The World Health Organization recently published its latest noise pollution guidelines for Europe. The guidelines recommend outdoor noise levels that should not be exceeded for aircraft, road and rail noise and two new sources: wind turbine and leisure noise.
Despite overall lower levels of harmful emissions from power plants and vehicles throughout the year, winter air pollution in the Eastern United States remains high. A new study explains why.
Carbon monoxide (CO), like many gases, cannot be detected by our human senses. We cannot see it, smell it or taste it. But unlike many gases, small amounts are extremely harmful to us.
- By Robert Shaw
Night has always been a difficult realm for humans: we’ve had to learn to cope with the cold and the dark to thrive in it. Since the industrial revolution we’ve found ways to adapt our homes and cities to operate during the night. But as our conquest of the dark continues, the border between night and day is becoming increasingly blurry.
The credibility of scientific findings hinges on their reproducibility. As a scientist, it is therefore disastrous when you are unable to replicate your own findings. Our laboratory has found itself in just this situation several times; in each instance, unintended environmental exposure distorted our data. Our first accidental foray into toxicology 20 years ago convinced us of the need to understand the reproductive effects of environmental chemical contaminants. The latest twist in our journey down that road adds a new dimension to an old concern, BPA.
- By Vox channel
Not everyone will readily admit to peeing in swimming pools, but it does happen. An anonymous survey from 2012 found that 19 percent of adults admitted they had peed in a pool at least once. But when you use a pool as a giant toilet, that yellow trail contains some nasty bacteria and parasites.
- By John Meeker
One of the main problems with plastics is that although we may only need them fleetingly – seconds in the case of microbeads in personal care products, or minutes as in plastic grocery bags – they stick around for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, much of this plastic ends up as environmental pollution.
In the first of many pending lawsuits to go to trial, a jury in San Francisco concluded on Aug. 10 that the plaintiff had developed cancer from exposure to Roundup, Monsanto’s widely used herbicide, and ordered the company to pay US$289 million in damages. The plaintiff, Dewayne Johnson, had used Roundup in his job as groundskeeper in a California school district. He later developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The jury awarded Johnson $39 million in compensatory damages to cover pain, suffering and medical bills due to negligence by Monsanto, plus an additional $250 million in punitive damages.
Today, nearly 40 percent of U.S. adults and 21 percent of youth are obese. This trend is on the upswing and the worldwide population is becoming more obese – which is increasing the risk of other conditions like Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease whose prevalence has doubled globally in the last 30 years. But you may be surprised to learn that it’s not just food that is making us fat.
During recent summers, children living on the West Coast of Canada have been breathing some of the most polluted air on record. This is due to seasonal wildfires, which have burned through vast zones of North America and affected even larger areas with their smoke.
As you pack your bags for the cottage or campground this weekend, don’t forget to bring light clothes with long sleeves — and a truckload or two of insect repellent.
The health risk presented by air pollution depends on how much dirty air we breathe over time. But people’s exposure to pollution can vary greatly between people living on the same street, or even the same house.
How can you tell whether an agency has been captured?
It’s recently been reported that scientists have managed to create a test to measure how much urine is in a swimming pool.
Mercury pollution is a problem usually associated with fish consumption. But some people in China, the world’s largest mercury emitter, are exposed to more methylmercury from rice than they are from fish.
Exposure to fracking chemicals in utero may harm the immune system and diminish the ability of female offspring to fend off diseases like multiple sclerosis, according to a new study with mice.
It’s hard not to empathize with the people in the smoggy images of New Delhi or Ulaanbataar or Kathmandu, often wearing masks, walking to school or work though soupy cloudiness.
There is growing evidence to suggest that air pollution does not just affect our health – it affects our behavior too.
A new scientific study shows that bright electric light exposure of preschool children in the evening suppresses melatonin production almost completely, an important addition to the growing body of research in this area.
We poisoned ourselves with lead during the 20th century in most industrial nations. We used the metal widely, because lead paint is durable, engines run better on leaded gasoline and lead water pipes don’t rust.
Graphene is something of a celebrity in the world of nanoscale materials. Isolated in 2004 by Nobel Prize winners Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov
Anxiety caused by exposure to pollution may make people more prone to cheating and unethical behavior, according to new research. And that can be a driver behind the higher crime rates in high-pollution areas.
The search for autism’s causes is a daunting task — but researchers are investigating a variety of factors that might play a role.