy seawater that surges into Willapa Bay and is pumped into seaside hatcheries -- may be corrosive enough to kill baby oysters. If true, that could mean shifts in ocean chemistry associated with carbon-dioxide emissions from fossil fuels may be impairing sea life faster and more dramatically than expected.
from Charleston Gazette: EPA delays action on mountaintop removal plan The Obama administration has delayed action on a set of broad-ranging and specific measures to reduce the environmental impacts of mountaintop removal, after details of the plan were leaked to coal-state mining regulators...Agency officials are pushing for more stringent water pollution standards, tougher permit requirements and more extensive monitoring downstream from mining operations. Among the initiatives are initial steps toward tighter mining discharge limits on the toxic pollutant selenium and on electrical conductivity, which serves as a measure of harmful salts and metals and has been identified by scientists as an indicator of coal-mining water damage. An announcement had been planned for Wednesday, but has been delayed for at least several weeks.
from Associated Press: Disposal of spilled coal ash a long, winding trip More than a year after a Tennessee coal ash spill created one of the worst environmental disasters of its kind in U.S. history, the problem is seeping into several other states...After the spill, the TVA started sending as many as 17,000 rail carloads of ash almost 350 miles south to the landfill in Uniontown, Ala. At least 160 rail shipments have gone out from the cleanup site... The landfill operators first sent it to wastewater treatment plants -- a common way that landfills deal with excess liquid -- in two nearby Alabama cities, Marion and Demopolis. After what the EPA calls unrelated problems with ammonia in Marion, the landfill in January started using a commercial wastewater treatment plant in Mobile, Ala., 500 miles from the original spill.
from SciDev.net: Farmers and pesticide blamed in Thai rice pest invasion Thai farmers keen to exploit high rice prices have made an outbreak of a devastating pest worse by overplanting and using too much pesticide, according to ecologists. An outbreak of brown planthoppers has destroyed 368,000 hectares -- about four per cent of Thailand's rice paddies -- since August last year. The pests have periodically plagued Asian rice farming for decades, eating their way through rice crops and spreading viral diseases that can stunt growth and prevent rice grain formation.... To ensure good yields, farmers overuse fertilisers -- thought to increase the planthopper's fertility -- and pesticides such as synthetic pyrethroids, which have no effect on planthoppers but kill many of their natural enemies such as spiders. Golsalvitra said the problem remains unabated despite state efforts to control the situation and the pest is migrating south to the Central Plains -- the country's rice bowl, which is preparing for the next rice season in May.... He said the outbreaks are preventable and that the best way to deal with them is to restore biodiversity rather than destroy it.
from Gatehouse News Service, via Winchester Star: Markey issues statement on safe drinking water U.S. Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Energy and Environment Subcommittee and the author of a bill to establish a federal ban on the chemical Bisphenol A in all food and beverage containers, issued the following statement recently at a hearing titled "Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals in Drinking Water: Risks to Human Health and the Environment."... "Lately, not a day goes by where the public is not reminded of the presence of toxic chemicals in the air we breathe and the water we drink, and the potential harmful effects that these chemicals can have on public health and the environment. "Just last week a local newspaper warned that the Potomac River and other mid-Atlantic rivers are laced with toxins that may be responsible for bizarre deformities in fish, frogs and other wildlife that come in contact with the contaminated water. This includes male fish that have begun growing female sexual organs, and female fish that can no longer reproduce. "W.C. Fields once said, 'I never drink water because of the disgusting things fish do in it.'..."
from Purdue, via EurekAlert: Popular nanoparticle causes toxicity in fish, study shows ... [N]anosilver suspended in solution proved toxic and even lethal to the minnows. When the nanosilver was allowed to settle, the solution became several times less toxic but still caused malformations in the minnows. "Silver nitrate is a lot more toxic than nanosilver, but when nanosilver was sonicated, or suspended, its toxicity increased tenfold," said Maria Sepulveda, an assistant professor of forestry and natural resources whose findings were published in the journal Ecotoxicology. "There is reason to be concerned."... "These nanosilver particles are so small they are able to cross the egg membranes and move into the fish embryos in less than a day," Sepulveda said. "They had a potentially high dose of silver in them."
from Sacramento Bee: Study of hospitals puts price tag on California's dirty air California's dirty air led to nearly $200 million in hospital spending over a three-year period -- including $9 million in Sacramento County -- because of asthma, pneumonia and other pollution-triggered ailments, according to a study released today. With its research, Rand Corp. attempts to put a price tag on the state's bad air. The study analyzed records from hospitals and air quality agencies from 2005 to 2007. As many as 30,000 people statewide sought relief in emergency rooms because of air pollution during that period, the report states...The study focused on pollution from ozone, most commonly derived from automobile tailpipe emissions, and fine particulate matter, such as soot from fireplaces and wood-burning stoves.
from Greenwich Time: For frogs, and perhaps humans, there's something strange in the water Medications leaking into groundwater are producing strange effects on the frogs of Connecticut, effects that could be a harbinger of safety concerns for humans, too, researchers say. A team led by David Skelly, professor of ecology and associate dean for research at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University, has found that male frogs are developing eggs in their reproductive tracts... Skelly's team found that deformities were concentrated in suburban and urban areas, which was something of a surprise for the scientists because it was previously thought that chemicals used on the farm were mostly to blame, particularly the widely used cornfield herbicide atrazine. "But in agricultural areas, only 7 percent of the frogs show these deformities," he said. "In urban and suburban areas, it's about 20 percent."
from Washington Post: Manure becomes pollutant as its volume grows unmanageable ...Animal manure, a byproduct as old as agriculture, has become an unlikely modern pollution problem, scientists and environmentalists say. The country simply has more dung than it can handle: Crowded together at a new breed of megafarms, livestock produce three times as much waste as people, more than can be recycled as fertilizer for nearby fields. That excess manure gives off air pollutants, and it is the country's fastest-growing large source of methane, a greenhouse gas. And it washes down with the rain, helping to cause the 230 oxygen-deprived "dead zones" that have proliferated along the U.S. coast. In the Chesapeake Bay, about one-fourth of the pollution that leads to dead zones can be traced to the back ends of cows, pigs, chickens and turkeys.
from UC Berkeley, via PhysOrg: Atrazine can turn male frogs into females Atrazine, one of the world's most widely used [weed killer], wreaks havoc with the sex lives of adult male frogs, emasculating three-quarters of them and turning one in 10 into females, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, biologists. The 75 percent that are chemically castrated are essentially "dead" because of their inability to reproduce in the wild, reports UC Berkeley's Tyrone B. Hayes, professor of integrative biology.... Though the experiments were performed on a common laboratory frog, the African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis), field studies indicate that atrazine, a potent endocrine disruptor, similarly affects frogs in the wild, and could possibly be one of the causes of amphibian declines around the globe, Hayes said.
from New York Times: Rulings Restrict Clean Water Act, Foiling EPA Thousands of the nation's largest water polluters are outside the Clean Water Act's reach because the Supreme Court has left uncertain which waterways are protected by that law, according to interviews with regulators. As a result, some businesses are declaring that the law no longer applies to them. And pollution rates are rising. Companies that have spilled oil, carcinogens and dangerous bacteria into lakes, rivers and other waters are not being prosecuted, according to Environmental Protection Agency regulators working on those cases, who estimate that more than 1,500 major pollution investigations have been discontinued or shelved in the last four years.
from Madison Wisconsin State Journal: Tracking a rising tide of waste Wisconsin is churning out permits for industrial-scale farms to spread millions of gallons of manure on state fields but provides little oversight after that, inspecting them only once or twice every five years, a Wisconsin State Journal investigation has found. At stake is the health of thousands of homeowners who draw their drinking water from wells near the giant farms or the fields where the manure is spread... But a review of the state's oversight of the huge farms turned up weaknesses and missteps, including farms operating without permits, a dearth of on-site inspections and a monitoring system that consists largely of inspectors filling out paperwork at their desks.
from US News and World Report: Air Pollution: It's Not Just Your Lungs That Suffer ...research has revealed more about how far air pollution's harms go beyond the respiratory system. "People thought that when we inhale pollutants the lung is the main target, but the lung is surprisingly resilient. It turns out the cardiovascular effects are predominant," says Aruni Bhatnagar, an environmental cardiology researcher at the University of Louisville. One major study, which followed subjects for 16 years, found that people living in cities with higher levels of fine particulates were at greater risk of cardiovascular death. A difference of 10 micrograms per cubic meter increased the risk of dying from ischemic heart disease (narrowed arteries) by 18 percent, arrhythmia by 13 percent, and cardiac arrest by 21 percent, the study revealed. It seems air pollutants incite processes that lead to high blood pressure, blood clotting, and electrical instability in the heart, which can translate into heart attack, stroke, and sudden cardiac death. Even short-term exposure can be hazardous. Research shows spikes in cardiac deaths, emergency room visits, and hospital admissions in the hours and days that follow a spike in cities' levels of particulate matter.
from Shanghai Daily News: Country's infertility rate 'on the rise': Shanghai The country appears to be suffering from rising infertility levels, with a number of regional surveys showing up to 10 percent of couples who have regular sex being unable to conceive within a year, reproduction experts have said. No nationwide epidemiology surveys on infertility have been conducted yet, but experts have estimated that the infertility rate stood at 3 percent in the early 1980s. For women, childbirth after 35 years of age and previous abortions were often to blame for increasing infertility, said Zhou Canquan, director of the department of obstetrics and gynecology under the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University. Male infertility was on the rise as well, with sperm counts decreasing from 100 million per ml on average in the 1970s to 40 million per ml currently, Zhou said on Friday.
from Oregon Environmental News: Warning: Fish from Columbia Slough tainted with PCBs, heavy metals A swarm of fish inhabit the body of water from the mouth of Fairview Lake to the Willamette River and many of them are tainted with toxins, said Ken Kauffman, an environmental health specialist. Tests have turned up pesticide residuals, chlordane, mercury and heavy metals in the fish that live in the slough, including carp, black crappie, bluegill, largemouth bass and sunfish. But the biggest threat comes from polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, which are long-lasting chemicals that can harm a baby’s brain or nervous system. Health officials are most concerned about children and infants, along with pregnant women and women who could become pregnant.
from Barnstable Patriot: Cape faces 'daunting challenges' on household chemicals in groundwater The problem of pharmaceutical and personal care product (PPCP) pollution is an issue that is especially dangerous to Cape Cod's water supply, said Dr. Laurel Schaider, staff scientist at the Silent Spring Institute. The Cape's unique combination of reliance on septic systems and almost exclusive use of groundwater, she said, makes it easier for contaminants of concern (COCs) to infiltrate wastewater. Silent Spring Institute maintains a list of potentially hazardous chemicals that includes human and pet prescriptions, cosmetics, caffeine and "endocrine disruptors" such as hormones. In 2005, said Schaider, a U.S. Geological Survey study found 13 such chemicals in Cape groundwater supplies, including antibiotics, a dry-cleaning solvent, an anti-convulsant prescription and acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol. "Everything that goes down your drains and your toilets, that's in the wastewater," she explained.
from FASAB, via EurekAlert: Why BPA leached from 'safe' plastics may damage health of female offspring New research published online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) suggests that exposure to Bisphenol A (BPA) during pregnancy leads to epigenetic changes that may cause permanent reproduction problems for female offspring. BPA, a common component of plastics used to contain food, is a type of estrogen that is ubiquitous in the environment.... BPA has been widely used in plastics and other materials. Examples include use in water bottles, baby bottles, epoxy resins used to coat food cans, and dental sealants.... "We need to better identify the effects of environmental contaminants on not just crude measures such as birth defects, but also their effect in causing more subtle developmental errors."... These epigenetic changes caused the mice to over-respond to estrogen throughout adulthood, long after the BPA exposure. This suggests that early exposure to BPA genetically "programmed" the uterus to be hyper-responsive to estrogen. Extreme estrogen sensitivity can lead to fertility problems, advanced puberty, altered mammary development and reproductive function, as well as a variety of hormone-related cancers. BPA has been widely used in plastics and other materials. Examples include use in water bottles, baby bottles, epoxy resins used to coat food cans, and dental sealants.
from University of Iowa, via EurekAlert: UIowa study measures levels of PCBs flowing from Indiana canal to air and water "We have analyzed PCBs in surficial sediment, water, suspended particles and air and examined the potential for chemical movement in the harbor system," Hornbuckle said. "We have shown that the system is currently a significant source of PCBs to the air and to Lake Michigan, even under quiescent conditions."... "We were not surprised to discover that PCBs were continuously emitted from the sediments of the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal. However, without our study, there was no way to determine how much was being released. Now we better understand the magnitude of the PCB release to Lake Michigan and to the air over the harbor and canal," Hornbuckle said. "We have found that this tributary releases more PCBs to Lake Michigan than any other known direct discharge of PCBs to the lake."
from Haaretz: Bomb plant seepage creating Israel's worst-ever water pollution Rocket fuel and remains of explosives that seeped into the aquifer from the Israel Military Industries Ramat Hasharon plant are continuing to spread, according to data presented yesterday for the first time by the Water Authority and obtained by Haaretz. The materials, which are now present in a 16 square-kilometer area, were detected at levels thousands of times greater than allowable U.S. standards, constituting the worst instance of water pollution in Israel's history. Ten water wells have been closed so far as a result... One toxic material discovered in the ground water is an explosive known as RDX, detected at 1,300 times recommended safe levels for drinking water in the United States.
from Telegraph.co.uk: New floating garbage patch found in Atlantic Ocean Researchers have found a high concentration of plastic debris is floating in the Atlantic Ocean north of the Caribbean, months after concerns were raised over a vast patch of rubbish floating in the Pacific Ocean. The study's principal investigator said that the findings were based on more than 64,000 tiny bits of plastic collected over more than 22 years by Sea Education Association undergraduates. Researchers believe surface currents carry the debris to the area between 22 and 38 degrees north latitude and that waves also deliver trash to a spot between Hawaii and California known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.... The Great Pacific Garbage patch was originally discovered in 1997 by Captain Charles Moore. Roughtly the size of Texas, the patch is characterised by exceptionally high concentrations of suspended plastic, chemical sludge, and other debris that have been trapped by the currents of the North Pacific Gyre.
from TIME Magazine: What's in Household Dust? You Don't Want to Know ...The specific dust mix in any household differs according to climate, age of the house and the number of people who live in it — not to mention the occupants' cooking, cleaning and smoking habits. But nearly everywhere, dust consists of some combination of shed bits of human skin, animal fur, decomposing insects, food debris, lint and organic fibers from clothes, bedding and other fabrics, tracked-in soil, soot, particulate matter from smoking and cooking, and, disturbingly, lead, arsenic and even DDT... There's not much to fret about in simple particles of dirt or organic materials such as pollen (although they can trigger allergies), but lead, arsenic and DDT can be a more serious matter.
from ScienceDaily: Hazardous E-Waste Surging in Developing Countries Sales of electronic products in countries like China and India and across continents such as Africa and Latin America are set to rise sharply in the next 10 years. And, unless action is stepped up to properly collect and recycle materials, many developing countries face the spectre of hazardous e-waste mountains with serious consequences for the environment and public health, according to UN experts in a landmark report released February 22 by UNEP.... Moreover, most e-waste in China is improperly handled, much of it incinerated by backyard recyclers to recover valuable metals like gold -- practices that release steady plumes of far-reaching toxic pollution and yield very low metal recovery rates compared to state-of-the-art industrial facilities.
from The Australian: Toxic water linked to forestry trees RESEARCH has linked toxicity in a Tasmanian river used for drinking water to the leaves of genetically improved plantation eucalypt trees, prompting calls for a wider inquiry. The woman behind the work, local GP Alison Bleaney, yesterday told The Australian the findings, featured on ABC TV's Australian Story tonight, warranted a full and thorough inquiry. "We need to get to the bottom of this so that forestry can go on growing their trees and we can continue to drink our water," Dr Bleaney said. A long investigation by Dr Bleaney and Sydney scientist Marcus Scammell -- involving the testing of water at independent laboratories interstate -- concluded a toxin found in the George River on Tasmania's east coast was from the leaves of the eucalyptus nitens.
from AFP, via PhysOrg: Chemicals suspected in breast cancer, US experts want tests "We're currently not identifying chemicals that could be contributing to the risk of breast cancer," said Megan Schwarzman, a physician and environmental health researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. According to Schwarzman, only a handful of the more than 200 chemicals in the environment linked to mammary tumors in lab animals have been regulated by the US authorities "on the basis of their ability to cause breast cancer."... As the incidence of the most common invasive cancer in women has skyrocketed in a generation, a flurry of studies have looked into the role of chemicals in breast cancer.... Only around a quarter of more than 186,000 women diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005 were genetically predisposed to the disease, and other breast cancer risk factors, including the early onset puberty in girls, have been linked to chemicals.
from San Jose Mercury News: Shipping firm sentenced to pay $10 million for causing Cosco Busan oil spill With a sharp warning to the maritime industry, justice officials on Friday ordered a Chinese shipping firm to pay $10 million for its role in a spill that dumped 53,000 gallons of thick bunker fuel into the San Francisco Bay. Fleet Management, a Hong Kong-based firm, pleaded guilty last year to criminally violating federal pollution laws and felony obstruction of justice. The company admitted that it caused the spill and acted negligently after the Cosco Busan, which it owned, struck the Bay Bridge on a foggy morning Nov. 7, 2007, leading to the biggest Bay Area spill in 20 years. In addition, the firm was convicted of creating false and forged documents at the direction of shore-based supervisors with an intent to deceive the U.S. Coast Guard... After the Cosco Busan struck one of the support towers of the Bay Bridge, tearing a huge gash in the hull and causing the massive spill, at least 2,000 migratory birds died, including birds listed on the federal endangered species list.
from Dredging Today, via DesdemonaDespair: A more toxic picture of TVA coal ash spill, cleanup works estimated at $1 billion The disastrous coal ash spill that occurred a year ago at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston power plant in eastern Tennessee dumped a whopping 2.66 million pounds of 10 toxic pollutants into the nearby Emory and Clinch rivers -- more than all the surface-water discharges from all U.S. power plants in 2007. That's one of the findings of a new report from the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project based on toxics release inventory data filed by TVA with the Environmental Protection Agency. The 10 pollutants are arsenic, barium, chromium, copper, lead, manganese, mercury, nickel, vanadium and zinc -- chemicals that have been linked to cancer, neurological disorders and other serious health problems. The report's release came in time for the hearing scheduled for today by the House Subcommittee on Water Resources and the Environment on the progress of the ash spill's cleanup. "We believe the data makes a very strong case for EPA action on coal ash ponds," EIP Director Eric Schaeffer said during a telephone press conference held yesterday to announce the findings.
from Guardian: World's top firms cause $2.2tn of environmental damage, report estimates The cost of pollution and other damage to the natural environment caused by the world's biggest companies would wipe out more than one-third of their profits if they were held financially accountable, a major unpublished study for the United Nations has found. The report comes amid growing concern that no one is made to pay for most of the use, loss and damage of the environment, which is reaching crisis proportions in the form of pollution and the rapid loss of freshwater, fisheries and fertile soils.... "What we're talking about is a completely new paradigm," said Richard Mattison, Trucost's chief operating officer and leader of the report team. "Externalities of this scale and nature pose a major risk to the global economy and markets are not fully aware of these risks, nor do they know how to deal with them."
from Charleston Gazette: Dow leak went undetected for nearly 2 weeks A leak of more than 3,500 pounds of toxic ammonia gas from the Dow Chemical Co. facility in Institute went undetected for nearly two weeks, company officials disclosed Wednesday. An average of 270 pounds of ammonia leaked every day between Feb. 4 and Feb. 16, according to a Kanawha County Metro 911 Center summary of a phone call from Freddie Sizemore, a Dow employee who reported the incident to local authorities. It is not clear when Dow officials first discovered the leak, but the Metro 911 report indicates it was not fixed until sometime on Wednesday. Dow reported the incident to Metro 911 shortly before 2 p.m. Wednesday.
from New York Daily News: Probers unearth toxin shock in Greenpoint groundwater Investigators probing a toxic underground chemical plume in Greenpoint have discovered groundwater with levels of a cancer-causing cleaning solvent more than 14 million times the state standard. "We got hit in the face with it before we got our gear on," said state Department of Environmental Conservation project manager David Harrington, adding that water contaminated with PCE splashed out while his crew was doing repair work. "It smelled like White-Out times a thousand with a lot of sugar thrown in for a couple seconds until my nasal lining burned out," he said. "That's pure product." The contamination hot spot at the corner of Norman and Kingsland Aves. was the site of the now-shuttered Spic and Span drycleaners, one of five businesses accused of dumping the solvents PCE and TCE.... A study released by the National Academy of Sciences last week found that PCE can cause cancer. It also has been linked to birth defects and infertility. The groundwater was 73 percent PCE - more than 14 million times the state standard of 5 parts per billion.
from Omaha World-Herald: Coal ash intentionally scattered over frozen Platte A crop duster will drop about 86 tons of ash over about 10 spots along the river on Thursday, Berndt said. The ash comes from the Nebraska Public Power District coal plant near Hallam. The hope is that the dark ash will absorb the sun's energy and help "rot" the ice so it breaks up into smaller chunks and washes downstream, Berndt said. Larger ice chunks can jam together like a dam and send floodwaters washing over levees.... Marlin Petermann, assistant general manager of the Papio-Missouri River Natural Resources District, said ice on the Platte is averaging about 16.7 inches thick. That's in the range that can pose problems, he said. The cost of the dusting is expected to be less than $100,000 Berndt said. Petermann, who has spent much of his 35-year career watching the river, said it's money well spent.
from CBC: Fundy lobster deaths blamed on pesticide Dead lobsters first appeared last November in Grand Manan's Seal Cove, and five days later a fisherman 50 kilometres away in Pocologan found more dead lobsters in his traps. Soon after that discovery, another 816 kilograms of weak or dead lobster were discovered in Deer Island's Fairhaven Harbour. "I've been around lobsters all my life. And I never seen lobsters in that state," said fisherman Reid Brown said. Environment Canada has launched two investigations into the lobster kills on Grand Manan and Deer Island. Tests found that the lobsters were exposed to Cypermethrin, a pesticide that's illegal to use in marine environments and toxic to lobsters. Environment Canada found no evidence about how the pesticide got into the Bay of Fundy. There are few if any farms near the Fundy coast that could be a source for the Cypermethrin found in the bay.
from Washington Post: Not exactly a ringing endorsement ...A long-awaited study by the International Agency for Cancer Research -- an arm of the World Health Organization -- will attempt to give the world's billions of cellphone users a better informed perspective; the findings are now in the midst of peer review for publication. The so-called Interphone study looks at the results of published national studies in 13 countries (the list includes Canada, eight European nations, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Israel, but not the United States) to assess whether radio-frequency radiation exposure from cellphones is associated with cancer risk. The international study, though, will hardly be the last word. Now in motion is a 10-year, $25 million research project by the U.S. government. It will soon beam 10 hours' worth of cellphone radio waves daily into specially designed stainless-steel containers housing rats and mice to test whether cellphones pose any health risk. Preliminary results are expected in two to three years.
from Bergen County Record: New Jersey restaurants cooking up pollution along with pizza, hamburgers When fast-food restaurants cook up cholesterol-heavy foods, they spew cholesterol and other particulates into the air, pollution that can affect the health of people with asthma and other breathing issues, researchers say. State and federal air pollution efforts focus on power plants, factories and diesel trucks, but a significant source of particulate pollution in the metropolitan area comes from restaurant emissions — especially the smoke from wood-burning pizza ovens, said Monica Mazurek, a Rutgers University scientist who has been studying particulate matter in urban air for several decades. Restaurants and wood-burning fireplaces and boilers discharge as much as 20 percent of the particulate matter in the air, and that smoke goes largely unchecked, researchers said.
from Cleveland Plain Dealer: Oil and gas drilling's threat to our drinking water is local, national debate GRANGER TOWNSHIP, Ohio -- Sandy Mangan draws a small glass of water from her kitchen faucet. It stinks and small bubbles slip up the side of the cup. She looks almost as if she is about to gulp down a nasty soft drink. But the Mangans don't drink their tainted tap water anymore. They haven't since Sept. 29, 2008 -- the day a Mahoning County company was drilling a gas well in a park near their State Road home. They say their well went temporarily dry, then returned at lower pressure five days later -- murky, salty, bubbly and smelly.
from Telegraph.co.uk: Pollution creating acid oceans Researchers from the University of Bristol looked at how levels of acid in the ocean have changed over history. They found that as ocean acidification accelerated it caused mass extinctions at the bottom of the food chain that could threaten whole ecosystems in the future. The rapid acidification today is being caused by the massive amount of carbon dioxide being pumped out by cars and factories every year, which is absorbed by the water. Since the industrial revolution acidity in the seas have increased by 30 per cent.... Dr Ridgwell said acidification is actually occurring much faster today than in the examples they looked at from the past therefore "exceeding the rate plankton can adapt" and theatening the basis of much of marine life. This would mean fish and other creatures further up the food chain that human beings eat may be affected as soon as the end of this century.
from Science, via Mongabay: Chinese farming practices are acidifying soils A new study in Science shows that farming practices in China are acidifying the nation's soils and threatening long term productivity at a time when food concerns worldwide have never been higher. The culprit is the increasing use of nitrogen fertilizer. "Chinese agriculture has intensified greatly since the early 1980s on a limited land area with large inputs of chemical fertilizers and other resources," the authors note, pointing out that nitrogen fertilizer consumption in China reached 32.6 million tons in 2007, an increase of 191 percent over 1981 levels. "The rates of [nitrogen] applied in some regions are extraordinarily high as compared with those of North America and Europe. These have degraded soils and environmental quality in the North China Plain and in the Taihu Lake region in south China," the authors explain.
from Telegraph.co.uk: China considering green tax as extent of pollution is revealed The national survey, which took 570,000 staff two years to complete, also revealed China's intensive farming practices were almost equally to blame for pollution as its many factories and coal-fired power stations. Announcing the results of China's first official nationwide pollution survey China's vice minister of environmental protection, Zhang Lijun, said that ministries were now studying the possibility of environmental taxes on polluters.... Pollution has become a major source of discontent and social unrest in China with almost daily protests about lead and other chemical pollution, fumes from rubbish incinerators and run-off from landfill sites.
from Guardian, via DesdemonaDespair: Climate changes desynchronizing biological cycles in Britain The analysis confirms that spring and summer are occurring earlier, but also shows that this trend appears to be accelerating. The shift could pose problems for animals, birds and fish that rely on springtime flowering of plants to supply food for their young.... The new study compiled 25,000 records of springtime trends for 726 species of plants, animals, plankton, insects, amphibians, birds and fish across land, sea and freshwater habitats. It analysed them for changes in the timing of lifecycle events, such as egg laying, first flights and flowering, a science known as phenology. The results showed that more than 80 percent of trends between 1976 and 2005 indicated earlier seasonal events. On average, the study showed the seasonal timing of reproduction and population growth shifted forward by eleven days over the period, and that the change has accelerated recently.
from Chicago Tribune: Chicago schools pile up lunch waste ...Every day, kids in the Chicago Public Schools district throw out nearly a quarter of a million lunch and breakfast trays made of polystyrene foam. That's more than 1 million a week, about 5 million a month. And those trays are just the start of a river of trash from school meals that ends up in landfills, including nacho-stained containers, half-empty milk cartons, plastic cookie wrappers and plastic tubs that will sit in thick polyethylene bags for centuries without biodegrading. The Prosser students, led by biology teacher Marnie Ware, found their Belmont-Cragin-area school created 1,500 pounds of cafeteria garbage a day over five periods, including breakfast.
from Der Spiegel: Global Ocean Protection Measures Have Failed Thousands of tons of trash are thrown into the sea each year, endangering humans and wildlife. A classified German government report obtained by SPIEGEL ONLINE indicates that efforts by the United Nations and the European Union to clean up our oceans have failed entirely. Since the world's oceans are so massive, few people seem to have a problem with dumping waste into them. But plastics degrade at very a slow rate, and huge amounts of them are sloshing around in our oceans. Wildlife consumes small pieces causing many of them to die, since the plastics are full of poisons. And, as experts warn, we've reached a point where it's even getting dangerous for humans to consume seafood... Our oceans have devolved into vast garbage dumps.
from Los Angeles Times: Industrial solvent linked to increased risk of Parkinson's disease Exposure to the industrial solvent trichloroethylene increases a person's risk of developing Parkinson's disease nearly sixfold, California researchers said Sunday. Animal studies had suggested a potential problem with the solvent, but the new study by Dr. Samuel Goldman of the Parkinson's Institute in Sunnyvale is the first to quantify the risk. Parkinson's disease, caused by the death of cells in the brain that secrete the neurotransmitter dopamine, is characterized by severe tremors, rigidity in the limbs and other symptoms. It strikes an estimated 100,000 Americans each year and is ultimately fatal. Genetics play a role in susceptibility to Parkinson's, but it has also been linked to head trauma, pesticides and illicit drugs. Trichloroethylene, or TCE, is a solvent that was once widely used in dry cleaning and to clean grease off metal parts, and it was once used as an anesthetic, especially during childbirth.
from Associated Press: Even if you're careful, drugs can end up in water The federal government advises throwing most unused or expired medications into the trash instead of down the drain, but they can end up in the water anyway, a study from Maine suggests. Tiny amounts of discarded drugs have been found in water at three landfills in the state, confirming suspicions that pharmaceuticals thrown into household trash are ending up in water that drains through waste, according to a survey by the state's environmental agency that's one of only a handful to have looked at the presence of drugs in landfills. That landfill water - known as leachate - eventually ends up in rivers. Most of Maine doesn't draw its drinking water from rivers where the leachate ends up, but in other states that do, water supplies that come from rivers could potentially be contaminated. The results of the survey are being made known as lawmakers in Maine consider a bill, among the first of its kind in the nation, that would require drug manufacturers to develop and pay for a program to collect unused prescription and over-the-counter drugs from residents and dispose of them.
from Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine via ScienceDaily: Link Between Birth Defect Gastroschisis and the Agricultural Chemical Atrazine Found In a study to be presented at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's (SMFM) annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting, in Chicago, researchers will unveil findings that demonstrate a link between the birth defect gastroschisis and the agricultural chemical atrazine. Gastroschisis is a type of inherited congenital abdominal wall defect in which the intestines, and sometimes other organs, develop outside the fetal abdomen through an opening in the abdominal wall. The incidence of gastroschisis is on the rise, increasing two to four times in the last 30 years....Of the 805 cases and 3616 controls in the study, gastroschisis occurred more frequently among infants whose mothers resided less than 25 km from the site of high surface water contamination with atrazine.
from NUVO Newsweekly: The Ohio Valley's toxic kids Robert Owen would rise up from his grave in righteous indignation if he knew what has happened to the kids in his adopted Indiana home of New Harmony. The 19th-century visionary established a utopian settlement there in 1825, to establish “a model community where education and social equality would flourish,” as the University of Southern Indiana’s Historic New Harmony Web page puts it. But the type of education that has blossomed on the banks of the Wabash can’t possibly be what Owen envisioned. At a disturbingly high rate, students categorized as needing special education services are directly downwind of mercury-emitting, major power plants that have gone essentially uncontrolled for decades.
from Chicago Daily Herald: Traffic's the biggest contributor to the region's air pollution Downtown Chicago has the highest peak levels of nitrogen dioxide in the country, and is the only site in violation of new stricter guidelines against the irritant, which inflames asthma and other lung conditions. That news raised the question of how bad is the Chicago area's overall air quality, 40 years after the Clean Air Act as we know it was created... Forbes magazine recently rated the Chicago metropolitan area as having the second-worst air quality of any big city in the nation, based on a federal 2007 report on the number of days with unhealthy air... Today, the number one cause of air pollution is traffic.
from Associated Press: Few remain as 1962 Pa. coal town fire still burns ...After years of delay, state officials are now trying to complete the demolition of Centralia, a borough in the mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania that all but ceased to exist in the 1980s after the mine fire spread beneath homes and businesses, threatening residents with poisonous gases and dangerous sinkholes. More than 1,000 people moved out, and 500 structures were razed under a $42 million federal relocation program. But dozens of holdouts ... refused to go - even after their houses were seized through eminent domain in the early 1990s...State officials say the fire continues to burn uncontrolled and could for hundreds of years, until it runs out of fuel. One of their biggest concerns is the danger to tourists who often cluster around steam vents on unstable ground.
from Science News: EPA reviews hints of weed killer's fetal risks Last October, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it was reopening what the pesticide industry had hoped was a closed chapter on allegations of a popular herbicide’s toxicity. The agency will be convening meetings of its Science Advisory Panel on pesticides throughout 2010 to probe concerns about the safety of atrazine, a weed killer on which most American corn growers rely. The first meeting of these outside experts started Tuesday. And although a large number of studies have indicated that atrazine can perturb hormones in animals and human cells — and might even pose a possible risk of cancer amongst heavily exposed people, these outcomes were not the focus of EPA’s review Tuesday. Risks to babies were. During the SAP’s morning session, Aaron Niman, an EPA scientist, reviewed five recent studies linking atrazine to birth defects and other risks in newborns.
from Telegraph.co.uk: Most of Britain's ponds in a 'terrible state' The Centre for Ecology and Hydrology measured animal life and water quality in half a million ponds across the country, from tarns in the Lake District to garden pools. Mostly as a result of pollution from farms, sewers and roads, more than 80 per cent of ponds were judged to be in a "poor" or "very poor state".... "It is shocking that ponds are in such a terrible state. This should be a wake up call for everyone concerned with protecting freshwater wildlife and involved in water management. Practically unnoticed, wildlife-rich, clean and unpolluted ponds have become a rarity in the countryside."
from Associated Press: Gas drilling in Appalachia runs into resistance: What do you do with the wastewater? A drilling technique that is beginning to unlock staggering quantities of natural gas underneath Appalachia also yields a troubling byproduct: powerfully briny wastewater that can kill fish and give tap water a foul taste and odor. With fortunes, water quality and cheap energy hanging in the balance, exploration companies, scientists and entrepreneurs are scrambling for an economical way to recycle the wastewater.
from Environmental Health News: Human placenta cells die after BPA exposure. Exposure to very low concentrations of the plasticizer bisphenol A (BPA) causes cellular damage and death in cultured human placenta cells, researchers report. The doses used for this study are similar to blood levels found in pregnant women. A particularly worrying finding is that effects were most pronounced at the lowest -- rather than the highest -- concentrations of BPA indicating that placental development could be particularly sensitive to BPA exposure. Damage to the placenta can induce a range of adverse pregnancy outcomes including premature birth, preeclampsia or even pregnancy loss. It is not known if exposure to BPA is associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes in humans.
from BBC: Brazil grants environmental licence for Belo Monte dam Brazil's government has granted an environmental licence for the construction of a controversial hydro-electric dam in the Amazon rainforest. Environmental groups say the Belo Monte dam will cause devastation in a large area of the rainforest and threaten the survival of indigenous groups. However, the government says whoever is awarded the project will have to pay $800m to protect the environment... However, critics say diverting the flow of the Xingu river will still lead to devastation in a large area of the rainforest and damage fish stocks. They say the lives of up to 40,000 people could be affected as 500 sq km of land would be flooded.
from Virginia Tech, via EurekAlert: Engineers explore environmental concerns of nanotechnology History has shown that previous industrial revolutions, such as those involving asbestos and chloroflurocarbons, have had some serious environmental impacts. Might nanotechnology also pose a risk? ... Scientists and engineers at the center have outlined plans to conduct research on the possible environmental health impacts of nanomaterials. The plans include new approaches, such as creating a predictive toxicology model based on cell assays and building ecosystems to track nanoparticles.... In their preliminary studies, results indicate that "oxidation does impact solubility, as absorbance after resuspending in water is lower for fullerenes exposed to ozone." The implication is that reactions in the atmosphere can transform nanoparticles and make them more likely to dissolve in water once they deposit back to earth. There, they can travel farther and come in contact with more organisms than if they were stuck to soil.
from Jacksonville Times-Union: Jacksonville sealcoat raises home health concern A material that's spread on parking lots and driveways in Jacksonville and nationally may be causing buildups of cancer-causing dust inside some homes, government researchers say. The finding by scientists who normally investigate water pollution raises questions about a potential health hazard, especially for children. The material, known as sealcoat, is a shiny, black substance made from coal tar, a byproduct of some industrial coal uses. As much as half of coal tar's weight can come from a family of chemical compounds called PAHs -- polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons -- that increase cancer risks for people.... The new study concludes that people walking across those lots are accidentally bringing home small amounts of PAHs. "We track in whatever is outdoors," said Barbara Mahler, a hydrologist who was the lead researcher on a study published last month in Environmental Science & Technology, a professional journal. "When we bring in little bits of that sealcoat inside our homes on the bottoms of our shoes, it ends up in our house dust."
from Chemical & Engineering News: Fluorochemicals Go Short Nearly all humans, and a large proportion of wildlife, are contaminated with environmentally persistent long-chain perfluoroalkyl compounds. That revelation, around for a decade now, has brought dramatic change to the fluorochemicals industry. Spurred on by academic researchers and concerns from environmental and consumer advocacy groups, chemical companies have worked with the Environmental Protection Agency to phase out perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and are in the process of phasing out perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). The companies are replacing PFOS, PFOA, and their associated compounds with shorter perfluoroalkyl chain compounds that impart the same functional properties as the longer chain compounds. Although the alternatives are just as persistent, they aren't as bioaccumulative and appear to have a better toxicity profile -- which is still being confirmed by testing -- and are thus considered sound replacements.
from Mongabay: Russian police raid environmental group working to protect Lake Baikal Russian police have raided the Baikal Environmental Wave organization reports the Moscow Times. Police seized several computers, citing the reason for the raid to uncover the use of unlicensed software. A member of the group, however, linked the raid to its public stance against reopening the Baikalsk Paper and Pulp Mills on Lake Baikal, which closed due to pollution concerns two years ago. "All of our programs are licensed. They confiscated the computers without checking the license documents, saying they didn't have experts to look at them," Galina Kulebyakina, a member of Baikal Environmental Wave, told The Moscow Times. The re-opening of the mills was recently announced by Vladimir Putin after he visited the bottom of Lake Baikal in a submarine, claiming he could see no sign of environmental damage.
from AP, via PhysOrg: State to probe birth defects spike in Calif. town Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has ordered two state agencies to investigate a rash of birth defects that have confounded impoverished Kettleman City for more than a year.... The birth defects became a rallying point last year for residents trying to stop the expansion plans of the West's largest hazardous waste facility by Chemical Waste Management Inc. Their stories of miscarriages and the photographs they carried of children with facial defects failed to convince the Kings County Board of Supervisors that the company's expansion plans should not go forward.... Officials of Waste Management said they welcome the investigation and are confident it will show their operation is not to blame for the facial defects in five of 20 children born there between September 2007 and November 2008.
from Orange County Register: MTBE cleanup starts now, San Juan says The city said it has detected the additive MtBE in "all of its wells," constituting an emergency condition. The report says an emergency condition exists if the city must act to "safeguard life, health or property." The city has been in talks with Chevron for about two years to decide on the cleanup of MtBE from city groundwater. Chevron has proposed a solution that would require the company to access city land, but the city has refused access over disagreements about how the cleanup should proceed. MtBE spilled into city soil years ago from two Chevron gas stations. The additive was discovered two years ago in city groundwater. The city's groundwater-recovery plant has been hobbled by the council's decision not to pump water from wells that contain MtBE. The city has been supplementing its water supply by purchasing water from the Metropolitan Water District.... Mayor Lon Uso said, "Chevron has not stepped up and been responsible." Chevron spokesman Sean Comey said the groundwater is safe to drink.
from GQ: Warning: Your Cell Phone May Be Hazardous to Your Health Ever worry that that gadget you spend hours holding next to your head might be damaging your brain? Well, the evidence is starting to pour in, and it's not pretty. So why isn't anyone in America doing anything about it?... Though the scientific debate is heated and far from resolved, there are multiple reports, mostly out of Europe's premier research institutions, of cell-phone and PDA use being linked to "brain aging," brain damage, early-onset AlzÂheimer's, senility, DNA damage, and even sperm die-offs (many men, after all, keep their cell phones in their pants pockets or attached at the hip). In September 2007, the European Union's environmental watchdog, the European Environment Agency, warned that cell-phone technology "could lead to a health crisis similar to those caused by asbestos, smoking, and lead in petrol." Perhaps most worrisome, though, are the preliminary results of the multinational Interphone study sponsored by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, in Lyon, France. (Scientists from thirteen countries took part in the study, the United States conspicuously not among them.) Interphone researchers reported in 2008 that after a decade of cell-phone use, the chance of getting a brain tumor -- specifically on the side of the head where you use the phone -- goes up as much as 40 percent for adults.
from New York Times: Radiation Levels Cloud Vermont Reactor's Fate Levels of radioactive tritium have risen rapidly in recent weeks in the groundwater surrounding Vermont's sole nuclear power plant, leading both longtime supporters and foes of the reactor to question whether it will be allowed to keep operating... the rising radiation levels, an indication that reactor water is leaking into the soil, have stirred deep concern about the plant's safety and the credibility of its operators. So far no tritium has been found in any drinking water wells, nor have raised concentrations of radioactive material been found in the river, the source of the plant's cooling water.
from PhysOrg.com: Study finds prenatal exposure to certain chemicals affects childhood neurodevelopment A new study led by Mount Sinai researchers in collaboration with scientists from Cornell University and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has found higher prenatal exposure to phthalates -- manmade chemicals that interfere with hormonal messaging -- to be connected with disruptive and problem behaviors in children between the ages of 4 and 9 years. The study, which is the first to examine the effects of prenatal phthalate exposure on child neurobehavioral development, will be published January 28, on the Environmental Health Perspectives website.... "There is increasing evidence that phthalate exposure is harmful to children at all stages of development," said Stephanie Engel, PhD, lead study author and Associate Professor of Preventive Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. "We found a striking pattern of associations between low molecular weight phthalates -- which are commonly found in personal care products -- and disruptive childhood behaviors, such as aggressiveness and other conduct issues, and problems with attention. These same behavioral problems are commonly found in children diagnosed with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Oppositional Defiant Disorder, or Conduct Disorder."
from NUVO Newsweekly: Remembering the White River fishkill On Dec. 13, 1999, a white wall of foam came pouring out of the Anderson, Indiana, Wastewater Treatment Plant. A few days later, dead fish began to be discovered downriver, and by Christmas some 100,000 fish were estimated to be dead. Eventually, it was understood that aquatic life for 57 miles along the White River had been profoundly harmed, either completely killed or partially killed, including the death of 4.6 million fish. The source of the toxins: a discharge from Anderson-based Guide Corp., a factory that made automobile headlights.... Money was dispensed, remediation practices were put in place, and the White River was, ostensibly, restored. But it wasn't. I know because the White River is in my backyard.
from Newport News Daily Press: Virginia scraps its annual water pollution monitoring program Tasteless, odorless and nearly as clear as water, polychlorinated biphenyls are among the most dangerous toxic chemicals in Virginia's waterways. Every year, state officials monitor the chemicals, known as PCBs, by testing fish from selected river basins. Fish advisories follow. Not this year. Facing a $5 million funding cut, the state Department of Environmental Quality last summer scrapped the $365,000 PCB monitoring program. "There won't be any new advisories in Virginia because there's no new data," said Rob Hale, a professor at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, which was under contract to do the work.
from Environmental Health News: Scientists link flame retardants and reduced human fertility Women exposed to high levels of flame retardants take substantially longer to get pregnant, indicating for the first time that the widespread chemicals may affect human fertility, according to a study published Tuesday. Furniture cushions, carpet padding and other household items contain hormone-disrupting flame retardants called polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs. Two of the most widely used compounds have been banned in the United States since 2004, but they remain ubiquitous in the environment, inside homes and in the food supply. Epidemiologists from the University of California at Berkeley studied 223 pregnant women in California’s Salinas Valley, an agricultural community with predominantly low-income, Mexican immigrants. More than 97 percent of the women had PBDEs in their blood, and those with high levels were half as likely to conceive in any given month as the women with low levels.
from Washington Post: Officials fear toxic ingredient in Botox could become terrorist tool In early 2006, a mysterious cosmetics trader named Rakhman began showing up at salons in St. Petersburg, Russia, hawking a popular anti-aging drug at suspiciously low prices. He flashed a briefcase filled with vials and promised he could deliver more -- "as many as you want," he told buyers -- from a supplier somewhere in Chechnya. Rakhman's "Botox" was found to be a potent clone of the real thing, but investigators soon turned to a far bigger worry: the prospect of an illegal factory in Chechnya churning out raw botulinum toxin, the key ingredient in the beauty drug and one of world's deadliest poisons....Al-Qaeda is known to have sought botulinum toxin. The Lebanese Hezbollah movement, which the United States has designated a terrorist organization, and other groups have bought and sold counterfeit drugs to raise cash. Now, with the emergence of a global black market for fake Botox, terrorism experts see an opportunity for a deadly convergence.
from Environmental Health News: Younger mothers' breast milk has highest levels of flame retardants A study of breast milk samples from more than 300 women in North Carolina finds flame retardants contaminate the milk from almost three-quarters of the woman in the study. Women older than 35 had the lowest levels of PBDEs in their milk. The highest levels were measured in breast milk from women aged 25 to 29, followed by women younger than 25 years old. The results suggest that younger mothers may have higher exposure to these flame retardant chemicals through their environment or lifestyles. PBDEs are chemicals used in electronics, furniture, carpeting and textiles to reduce the risk of fire. In rats, early life exposures to PBDE has been associated with altered thyroid hormone function, hyperactivity and poorer learning and memory. Human health effects are not so well understood. Most Americans have detectable levels of PBDEs in their blood. Dust and food may be the biggest sources for people. Breast fed babies are exposed through breast milk, however, experts agree that breastfeeding also provides important nutritional and immune benefits for the infant.
from London Guardian: Fears over use of chemicals to castrate pigs Meat from pigs that have been "chemically castrated" could soon be on sale in Britain, with no label to warn shoppers that it contains a controversial drug. An injection to prevent puberty in male pigs was licensed for use in Britain and most of Europe last year, and has gone on sale to farmers who produce pork. Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer developed the drug, Improvac, to allow farmers to grow pigs bigger before slaughter but without them releasing the hormones that cause boar taint, a taste many consumers dislike. In much of Europe, young males are physically castrated, but in the UK the practice is rarely carried out.
from Agence France-Presse: Indians keep faith with Ganges despite pollution For India's devout Hindus, the sacred River Ganges is always clean and always pure -- even if its waters are a toxic stew of human sewage, discarded garbage and factory waste. The belief that the Ganges washes away sin entices millions of Hindus into the river each year, and huge crowds of pilgrims are currently passing through the town of Haridwar for the three-month Kumbh Mela bathing festival. But concern over pollution along the length of the 2,500 kilometre (1,500 mile) river is growing, and the city of Kanpur -- 800 kilometres downstream of Haridwar -- is the site of one of the worst stretches of all... Worshippers like Ram Sharma, who regularly wades in the water for an early morning bath with only a cloth tied around his waist, are proof that for many Indians faith outweighs science. "How can you call this water dirty?" asked Sharma incredulously. "For us it is holy water," he said as he dipped his cupped hands in the river and took a slurp.
from Lake County Record-Bee: Growing concerns: Advisory board broaches the issue of pot on public land The unregulated land use practice of marijuana grows on public property creates a host of environmental problems. Greg Guisti, Lake County Fish and Wildlife Advisory Committee chair compares the task of tackling the subject with "wrestling an octopus." Lake County is one of the leading counties in the state in regard to illegal growing of marijuana on public lands. That was brought home to approximately 30 area citizens who attended a meeting of the Lake County Fish and Wildlife Advisory meeting on Thursday at 6:30 p.m. Guisti said that these are the first public meetings he has heard that address the growing of cannabis on public lands. U.S. Forest Service Chief Ranger Lee Johnson told the crowd that illegal marijuana gardens in the Mendocino National Forest are a major problem because they decimate fish, wildlife and the environment.
from Inter Press Service: Plastic Bags: Convenience Costing the Earth When Nairobi was founded in 1899, it took its name from what the Maasai called the place: Ewassi Nyirobi, "cool waters." A century later, the river has something stuck in its throat: millions of plastic bags threaten to choke it. According to Robert Orina, chief enforcement officer at Kenya's National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), only about 25 percent of the 1,500 tonnes of solid waste generated in Nairobi each day is collected. In slum areas, where 60 percent of Nairobi residents live, there is no formal garbage collection. "The result is there is garbage strewn all over the place and most of this is stuffed into plastic bags which remain in the environment for many years," Orina says. "The situation in Nairobi is not unique but rather is replicated across the country."
from ABC News: Lead Found in Women's Handbags A landmark agreement involving two big retail chains establishes, for the first time, limits on lead in women's handbags and wallets. The Center for Environmental Health went to 100 of the nation's top retailers -- including Target, Macy's, Wal-Mart and Kohl's -- and bought purses. The group had the bags tested for lead at an independent lab. Two separate tests were conducted. Some bags were wiped to see how much, if any, lead would simply rub off the material. The bags also were tested for the total lead content of the products. The tests came back showing disturbingly high levels of lead, the Center for Environmental Health said.
from New Scientist: Engineered maize toxicity claims and counterclaims Monsanto, the giant of genetically modified crops, has for the first time been forced to release raw data from toxicology studies it carried out on three strains of its modified maize. An external analysis of the data claims it shows that eating the maize could result in damage to the liver and kidneys, but this has been dismissed as unsupportable by a government agency and independent toxicologists.... With each of the three strains of maize, researchers say they found unusual concentrations of hormones and other compounds in the blood and urine of the tested rats, suggesting each strain impaired kidney and liver function. By the end of the trials, the female rats that were fed MON 863 had elevated blood-sugar levels and raised concentrations of fatty substances called triglycerides. Both are potential precursors of diabetes, according to Seralini. And there were further signs that the kidneys of rats fed NK 603 were impaired, he says. "What we've shown is clearly not proof of toxicity, but signs of toxicity," says Seralini. "I'm sure there's no acute toxicity, but who's to say there are no chronic effects?" He wants longer studies on more species to check for such effects. Well, there's more stories than this -- but that was 75 of them! You may want to try the PANICloud for more specific topics! |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
