News by Subject Biology

A new study soon to appear in the Faculty of Public Health's Journal of Public Health, published by Oxford University Press, suggests that air pollution and living in apartment buildings may be associated with an increased risk for dangerous conditions like heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes. This paper is embargoed until midnight EST on June 25.

The benefits of living in a walkable neighborhood could be diminished by increased exposure to traffic-related air pollution, suggests a study led by St. Michael's Hospital and ICES, a non-profit research institute that uses population-based health information to produce knowledge on a broad range of health care issues.

New research led by climate scientists from the University of Bristol suggests that the representation of clouds in climate models is as, or more, important than the amount of greenhouse gas emissions when it comes to projecting future Greenland ice sheet melt.

According to ecotoxicologist from Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU), from the '90s and during 2000s in the tissues of Russian Far Eastern mussels the concentration of organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) that had been globally used in agriculture in the mid-20th century has increased about 10 times. OCPs pollute and affect badly the ecosystems of the Sea of Japan, the Sea of Okhotsk, and the Bering Sea. A related review was published in Water Research.

Research by social scientists from Durham University and Lancaster University shows the US military is one of the largest climate polluters in history, consuming more liquid fuels and emitting more CO2e (carbon-dioxide equivalent) than most countries.

A growing population, rising standards of living and quickly changing fashions send mountains of clothing waste to the world's landfills each year. Although processes for textile recycling exist, they tend to be inefficient and expensive. Now, researchers have reported in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering an efficient, low-cost method that can convert waste denim into viscose-type fibers that are either white or the original color of the garment.

If the fatty fish we eat were free of environmental pollutants, it would reduce our risk of developing type 2 diabetes. However, the pollutants in the fish have the opposite effect and appears to eliminate the protective effect from fatty fish intake. This has been shown by researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, using innovative methods that could be used to address several questions about food and health in future studies.