A Global perspective on hazardous chemicals in the workplace

Hazardous chemicals are a vital part of many industries, but lax and inconsistent safety standards put workers' health and lives at risk all over the world, writes Christian Friis Bach. 

Christian Friis Bach is Under Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.

Millions of workers are exposed every day to hazardous chemicals around the globe, in developing and developed countries. These chemicals are purchased and shipped from all over the world and differences in language and labelling could make them even more dangerous. However, thanks to a true success story of international cooperation, the danger is abating every day. This is worth celebrating on the World Day for Safety and Health at Work

Why Bees Can't Avoid Pesticides

Pesticides such as as neonicotinoids are already under close scrutiny because research appears to show that, certainly for honey bees at least, they may interrupt the insect’s normal behaviors and they are suspected to play a part in colony collapse disorder.

How Desalination Technology Is Helping Solve California's Drought

Four years of devastating droughts in California have pushed cities and counties in the Golden State to seriously consider turning to the one drinking source that is not depleting anytime soon – seawater. With the Pacific Ocean abutting their shores, water desalination may be the much-needed solution for Californians. But desalination has its disadvantages, the chief ones being the high costs and the potential environmental damage.

Aluminum-ion battery technology advances

A new high-performance 'aluminum-ion' battery could be the technical breakthrough needed to boost the renewable energy takeover. It's safe, uses abundant low-cost materials, recharges in one minute and withstands many thousands of recharge cycles.

If this new battery lives up to expectations, it could propel a whole new chapter in the renewable takeover of the world's energy supply.

Stanford University scientists have invented the first high-performance aluminum battery that's fast-charging, long-lasting, inexpensive - and safe.

Nepal earthquake causes extensive damage and kills thousands

Powerful aftershocks rocked Nepal on Sunday, panicking survivors of a quake that killed more than 2,300 and triggering fresh avalanches at Everest base camp, as rescuers dug through rubble in the devastated capital Kathmandu.

A string of earthquakes have been occurring in Chile and Southern California. 

How to help your brain age more slowly

Brains age, just like the rest of the body, even for those don't get neurological disease, according to an Institute of Medicine.

"Some of the changes that one observes doesn't mean that it's all over, gloom and doom," the committee’s vice chair, Kristine Yaffe, MD, told the Washington Post.

​While aging does more damage to some than others, most people can take steps to improve their health, according to Yaffe, the Roy and Marie Scola Endowed Chair and professor of psychiatry, neurology, and epidemiology at UCSF and chief of geriatric psychiatry and director of the Memory Disorders Clinic at the San Francisco VA Medical Center.

Mountains warming faster than expected

High elevation environments around the world may be warming much faster than previously thought, according to members of an international research team including Raymond Bradley, director of the Climate System Research Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. They call for more aggressive monitoring of temperature changes in mountain regions and more attention to the potential consequences of warming.

What's worse for polar bears- Global Warming or Pollution?

As if melting ice in Polar bears' Arctic habitat was not enough, Norwegian scientists have found that organic pollutants such as pesticide residues are disrupting their thyroid and endocrine systems, adding a further threat to the species' survival.

Cross-species animal fights explained by new research

Why do animals fight with members of other species? A nine-year study by UCLA biologists says the reason often has to do with "obtaining priority access to females" in the area.

The scientists observed and analyzed the behavior of several species of Hetaerina damselflies, also known as rubyspot damselflies. For the study, published this month in the print edition of the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, researchers observed more than 100 damselflies a day in their natural habitat along rivers and streams in Texas, Arizona and Mexico.

Microbes have major effect on climate change

Carbon, held in frozen permafrost soils for tens of thousands of years, is being released as Arctic regions of the Earth warm and is further fueling global climate change, according to a Florida State University researcher.