Pollution
- Agriculture
Superbugs take flight from cattle farms
Winds can carry antibiotics and drug-resistant bacteria from cattle farms to downwind communities.
By Beth Mole - Environment
Atrazine’s path to cancer possibly clarified
Scientists have identified a cellular button that the controversial herbicide atrazine presses to promote tumor development.
By Beth Mole - Environment
More toxic chemicals found in oil and gas wastewater
High levels of ammonium and iodide found in wastewater from oil and gas exploration can harm aquatic life and form dangerous byproducts in tap water.
By Beth Mole - Environment
Trash researcher tallies ocean pollution
Marcus Eriksen has always had a thing for trash, and now he tallies ocean pollution.
By Julia Rosen - Environment
Black carbon fouls New York subway stations
Black carbon, a respiratory irritant, fouls air in New York subway stations.
By Meghan Rosen - Environment
DDT lingers in Michigan town
Decades after a plant manufacturing DDT shut down in Michigan, the harmful insecticide is still found in neighboring birds and eggs.
By Beth Mole - Environment
Colorado deluge produced flood of drug-resistance genes
Flooding in Colorado’s South Platte River Basin washed antibiotics and drug-resistance genes into pristine waterways.
By Beth Mole - Environment
Thirdhand smoke poses lingering danger
Harmful cigarette chemicals that linger on surfaces, known as thirdhand smoke, can go on to pollute the air and may harm people’s health.
By Beth Mole - Environment
Oil from BP spill may be sitting on seafloor
More than four years after the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, scientists find that oil is still lingering over a large area on the seafloor.
By Beth Mole - Environment
No water contamination found in Ohio’s fracking epicenter
Methane in Ohio groundwater comes from biological sources, such as bacteria, not fossil fuel exploration.
- Environment
Engineered plants demolish toxic waste
With help from bacteria, plants could one day clean up polluted sites.
By Beth Mole - Climate
Rivers may gush under sullied skies
By dimming sunlight and curbing evaporation, air pollution can increase the amount of water flowing through rivers, new simulations suggest.
By Beth Mole