Hajj has grappled with public health and safety risks such as crowd crushes and infectious diseases in the past. It’s now facing an emerging risk: climate extremes.
You can’t see them, but there likely are nanoplastics in this Mediterranean seawater.
Lisa Schaetzle, Moment, via Getty Images
Nanoplastics are the smallest microplastics, far narrower than a human hair. Very little is known about their composition, structure or how they break down in the environment.
Hazardous materials regulations make sure that the vehicles carrying them have the right labels.
Miguel Perfectti/iStock via Getty Images Plus
Nobody wants to see an accident involving flammable, corrosive or radioactive material. But understanding the rules put in place to prevent these accidents isn’t easy.
Certain chemicals in synthetic fabrics such as spandex, nylon and polyester can alter the skin microbiome.
SBenitez/Moment via Getty Images
Ian Myles, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
From synthetic fabrics to car exhaust to wildfires, exposure to environmental pollutants push the skin microbiome to adapt in ways that reduce its ability to protect the skin.
PFAS are showing up in water systems across the U.S.
Jacek Dylag/Unsplash
Filtering out PFAS is only the first step. These ‘forever chemicals’ still have to be destroyed, and there are many questions about how to do that safely.
Scientists test drinking water for PFAS at an EPA lab in Cincinnati.
AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel
These chemicals are now found on almost every part of the planet, including in the bodies of a large percentage of the American public. An environmental health scientist explains the risks.
Microplastics are created when everyday products – including clothes, food and beverage packaging, home furnishings, plastic bags, toys and toiletries – degrade.
Exposure to asbestos can cause the same cancer in dogs as it does in humans. Recent cases of asbestos-contaminated mulch highlight the need to better protect our pets.
The most important factor for disease risk is exposure – you actually have to inhale asbestos fibres to be at risk of disease. But asbestos needs to be treated with caution.
As suburbs encroach on farmland, residents’ risk of exposure to farm chemicals rises.
Carly Hyland
New research provides evidence for the first time that the primary chemical in Roundup is reaching people in nearby homes, and it isn’t just from the food they eat.
Scientists found PFAS hot spots in Miami’s Biscayne Bay where the chemicals are entering coastal waters and reaching the ocean. Water samples point to some specific sources.
For students to learn in a safe, healthy environment, school administrators must deal with a myriad of potential environmental contaminants, from allergens to cockroaches.
New restrictions on PFAS and other potentially hazardous chemicals in Australia present an opportunity for industry to develop alternatives for new, safe and clean products.
Depleted uranium shells will equip M1A1 Abrams battle tanks, also from the U.S.
Lance Cpl. Julio McGraw, USMC/Flickr
Depleted uranium munitions are bad news for enemy tanks, but are not nuclear weapons, and studies have shown that they pose low risks of radiation or chemical exposure.
One symptom of arsenic poisoning is the growth of plaques on the skin called arsenical keratosis.
Anita Ghosh/REACH via Flickr
Millions of people worldwide are exposed via soil and water to arsenic, whether naturally occurring or related to pollution. Chronic exposure is linked to the formation of cancer stem cells.
PFAS can be found in hundreds of water systems in the U.S.
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The drinking water systems serving over 70 million people may not meet newly proposed water quality standards. It could cost hundreds of billions of dollars to fix that.
A new federal regulation will set national limits on two ‘forever chemicals’ widely found in drinking water.
Thanasis Zovoilis/moment via Getty Images
The Biden administration is finalizing the first federal limits on two compounds, PFOA and PFOS, in drinking water. These so-called ‘forever chemicals’ have been linked to numerous health effects.
Research Director, Australian Microplastic Assessment Project (AUSMAP); Honorary Senior Research Fellow, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University