Energy Saving Clean-Air Machine

Mathew Johnsson, University of Copenhagen.Industries across Europe are threatened with shutdown as European Union emission rules for Volatile Organic Compounds are tightened. Now an air cleaning invention from the University of Copenhagen has proven its ability to remove these compounds. And in the process they have helped a business in Danish town Aarhus improve relations to angry neighbors.

Inventor, Copenhagen chemist Matthew Johnson, presented evidence for the air cleaning invention at the conference "First International Education Forum on Environment and Energy Science".

Everyday substances increase risk of allergies

The use of chemicals in our everyday lives entails increased risks of allergies in children, according to a study at Karlstad University in Sweden. The prevalence of PGEs, propylene glycol and glycol ethers, in bedroom air is associated with asthma, hay fever, and eczema, but also with antibodies against common allergens in children. The study shows a risk increase of up to 180 percent.

Pesticide in food: Apples, Celery top the list

Environmental Working Group has released the seventh edition of its Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce with updated information on 53 fruits and vegetables and their total pesticide loads. EWG highlights the worst offenders with its “Dirty Dozen” list and the cleanest conventional produce with its “Clean 15” list.

Analysts at EWG synthesized data collected from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration from 2000 to 2009. Produce is ranked based on a composite score, equally weighing six factors that reflect how many pesticides was found in testing of on each type of the produce and at what levels. Most samples are washed and peeled prior to being tested, so the rankings reflect the amounts of the chemicals likely present on the food when is it eaten.

Breakthrough in cancer vaccine research

Researchers at the University of Cambridge hope to revolutionise cancer therapy after discovering one of the reasons why many previous attempts to harness the immune system to treat cancerous tumours have failed.

Disease in rural China linked to polluted coal

In remote, rural areas of southwestern China, villagers cook and dry their clothes by burning pieces of coal they pick up off the ground. This fuel releases a toxin that may be poisoning millions of people, according to an ongoing investigation by chemists at the University at Buffalo in New York. The researchers are presenting their work today at the AVS 57th International Symposium & Exhibition, which takes place this week at the Albuquerque Convention Center in New Mexico.

The toxin in question is fluoride, which binds to calcium in the human body and causes the disease fluorosis. This condition, which affects millions in China's Guizhou province, can cause dental problems, such as discolored and pitted teeth, as well as joint pain, muscular degeneration, and deformities in joints and the spine.

Organic Foods Reduce Environmental Risks

Credit: Rob Owen-WahlThe US President's Cancer Panel Report released today exhorts consumers to choose food grown without pesticides or chemical fertilizers, antibiotics, and growth hormones to help decrease their exposure to environmental chemicals that can increase their risk of contracting cancer. Organic products avoid the use of these chemicals.

"Exposure to pesticides can be decreased by choosing, to the extent possible, food grown without pesticides or chemical fertilizers... Similarly, exposure to antibiotics, growth hormones, and toxic run-off from livestock feed lots can be minimized by eating free-range meat raised without these medications," according to the landmark report, "Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk: What We Can Do Now," submitted to President Obama by Dr. LaSalle Leffall, Jr., an oncologist and professor of surgery at Howard University, and Dr. Margaret L. Kripke, an immunologist at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

Researchers develop new method to detect melamine in milk

Visual color and turbidity changes of gold nanoparticles resulted from different concentrations of melamine (decreasing from left to right).
Credit: Fang Wei and Na LIUniversity of Miami engineer and her collaborators are using gold nanoparticles to develop a quick, simple and efficient detection method for melamine in dairy products.

University of Miami assistant professor in the College of Engineering, Na Li and her collaborators have developed a fast, economical and easy method to detect melamine in milk. Melamine is the compound found in contaminated pet food and in tainted dairy products from China in 2007 and 2008 respectively. The laced dairy products were responsible for sickening thousands of people, especially children. The situation caused recalls of Chinese dairy products all over the world.

Monitoring melamine-tainted products continues to be a worldwide concern. Melamine is an industrial substance commonly used in plastics and fertilizers. Since Melamine is high in nitrogen, when added to foods it can make the products appear higher in protein value during standard testing. However, when ingested, the chemical can cause serious health problems and in some cases death.

New chemicals recommended for listing under the Rotterdam Convention

United Nations chemical experts have recommended that two pesticides - endosulfan and azinphos methyl - be included in the Rotterdam Convention's "Prior Informed Consent" procedure.

The Convention's Chemical Review Committee based its recommendation on a review of national regulatory actions to ban these chemicals, due to unacceptable risks to human health and the environment.

New study to show how our body clock controls disease

New treatments for inflammatory lung diseases and a host of other conditions could be developed following a study into the impact of circadian rhythms – or body clock – at The University of Manchester.

In a partnership between the University of Manchester, the NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Centre and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), a team of scientists will investigate how our biological clock controls inflammation in lung diseases such Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).

Iowa State NWRC study finds flaxseed lowers high cholesterol in men

Suzanne Hendrich, an ISU professor in food science and human nutrition, led a study finding that men can experience some cholesterol-lowering benefit from consuming flaxseed lignans. Photo by Jaclyn Hansel, College of Human SciencesA new study from Iowa State University's Nutrition and Wellness Research Center (NWRC) may give men a way to combat high cholesterol without drugs – if they don't mind sprinkling some flaxseed into their daily diet.

Suzanne Hendrich, an ISU professor in food science and human nutrition, led a study that examined the effects of flaxseed lignan in 90 people diagnosed with high cholesterol. The results showed that consuming at least 150 milligrams of flaxseed lignans per day (about three tablespoons) decreased cholesterol in men, but not women, by just under 10 percent over the three months that they were given the flaxseed.

Exposure to BPA may cause permanent fertility defects

Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have discovered that exposure during pregnancy to Bisphenol A (BPA), a common component of plastics, causes permanent abnormalities in the uterus of offspring, including alteration in their DNA. The findings were reported in the March issue of Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB J.).

Led by Hugh S. Taylor, M.D., professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at Yale, the study is the first to show that BPA exposure permanently affects sensitivity to estrogen.

Assessing antibiotic breakdown in manure

Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientist Scott Yates is studying how oxytetracycline (OTC), an antibiotic that is administered to animals, breaks down in cattle manure.

Livestock producers in the United States often use antibiotics to control disease in their animals, and confined U.S. livestock and poultry generate about 63.8 million tons of manure every year. The drugs are often only partially absorbed by the digestive tract, and the rest are excreted with their pharmaceutical activity intact.

Evidence of increasing antibiotic resistance

A team of scientists in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands are reporting disturbing evidence that soil microbes have become progressively more resistant to antibiotics over the last 60 years.

Surprisingly, this trend continues despite apparent more stringent rules on use of antibiotics in medicine and agriculture, and improved sewage treatment technology that broadly improves water quality in surrounding environments. Their report appears in ACS' bi-weekly journal Environmental Science and Technology.

Climate change one factor in malaria spread

Climate change is one reason malaria is on the rise in some parts of the world, new research finds, but other factors such as migration and land-use changes are likely also at play. The research, published in The Quarterly Review of Biology, aims to sort out contradictions that have emerged as scientists try to understand why malaria has been spreading into highland areas of East Africa, Indonesia, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

"We assessed … conclusions from both sides and found that evidence for a role of climate in the dynamics is robust," write study authors Luis Fernando Chaves from Emory University and Constantianus Koenraadt of Wageningen University in the Netherlands. "However, we also argue that over-emphasizing a role for climate is misleading for setting a research agenda, even one which attempts to understand climate change impacts on emerging malaria patterns."

Intestinal bacteria drive obesity and metabolic disease in immune-altered mice

Photo: Joanna ServaesIncreased appetite and insulin resistance can be transferred from one mouse to another via intestinal bacteria, according to research being published online this week by Science magazine.

The finding strengthens the case that intestinal bacteria can contribute to human obesity and metabolic disease, since previous research has shown that intestinal bacterial populations differ between obese and lean humans.

Vigilance needed in nanotechnology

University of Calgary chemist finds right mix of tools to measure nanomaterials in blood vessels

University of Calgary chemistry professor David Cramb is a step closer to helping solve a complex problem in nanotechnology: the impact nanoparticles have on human health and the environment.

Cramb, director of the Faculty of Science's nanoscience program, and his researchers have developed a methodology to measure various aspects of nanoparticles in the blood stream of chicken embryos. Their discovery is published in the March online edition of Chemical Physics Letters.

Pesticide Atrazine can turn male frogs into females

An atrazine-induced female frog (a genetic male) is shown (bottom) copulating with an unexposed male sibling. This union produced viable eggs and larvae that survived to metamorphosis and adulthood. Yet, because both animals were genetic males, the offspring were all males. (Tyrone Hayes photo)Atrazine, one of the world's most widely used pesticides, 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 per cent 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.

Dolphins' health shed light on human and ocean health

The Georgia Dolphin Health Assessment capture-release study provides information on the health of the wild dolphin population that inhabits estuaries along the Georgia coast.
Credit: Brian Balmer, Sarasota Dolphin Research ProgramnScientists discover clues into human diseases by studying dolphins in a changing ocean

A panel of governmental, academic and non-profit scientists speaking today at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) unveiled research suggesting that diseases found in dolphins are similar to human diseases and can provide clues into how human health might be affected by exposure to contaminated coastal water or seafood.

"Dolphins and humans are both mammals, and their diet includes much of the same seafood that we consume. Unlike us, however, they are exposed to potential ocean health threats such as toxic algae or poor water quality 24 hours a day," said Carolyn Sotka of the NOAA Oceans and Human Health Initiative and lead organizer of the session. "Our ecological and physiological similarities make dolphins an important 'sentinel species' to not only warn us of health risks, but also provide insight into how our health can benefit from new medical discoveries."

Plant buffers may limit spread of antibiotics in animal waste

This photo shows buffer strips of grass and trees adjacent to cornfields at MU Greenley Center | Credit: Kristen VeumResearch by scientists at the University of Missouri Center for Agroforestry suggests that buffer strips of grasses and other plants can trap and break down veterinary antibiotics in manure fertilizers.

Buffer strips have already demonstrated that they can be effective in protecting water quality, controlling erosion and supporting wildlife around crop fields.

Study reveals dangers of nicotine in third-hand smoke

Berkeley Lab chemists Lara Gundel and Hugo Destaillats led a research team that revealed the potential health hazards posed by residual nicotine in third-hand smoke when it reacts with ambient nitrous acid. (Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt, Berkeley Lab Public Affairs)Nicotine in third-hand smoke, the residue from tobacco smoke that clings to virtually all surfaces long after a cigarette has been extinguished, reacts with the common indoor air pollutant nitrous acid to produce dangerous carcinogens. This new potential health hazard was revealed in a multi-institutional study led by researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).