With bright reds and yellows — and even the occasional white — poppies are very bright and colorful. Their petals, however, are also very thin; they are made up of just three layers of cells. University of Groningen scientists Casper van der Kooi and Doekele Stavenga used microscopy and mathematical models describing how light interacts […]
Microplastic contamination found in common source of groundwater
Microplastics contaminate the world’s surface waters, yet scientists have only just begun to explore their presence in groundwater systems. A new study is the first to report microplastics in fractured limestone aquifers – a groundwater source that accounts for 25 percent of the global drinking water supply. The study identified microplastic fibers, along with a […]
The Bitter Price of Tropical Fruits
Sweet, healthy and delicious, and inexpensive to boot, pineapples are one of the world’s most desired fruits. On average, the world eats more than 26,000 tons of pineapples each year. But hidden beneath their low-price tag lies an industry riddled with heavy pesticide use, water pollution, deforestation and the exploitation of farmworkers, who are forced […]
Microplastics discovered in human stools across the globe in ‘first study of its kind’
Microplastics have been found in the human food chain as particles made of polypropylene (PP), polyethylene-terephthalate (PET) and others were detected in human stools, research presented today at the 26th UEG Week in Vienna reveals. Researchers from the Medical University of Vienna and the Environment Agency Austria monitored a group of participants from countries across the […]
Health Concerns as Japan Plans to Dump a Million Tons of Radioactive Fukushima Water Into Ocean
In a move that has sparked outrage from local residents and dire health warnings from environmentalists, the Japanese government is reportedly planning to release 1.09 million tons of water from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean despite evidence that it contains “radioactive material well above legally permitted levels.” While both the Japanese government and Tokyo Electric […]
Engineers Create Plants That Glow
Imagine that instead of switching on a lamp when it gets dark, you could read by the light of a glowing plant on your desk. MIT engineers have taken a critical first step toward making that vision a reality. By embedding specialized nanoparticles into the leaves of a watercress plant, they induced the plants to […]
A GHOST IN THE MAKING: RUSTY-PATCHED BUMBLE BEE DOCUMENTARY
Everyone has heard about bee declines, but with so much attention focused on domesticated honeybees, someone has to speak up for the 4,000 species of native bees in North America. Natural history photographer Clay Bolt is on a multi-year quest to tell the stories of our native bees, and one elusive species – the Rusty-patched […]
GLYPHOSATE ENVIRONMENTAL EXPOSURE STUDY
Your intake of glyphosate is happening through the food you eat, the water you drink and the places where you live and play. Some sources deliver higher amounts than others – for example, non-organic oats sprayed with glyphosate before harvest, and foods made with genetically modified soybeans. Other sources are not so clear, so we […]
Red Squirrels In The British Isles Are Infected With Leprosy Bacteria
Microbiologists at EPFL and the University of Edinburgh have discovered that red squirrels in Britain and Ireland carry the two bacterial species that cause leprosy in humans. Once rampant in medieval Europe, leprosy dramatically declined by the end of the Middle Ages for reasons that are still unclear. About a century ago, leprosy in Europe […]
Monsanto’s Glyphosate Most Heavily Used Weed-Killer In History
Monsanto’s signature herbicide glyphosate, first marketed as “Roundup,” is now the most widely and heavily applied weed-killer in the history of chemical agriculture in both the U.S. and globally, according to a landmark report published today. The paper, published Feb. 2, 2016 in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Sciences Europe, reports that to date 18.9 billion […]