All Stories by Janet Raloff
- Chemistry
A new source of dioxins: Clean hands
Manufacturers have been adding the germ fighter triclosan to soaps, hand washes, and a range of other products for years. But here’s a dirty little secret: Once it washes down the drain, that triclosan can spawn dioxins.
- Health & Medicine
Cell phone-cancer study an enigma
An epidemiological study of a link between cell phone usage and brain cancer proved inconclusive.
- Earth
Interphone study finds hints of brain cancer risk in heavy cell-phone users
A major decade-long international study concludes that, overall, cell-phone users show no increased risk of developing brain tumors. The same study reports that among people who have used cell phones the most and longest — for at least 10 years and on average 30 minutes or more a day — risk of brain tumors is substantially elevated when compared to people who don’t use cell phones. And the real enigma: Tumor risks calculated for each of the lower cell-phone use categories was substantially under that seen in people who use regular, corded phones.
- Earth
Interphone’s data on cell phones and cancer: The spin begins
A May 16 press release by the cell phone industry reports that “The International Journal of Epidemiology today published a combined data analysis from a multi national population-based case-control study of glioma and meningioma, the most common types of brain tumour.” In fact, the journal hasn’t. Yet. But the industry group was anxious to put its spin on the paper’s findings after a handful of UK newspapers reported on this study – well in advance of the scheduled lifting of a news embargo on its data.
- Earth
Gulf spill: BP gets go ahead for full-scale underwater use of dispersants
All week, U.S. federal agencies have been evaluating an unprecedented use of oil dispersants: to break up crude spewing from the seafloor. BP won preliminary approval to try them in limited tests against an ongoing torrent of oil spewing from the base of a devastated exploration rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Late morning on May 15, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Coast Guard issued their joint approval for a scale-up of the novel subsea application of these chemicals.
- Chemistry
EPA issues greenhouse-gas rules for new factories and more
EPA released new rules on greenhouse-gas emissions for new power plants, factories and oil refineries — any big new facility, really that emits huge amounts of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, or any of several other classes of chemicals. Existing facilities can continue to spew greenhouse gases at current levels.
- Ecosystems
Spill update: From booms to dispersants
Choppy seas prevailed in the northern Gulf of Mexico on May 13, with even protected waters hostingrough 4 to 5 foot waves, according to the Coast Guard. But three-plus weeks into the Deepwater Horizon explosion and ensuing spill from a BP exploratory well, measures to respond to the catastrophe continued ramping up.
- Chemistry
Chinese would turn cigarette butts into steel’s guardian
People smoke a lot of cigarettes, which leads to a lot of trash. Tom Novotny has done the math: An estimated 5.6 trillion butts each year end up littering the global environment. But Chinese researchers have a solution: recycling. Their new data indicate that an aqueous extract of stinky butts makes a great corrosion inhibitor for steel.
- Chemistry
Another plastics ingredient raises safety concerns
Bisphenol A’s ‘twin’ may be more potent at perturbing estrogen signals.
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- Earth
Atrazine paper’s challenge: Who’s responsible for accuracy?
As a new critique of a review paper on atrazine suggests, some papers may simply overtax a journal’s fact-vetting enterprise. Which would be bad for science. And bad for society.
- Tech
A Gulf spill news review
Oil companies have said it's possible the gusher could grow substantially before its capped.
