Defined as the loss of memory due to brain injury, shock, fatigue, repression or illness, amnesia can be short- or long-term, full or partial. Renowned expert in the cognitive neuroscience of memory, York Research Chair Shayna Rosenbaum, a professor of psychology in the Faculty of Health, has spent her professional life investigating, among other things, the mystery of amnesia.

Babies in prams accompanying older siblings on the school run are twice as likely to be exposed to harmful air pollution in the morning than in the afternoon, a new study has found.

Confidence in doctors, therapists and nursing staff leads to an improvement in subjectively perceived complaints, satisfaction and quality of life in patients. This is the conclusion of a meta-analysis by psychologists at the University of Basel, published in the journal PLOS ONE.

You are what you eat, as the saying goes, and while good dietary choices boost your own health, they also could improve the health care system and even benefit the planet. Healthier people mean not only less disease but also reduced greenhouse gas emissions from health care.

As it turns out, some relatively small diet tweaks could add up to significant inroads in addressing climate change.

Portland State University scientists have found that significant levels of cancer-causing benzene in e-cigarette vapors can form when the devices are operated at high power. 

The finding by a research team headed by chemistry professor James F. Pankow were published March 8 in the online journal PLOS ONE.   

A study published in the journal Health Communications shows that women at high risk for breast cancer who received a letter informing them of their options for additional imaging with contrast-enhanced MRI of the breast (in addition to a letter sent to their primary care physician) were more likely to return to the center for additional screening with MRI. The letter, which is included in the published paper, may help breast imaging centers navigate the complex legal, ethical and institutional landscapes in a way that increases the likelihood that women will follow through with American Cancer Society breast cancer screening recommendations for adjunct breast screening in women at elevated risk. 

The United States has managed to reduce the amount of air pollution it produces, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at and breathing in the air. That’s because pollution created in Asia is gradually making its way across the Pacific Ocean to the western hemisphere.

According to research published in the Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics journal, up to 65 percent of the newly created smog in the U.S. has actually drifted over from Asia. The country’s western states are most vulnerable to the increase in ozone due to their proximity to the continent.

WHAT: Nearly half of all deaths in the United States in 2012 that were caused by cardiometabolic diseases, including heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes, have been linked to substandard eating habits, according to a study published in the March 7 issue of JAMA and funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health.

The Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, lists about 65 chemicals as “toxic pollutants” under the Clean Water Act, 16 of which are polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs. LSU Department of Environmental Sciences doctoral candidate Parichehr Saranjampour conducted research on a chemical class of PAHs that is not on the EPA’s list — Dibenzothiophene, or DBT. DBT and its three related chemical compounds contain sulfur that is found in crude oil. Saranjampour studied how these chemical compounds move and change over time, which revealed new information that has never been published before. Her findings differ from the EPA’s information about these chemical compounds. This new research was published today in the Journal of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.

Professor Andrew Johnson and Dr Monika Jürgens, Environmental Scientists at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, contributed to a recent study looking at which metal presents the greatest risk to the freshwater ecosystem in the Bohai region of China. They explain more:

Thanks to support from the Natural Environment Research Council Newton Fund, the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) has been collaborating with the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, in Beijing, China since the beginning of 2016 on the topic of chemical pollution in China.