The North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources has just warned people living in Dukeville, North Carolina, and a local church, not to drink or cook with their well water. Toxic heavy metals have contaminated it, as reported by the Associated Press. Each well location is within a quarter … [continued]
Concrete jungles have been plagued with violent crime much more so than small towns, with few concrete answers as to why. In a recent Mother Jones article, Kevin Drum outlines why exposure to gasoline lead has driven violence in major cities. What’s all the brouhaha about lead? For starters, lead … [continued]
It’s World Water Day today, the 19th annual UN World Water Day. Last year, I posted a roundup of 60 of our water-related posts over the years for World Water Day (still worth a look). About half a year before that, for a Blog Action Day on the topic of … [continued]
Teams of researchers in Venezuela and Argentina are on the verge of elevating the lowly earthworm to rockstar status when it comes to cleaning up hazardous materials. They are studying the ability of earthworms to remediate soil containing lead, mercury, and other contaminants, and so far the worms seem to … [continued]
Nano-scale medical research is promising some amazing breakthroughs in diagnosis and drug delivery techniques. In spectroscopy, for example, tiny crystals called qdots (quantum dots, also called nanocrystals) can be used to study cells at the molecular level. It’s an emerging field that’s ready to explode into mainstream medicine – but … [continued]
