Top Stories

Handwashing and House Cleaning May Protect Against Unhealthy Chemicals

Washing your hands and cleaning your house frequently may help to lower your contact with common flame-retardant chemicals, according to a new study by researchers at the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health (CCCEH) at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. The study is the first to assess whether house cleaning and handwashing can effectively lower exposure to flame retardants. Results appear in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology.

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Educational Interventions Decrease Sunburns Among Heavy Equipment Operators

Implementation of educational interventions among operating engineers (heavy equipment operators) in Michigan significantly increased the use of sunscreen and decreased the number of reported sunburns, according to results from a randomized controlled trial published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

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Whale shark tourism and the challenges of international research

Every year, many University of Victoria graduate students set off to do research in countries around the world.

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Salmon at stake

Salmon returning to the rivers of Vancouver Island to spawn have always had a long and perilous migration route. But in the past 10 years their time away has become deadlier than ever, with populations dropping precipitously.

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A rare disease inspires a Stanford team to develop a new test for aldehyde exposure

In the first ten years of their lives, kids born with Fanconi anemia lose the ability to make blood cells and need bone marrow transplants to survive. And although the transplant cures the bone marrow failure, people remain at greatly increased risk of cancer and rarely live past their 20s.

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Don’t Let Depression Keep You From Exercising

Exercise may be just as crucial to a depression patient’s good health as finding an effective antidepressant.

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Adhering to Paris Agreement Climate Goal Could Significantly Decrease Heat-Related Summer Deaths

As much of the UK and Europe swelters under heatwave conditions, new research led by scientists from the University of Bristol has produced compelling evidence that loss of life through increased heat stress during heatwaves can be limited if we stabilise climate at the lower of the Paris Agreement climate goals.

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Solar Activities Can Affect the East Asian Winter Monsoon at the Multidecadal Time Scale

Solar irradiation provides light, heat and energy for driving atmospheric motion on Earth, and is directly affected by solar activities. The Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicated that solar activities have significant effects on the climate system, but large uncertainties also exist. The related mechanisms, especially how solar activities affect East Asian climate, are still unclear and need further investigation.

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New Nerve Gas Detector Built with Legos and a Smartphone

Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have designed a way to sense dangerous chemicals using, in part, a simple rig consisting of a smartphone and a box made from Lego bricks, which could help first responders and scientists in the field identify deadly and difficult-to-detect nerve agents such as VX and sarin. The new methodology described in a paper published Wednesday in the open-access journal ACS Central Science  combines a chemical sensor with photography to detect and identify different nerve agents — odorless, tasteless chemical weapons that can cause severe illness and death, sometimes within minutes.

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Break It Down: Understanding the Formation of Chemical Byproducts During Water Treatment

To improve water treatment, researchers use modeling to understand how chemical byproducts form during the advanced oxidation process.

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