Environ-mental Health Blog

Helping bacteria with antibiotics  By: Rodolfo Alcorta Over the past decades china has been in the spot of emerging diseases, some are related to the overpopulation in several regions of the country in relation to sanitary regulations and to the consumption of exotic animals. But many of the investigations are not related to the over exposure of microorganisms to antibiotics making them resistant to these. A region of interest is the Haihe River catchment in China that has been loaded with high amounts of antibiotics that are related to the increased in food demand due to the increase in population and livestock farming. It is of huge importance the monitoring of these antibiotics to know the ecotoxicological impact it can have on aquatic flora and fauna. This investigation took place during one year from 2016-2017 where human and animal antibiotics were tested. Some antibiotics tested were tracked to be banned in previous years that the investigation was done, this could say that ...

 These days, fashion trends come as fast as they go. We’ve witnessed the rise of low rise and mom jeans to the rise and fall of jelly shoes as well as the revival of circular glasses. Through social media, these trends are quickly coming and going; they go hand in hand with cultural movements taking the scene. For a while now, sustainability has become the topic of discussion as society has realized the damage done to our natural resources. A recent fashion trend taking the scene is sustainable clothing. Fast fashion (clothing from Fashion Nova, Target, Forever 21 etc.) is being frowned upon while environmentally friendly clothing are gaining popularity. Leather, while reliable, is a by-product of the meat industry and is heavily associated with deforestation. Fungi-derived leather substitutes, on the other hand, are made with a natural, carbon-neutral fungal growth process. Biodegradable, they do not produce any fine particles that are released by regular clothing. The material is...

By: Jose T. Rodriguez China has been growing exponentially over the last couple of decades, with this growth there has been an increase in their environmental pollution. While there have been efforts made by the Chinese government to help limit the amount of pollution out put, the situation still remains in a critical state. The increasing urbanization's impact on air and water pollution has had policies to try and reduce it, however, these policies to not account for other pollutants like smoke, dust, and general solid waste. X. Liu et. al used three different methods to measure the amount of environmental pollution. One method was to measure the amount by one type of pollutant, this could be carbon dioxide or nitrogen oxide. Another method was to measure by the usage of the environmental pollution guide that their government published. The last method used was to measure with the utilization of the comprehensive indicators that were calculated with statistical methods that like t...

Figure 1: Microplastic Pollution in the Ocean  In recent years, marine ecosystems have been dying due to poor management and tourism. Pollution on popular beaches has increased exponentially, one of the most common pollutants found are plastics as they make up about 96% of the total pollution. The presence of microplastics in the environment is increasing due to its high production rates, and they typically end up being ingested by marine creatures. As these creatures tend to confuse their colorful scheme and resemblance to their corresponding prey. Traces of this plastic and other pollutants are being found inside the marine organisms in increasing amounts as time continues. Studies have been conducted in observation of the impact pollution has on tourist beaches. The study was sampled by counting the number of people present at the selected beaches and the variety of pollution found in the beaches. The selected beaches were separated into 3 categories, village, remote, and urban....

 By: Mary Aguilar          Oil spills has become a very big problem and causing a big problem for marine life.  This study discuss the importance of how oil spills have been a problem, and a solution on how to prevent oil spills from occurring. The article talks about how 3D graphene materials can remove dyes from the water. The 3D graphene can absorb both oils and organic solvents with also many other dyes have been studied in this research. The study concludes that there is possible use for 3D graphene but like many studies there is always disadvantages because it can clean oil spills under water but it is unable to absorb nanomaterials. Therefore the 3D graphene needs improvement in order to be able to solve the problem of oil spills, because if this is able to work then marine life can be saved.  Figure 1: Different ways graphene can be synthesized.  Riaz, M.A., McKay, G., & Saleem, J. (2017). 3D graphene-based nanostructure...

By: Victorhugo Campos  Ariel view of the Great Barrier Reef, off the coast of Australia. Encyclopedia Britannica. 2020. Coral Reefs are extremely important to not only ocean life and aquatic creatures but also the quality of human life as well. Over the past 91 years scientists along side biologists have been studying the Great Barrier Reef and the ecological changes that has gone through. These researchers monitored the populations but also what affects or destroys these coral reefs. Such as many natural disasters such as cyclones or hurricanes that destroy large parts of coral reefs. Rising temperatures on the earth and oceans have affected large populations of coral changing the ideal conditions for coral reefs to thrive. These damaged coral reefs have a large impact on the aquatic life surrounding the area as most of the coral reef makes up the habitat or homes to most of these animals. Coral reefs don't regenerate at extremely fast rates which is why it's so important to s...

 By: Jacinda Solis Air quality in Southeast Asia is already impacted by their population on top of that all the machines that are being used daily give off excessive gas emissions. Which puts their people at a significant health risk, that has also been affecting their source of eating being their environmental and agricultural crops. So, by seeing this impact on people so clearly, examination on the impact of fossil fuel aerosols was done by using five different hypothetical fuel consumption scenarios that show how the air quality differs between each of them. Whether the air is affected in longer distances, over a larger area or in general becoming worse indefinitely. From 2006 to 2008, CO, NO3, O2, OC and BC emissions have increased being from gas, coal, modern, shipping and a regular reference. Results have showed that if carbon dioxide, black carbon, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide were replaced with something else, they would reduce emissions significantly ...

By:  Alondra Cecilia Niño Fig. 1: Dustbox collection of pollutant  P 2.5 hourly on heavily trafficked areas           Pollution has been considered to be one of the leading causes in depleting an environment’s health. With air pollution, human health is impacted along with the environment. Health concerns and deaths related to air pollution have taken a great toll on major cities all throughout the Earth. As an example, it is said that London often sees a death toll of 9,000 deaths related to health complications that arise from air pollution, annually. Through this, citizens are called to follow and monitor any changes in air pollution in their surrounding environments with at home equipment such as dust cloths and have their samples sent to laboratories for further analysis; however, with the upgrade of technology, it became easier to obtain data with low-cost efficient sensors, such as the creation and implementation of the  Dustbox....

 By: Odalys Espinoza  Climate change has been a worldwide problem for decades that has affected water resources and hydrogeological systems. Consequently, nitrate has been taken as a paradigmatic pollutant to demonstrate the result of climate change on the quality of our groundwaters. Multiple methods have been dedicated to restore agricultural practices and examine the biogeochemical processes involved when identifying denitrification rates and throughout aquifer clean-up that essentially gets rid of nitrate from groundwater as well as restores the polluted groundwater that has been withdrawn from the aquifer. In the face of rising nitrate concentrations in the subsurface, dilution has been a vital process that has been utilized in aquifers to reduce nitrate concentration. In this particular instance, aquifers in Catalonia have been analyzed to determine the effects of climate change on nitrate concentrations for a western Mediterranean climatic setting. Based on the current ...

 1 By: Daniel Trevino If there is one captivating mystery in this world it is the idea of mutated monsters running around filled with radiation ready to kill anything on sight. These ideas stem from pop culture movies such as, Chernobyl diaries, Godzilla, and The Hills Have Eyes. While there are no definitive reports that such monsters exist, there is one common factor with these monsters. That factor is a radioactive source full of radioactive contaminants, such as bodies of water, contaminated with radioactive contaminants. If these monsters were to arise wouldn't it be a good idea to take away their source of mutation so more don't appear?  An article posted on the Environmental Science and Technology journal presented a possible solution to cleaning these radioactive waters. Their idea involved the use of a specific bacteria found in a fresh water lake in Mexico. They used this bacteria to uptake radioactive material that are commonly found in radioactive waters. Image: Ca...

By: Leticia Perez  People in China have noticed respiratory health hazards when taking their kids to playgrounds that contain synthetic polyurethane.. A study prior to this one supported the emission of xylene and toluene diisocyanate (TDI) which are poisonous and can cause acute symptoms. A recent study on the PU tracks was observed to give off low emission of sulfur dioxide. The study focused on the possible health hazards or influence that sulfur dioxide would have on children. Mice were used to observe the intake of low emissions of sulfur dioxide which did cause acute upper airway problems. Such observations left a larger question whether or not the sulfur dioxide emission was the main component causing these problems in children as the study was observed in mice. Moreover, the sulfur dioxide emission did yield induced lung inflammation in mice but did not fully support sulfur dioxide being the main pollutant in humans. The sulfur dioxide emission is low enough to not be consi...

By: Maggilyn Cardenas      Floodplains provide ecosystem services that are important for humans. For example, drinkable water and provide fertile lands. However, floodplains also cause problems not only to humans but the environment as a whole. They can be responsible for soil, surface, and groundwater pollution. One of the bigger problems are wastewater treatment plants, landfills, and water handling facilities. Waste handling facilities help erosion and leaching behavior. Meaning that they can cause hazardous substances if flooded. The waste water treatment plants cause problems by releasing chemicals that were used in the plant. The primary goal for these is to protect the environment and are monitored by public environmental protection authorities. Another source mentioned in this article are contaminated sites. When they flood, they spread undesired chemical compounds in the environment. These are also under public environmental supervision. The European Co...

 As coral reefs are known to be the homes, food sources, as well as used for protection for many marine species they are in danger due to the amount of beaching that is occurring in the ocean. Because of this, it's effecting not only the ecosystem of the ocean reefs, but also causing a decrease in certain aquatic species as well. What can cause this is the effect of warming of the ocean water caused by global warming. This has been happening for a long time now as the worst recording one was in 1998. Because of this, there is a relationship between coral bleaching and the increase of temperature. According to  Hoegh-Guldberg found in a report conducted by Morgan S. Pratchett in the article Effects of Climate Induced Coral Bleaching on Coral-Reef Fishes - Ecological and Economic Consequences "Coral bleaching was particularly server on coral reef in the Indian Ocean, where coral cover declined by an average of 46% following in the 1998 bleaching" (Quoted in Pratchett et al....

By: Elizabeth Juarez In the 21st century a toxic relationship can be defined as any relationship where the negative outcomes surpass the good ones. These relationships are not rare in nature. Phosphorus (P)  fertilizers are used in agricultural fields; although it is beneficial, with time P can be harmful to soil. The chemistry of P found in fertilizers makes it useless for plants to use, later P accumulates and creates P runoff that deteriorates freshwater resources and contributes to algal blooms. New findings show that  stimulating soil biota can decrease P pools and make it accessible to plants. In the study, four treatments were applied to soil: Na+, corn stover (used as C amendment), both Na+ and stover, and a control with no amendments. The results showed that corn stover had the highest effect on microbial activity, including biomass and respiration. However, little correlation was observed between the treatments and the decrease of P pools. Even though the results did...

By: Miroslava Hernandez   Looking at the future the population will start to increase meaning that food and natural resources in general are going to be more demanded. As we know the earth is going through a big issue that is climate change which little by little is affecting our surroundings and this can become a  big problem affecting the ecosystems which are important because natural resources come from there. The agronomists have set their minds in increasing the yields as they return more crop residues to the soil, this makes a huge impact because this increases the soil organic carbon, making the soil much preferable and helping the sustainability of the agricultural industry in general. In hopes to study the soil organic carbon, nitrogen and the carbon dioxide which are important in the crops an experiment was carried out using different temperatures to represent climate change, different crops were used like maize and wheat to observe the reduce  in the yields , t...

By: Ritzuko Gutierrez Choosing what you eat may be more important than what you think. Dietary choices are one of the major factors that have an impact on human health and the environmental sustainabili ty. Different kinds of food have different impacts. Foods that are associated with improved health, have lower environmental impacts. These include whole grain cereals, fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, and olive oil.  Fish can have a greater impact on human health and the environment, but it is lower compared to red meats and processed meats. Therefore, the food that has the largest negative impact on the human health and environmental sustainability are processed and unprocessed red meats. These types of food affect the human health by increasing the chances of several diseases like obesity, cancer, diabetes, heart diseases, etc. Also, they impact the environment by pollution, waste, water and land consumption, etc. Unprocessed foods can have a negative impact on health but not s...

By: Jasmine Rodriguez Oil treatment-based plants is notably a geotechnical  trait that has been studied with random sampling linked to improper disposal of contaminated soil. Rotations of various amounts of petroleum is widely produced in ventures including internal combustion engines, automotive factories, hydraulic plants, and metal finishing plants. Proportions of this high demand can lead to contamination with disposal sites of water resources, soil, air and localized disposal sites. The main methodology to the process of remediation is devoted to the use of oil wastes. This technique is implemented to apply it s method of chemical and physical properties of capital costs in plants and remediation with contaminated soil. The unique results in the collected samples were narrowed down to statistical analysis, sample sizing, and normality tests of data. The sample site in which there was presence of heavy contamination of petroleum where higher than the standard cleanup levels. In...

The Rise of Urban Vertical Farming Conceptual Design of Urban Sky-farm by  by Redmond R. Shamshiri The invention of agriculture has been around for approximately 10,000 years and established its appearance in multiple grand sites that we know today such as Mexico, China, and the Middle East. The idea spread rapidly throughout cultures and provided success and a better life to those who utilized it. This single factor allowed for sustainability and growth of entire populations. From 1 million people in the era agriculture was first introduced to roughly 7.8 billion people by the year 2020. But in doing so, along with various other factors, have contributed to the high percentage of deforestation and pollution to keep up with the world's population and high demand. A solution to this is vertical farming; instead of cutting down trees to create space for traditional farming, the building would be built skywards. This would reduce the amount of deforestation and harmful gases produced ...

By: Jessica Medina More than half of the agricultural waste is made up of the oil palm industry. The method in which empty fruit bunches (EFB), and oil palm fronds and trunks are disposed of is a major environmental problem because it creates air pollution. If this palm waste were to be recycled in a form of substrates for insects, then it would advance environmental sustainability by decreasing air pollution and benefiting the environment overall. The main aspect of this research was creating insect feed from oil palm waste in a low-energy, recyclable, and low-cost process. For this reason, the best method was pre-processing EFB utilizing ionic liquid before anaerobic digestion within 4-5 days at a pH 6 level and a 2:1 digestate: EFB ratio.  This method was efficient because it was the most nutritious substrate for insect farming, produced more biogas, and was generally environmentally friendly.Thus, w hat makes the article interesting was the eco-friendly materials used, such a...

            By: Oscar J. Garcia      First of all, this article is interesting because it focuses on how we can minimize the quantity of plastic that is thrown into the ocean. This article basically tells you how to prevent plastic pollution in the ocean by using polylactic acid (PLA) products. PLA is a biodegradable material, apparently very similar to plastic, but much less harmful to the environment. PLA is a bio compostable polymer derived from lactic acid. PLA is obtained from vegetable starches, such as cornstarch, beets or wheat. This material is produced by mixing the starches that are extracted from these plants with holm oaks and fermenting them with lactic acid microorganisms. These starches cannot be consumed by humans and many times come from the residues of the cultivation of these vegetables, this means that they do not suppose an extra consumption of natural resources maintaining environmental sustainability. In addition,...

By Anahi Tinajero    Lichenized fungi are commonly used as indicators of air quality. (Photo by Richard Orr)      The fungal community does not only help us understand the health of our cities, but also provides several ecosystem services that help in the sustainability of our environment. Unfortunately, the increase of urbanization has shown a decrease of biodiversity posing a threat to the multiple ecosystem services. Sustainable practices such as preserving the biodiversity of our fungal communities in urban areas are urgent to protecting these ecosystem services. Using fungal air samples as a bioindicator to monitor the health of the ecosystem and protecting the fungal community in urban areas can help us protect its biodiversity.      The fungal community bring multiple complex ecosystem services to our cities. Mycorrhizal fungi facilitate nutrient and water uptake for plants, endophytic fungi protect plants from pathogen infections...

By: Aleah Gonzalez Schematic illustration showing acoustically mediated degradation feedback (red) and acoustically mediated  recovery (blue). Gordon. 2019.       Coral reefs have many positive environmental impacts within the environments in which they can be found. One of the most important functions of coral reefs is to provide a habitat for many different organisms such as populations of fish. To date, climate change and local anthropogenic stressors, mostly those caused by humans, have been negatively impacting coral reefs globally. An interesting factor within the research conducted is the use of acoustics. One way in which the negative impacts brought upon coral reefs can be reversed is through the application of healthy fish populations within the damaged coral reefs through practices such as acoustic enrichment, which is a unique technique for attracting fish in hopes of rebuilding damaged coral reefs. The unique use of loudspeakers to project heal...

 By Joel H. Salinas Aquaponics: A Great Way to Make Money and Help the Environment Advances in technology years ago allowed for the use of aquaponics, an alternative method to farming crops and fish, to be economically viable and sensible to use and need to be prevalent now more than ever. The basic design by scientists demonstrate aquaponics growing smaller plants, such as tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, and such in a hydroponic tank with soil. From there, excess water is sent to separate fish tanks (for different fish growth phases) beneath the hydroponic tank with fish such as tilapia. Fish feeding can be done with fish pellets. Then, the waste made by the fish can act as a type of fertilizer for the plants, or they can be filtered out. Finally, the water is then sent back again to water the plants and repeat the cycle. The big takeaway here are the double benefits to cutting back on precious space that could be set aside for nature preserves while providing you a profit. The scient...

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