2023 Environmental Chemistry

  Ali Alotbi Link to Paper: https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/EHP12678 Link to Article: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/24/insecticides-decrease-sperm-concentration-study-finds      Over the last century, human sperm concentrations have been shown to have significantly decreased across a wide range of populations studied, and prospects of further decline threatens male fertility. In addition to fertility issues, low sperm concentration is also linked to reduced male health, including higher rates of cancer and mortality. Reproductive toxicants (environmental pollutants that negatively impact reproductive health) are everywhere in the environment but are usually not observed until their adverse effects have already impacted people. Pesticides are known to have disruptive effects on the endocrine and reproductive systems yet are still widely used and applied. People are therefore exposed to these reproductive toxicants via occupational ...

November 25, 2023 Esmé Frattarelli  Scientific article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8338759/#R13 News article: https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2021-04-14/toxic-legacy-of-ddt-can-harm-granddaughters-of-women-exposed      Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) were extremely wide-spread in the mid 20th century and continue to negatively impact those who have been exposed to them; including exposure in ovum. Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) is an organic compound which was previously used as an insecticide. DDT was banned in 1972 but persists in the environment and continues to be present in food. This study focuses on the correlation between obesity and DDT exposure. In commercial DDT, the active insecticide was p,p’-DDT but was also made of the low level contaminant  o,p’-DDT; the former being the primary form and the slowest to metabolize. The primary metabolite of p,p’-DDT is p,p’-DDE and lasts significantly longer in the environme...

October 18, 2023 By Nick Emer News Article: Common US consumer products release toxic compounds, new research shows | Pollution | The Guardian Scientific Paper: Identifying Toxic Consumer Products: A Novel Data Set Reveals Air Emissions of Potent Carcinogens, Reproductive Toxicants, and Developmental Toxicants | Environmental Science & Technology (acs.org) This blog post refers to an article from The Guardian , published May 3, 2023, entitled “Common US consumer products release toxic compounds, new research shows”, by Tom Perkins, which attempts to discuss the results of the study, published May 2, 2023, entitled “Identifying Toxic Consumer Products: A Novel Data Set Reveals Air Emissions of Potent Carcinogens, Reproductive Toxicants, and Developmental Toxicants”, by Kristen E. Knox et al. The scientific study focuses its research on the basis that many commonly used consumer products in the home and the workplace contain chemicals with known hazards that can lead to many negative...

By Marla Muter Article Link:  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/07/forever-chemicals-found-insecticides-study Scientific Study Link:  https://www-sciencedirect-com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/science/article/pii/S266691102200020X#bib46 My blog post is about a Guardian article titled, "Toxic 'forever chemicals' detected in commonly used insecticides in US, study finds" by Tom Perkins.  It discusses the results of a study titled "Targeted analysis and Total Oxidizable Precursor assay of several insecticides for PFAS",  by Lasee et al. found that six of the ten insecticides they analyzed contained PFOs, one of the most toxic variations of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. In earlier studies by Lasee, insecticides were found to be a source of PFAS contamination in their control plants and the soil they were in at a United States Department of Agriculture cropping systems research laboratory greenhouse. As such, the goal of this study was to fu...

Michael Gosselin News Article:  https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/02/health/voc-levels-consumer-products-wellness/index.html Scientific Paper (Website):  https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.2c07247 Scientific Paper (ePDF):  https://pubs.acs.org/doi/epdf/10.1021/acs.est.2c07247      The news article I chose to focus on is titled "Over 5,000 tons of dangerous fumes escaped from consumer products, study finds" and was published by CNN and authored by Sandee LaMotte; this article focuses on the paper:  " Identifying Toxic Consumer Products: A Novel Data Set Reveals Air Emissions of Potent Carcinogens, Reproductive Toxicants, and Developmental Toxicants," authored by Knox, Dodson, Rudel, Polsky, and Schwarzman published in May of this year . The inspiration to examine this pair of media was influenced by "new shower curtain smell," that vinyl smell that screams "VOC's" and made me wonder what other types of "off-gassing" occurred in consu...

Dolphins Are Being Poisoned by Their Mother's Milk, Scientists Warn News article: https://www.newsweek.com/dolphin-babies-toxic-chemicals-mother-milk-1841219   Scientific article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969723065154?fr=RR-2&ref=pdf_download&rr=823a4a1b4a132a99               For my blog post, I chose the news article “Dolphins Are Being Poisoned by Their Mother’s Milk, Scientists Warn” by Jess Thomson at Newsweek. This news article was published November 6, 2023. This news article draws most of its material from the scientific article, “ The dynamics of persistent organic pollutant (POP) transfer from female bottlenose dolphins ( Tursiops truncatus ) to their calves during lactation . This research was carried out by a group of scientists at different marine wildlife organizations like the Northwest Fisheries science center and U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program.     ...

  News Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/07/climate/plastic-pollution-oceans.html Scientific study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-023-01216-0 The article I’ve chosen to do this blog post over is titled “There Might Be Less Plastic in the Sea Than We Thought. But Read On.” by Delger Erdenesanaa published by The New York Times on August 7 2023. It talks about the fact that previous estimates and reports over the amount of plastic pollution in the ocean were incorrect, however the rate at which offshore pollution is increasing is alarming. The article pulls its data from a study titled “Global mass of buoyant marine plastics dominated by large long-lived debris” and was published on May 26, 2023 by Mikael Kaandorp et Al. and as its title suggests it focuses on the total mass of long lived floating plastics in the ocean. Overall the NYT article does a decent job of conveying the main idea of the study by presenting the ideas provided in a very straightforward and dige...

  Kate Fitzsimmons Scientific article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-62944-6 News article: https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/20/world/deepwater-horizon-spill-anniversary-fish-study-scn/index.html The article I will be reviewing today is titled “10 years after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, oil pollution found in thousands of fish, study says.” The article was published by CNN on April 20, 2020 written by Ashley Strickland, a prominent science and space journalist. This article focuses primarily on a paper published in Nature, “A First Comprehensive Baseline of Hydrocarbon Pollution in Gulf of Mexico Fishes,”  on April 15, 2020. This paper discusses the biliary accumulation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in fish in the Gulf of Mexico for the 7 years (2011-2018) after the Deepwater Horizon (DWH). Deepwater Horizon was the largest oil spill in history 4.9 million barrels of oil spilled into the Northern part of the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) in 2010, about 40 miles...

 News Article: https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/phytoplankton-blooms-grow-climate-change-1.6764789   Scientific Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05760-y#Abs1 The news article I chose for this blog post is titled “Study reveals global algae blooms are growing, and warming waters may be to blame.” It was published by the CBC and written by Jaela Bernstien on March 2, 2023. It is compiling and conveying the information from a scientific paper published in Nature on March 1, 2023, titled “Coastal phytoplankton blooms expand and intensify in the 21st century” by Dai et al. The CBC article focuses on the global increase in algae blooms in terms of both spatial growth and frequency that the Nature paper reports. Overall, the CBC article by Bernstien does a decent job of conveying the results of the study and reporting on the methods of the study.  It is very short, which is great for conveying the main idea to a non-scientific audience, but it also limits the amo...

  News Article Link:  https://nonprofitquarterly.org/americas-heavy-metals-pollution-an-issue-of-environmental-racism/ Research Paper Link:  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00380253.2022.2096148 In Jonathan Sharp's NPQ news article, "America's Heavy Metals Pollution: An Issue of Environmental Racism," a significant link is established between soil contamination, socioeconomic status, racial composition, and water pollution. To reinforce these findings, "Ethnicity, Poverty, Race, and the Unequal Distribution of US Safe Drinking Water Act Violations, 2016-2018" underscores the urgent need to address disparities in safe drinking water access in the United States, particularly among Hispanic communities. It highlights the role of social, economic, and environmental factors in exacerbating this issue, emphasizing the impact on low-income and minority communities and the complex web of factors contributing to heavy metal contamination and water qualit...